the  other. The first fort he was to attack was Na‘im, the first defence line with a formidable strategic  position. Marhab, the leader of the fort, invited ‘Amr bin Al-Akwa‘ to meet him in combat and the  latter  responded; when ‘Amr struck the Jew, his sword recoiled and wounded his knee, and he died of that  wound. The Prophet (Peace be upon him) later said: “For him (‘Amir) there is a double reward in the
Hereafter.” He indicated this by putting two of his fingers together. ‘Ali bin Abi Talib then undertook to  meet Marhab in combat, and managed to kill him. Yasir, Marhab’s brother, then turned up challenging  the Muslims to a fight. Az-Zubair was equal to it and killed him on the spot. Real fighting then broke  out  and lasted for a few days. The Jews showed courage and proved to be too formidable even to the  repeated rushes of the veteran soldiers of Islam. However, they later realized the futility of resistance  and began to abandon their positions in An-Na‘im and infiltrate into the fortress of As-Sa‘b.
Al-Hubab bin Al-Mundhir Al-Ansari led the attack on As-Sa‘b fortress and laid siege to it for three days  after which the Muslims stormed it with a lot of booty, provisions and food to fall to their lot therein.
This victory came in the wake of the Prophet’s (Peace be upon him) invocation to Allâh to help Banu
Aslam in their relentless and daring attempts to capture that fort.
During the process of the war operations, extreme hunger struck the Muslims. They lit fires,  slaughtered domestic asses and beto cook them. When the Prophet (Peace be upon him) inquired  about  the fires and cooking, he ordered that they throw away the meat and wash the cooking pots,  forbidding  the practice of eating such meat.
The Jews, meanwhile, evacuated An-Natat and barricaded themselves in Az-Zubair fort, a formidable  defensive position inaccessible to both cavalry and infantry. The Muslims besieged it for three days,  but  in vain. A Jew spy told the Prophet about a subterranean water source that provided them with water,  and advised that it be cut off in order to undermine their resistance. The Prophet (Peace be upon him)  did that so the Jews got out to engage with the Muslims in fierce fighting during which some Muslims  and ten Jews were killed, but the fort was eventually conquered.
Shortly after this battle, the Jews moved to ’Abi Castle and barricaded themselves inside. The same  events recurred; the Muslims besieged the new site for three days and then the great Muslim hero
Abu
Dujanah Sammak bin Kharshah Al-Ansari — of the red ribbon — led the Muslim army and broke into  the  castle, conducted fierce military operations within and forced the remaining Jews to flee for their lives  into another fort, An-Nizar.
An-Nizar was the most powerful fort, and the Jews came to the established conviction that it was too  immune to be stormed, so they deemed it a safe place for their children and women. The Muslims,  however, were not dismayed but dragged on the siege, but because standing at a commanding top,  the  fort was impregnable. The Jews inside were too cowardly to meet the Muslims in open fight but rather  hurled a shower of arrows and stones on the attackers. Considering this situation, the Prophet (Peace  be upon him) ordered that rams be used and these proved effective and caused cracks in the  ramparts  providing an easy access into the heart of the fort, where the Jews were put to rout and fled in all  directions leaving behind their women and children.
With these series of military victories, the first division of Khaibar was totally reduced, and the Jews in  the other minor fortresses evacuated them and fled to the second division.
THE SECOND PART OF OF KHAIBAR CONQURED:
When the Prophet (Peace be upon him), along with his army, moved to this part of Khaibar, Al-Katiba,  he laid a heavy siege to it for fourteen days with the Jews barricading themselves inside their forts.
When he was about to use the rams, the Jews realized that they would perish, therefore, they asked  for  a negotiable peace treaty.
There is one controversial point in this context. Was this part of Khaibar (with its three forts)  conquered  by force? Ibn Ishaq clearly stated that Al-Qamus fort was conquered by force. Al-Waqidi, on the other  hand, maintained that the three forts were taken through peace negotiations, and force, if any, was