16. The Prophet said: "O Allah, bless us in our Shâm and our Yemen!" They said: "O Messenger of Allah! and our Najd!" He did not reply but again said: "O Allah, bless us in our Shâm and our Yemen!" They said: "O Messenger of Allah! and our Najd!" He did not reply but again said: "O Allah, bless us in our Shâm and our Yemen!" They said: "O Messenger of Allah! and our Najd!" He said: "Thence shall come great upheavals and dissensions, and from it shall issue the side of the head of Shaytân."11
Som people claim that Najd means Iraq in the terminology of the hadith but this is incorrect.12 Al-Nawawi said: "Najd is the area that lies between Jurâsh (in Yemen) all the way to the rural outskirts of Kûfâ (in Iraq), and its Western border is the Hijaz. The author of al-Matali` said: Najd is all a province of al-Yamama."13 Al-Fayruzabadi said: "Its geographical summit is Tihama and Yemen, its bottom is Iraq and Shâm, and it begins at Dhatu `Irqin14 from the side of the Hijaz."15 Al-Khattabi said: "Najd lies Eastward, and to those who are in Madina, their Najd is the desert of Iraq and its vicinities, which all lie East of the people of Madina. The original meaning of najd is `elevated land' as opposed to ghawr which means declivity. Thus, Tihama is all part of al-Ghawr, and Mecca is part of Tihama."16 This is confirmed by Ibn al-Athir's definition: "Najd is any elevated terrain, and it is a specific name for what lies outside the Hijaz and adjacent to Iraq."17 Similarly al-Dawudi said: "Najd lies in the vicinity of Iraq."18 Iraq itself lexicaly means river-shore or sea-shore, in reference to the Euphrates and the Tigris.19 In other words, Najd is the mountainous area East of the Hijaz, bordering it and Iraq at the same time and actually separating them. This is confirmed by the verse of the poet `Awamm ibn al-Asbagh:
Next to Batni Nakhlin there is a mountain called the Black One: One half of it is Hijazi, another half Najdi.20
A further confirmation is in the account of the qunût of the Prophet against the tribes of Najd. `Amir ibn Malik came to the Prophet in the 4th year of the Hijra, neither accepting nor rejecting Islam. Instead he said: "O Muhammad! If you send some of your Companions to the people of Najd to call them to your affair, I have hope that they shall respond favorably to you." The Prophet replied: "Truly I fear for them [harm] from the people of Najd" (innî akshâ `alayhim ahla Najd). `Amir said: "I proclaim that they are under my protection." The Prophet then sent seventy men from the elite of the Ansar. They travelled until they alighted at the Well of Ma`una, at which time they sent Haram ibn Malhan with the letter of the Messenger of Allah to `Amir ibn al-Tufayl. The latter did not look at the letter but instead killed Haram ibn Malhan. Then he called upon the Banu `Amir for assistance to kill the rest of the Muslim group, but they declined to challenge `Amir ibn Malik's protectorate. So `Amir ibn al-Tufayl called upon the following tribes of the Banu Sulaym: `Usayya, Ra`l, Dhakwan, and they responded to him. They formed an expedition and surrounded the group with their mounts. The Muslims were killed to the last man but for `Amr ibn Umayya al-Dumari who returned to Madina. The Prophet was deeply affected by their death and remained supplicating (yaqnutu) for one month during the dawn prayer against the (Najdi) Banu Sulaym tribes of Ra`l, Dhakwan, Banu Lahyan, and `Usayya.21
Another proof is that no-one from Iraq entered Islam in the time of the Prophet but only after his time. However, the Prophet sent military expeditions to Najd, went there himself, and some Najdis even accepted Islam as shown by the following hadiths:
(a) It is narrated from Talha ibn `Ubayd Allah in al-Bukhari and Muslim that "a man came to the Messenger of Allah from the people of Najd (min ahli najd), disheveled, the din of his voice audible although he was unintelligible..." to the end of the hadith in which the man said, speaking of the Five Pillars of Islam: "By Allah! I shall never add to this nor subtract from it," whereupon the Prophet said: "He shall obtain success if he proves truthful." As stated by al-Khatib,22 this is a different man from that mentioned in the hadith of Anas in al-Bukhari as coming into the Mosque with his camel and asking "Which one of you is Muhammad?" later identifying himself as Dimam ibn Tha`laba al-Sa`di al-Bakri from the Banu Sa`d ibn Bakr tribe.
(
The hadith of Abu Hurayra in the two Sahihs and the Sunan: "The Messenger of Allah sent a mounted detachment towards Najd and they brought a man from Banu Hanifa named Thumama ibn Uthal..."
© The hadith of Abu Hurayra in Abu Dawud with a good chain, "We went out to Najd with the Messenger of Allah until we arrived at Dhat al-Riqa` in a region of datepalms, where he met a detachment from Ghatafan." The Ghatafan are a Najdi tribe as shown by al-Tabari's phrase: "Two thousand Najdis coming from Ghatafan,"23 and Ibn al-Qayyim states: "Then he raised a campaign against Najd, aiming at the Ghatafan."24 This tribe is famous for two facts:
Before Islam the Jews of Khaybar vanquished them by making tawassul through the Prophet as stated by Ibn al-Qayyim in Hidayat al-Hayara (p. 18) in explaining the verse (And when there came to them a (true) Book from Allah the Qur'an) verifying that which they have (the Torah), and aforetime (before the Qur'an was revealed) they used to pray for victory against those who disbelieve (saying: O Allah, grant us victory against them by the intermediary and help of the Prophet that is to be sent at the end of time), but when there came to them (the Prophet; the truth which they knew from the Torah, namely, the advent of the Prophet) that which they did not recognize, they disbelieved in him (due to envy and aversion to their loss of authority); so the curse of Allah is on the unbelievers( (2:89; Muhammad Shakir's translation together with Tafsir al-Jalalayn);
After Islam, the Ghatafan were among the tribes that turned apostate and said the claims of the pseudo-prophet Tulayha al-Asadi were true.
