Ikrima ibn Abi Jahl

Abu Uthman Ikrima ibn Abi Jahl — his father's given name was Amr, so that he appears in the genealogies as Ikrima ibn Amr ibn Hisham ibn al-Mughira al-Makhzumi (d. 13 AH / 634 CE) — was a chief of the Banu Makhzum of the Quraysh, and for some twenty years one of the most determined opponents of Prophet Muhammad ﷺ. He fought against the Muslims at Badr, where his father was killed, at Uhud, where he commanded a wing of the Meccan cavalry, and at the Trench; he was among those whose intervention broke the Treaty of Hudaybiyyah; and at the conquest of Mecca he raised the only armed resistance the city offered, and was one of four men excepted by name from the general amnesty and condemned to be killed on sight.

He then became a Muslim, and the second half of his life reversed the first. Pardoned at the plea of his wife Umm Hakim bint al-Harith ibn Hisham, who had accepted Islam on the day of the conquest and went after him to bring him back, he undertook before the Prophet to spend in the cause of Islam twice what he had spent against it and to fight twice the number of battles. He commanded one of the eleven corps of the Ridda Wars, campaigned from central Arabia through Oman and Mahra to Yemen and Hadramawt, and was killed in the conquest of Syria within about four years of his conversion. His son Amr fell in the same campaign.

His life is therefore the most complete single instance of a pattern that runs through the generation of the conquest of Mecca: the leadership of the opposition became, almost intact, the officer corps of the expansion. Of the four men marked for death in 8 AH, he is the one who went furthest in the other direction.

Lineage and Standing at Mecca

He belonged to the Banu Makhzum, among the strongest clans of the Quraysh. The Diyanet İslâm Ansiklopedisi gives his line as Ikrima ibn Abi Jahl Amr ibn Hisham ibn al-Mughira, and records his own kunya as Abu Uthman. His grandfather al-Mughira was also the grandfather of Khalid ibn al-Walid, whose father al-Walid was Hisham's brother: Abu Jahl and Khalid's father were cousins, and the two men who met in arms at the conquest of Mecca and afterwards fought side by side across Syria were kinsmen of the same house. A. I. Akram, writing of the last hours of Ikrima's life, calls him Khalid's nephew and "dear, dear friend".

Commanders of the Muslim Army describes him as a man of considerable wealth and standing, skilled with weapons and so fast on foot that a horse could not keep pace with him, and notes that among his close companions in youth were Sa'd ibn Abi Waqqas and Mus'ab ibn Umayr — both of whom entered Islam long before he did.

His father was Abu Jahl, whose given name was Amr ibn Hisham and whose original kunya was Abu al-Hakam; the Diyanet entry on him records that the Prophet altered it to Abu Jahl, and that he led the Meccan opposition, the boycott that confined the Muslims for three years, and the plan to kill the Prophet on the night of the hijra. He was among the persecutors of Ammar ibn Yasir's family and of Sumayyah bint Khayyat, and of Bilal ibn Rabah. He was killed at Badr. That inheritance is the fact against which the rest of Ikrima's life has to be read: he began as the son and political heir of the Prophet's principal adversary, and Commanders of the Muslim Army states plainly that his father was the chief obstacle in his own path.

Against the Muslims

Before Badr

The Diyanet entry places him, in 1 AH (622), at the head of a body of Quraysh assembled against the Muslims beside the water of Ahya below Thaniyyat al-Marra — the encounter in which the expedition of Ubayda ibn al-Harith met a Meccan caravan in the Rabigh valley — though no fighting took place. Who led the Meccan party there is not settled: al-Waqidi's account, preserved by Ibn Kathir, names Abu Sufyan ibn Harb and records as an alternative that it was Mikraz ibn Hafs, and the Diyanet article on that expedition judges the attributions to Ikrima and to Mikraz alike to be incorrect. What is agreed is that arrows were exchanged and the Meccans withdrew.

