People of the Ditch (Arabic: أصحاب الأخدود, romanized: ʿaṣ'ḥābu l-ʿukhdūdi) is a story mentioned in Surah Al-Burooj of the Qur'an.
As the magician grew old and his lifetime was nearly over, he asked the King to choose a smart boy to learn sihr (Arabic: سِـحْـر, magic) from him.
The main text and English translation of the verses are in the following table: Then the Qur'an adds that they were killed in this way only because they believed in Allah.
Then it mentioned the fate of torturers in verses 8 to 10: The full detailed story of the Islamic narrative about the burning of the devout peoples in the trench were found in a long Hadith transmitted by Ṣuhayb ibn Sinan and on the authority of Sahih Muslim record as following:[4][5][6][7] Muhammad told the story of anonymous king who forced his peoples to worship him.
for following days onward, the young men to seek for reasons about his late arrival for his training, while he continues to listen to the teaching of the priest.
However, as the boy was about to be thrown from the top, he prayed, which caused the mountain miraculously shaken in a sudden, killed all the king's soldiers who escorting him, while leaving him unharmed.
throwing all the peoples who converted to the ditch, including womens and babies.This narrative was told in several later era chronicles, such as Al-Sirah al-Nabawiyyah by Ibn Hisham.
[8][9][10] Ibn Ishaq chronicle, which was translated to English language by Alfred Guillaume, interpreted this passage to be an allusion to the killing of the Christians of Najran by order of the King Dhu Nuwas.
[12] In Shia Islam tradition, It was reported by Shaykh Tabarsi in Majma' al-Bayan; that companions of Daniyal (Daniel) were burned in a ditch.
[16] The Ashab al-Ukhdud were considered as Shahid, or martyrs in Islam, due to their sacrifice to keep their faith despite being threatened to be thrown in a ditch of which lit with fire by Dhu Nuwas, a king of Himyarite Kingdom which embrace Judaism.
[17] It was popularly believed the event occurred in modern day Al-Ukhdud, a historical place located 5 km (3.1 miles) south of Najran city in Saudi Arabia.
Abu Ishaq al-Tha'labi recorded some chronicles that it happened several times in several places such as Yemen, Constantinople, Babylon, Iraq, and Al-Sham; and that this story is not about just one such event.