Banu Haritha ibn al-Harith

بنو حارثة بن الحارث

A clan of the Aws, Banu Haritha ibn al-Harith ibn al-Khazraj the Younger; they first shared the Abd al-Ashhal quarter by the eastern Harra and built the utm 'al-Musayyir', then war broke out in which Simak ibn Rafi' fell to Mas'ud Abu Muhayysa — the expelled Banu Haritha withdrew to Banu Sulaym's land, were besieged in their tower by Hudayr ibn Simak until Banu Harw ibn 'Awf and Banu Khatma mediated their evacuation, spent about a year at Khaybar, were reconciled through al-Shafra''s intercession, and refusing to return settled the Yathrib neighbourhood west of Hamza's shrine where Islam found them, building the utm 'al-Rayyan' by their mosque; the Prophet ﷺ spent the eve of Uhud in their houses at al-Shaykhan ¹.

Depth

At a glance

Era: Pre-Islamic Arabia · The Prophetic Era
Region: Arabia
Review: Draft Completeness 1/5 · Help complete it

In space

Map: Natural Earth, public domain · places and route from the graph

Overview

A branch of al-Aws: Banu Haritha ibn al-Harith ibn al-Khazraj al-Asghar. ²

The shared house and the war

They first settled with Banu Abd al-Ashhal at the edge of the eastern Harra, and built the fortified house called "al-Musayyar". Then war broke out between them, in which Simak ibn Rafi' was killed by Mas'ud Abu Mahisa al-Haritha. ²

Their opponents drove them out to the land of Banu Sulaym. They settled in Khaybar for about a year, then reconciled through the mediation of al-Shifra'. ²

The second house

They refused to return to the shared house, and settled in a part of Yathrib west of the shrine of Hamza. This was their dwelling when Islam came. They built the fortified house "al-Rayyan" near their mosque. On the night of Uhud the Prophet spent the night at the houses of the two sheikhs among them. ²

Connections

Explore the connections

Part of: al-Aws
Lived in: Medina· Khaybar
Fought: Banu Abd al-Ashhal

People and things also explored

The day of Bu'ath· Banu Abd al-Ashhal· Judaism in Arabia before Islam· Banu Khatma· Banu Nadir· Banu Zafar· The Jewish tribes of the Hijaz· al-Aws

Sources

Wafa al-Wafa bi-akhbar dar al-Mustafa — al-Samhudi (older print) , p. 202-204
Wafa al-Wafa bi-akhbar dar al-Mustafa — al-Samhudi (older print) , p.202-204

Cite this page

islam.museum contributors. “Banu Haritha ibn al-Harith”. islam.museum, https://islam.museum/en/group/banu-haritha-al-aws/. CC BY-SA 4.0. Last updated 2026-10-16.

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The day of Bu'ath

The last and greatest of the Aws–Khazraj wars before Islam, about five years before the Hijra on the soundest view; before it ran the war of Mutaymir, the war of Ka'b ibn 'Amr, the day of al-Sarara and the day of al-Dayk — al-Samhudi adds the day of Fari', the two Fijar wars, and the wars of Hudayr ibn al-Aslat and Hatib ibn Qays — until al-Khattabi reports a tradition that war stood between them a hundred and twenty years to Islam. They fought at Bu'ath, a site at the head of Qawra, after the long-bested Aws allied with Qurayza and al-Nadir — its earlier bid for a Quraysh pact at Mecca having been dissolved by a ruse Ibn Shabba ascribes to al-Walid ibn al-Mughira — and some of its clans withdrew about a year to Khaybar. When the Khazraj boasted of victory and seized the Jews' hostages, the war was joined. Both chiefs fell: Hudayr 'al-Kata'ib', father of Usayd, for the Aws, and 'Amr ibn al-Nu'man al-Bayadi for the Khazraj — 'Abdallah ibn Ubayy had warned him he would be borne off slain, and four men carried him in as foretold; the rout first fell on the Khazraj until Hudayr rallied the Aws to victory, and Sa'd ibn Mu'adh escaped under 'Amr ibn al-Jamuh's protection; in the Sahih 'A'isha says 'the day of Bu'ath was a day God sent ahead of His Messenger for their entering Islam — he came when their assembly had scattered and their chiefs been slain', a report al-Samhudi also transmits in her chapter.