Ka'b · a Light

He told the truth about staying behind and lost fifty days

Ka'b ibn Malik had no excuse for missing the expedition to Tabuk in 630. He had meant to go, put it off, and stayed. More than eighty other men came back with excuses and were accepted. He told the truth and was told to wait. For fifty nights he and two others were cut off. Nobody in Madinah spoke to them, their wives were sent away from them, and Ka'b described the earth becoming strange to him. Then the Qur'an announced their forgiveness in the verse about the three who were left behind until the earth, vast as it is, closed in upon them. He said afterwards that he never told a lie again, and his own account of it runs for pages in Bukhari.

Ka'b ibn Malik · Tabuk and Madinah, 630 CE

Source · Bukhari 4418