Badr, and his father's death

At Badr he saw his father killed in front of him. Commanders of the Muslim Army preserves the scene through the narration of Abd al-Rahman ibn Awf, who was approached during the fighting by two young men of the Ansar, Mu'adh and Mu'awwidh, asking to be shown Abu Jahl; they had heard that he abused the Prophet and had sworn either to kill him or to die in the attempt. Abd al-Rahman pointed him out. Their attack unhorsed him.

Ikrima heard his father cry out. History of Islam and the Diyanet entry agree on what he did: Mu'adh ibn Amr ibn al-Jamuh had struck Abu Jahl's leg off at the shin, and Ikrima fell on Mu'adh from behind and brought his sword down on his arm, nearly severing it at the shoulder. Mu'adh fought on for the rest of the day with the arm hanging, then put the hanging part under his foot and tore it away. Mu'awwidh ibn Afra' came up and killed Abu Jahl; Abdullah ibn Mas'ud found the body afterwards. Ikrima left his father where he lay and withdrew from the field.

The Qur'an on the money raised after Badr

The defeat left the clans of the men killed at Badr looking for the means to reverse it, and Ikrima was among those who found them. Ibn Kathir's commentary on Surah al-Anfal preserves Ibn Ishaq's account, transmitted from al-Zuhri and others: after Badr, Abdullah ibn Abi Rabi'a, Ikrima ibn Abi Jahl and Safwan ibn Umayya — men who had lost fathers, sons or brothers there — went to Abu Sufyan and to those of the Quraysh who had wealth in the caravan he had brought home intact, and said: "O people of Quraysh! Muhammad has grieved you and killed the chiefs among you. Therefore help us with this wealth so that we can fight him, that we may avenge our losses." They agreed. Ibn Abbas held that it was of these men that the verse was revealed:

"Indeed, those who disbelieve spend their wealth to avert [people] from the way of Allah. So they will spend it; then it will be for them a [source of] regret; then they will be overcome" (Quran 8:36)

After his father's death he became chief of the Banu Makhzum in his place.

Uhud

The army that came to Uhud was raised by the men who had made that appeal. Strategies of Prophet Muhammad names Abu Sufyan, Ikrima ibn Abi Jahl, Safwan ibn Umayya and Abdullah ibn Abi Rabi'a as the chieftains who gathered three thousand men and marched on Medina.

At Uhud the Quraysh set Khalid ibn al-Walid over the right wing of the cavalry with a hundred horse and Ikrima over the left with an equal number. The Diyanet entry records that he brought his wife Umm Hakim with him; Commanders of the Muslim Army explains the purpose, which was that she should stand with the women of the bereaved families behind the ranks and keep the young men of the Quraysh from giving way.

The decisive moment of the battle belonged to the two cavalry commanders. As-Sallabi's account has it that when most of the Muslim archers left the hillside to gather the spoils, Khalid, seeing the position all but abandoned, launched a cavalry charge together with Ikrima and killed the remaining archers, including their commander Abdullah ibn Jubayr, and then struck the Muslim army from behind. History of Islam adds that it was Ikrima and Abu Sufyan who checked the Quraysh flight and gathered the men for the second attack that turned the day. Abu Sufyan declared afterwards that Badr had been avenged.

The Trench, and the breaking of the truce

Atlas of the Islamic Conquests, listing the men who fought beside Khalid on the pagan side and later served with or against him, names Ikrima at the Battle of the Confederates. Commanders of the Muslim Army places him among the horsemen — with Amr ibn Abd Wadd and Dirar ibn al-Khattab — who found a narrow place and jumped the trench; when Ali ibn Abi Talib killed Amr in single combat, Ikrima and Dirar withdrew.

