—to heap abuse on your men; and now he has gone after the women as well while you merely listen, showing no sense of honor!”

I answered, “By Allah, you are right. I felt no anger except that I denied what he said. Do not provoke him, but if he repeats it, I shall deal with him myself.”

On the third day I went out looking for him, hoping he would utter a word so that I could insult him. By Allah, as I was walking toward him—he was a man sharp-featured, sharp-eyed, and sharp-tongued—he suddenly turned and hurried toward the mosque gate. I said to myself, “O Allah, curse him! Is he running away for fear that I might revile him?”

In fact he had heard what I had not: the voice of Ḍamḍam ibn ʿAmr. Standing on his camel in al-Abṭaḥ, he had turned the saddle around, torn his shirt, and cut his camel’s ears, crying, “People of Quraysh, to the caravan, to the caravan! Your wealth is with Abū Sufyān—Muhammad has attacked it. Help, help!” That occupied him from me and me from him. There was nothing left but to make ready; we set out, and Quraysh suffered what they suffered on the Day of Badr.

ʿĀtikah then said:
“Was not the dream true, and did its proof not come to you?
One by one the warriors fled in disarray.
You claimed that I had lied—yet I did not;
The only one who calls truth a lie is the liar himself.”

Abū Isḥāq said: I heard al-Barāʾ say, “I and Ibn ʿUmar were considered too young on the Day of Badr. We, the Companions of Muhammad, used to say that the number of those present at Badr was three hundred and a little over ten—just like the number of Ṭālūt’s followers who crossed the river with him, and no one crossed it except a believer.” Reported by al-Bukhārī.

He also said: I heard al-Barāʾ say, “The Emigrants on the Day of Badr numbered a little over eighty.”