Sold for a joke
On a journey out of Madinah, in the Madinan years, while travelling with Suwaybit ibn Harmalah.
Moment 1 of 1On a journey out of MadinahThe Madinan years1 min read
Nu'ayman and Suwaybit ibn Harmalah were travelling together, and provisions had run short. Suwaybit, it is reported, had food and would not readily share it.
Nu'ayman went to a group of Bedouin they passed and offered to sell them a slave — a clever, well-spoken one, he said, except for one flaw: he would insist, loudly, that he was in fact a free man and not a slave at all. They should pay him no attention when he did.
They agreed a price, took Suwaybit, and put a rope on him. He protested, exactly as Nu'ayman had described, and exactly as warned they did not believe a word of it.
Suwaybit was led away until the misunderstanding was cleared up and he was released.
The story circulated afterward as one of the more elaborate jokes attributed to Nu'ayman, and the reports have the Prophet ﷺ laughing about it for a long time whenever it came up.
The sources vary in small points of detail — how the price was settled, exactly what was said — and this account gives only what they agree on.
In this moment: Suwaybit ibn Harmalah, The Prophet Muhammad ﷺ
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Sources & review
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Al-Isabah fi Tamyiz as-Sahabahالإصابة في تمييز الصحابة
Classical biography · Ibn Hajar al-'Asqalani
Kitab at-Tabaqat al-Kabirالطبقات الكبرى
Classical biography · Ibn Sa'd
Siyar A'lam an-Nubalaسير أعلام النبلاء
Classical biography · Shams ad-Din adh-Dhahabi
Companions of the Prophet
Modern biography · Abdul Wahid Hamid
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