His last act against the Muslims before the conquest was the one that ended the truce. History of Islam records that when the Banu Bakr moved against the Banu Khuza'a in breach of the Treaty of Hudaybiyyah, the Quraysh not only failed to restrain them but joined them, and that Safwan ibn Umayya, Ikrima ibn Abi Jahl and Suhayl ibn Amr fought alongside Banu Bakr in person. Twenty or thirty of Banu Khuza'a were killed, some of them within the sanctuary itself. That breach is the proximate cause of the march on Mecca.

The Conquest of Mecca

Khandama

The Prophet entered Mecca on 20 Ramadan 8 AH (11 January 630 CE), in four columns converging on the city. Akram records that the entry was peaceful in every sector but Khalid's. Ibn Ishaq, preserved by Ibn Kathir, names the men who made it otherwise: Safwan ibn Umayya, Ikrima ibn Abi Jahl and Suhayl ibn Amr had gathered a body of men at al-Khandama to fight.

They met Khalid's column there. The Quraysh opened with their bows and drew their swords; Khalid charged, and after a short clash they were driven back. Akram gives the losses as twelve of the Quraysh killed against two Muslims, and Ibn Ishaq names Khalid's dead — Kirz ibn Jabir and Hubaysh ibn Khalid, who had become separated from the column and taken a different route, and Salama ibn al-Mayla' al-Juhani of his cavalry. Ikrima and Safwan fled the encounter. Akram notes both that the two men opposing Khalid had been his closest friends, and that the Prophet was displeased when he learned that blood had been shed at all.

Condemned, and his flight

The amnesty proclaimed at the conquest was general, with a small number of exceptions, and Ikrima was one of them. Sunan an-Nasa'i records from Sa'd ibn Abi Waqqas that the Prophet granted safety to the people except four men and two women, of whom he said, "Kill them, even if you find them clinging to the covers of the Kaaba"; the four named are Ikrima ibn Abi Jahl, Abdullah ibn Khatal, Miqyas ibn Subaba and Abdullah ibn Sa'd ibn Abi al-Sarh. As-Sallabi and the commentary in Sunan al-Tirmidhi give the same four. Abdullah ibn Khatal was in fact taken while clinging to the covers of the Kaaba and killed. Among the two women was Sara, a freedwoman of Banu Abd al-Muttalib and of Ikrima himself, condemned for what she had said of the Prophet at Mecca; Ibn Kathir notes that she fled, was granted immunity, and lived into the caliphate of Umar.

Ikrima left the city. Commanders of the Muslim Army describes him making for Jeddah with the intention of reaching Yemen, and dwells on the reversal: he was leaving in secret the city in which he and his father had lately held authority.

At sea

Two accounts of what happened on the coast are preserved, and they differ in emphasis rather than in substance.

Hayatus Sahabah, on the narration of Abdullah ibn al-Zubayr, has him reach one of the Tihama coasts and board a ship. One of the sailors told him to recite the words of sincerity. Ikrima asked what he should say, and was told: "Say that there is none worthy of worship but Allah." He answered:

"It is from this that I am fleeing."

As-Sallabi's account has a storm come up, at which the crew said to him, "Be sincere towards the Almighty, for your gods cannot avail you anything here." Ikrima said:

"By Allah, if nothing can help me on the sea except sincerity towards the Almighty, then nothing else will help me on land. O Allah, I promise that if You save me from this predicament, I will go to Muhammad and put my hand in his; I am certain that I will find him forgiving and generous."

Umm Hakim's embassy

His wife Umm Hakim bint al-Harith ibn Hisham was his cousin, the daughter of his father's brother. Ibn Ishaq records that she accepted Islam on the day of the conquest and at once sought immunity for her husband from the Prophet, who granted it. Hayatus Sahabah, from Abdullah ibn al-Zubayr, gives her words: "O Messenger of Allah, Ikrima has run away from you to Yemen, fearing that you would execute him. Would you please grant him amnesty." The Prophet answered: "He has amnesty."

