The day of Bu'ath

The Day of Bu'ath was the last and greatest of the wars of the Aws and the Khazraj before Islam, about five years before the Hijra according to the most correct view of al-Samhudi. Other views say four, and more. ^{1 5}

Al-Samhudi says that wars had taken place between them before it, among them the war of Mutayammir, the war of Ka'b ibn Amr, the Day of al-Sarara, and the Day of the Cock; then he mentions the Day of Fari', the two Fijars, the war of Hudayr ibn al-Aslat and the war of Hatib ibn Qays. He quotes from al-Khattabi, from Ibn Ishaq, that the war continued for a hundred and twenty years until Islam. ¹

They fought at Bu'ath, a place at the upper part of Qawra in the land of Yathrib. The Aws had been defeated in the earlier wars, so they allied with Qurayza and al-Nadir, and some of their clans settled at Khaybar for about a year. Before this the Aws had sought an alliance with Quraysh in Mecca, which Quraysh broke by a stratagem, which Ibn Shabba attributes to al-Walid ibn al-Mughira. ²

Al-Samhudi says that the Khazraj took pride in the victory and seized the pledge of the Jews, and the war was completed. The two leaders on each side were killed: Hudayr al-Kata'ib of the Aws, the father of Usayd ibn Hudayr, and Amr ibn al-Nu'man al-Bayadi of the Khazraj. The report says that Abd Allah ibn Ubayy warned Amr that he would be carried away dead, and he answered with disobedience, and he was brought in carried on four men. ⁴

The victory was at first for the Khazraj, then Hudayr steadied the Aws and they returned and won. Sa'd ibn Mu'adh was saved by the side of Amr ibn al-Jamuh. ⁴

Al-Bukhari relates from Aisha that the Day of Bu'ath was a day God had brought forward for His Messenger in their entry into Islam, when their chiefs had split and their great men were killed. ³ Al-Samhudi gives the hadith in its chapter. ⁴