Abū Hurayrah (may Allah be pleased with him) narrated that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said about the story of Prophet Yusha ibn Nun: “A prophet from among the prophets went out to battle. He said to his people: ‘Let no man follow me who has married a woman and intends to consummate the marriage but has not yet done so; nor anyone who has built houses but not yet raised their roofs; nor anyone who has bought sheep or pregnant camels while awaiting their offspring.’
He marched until he neared a town at the time of ʿAṣr prayer, or close to it, so he said to the sun: ‘You are commanded and I am commanded. O Allah, hold it back for us.’ So it was held until Allah granted him victory.
He then gathered the spoils, and a fire came to consume them, but it did not touch them. He said: ‘There is ghulūl (misappropriation) among you. Let one man from each tribe pledge allegiance to me.’ The hand of a man stuck to his hand, so he said: ‘There is ghulūl among you.’ They brought a golden head shaped like the head of a cow and placed it thereupon; the fire came and consumed it.”
In another wording: “The spoils were not made lawful for anyone before us; then Allah made them lawful for us — He saw our weakness and our incapacity, so He permitted them for us.”
(Agreed upon — al-Bukhārī and Muslim).
He is Yūshaʿ ibn Nūn ibn Ephraim ibn Yūsuf ibn Yaʿqūb ibn Isḥāq ibn Ibrāhīm al-Khalīl (peace be upon them all). Allah Most High mentioned him in the Qur’an without naming him explicitly in the story of Mūsā and al-Khiḍr: “And [mention] when Moses said to his servant (fatāhu)…” (al-Kahf 18:60).
His name is identified in Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī through the narration of Ubayy ibn Kaʿb from the Prophet ﷺ as Yūshaʿ ibn Nūn. Ibn Kathīr noted that the People of the Book agreed upon his prophethood (peace be upon him).
Historians mention that Allah opened Bayt al-Maqdis (Jerusalem) in his hands, and that he was granted a unique honour not given to others — the holding back of the sun. Imām Aḥmad narrated from Abū Hurayrah that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said: “The sun was not held back for any human being except for Yūshaʿ, on the nights he marched toward Bayt al-Maqdis.”
Yushaʿ’s Call to Struggle and the Opening of the Sacred Land
When Banū Isrāʾīl refused to strive and liberate the Sacred Land from shirk — out of fear of its people — Yūshaʿ ibn Nūn (ʿalayhi al-salām) was one of the two men who urged them to enter and fight, as in the well-known passage of Sūrat al-Māʾidah:
“Two men from those who feared [Allah], upon whom Allah had bestowed favour, said: ‘Enter upon them through the gate; for when you enter it, you will be victorious. And upon Allah rely, if you are believers.’” (al-Māʾidah 5:23)
But Banū Isrāʾīl shrank from the duty and let Mūsā (ʿalayhi al-salām) down; thus they were punished with forty years of wandering (al-tīh), during which Mūsā (ʿalayhi al-salām) passed away. Yūshaʿ then succeeded him in prophethood and leadership. Much of that fearful generation perished, replaced by a generation raised in the hardship of the wilderness upon faith and resilience. Yūshaʿ led them to the opening of Bayt al-Maqdis, and Allah granted them victory — as the Prophet ﷺ related in the hadith of Abū Hurayrah cited above.
Lessons from Yusha ’s Instruction Before Battle
Yūshaʿ’s words before the campaign — “Let no man follow me who has married but not consummated; nor one who built houses but not roofed them; nor one who bought sheep or pregnant camels and awaits their young” — indicate how worldly concerns (spouse, children, home, wealth) often preoccupy a servant and may deter him from obedience and from striving in Allah’s path: out of mercy for a wife not to be widowed, for children not to be orphaned, or from inclination to the adornment of this life.
For this reason, Yūshaʿ barred those whose hearts were attached to worldly matters. Allah Most High says:
“And know that your wealth and your children are but a trial, and that with Allah is immense reward.” (al-Anfāl 8:28)
And in the hadith of Yaʿlā al-ʿĀmirī (may Allah be pleased with him): he said, “al-Ḥasan and al-Ḥusayn came running to the Prophet ﷺ; he embraced them and said: ‘Children are a cause of miserliness and cowardice (al-waladu mabkhalatun majbanah).’” (Aḥmad and Ibn Mājah)
Spoils of War: Prohibited for Earlier Nations, Permitted for the Ummah of Muḥammad ﷺ
This hadith also establishes that spoils were forbidden for previous nations, whereas they were made lawful for the Ummah of Muḥammad ﷺ — a distinctive blessing for this community. Its beginning was at Badr, wherein the verse was revealed:
“So consume of what you have taken as spoils, lawful and good; and fear Allah. Indeed Allah is Ever-Forgiving, Most Merciful.” (al-Anfāl 8:69)
Reports Concerning Prophet Yusha (ʿalayhi al-salām)
Aḥmad ibn ʿAlī al-Mujallī narrated: Abū Bakr al-Khaṭīb told us; Abū al-Ḥusayn ibn Bishrān told us; Ibn Ṣafwān told us; ʿAbdullāh ibn Muḥammad al-Qurashī told us; he said: Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥusayn told me; he said: Muḥammad ibn Basṭām told us; he said: Jaʿfar ibn Sulaymān told us; he said: Ibrāhīm ibn ʿAmr al-Ṣanʿānī told me:
Allah revealed to Yūshaʿ ibn Nūn: “I shall destroy from your people forty thousand of their best and sixty thousand of their worst.” He said: “My Lord, what of the best?” He said: “They did not become angry for My sake; they ate and drank with the evildoers (without objection).”
Hishām ibn Muḥammad al-Kalbī claimed: a remnant of the Canaanites survived after Yūshaʿ had slain those he slew. Ifriqīsh ibn Qays ibn Ṣayfī ibn Sabaʾ ibn Kaʿb passed by them en route to Ifrīqiyah (North Africa). He settled there, killed its kings, and settled the surviving Canaanites there; they are the Berbers. They were called Barbar because Ifriqīsh said to them, “How much you babble (mā akthara barbaratakum),” so they were named thus.
They (the historians) said: Yūshaʿ advanced against a certain king, fought him, overcame him, crucified him upon a wooden beam, burned the city, and killed twelve thousand of its people.
The people of another town schemed until he granted them amān (safe-conduct); then their true state became apparent, so he supplicated against them that they become woodcutters and water-carriers, and so they were. Five kings fled and hid in a cave; Yūshaʿ ordered the cave sealed until he had finished with his enemies; then he brought them out, killed them, and crucified them.
He pursued the remaining kings and subdued thirty-one of them, apportioned the land he had conquered, and then passed away. His age was one hundred and ten years, and it is said one hundred and twenty. He was buried in Mount Ephraim. His administration over Banū Isrāʾīl — from the death of Mūsā until his own death — was twenty-seven years: twenty years during the time of Manūshahr and seven years during the time of Afrāsiyāb.