She went after him with a Roman slave for escort. On the road the man attempted her; she kept him in hope until they reached the encampment of an Arab tribe, told the chief what had happened, and had the slave seized and bound. She then went on alone.

She caught him at the shore. Hayatus Sahabah has her waving a cloth to attract the attention of those on the ship and calling out:

"O my cousin! I have come to you from he who best maintains family ties, who is the most pious of people and the best of people. Do not destroy yourself."

He waited for her, and she told him she had secured his amnesty. He turned back with her. When she recounted on the road what the Roman slave had done, he killed the man — the narration notes precisely that he had not yet accepted Islam. Ibn Kathir, transmitting from al-Zuhri, records the same errand performed in parallel by Fakhita bint al-Walid, the wife of Safwan ibn Umayya, who was also Khalid ibn al-Walid's sister: both women followed their husbands and brought them back, and both men then accepted Islam.

Great Women of Islam counts Umm Hakim among the women Companions whose persuasion brought a husband into Islam.

Conversion

As Ikrima approached Mecca the Prophet spoke to the Companions about him. Hayatus Sahabah gives the instruction:

"Ikrima the son of Abu Jahl is coming to you as a believer and an emigrant, so do not curse his father, because cursing the dead only hurts the living without ever reaching the dead."

Umm Hakim had meanwhile refused him, saying that she was a Muslim and he was not; he remarked that what kept her from him must be something very great.

When the Prophet saw him he rose and hurried towards him without stopping for his outer garment, then sat down while Ikrima stood before him. Ikrima said that Umm Hakim had told him he was pardoned, and was answered, "She has spoken the truth. Your safety is assured." He then asked what he was being invited to, and was told: to testify that there is no deity but God and that Muhammad is His Messenger, to establish the prayer, and to pay the zakat. Ikrima's reply, as Commanders of the Muslim Army and Hayatus Sahabah both give it, turned on what he already knew of the man in front of him:

"By Allah, you have invited to nothing but the truth and to excellent and beautiful actions. By Allah, even before you began this call you were the most truthful of us and the most righteous."

He made the testimony of faith, and at the Prophet's direction added a declaration that he was a Muslim, a fighter in the cause and an emigrant. He then asked for one thing:

"I ask you to seek forgiveness from Allah for every kind of enmity I have shown towards you, for every journey I undertook to oppose you, for every battle I fought against you, and for every harsh word I said to your face or behind your back."

The Prophet supplicated in those terms for him. Ikrima's own undertaking followed, and it is the sentence for which he is chiefly remembered:

"By Allah, every expense I bore in opposing the religion of Allah, I shall spend double in the path of Allah; and every battle I fought against the religion of Allah, I shall fight double in the path of Allah."

Hayatus Sahabah records that the Prophet upheld his marriage to Umm Hakim without a new contract, and Ibn Kathir notes the same ruling for Safwan and Fakhita.

The single narration attributed to Ikrima himself belongs to this day. Sunan al-Tirmidhi transmits from him: "The day that I came to him, the Messenger of Allah said, 'Welcome to the riding emigrant.'" The editors of that collection grade the report da'if, and the Diyanet entry describes its chain as broken; it is his only reported hadith.

History of Islam, treating Ikrima and Safwan together, places the acceptance of Islam of both men after the Battle of Hunayn rather than immediately after the conquest. The fuller narrations of Ibn Ishaq and of Abdullah ibn al-Zubayr set it at Mecca, before Hunayn, and an episode from the battle itself supports them.

Hunayn

Hayatus Sahabah preserves from al-Waqidi an exchange during the early reverse at Hunayn, when the Muslim line was giving way before Thaqif and Hawazin. Suhayl ibn Amr — who had stood beside Ikrima at Khandama a few weeks earlier and was likewise a recent convert — remarked that the Muslims had never met the like of those two tribes. Ikrima answered him:

"One should not speak like this. Everything lies in the control of Allah, and Muhammad has no control over things. If he is defeated today, tomorrow shall hold promising results."

