Al-Bukhārī recorded this report through Yaʿqūb al-Dawraqī and others, and Muslim through ʿAmr ibn Zurārah, from Hishīm, from Abū Hāshim Yaḥyā ibn Dīnār al-Rummānī al-Wāsiṭī, from Abū Majliz Lāḥiq ibn Ḥumayd al-Sadūsī al-Baṣrī. It is counted among the abdal al-ʿawālī, the loftiest single-transmitter chains.

ʿUbaydah ibn al-Ḥārith ibn al-Muṭṭalib ibn ʿAbd Manāf ibn Quṣayy al-Muṭṭalibī—his mother was from the Thaqīf tribe—was ten years older than the Prophet ﷺ. He, Abū Salamah ibn ʿAbd al-Asad, and ʿUthmān ibn Maẓʿūn embraced Islam at the same time.

He and his two brothers, al-Tufayl and al-Ḥuṣayn, later migrated. ʿUbaydah enjoyed an eminent standing with the Prophet ﷺ; he was of medium stature and handsome, and he died at al-Ṣafrāʾ. He was the one who duelled with ʿUtbah ibn Rabīʿah; they exchanged two blows, each wounding the other fatally, as mentioned earlier.

The Prophet ﷺ had outfitted him in command of sixty mounted Emigrants and placed him at their head. The first banner the Prophet ﷺ ever entrusted was the banner of ʿUbaydah. He met a Quraysh contingent led by Abū Sufyān at Thaniyyat al-Murrah, and that encounter was the very first armed clash in Islam, as stated by Muḥammad ibn Isḥāq.

Ibn Isḥāq and others also narrated—from al-Zuhrī, from ʿAbd Allāh ibn Thaʿlabah ibn Ṣaʿīr—that the one who invoked a decisive judgment (istiftāḥ) on the Day of Badr was Abū Jahl. When the two armies faced one another, he prayed: “O Allah, the one of us who has severed kinship ties and brought us something we do not recognise—destroy him this morning.”

Abū Jahl was killed, and in reference to him the verse was revealed: “If you sought a decisive judgment, then a decisive judgment has come to you” (Al-Anfāl, 19).

Muʿādh ibn Muʿādh related: Shuʿbah narrated to us, from ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd—servant of al-Zayyādī—who heard Anas say that Abū Jahl declared: “O Allah, if this is indeed the truth from You…”