Ka'b ibn Ujra

Ka'b ibn Ujra al-Balawi al-Quda'i, an ally of the Ansar; his kunya Abu Muhammad — also said Abu Ishaq after his son Ishaq, also said Abu Abdullah ¹. Al-Waqidi claimed he was an Ansari of themselves; his scribe Muhammad ibn Sa'd refuted him, saying "I sought his lineage among the Ansar and did not find it"; Bukhari stated outright he was an Ansari and said: Medinan, with companionship ¹.

He related from the Prophet and from Umar, and witnessed the umra of Hudaybiyya — "in him descended the story of the fidyah" ¹. The two Sahihs narrate it by several routes, among them that the Prophet passed by him while he was in ihram, lighting a fire under a pot with lice falling onto his face, and told him: "shave your head and feed a farq among six poor people" ¹. Ka'b says in some routes: "it came down for me in particular, and it is for you in general" ¹. The verse is al-Baqara 196.

Ibn Hajar conveys odd routes of the story: what Ibn al-Muqri narrated from Nafi' from a man of the Ansar, in which the Prophet ordered him to offer a cow — opposite what al-Baghawi narrated from al-Hasan: that Ka'b, asked about his fidyah, said a sheep ¹.

Ibn Sa'd narrated with a good chain from Thabit ibn Ubayd that Ka'b's hand was cut off in one of the campaigns, and afterwards he settled in Kufa ¹. Ibn Umar, Jabir, Ibn Abbas, Tariq ibn Shihab, Zayd ibn Wahb and others narrated from him; his sons are Ishaq, Muhammad, Abd al-Malik and al-Rabi' ¹.

It is said he died in Medina in year fifty-one, or fifty-two, or fifty-three ¹.