The Nakhla Raid: First Blood in the Sacred Month and Verse 2:217

An Arrow on the Last Evening of Rajab

The valley of Nakhla sits on the caravan road between Mecca and al-Taif. In Rajab of the second year after the Hijra — around January 624 CE — a small Quraysh caravan moved through it, loaded with raisins, leather and trade goods, guarded by four men. On a rise nearby camped eight men from Medina. One of them, Ukkasha ibn Mihsan, had a shaven head. Seeing it, the caravan relaxed: pilgrims — no danger from them. They unloaded their camels and began preparing food.

Then an arrow flew. Amr ibn al-Hadrami fell dead. Two of the merchants were bound as captives; one escaped. By evening the men of Medina were driving the caravan toward home. The oldest biography of the Prophet of Islam records this as three firsts: the first man killed in the new faith's cause, the first captives, the first spoils of war. And it records one difficulty alongside them: by most reports, all of this happened in — or on the very last evening of — Rajab, one of the four months in which all of Arabia, by ancient consensus, held bloodshed to be forbidden.