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.
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.
We arrived just at the moment when God’s Messenger had conquered Khaibar and he appointed us a portion (or he said he gave us some of it). He allotted nothing to anyone who was not present at the conquest of Khaibar, giving shares only to those who were present with him, except for those who were in our ship,* Ja'far and his companions to whom he appointed something along with them.
*The party to which reference is made is that of people who had emigrated from Mecca to Abyssinia and were now returning.
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.
