Signs & Miracles · Signs Seen in Public

The poisoned sheep at Khaybar

Handle with care. Do not use this to make a sweeping claim about Jewish people. It concerns one named individual after a battle, and the Prophet did not order her killed in the Bukhari wording.

In short

• 1.A Jewish woman of Khaybar prepared a poisoned sheep and presented it as a gift.
• 2.He took a mouthful, did not swallow it, and said this bone is telling me it has been poisoned.
• 3.Bishr ibn al-Bara' ate and died from it. The Prophet suffered effects for years after.
• 4.Note how honest the report is: it records the harm, not just the warning. Fabricated stories rarely do that.

The claim being examined

After Khaybar a woman presented the Prophet with a roasted sheep laced with poison. He took a bite, stopped, and said the meat had told him it was poisoned.

The Islamic position

The report is in Sahih al-Bukhari and in Abu Dawud with a fuller account, and one companion who ate died.

Analysis

Al-Bukhari records the incident briefly; Abu Dawud and other collectors carry longer versions naming Zaynab bint al-Harith, the death of Bishr ibn al-Bara' and the Prophet's later attribution of his final illness to the poison. The evidential point most worth making is the unflattering detail: a companion dies, and the Prophet is harmed. Reports invented for propaganda do not usually preserve that.

From the Sunnah

Sources

Ibn Hajar, Fath al-Bari · Al-Bayhaqi, Dala'il al-Nubuwwah · Sahih al-Bukhari 2617; Sunan Abi Dawud 4508

More in Signs Seen in Public

• The moon split in two
• Water flowing from between his fingers
• Small food that fed an army
• The palm trunk that wept
• The stone that used to greet him
• The eye healed at Khaybar