Zaynab bint al-Harith

After the Battle of Khaybar, Zaynab bint al-Harith, a Jewish woman whose family had perished in the fighting, prepared a poisoned roast lamb and presented it to the Prophet ﷺ. The Prophet ﷺ spat out the first mouthful, warned — the account says — by the meat itself; but the Companion Bishr ibn al-Bara' ate his portion and died.

At the taking of Khaybar in year 7 of the Hijra, the fighting had claimed the lives of Zaynab bint al-Harith's father, uncle and husband. In revenge, she prepared a roast lamb, having found out which part the Prophet ﷺ preferred — the shoulder — which she poisoned most strongly.

She presented the dish. The Prophet ﷺ took a mouthful but did not swallow it and spat it out, saying this meat had informed him that it was poisoned. His Companion Bishr ibn al-Bara', however, had swallowed his portion: he died from it.

Questioned, Zaynab confessed without reservation: 'You did to my people what you did. I said to myself: if he is a prophet, he will be informed; and if he is only a king, I will rid people of him.' According to the hadiths, the Prophet ﷺ did not take revenge for what had been done to him personally. But when Bishr died from the effects of the poison, Sira accounts report that she was handed over to Bishr's family and put to death in application of the law of retaliation (qisas).

The texts also report that the Prophet ﷺ continued to feel the effects of this poison until the end of his life. Aisha reports that in his final illness he still mentioned the pain of 'the food eaten at Khaybar' — which led Muslims to say he also died as a martyr.

On the solidity and variants of this account: the core of the episode (the poisoning, the Prophet ﷺ being warned, Bishr's death, the pain felt until the end) is reported in AUTHENTIC hadiths of Bukhari and Muslim. This is solidly established. One point varies between sources: Zaynab's fate. The hadiths of Bukhari/Muslim insist that the Prophet ﷺ did not avenge himself personally ('Should we kill her? — No'). The Sira works (Ibn Ishaq, Ibn Sa'd) add that she was later executed, after Bishr's death, under the law of retaliation for this murder — which is consistent and distinct from the Prophet's ﷺ personal pardon. The distinction is important: the Prophet ﷺ pardoned the offence done to his own person; justice was exercised for the murder of another man.

This episode shows two things. First the Prophet's ﷺ clemency, who did not avenge the wrong done to his own person. Second that personal pardon does not erase the justice owed to others: Bishr's life called for restitution. It also recalls the dignity of the Prophet ﷺ in trial, bearing the effects of the poison without bitterness.