This did not take place, however, before
the Khazraj received, at the battle of Buas (about A.D. 615), a decided
defeat from the Aus.
It is also related, to prove how Al-Madinah was predestined to a high
fate, that nearly three centuries before the siege of the town by Abu
Jubaylah, the Tobba
[p.350]al-Asghar[FN#17] marched Northward, at the requisition of the
Aus and Khazraj tribes, in order to punish the Jews; or, according to
others, at the request of the Jews to revenge them upon the Aus and
Khazraj. After capturing the town, he left one of his sons to govern
it, and marched onwards to conquer Syria and Al-Irak.
Suddenly informed that the people of Al-Madinah had treacherously
murdered their new prince, the exasperated Tobba returned and attacked
the place; and, when his horse was killed under him, he swore that he
would never decamp before razing it to the ground. Whereupon two Jewish
priests, Ka'ab and Assayd, went over to him and informed him that it
was not in the power of man to destroy the town, it being preserved by
Allah, as their books proved, for the refuge of His Prophet, the
descendant of Ishmael.[FN#18]
The Tobba Judaized. Taking four hundred of the priests with him, he
departed from Al-Madinah, performed pilgrimage to the Ka'abah of
Meccah, which he invested with a splendid covering[FN#19]; and, after
erecting a house
[p.351]for the expected Prophet, he returned to his capital in
Al-Yaman, where he abolished idolatry by the ordeal of fire. He treated
his priestly guests with particular attention, and on his death-bed he
wrote the following tetrastich:-
"I testify of Ahmad that he of a truth
"Is a prophet from Allah, the Maker of souls.
Be my age extended into his age,
I would be to him a Wazir and a cousin."
Then sealing the paper he committed it to the charge of the High
Priest, with a solemn injunction to deliver the letter, should an
opportunity offer, into the hands of the great Prophet; and that, if
the day be distant, the missive should be handed down from generation
to generation till it reached the person to whom it was addressed. The
house founded by him at Al-Madinah was committed to a priest of whose
descendants was Abu Ayyub the Ansari, the first person over whose
threshold the Apostle passed when he ended the Flight. Abu Ayyub had
also charge of the Tobba's letter, so that after three or four
centuries, it arrived at its destination.
Al-Madinah was ever well inclined to Mohammed. In[FN#20]
[p.352]the early part of his career, the emissaries of a tribe called
the Benu Abd al-Ashhal came from that town to Meccah, in order to make
a treaty with the Kuraysh, and the Apostle seized the opportunity of
preaching Al-Islam to them.