Suhayl said mockingly that it was not long since Ikrima himself had opposed the Messenger of Allah. Ikrima replied: "By Allah, all our previous efforts have been futile. Considering ourselves to be intelligent people, we used to worship stones."

The Diyanet entry records that he then settled at Medina and took part in the life of the community, and that in 11 AH (632) the Prophet appointed him to collect the zakat of the Banu Hawazin — an administrative charge over the tribe he had fought at Hunayn.

The Ridda Wars

The Prophet died in 11 AH, and Abu Bakr faced revolt across the peninsula. He formed eleven corps, each with its own standard and commander and its own objective, and the second of them was given to Ikrima.

His mission was Musaylima and the Banu Hanifah at al-Yamamah, and Akram records the terms of it precisely: he was to make contact with Musaylima but not to become involved until more forces had been built up. Shurahbil ibn Hasana was to follow him and await instructions. Atlas of the Islamic Conquests and Atlas of the Quran both describe his corps and Shurahbil's as precautionary forces intended to support the larger army under Khalid ibn al-Walid.

He attacked before the reinforcements came up, and was beaten. History of Islam states the outcome without softening it: Ikrima invaded Musaylima's army before the arrival of the reinforcements and was defeated. Abu Bakr's response was to send word that he was not to return to Medina at all, but to go on and join Hudhayfa ibn Mihsan and Arfaja ibn Harthama and fight in Mahra and Oman under their command — a rebuke administered as a redeployment rather than a dismissal. The Ridda Wars article treats the campaign as a whole.

Oman, Mahra, Yemen and Hadramawt

In Oman the three commanders combined against Laqit ibn Malik, called Dhu'l-Taj. History of Islam gives the order of march: Ikrima commanded the advance guard, Hudhayfa the right wing and Arfaja the left, with the Omanis who had held firm in the centre. The fighting began at the time of the dawn prayer, with the Muslims below and the enemy on high ground; after early reverses the enemy broke, leaving a thousand dead, four thousand captives and a large quantity of spoil. Akram adds what Ikrima did next: Hudhayfa was appointed governor of Oman, and Ikrima, having no local administrative responsibility, took his corps to subdue the country around Daba, breaking in a series of small actions the resistance of those of the Azd still holding out.

From there he moved to Yemen and Hadramawt. History of Islam records that he met al-Muhajir ibn Abi Umayya at San'a after the province had been cleared, and that the two marched together against the Banu Kinda, who were gathering under al-Ash'ath ibn Qays; al-Muhajir took a fast squadron ahead and left the army under Ikrima's command, and Ikrima came up to join him at the siege of the fort into which al-Ash'ath had withdrawn. As-Sallabi records the order under which they combined: al-Muhajir was to join Ikrima, form one army of both their men, and march on Kinda in Hadramawt to relieve Ziyad ibn Lubayd. Atlas of the Quran summarises the whole itinerary of his corps — al-Yamamah, then Oman, then Mahra, then Hadramawt, then Yemen.

Syria

History of Islam fixes the moment his next command began with a coincidence of dates: the day Khalid's account of Heraclius's preparations reached Medina was the day Ikrima returned to Medina from his campaigns, and Abu Bakr sent him straight on to reinforce Khalid.

Before the main campaign he salvaged another commander's failure. Akram records that Khalid ibn Sa'id was permitted to enter Syria with a small force and ran into the Romans under Bahan, a capable tactician who drew the Muslims into a trap and moved to encircle them; Khalid ibn Sa'id lost his nerve and fled, leaving most of his men. "Luckily for the Muslims," Akram writes, "Ikrima ibn Abi Jahl was present at this action; and taking command of the situation, he extricated the Muslims from a blunder that was about to turn into a major tragedy." The location is disputed, some placing it at Marj al-Suffar south of Damascus.

