He said that God’s Messenger used to give a quarter as booty after the fifth had been kept off, and a third after the fifth had been kept off when he returned.
Khaibar was divided among those who had been at al-Hudaibiya, and God’s Messenger divided it into eighteen portions. The army was one thousand five hundred of which three hundred were cavalry, and he gave two shares to a horseman and one to a footman. Abu Dawud transmitted it, saying Ibn ‘Umar’s tradition1 is sounder, and it is the one which is followed. The error in the tradition of Mujammi’ was because he said three hundred horsemen when there were only two hundred.
Habib b. Maslama al-Fihri said he saw the Prophet give a quarter of the spoil on the outward journey and a third on the return journey.2
1. I have available two editions of Abu Dawud’s Sunan (Cairo, 1280 and 1348 A .H.). Both give Ibn Mu'awiya in place of Ibn 'Umar. See Jihad, 144.
2. This tradition and the following one are explained as referring to a section of the army which comes in contact with the enemy. The greater amount granted them when this happens on the return journey is because there is more difficulty and danger in fighting after having gone through the campaign. The second tradition is more explicit by making it clear that the fifth was deducted.
In the period when Mu'awiya was governor he got a red jar containing dinars in the land of the Byzantines. A man of the B. Sulaim called Ma'n b. Yazid who was a companion of God’s Messenger was in charge of us, and when I took it to him he divided it among the Muslims giving me the same as he gave the others. He then said that if he had not heard God’s Messenger say, “Booty is granted only after the fifth has been kept off,” he would have given it to me.
I was present at Khaibar along with my masters who spoke about me to God's Messenger, telling him that I was a slave. He ordered that I should have a sword girded on me, and I was trailing it.* He then ordered that I should be given some inferior goods. I submitted to him an invocation with which I used to treat people who were possessed and he ordered me to reject part of it and retain part.
*Either because he was a small man, or because he was young.
Tirmidhi and Abu Dawud transmitted it, but the latter's version ended at “goods”.
