The Battle and the Captive
The Banu Mustaliq were a tribal group that had planned to attack the Muslims. The Prophet launched a pre-emptive campaign in 628 CE (the Battle of al-Muraysi’). The tribe was defeated and captives taken, including Juwayriyya, who was a chief’s daughter and previously married to a man killed in the battle.
She was assigned to a Companion as a captive. She came to the Prophet asking for help with her ransom contract (mukatabah). The Prophet offered to pay her ransom himself and marry her. She accepted.
The Liberation
When the Companions learned that the Prophet had married a woman from Banu Mustaliq, they released their own captives from that tribe voluntarily — without any command — reasoning that the Prophet’s wife’s tribe could not be in their captivity.
The number varies in sources from 70 to 100 families. Whatever the exact number, the single marriage had a cascading effect of liberation across a community.
Her Life After
Juwayriyya’s father, al-Harith ibn Abi Dirar, came to Medina to ransom his daughter — then converted to Islam himself. She narrated hadiths and lived until approximately 670 CE, the last of the Prophet’s major wives to die.
See also: Seerah Safiyya Bint Huyayy, Seerah Aisha, Seerah Khadijah, Prophet Muhammad, Fiqh Al Nikah, Hijra