In the Syrian order of battle he held senior command. Commanders of the Muslim Army records that when Khalid divided his army into four for Syria, the right wing went to Amr ibn al-As, the left to Yazid ibn Abi Sufyan, the centre to Abu Ubayda ibn al-Jarrah, and the remaining division to Ikrima ibn Abi Jahl. At Yarmuk, Akram places him as one of Abu Ubayda's regimental commanders in the centre, alongside Abd al-Rahman ibn Khalid.

The oath of death

The best-attested episode of his last battle is his refusal to give ground. Commanders of the Muslim Army describes the Muslim line under heavy pressure and the cavalry advance blocked; Ikrima dismounted and broke the sheath of his sword, and went forward on foot into the Roman ranks. Khalid came after him:

"Ikrima, do not do this. If you are martyred it will be a great loss for the Muslims."

Ikrima's answer set his own case against Khalid's:

"Khalid, step back. You accepted Islam before me and have attained a lofty status. You know that my father and I were the strongest and worst enemies of Islam and left no stone unturned to harm it. Leave me alone today, so that I can make some amends."

He then called out, asking who would swear loyalty unto death. His paternal uncle al-Harith ibn Hisham and four hundred men swore it on his hand, and the whole body attacked from beside Khalid's tent. Akram, following al-Waqidi, records the result: of the four hundred who took the oath of death, every one was killed or seriously wounded, but they accounted for many times their number of Romans, and the position they held was never lost. History of Islam preserves Ikrima's cry on the field — "Who are they to promise me about death?" — and names Dirar ibn al-Azwar among those who pledged with him.

Death

Two accounts of his dying are preserved, both from the Syrian campaign.

Akram gives the scene at the end of the day, in Khalid's own hands: at the left edge of Abu Ubayda's sector, with Ikrima's head resting on one of Khalid's knees and that of Amr, Ikrima's son, on the other, Khalid dipped his fingers in a bowl of water and let it fall into their mouths, saying, "Does the son of Hantama think we do not get martyred?" Father and son died there. History of Islam names both among the best known of the three thousand Muslims killed at Yarmuk, together with al-Harith ibn Hisham's kinsman Salama ibn Hisham and others of the Quraysh.

Commanders of the Muslim Army preserves the other and more widely told account, of three gravely wounded men after the battle: al-Harith ibn Hisham, Ayyash ibn Abi Rabi'a and Ikrima. Al-Harith asked for water; when it was brought he saw Ikrima looking at it and asked that it go to him first. When it reached Ikrima he saw Ayyash looking at it, and sent it on to him. By the time it reached Ayyash he was dead, and when it was carried back the other two had died also.

Where and when he fell is given differently by the sources, and the divergence is not small. Hayatus Sahabah states that he was martyred at the Battle of Ajnadayn during Abu Bakr's caliphate, and Atlas of the Islamic Conquests, citing Mu'jam al-Buldan, names Ikrima ibn Abi Jahl and al-Harith ibn Hisham — together with Abdullah ibn al-Zubayr ibn Abd al-Muttalib, a cousin of the Prophet through the uncle al-Zubayr ibn Abd al-Muttalib, and not the later Abdullah ibn al-Zubayr who was the son of al-Zubayr ibn al-Awwam — among those killed at Ajnadayn, which it dates to 27 Jumada al-Awwal 13 AH / 29 July 634 CE. History of Islam and Akram place his death at Yarmuk. The Diyanet entry sets out the whole range: Ajnadayn in 13/634 or Marj al-Suffar in the same year, with further reports of the conquest of Damascus in 14/635, of Yarmuk in 15/636 — where more than seventy arrow and sword wounds were counted on his body — and of death in the plague of Amwas in 18/639. The two best-supported readings are Ajnadayn and Yarmuk, both in the Syrian campaign under Abu Bakr and Umar, and the same companions appear in the accounts of each. His death is conventionally dated to 13 AH / 634 CE.

