The fifty-night boycott of the three

The people were forbidden to speak to the three for fifty nights, and in that time people changed toward them — in Ka'b ibn Malik's account. ¹

The Prophet forbade speaking to the three of those who had stayed behind him; the people shunned them and changed toward them until the earth itself grew strange to Ka'b — "it was not the earth I used to know" — and they remained so for fifty nights. ²

His two companions yielded and stayed shut in their houses; Ka'b, the youngest and hardiest of the three, would go out, attend the prayers with the Muslims and walk the markets while no one spoke to him. ²

He would come to the Prophet and greet him while he sat in his gathering after prayer, saying to himself: did he move his lips returning my greeting? Then he would pray near him and steal glances at him: when Ka'b turned to his prayer the Prophet looked at him, and when Ka'b turned toward him he looked away. ²

Abu Qatada, the letter of the king of Ghassan, the separation from the wives, and its close at the acceptance of repentance.

• "Fifty nights" is the narrator's figure; from it the fortieth night and ten further nights are counted (p. 179).
• The text gives no set duration for the changed state of Marara and Hilal beyond that they "yielded and stayed in their houses".