Ghalib ibn Abdullah's raid on the land of Banu Murra and the killing of Mirdas ibn Nahik

In the list of raids, Ibn Ishaq mentions the raid of Ghalib ibn Abd Allah al-Kalbi, of the Kalb of Layth, on the land of the Banu Murra, in which the Muslims took Mirdas ibn Nahik, an ally of the Banu Murra from the Huraqa of Juhayna, and he was killed by Usama ibn Zayd and a man of the Ansar. ¹ Ibn Ishaq gives no date for it, and no count or detail other than the account of Mirdas. ¹

Ibn Ishaq relates from Usama ibn Zayd that he and a man of the Ansar caught up with Mirdas, and when they raised their weapons against him he said: I testify that there is no god but God; they did not desist until they had killed him. ¹ When they came to the Prophet and told him, he said to Usama: who will stand for you against "there is no god but God"? Usama excused himself, saying he had said it only to save himself from being killed; the Prophet repeated: then who will stand for you with it, Usama? ¹ Usama says that the Prophet kept repeating it to him until he wished that his past Islam had never been, and that he had become a Muslim that day and had not killed him. Then he said: I covenant with God never to kill a man who says "there is no god but God." The Prophet said: will you say it after me, Usama? He said: after you. ¹

This report is one of those most cited for the subject of the testimony and the protection of blood by it. The Prophet did not accept Usama's reading of what the speaker inwardly meant, and made the word alone a barrier against killing. The collections of the Sahihs relate the incident through other chains, with the place and the killed man named differently (needs_source); Ibn Ishaq abbreviates it and places it in the context of Ghalib's raid. ¹

• Ibn Hisham says that Mirdas's ancestry to "the Huraqa" of Juhayna is what Abu Ubayda told him; the editors of the Saqqa edition note that the wording is disordered in some copies. ¹
• The report from Usama is given with the wording "and this was from his account about Usama ibn Zayd", without a continuous chain in Ibn Ishaq. ¹