Assessment

The Diyanet entry's summary of him is brief and unsentimental: a good horseman and a commander. The record supports both terms. He held independent command in three theatres — central Arabia, Oman and the Yemeni south, and Syria — was trusted with an army left to him by a superior in the field, was given charge of a tribe's zakat, and was senior enough in the Syrian establishment to be named among the four divisional commanders and among Abu Ubayda's regimental commanders at the decisive battle.

His single defeat is as instructive as his successes, and the sources do not conceal it: ordered explicitly not to engage Musaylima until reinforced, he engaged and was beaten, and Abu Bakr answered by sending him to the far end of Arabia rather than home. That he then fought the Omani, Mahri, Hadrami and Yemeni campaigns in succession, returned to Medina, and left again for Syria within days of arriving, is the measure of how the undertaking he gave at Mecca was kept.

What the tradition preserves most carefully, though, is neither the commands nor the defeat but the shape of the reversal. The man whose father led the opposition, who cut down one of his father's killers, who helped raise the money and the army for Uhud, who broke the truce and fought the last action against the entry into Mecca, and who was one of four men sentenced to death there, ended as a commander of its armies and died of wounds taken in its service — in the account Akram gives, in the arms of the cousin he had once fought at Khandama.

References and Further Reading

Primary Islamic Sources

• Quran, Surah al-Anfal (8:36) — "Indeed, those who disbelieve spend their wealth to avert [people] from the way of Allah", held by Ibn Abbas to have been revealed concerning those who raised the money for Uhud, Ikrima among them.
• Sunan an-Nasa'i, Book of Fighting, from Sa'd ibn Abi Waqqas — the amnesty at the conquest of Mecca excepting four men and two women, with the instruction "Kill them, even if you find them clinging to the covers of the Kaaba", and Ikrima ibn Abi Jahl named first.
• Sunan al-Tirmidhi 2735, Chapters on Seeking Permission — the single narration attributed to Ikrima ibn Abi Jahl, that the Prophet greeted him with "Welcome to the riding emigrant"; graded da'if in the approved edition, and its chain described as broken.
• Sunan al-Tirmidhi, Chapters on Tafsir, on Surah al-Nahl — the same four men named as those the Prophet ordered killed at the conquest.
• Sahih al-Bukhari, Book of al-Maghazi, and Musnad Ahmad ibn Hanbal — the narrations of the killing of Abu Jahl at Badr underlying the accounts used above, cited here through Ibn Kathir and the secondary works consulted.

Classical Islamic Sources

• Ibn Ishaq, Sirat Rasul Allah, in the recension of Ibn Hisham — the original narration of the gathering at al-Khandama, of Ikrima's flight and of Umm Hakim's embassy, on which the later accounts used here depend.
• Ibn Kathir, Ismail ibn Umar. Al-Sira al-Nabawiyya, trans. Trevor Le Gassick. Consulted in the approved library — Ibn Ishaq's account of Khandama and its casualties, the flight to Yemen, Umm Hakim bint al-Harith ibn Hisham's securing of immunity, al-Zuhri's report of the two wives who brought their husbands back and the affirming of both marriages, and the notice of Sara.
• Ibn Kathir, Ismail ibn Umar. Tafsir al-Qur'an al-Azim. Consulted in the approved library — on Quran 8:36, for Ibn Ishaq's account of the appeal to Abu Sufyan after Badr and Ibn Abbas's identification of those the verse concerns.
• Al-Waqidi, Muhammad ibn Umar. Kitab al-Maghazi — the underlying source for the Rabigh encounter, for the exchange with Suhayl ibn Amr at Hunayn, and for the four hundred sworn men and the wounding of Ikrima and his son at Yarmuk; cited here through Ibn Kathir, Hayatus Sahabah and Akram rather than consulted directly.
• Ibn Sa'd, Al-Tabaqat al-Kubra; Ibn Abd al-Barr, al-Isti'ab; Ibn al-Athir, al-Kamil fi'l-Tarikh and Usd al-Ghaba; al-Dhahabi, Siyar A'lam al-Nubala; Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani, al-Isaba fi Tamyiz al-Sahaba; Yaqut al-Hamawi, Mu'jam al-Buldan — the biographical and topographical notices carrying his death reports, cited through the Diyanet entry and the Atlas of the Islamic Conquests.
• Kandhlawi, Muhammad Yusuf. Hayatus Sahabah, Vol. 1. Consulted in the approved library — Abdullah ibn al-Zubayr's narration of the amnesty, the journey, the ship, the conversion dialogue and the supplication, and al-Waqidi's report of Hunayn.