(d) The famous hadith of the spoils from Abu Sa`id al-Khudri in the two Sahihs and the Sunan in which the Quraysh became angry and said: "He is giving to the nobility of Najd and leaving us out!" to which the Prophet replied: "I am only trying to win their hearts over to us." Then a man named Dhu al-Khuwaysira from the Banu Tamim came with sunken eyes, protruding cheeks, big forehead, profuse beard, and shaven head. He said: "Fear Allah, O Muhammad!" Etc. which ends with the prophecy that "Out of that man's seed shall come a people who will recite the Qur'an but it will not go past their throats. They will pass through religion the way an arrow passes through its quarry. They shall kill the Muslims and leave the idolaters alone. If I live to see them, verily I shall kill them the way the tribe of `Ad was killed."
It is also established in the authentic Sunna that after Abu Talib's death by about three years, in the 10th year of the Hijra, on the actual night that the Prophet was preparing to leave Makka for Madina, the plot to kill him by the collective hand of a conspiracy of the tribes was hatched up by Iblis in the guise of a venerable old man (shaykh jalîl) who, when asked who he was, simply answered "An old man from Najd" (shaykhun min Najd). The reports go on to refer to him as "The Old Man from Najd" (al-shaykh al-najdî).25
At any rate, the above explanations prove that those who say that Najd in the hadith denotes present-day Iraq exclusively of present-day Najd26 are mistaken, as Najd at that time included not only Iraq but also - as in our present time - everything East of Madina, especially the regions far South of Iraq. The proof for this is the hadith whereby the Prophet pointed to Yemen and said: "Verily, belief is there; but hardness and coarseness of heart is with the blaring farmers (al-faddadîn), the people of many camels, where the two sides of the head of Shaytân shall appear, among [the tribes of] Rabi`a and Mudar."27 Ibn Hajar identified these two tribes as "the most prestigious of the people of the East, the Quraysh - from which the Prophet is issued - being a branch of Mudar."28 This is confirmed by al-Bukhari's narration in seven places and Muslim's in six, from Ibn `Umar, that the East (al-Mashriq) is the origin of dissension and the place where the side of the head of Shaytân would appear - or two sides in one narration of Muslim. The fact that Muslim narrated that Salim ibn `Abd Allah ibn `Umar applied this hadith to the people of Iraq does not limit its meaning to them. It only confirms that the Prophet foresaw the dissension of the Khawârij among other dissensions hailing from the East, such as that of Musaylima the Liar and others: Ibn `Abidin said: "The name of Khawârij is applied to those who part ways with Muslims and declare them disbelievers, as took place in our time with the followers of Ibn `Abd al-Wahhab who came out of Najd and attacked the Two Noble Sanctuaries."29
Another proof is that the Prophet set Qarn al-Manazil as the starting-point (mîqât) for the state of consecration (ihrâm) for pilgrims coming from Najd, which in his time included Iraq, although Islam had not yet reached the latter. Later, the people of Iraq, finding Qarn al-Manazil too far out of the way for them, asked for something nearer, whereupon `Umar - Allah be well-pleased with him - set Dhatu `Irqin (Kufa) as their mîqât as established in the following narrations:
a) "The Prophet declared that the ihrâm of the people of Madina starts at Dhu al-Hulayfa; that of the people of Shâm starts at al-Juhfa; that of the people of Najd starts at Qarn al-Manazil; and that of the people of Yemen starts at Yalamlama."30 Al-Nawawi said: "Qarn al-Manazil is the mountain of that name. Between it and Mecca on the East lies a distance of two legs of journey."31
"When these two cities were conquered - al-Basra and al-Kufa - they came to `Umar ibn al-Khattab and said: `O Commander of the Believers, the Messenger of Allah gave Qarn as a limit to the people of Najd, and it is out of our way, so that if we want to go to Qarn it creates hardship for us.' `Umar replied: `See what lies nearest to it on your way.' So he determined Dhatu `Irqin as a limit for them."32 Ibn al-Athir said: "Ibn `Abbas said: `At Dhatu `Irqin, facing Qarn,' Dhatu `Irqin being the mîqât of the people of Iraq, and Qarn that of the people of Najd, and they are equidistant from the Haram."33
On the foregoing evidence one might make a case that Najd is synonymous with Iraq in the hadith in the general sense of the immediate East in relation to Madina. This view is supported by other narrations of the hadith "bless us in our Shâm and our Yemen" in which the terms "East" and "Iraq" are used interchangeably in the place of Najd:
a) The Prophet said: "O Allah! Bless us in our Shâm and our Yemen!" A man said: "And our East, O Messenger of Allah!" The Prophet repeated his invocation twice, and the man twice said: "And our East, O Messenger of Allah!" whereupon the Prophet said: "Thence shall issue the side of the head of Shaytân. In it are nine tenths of disbelief. In it is the incurable disease (al-dâ' al-`addâl)."34
The Prophet said: "O Allah! Bless us in our sâ` and in our mudd (i.e. in every measure)! Bless us in our Mecca and our Madina! Bless us in our Shâm and our Yemen!" A man said: "O Prophet of Allah, and our Iraq!" The Prophet said: "In it is the side of the head of Shaytân. In it shall dissensions heave. Verily, disrespect (al-jafâ') lies in the East."35
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