Academic and Scholarly Sources

• AYDINLI, Abdullah. "İKRİME b. EBÛ CEHİL." TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, vol. 22. Istanbul: Türkiye Diyanet Vakfı, 2000, pp. 42-43. https://islamansiklopedisi.org.tr/ikrime-b-ebu-cehil — the only dedicated encyclopaedia treatment consulted, and the source for his nasab and kunya, the chieftaincy of Banu Makhzum, the command at Uhud, the Hawazin zakat appointment, the sequence of his Ridda commands, and the full range of reports on his death.
• KAPAR, Mehmet Ali. "EBÛ CEHİL." TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi. https://islamansiklopedisi.org.tr/ebu-cehil — his father's given name, kunya and standing, and the notice of Ikrima's later service.
• Commanders of the Muslim Army — the fullest continuous treatment of him in the approved library, with a chapter of its own: his standing at Mecca, Badr, Uhud, the Trench, Khandama, the flight, Umm Hakim's journey, the conversion dialogue, the Syrian divisions, Yarmuk and the water shared among the three wounded men.
• Akram, A. I. Sword of Allah: Khalid bin Al-Waleed, His Life and Campaigns — the four columns at the conquest and the clash at Khandama, the eleven Ridda corps and the order not to engage, the operations around Daba, the rescue of Khalid ibn Sa'id's expedition, the Yarmuk dispositions, and the death scene.
• History of Islam, vol. 1 — Badr, Uhud, the breach of the truce, the flight and pardon, the Ridda sequence from al-Yamamah through Oman to Hadramawt, the return to Medina and despatch to Syria, and the Yarmuk casualty roll.
• As-Sallabi, Ali Muhammad. 'Uthman Ibn 'Affan: Dhun-Noorayn — the four excepted from the amnesty, the storm at sea and his vow, and the cavalry charge with Khalid at Uhud.
• As-Sallabi, Ali Muhammad. The Biography of Abu Bakr As-Siddeeq — the orders combining al-Muhajir's force with Ikrima's for the march on Kinda.
• Atlas of the Islamic Conquests — the eleven Ridda armies, Khalid's pre-Islamic companions, and the date, command structure and casualties of Ajnadayn.
• Atlas of the Quran — the tabulated itinerary of Ikrima's corps through the apostasy wars.
• Strategies of Prophet Muhammad — the chieftains who raised the army of Uhud.

Further Reading

• Guillaume, Alfred, trans. The Life of Muhammad: A Translation of Ibn Ishaq's Sirat Rasul Allah. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1955. The standard English translation of the narration from which the Khandama and Umm Hakim accounts descend.
• Faizer, Rizwi, ed. The Life of Muhammad: Al-Waqidi's Kitab al-Maghazi. London: Routledge, 2011.
• Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani. al-Isaba fi Tamyiz al-Sahaba. The fullest classical compendium of Companion biographies, with the notices on Ikrima, on Umm Hakim bint al-Harith and on al-Harith ibn Hisham.
• Donner, Fred McGraw. The Early Islamic Conquests. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981. For the Syrian campaign in which Ikrima held command, and the absorption of the Meccan leadership into the armies of the conquest.