When the news reached the Messenger of Allah ﷺ, he summoned Ḥudhayfah ibn al-Yamān and dispatched him by night to find out what the enemy were doing.
Yazīd ibn Abī Ziyād narrated to me from Muḥammad ibn Kaʿb al-Quraẓī who said: A man from Kufa once asked Ḥudhayfah, “Abū ʿAbd-Allāh, did you see the Messenger of Allah ﷺ and keep his company?” He replied, “Yes, my nephew.”
The man said, “How did you conduct yourselves in his presence?” Ḥudhayfah answered, “By Allah, we were put to great hardship.” The man exclaimed, “By Allah, had we been there we would never have let him set foot on the ground—we would have carried him on our shoulders!” Ḥudhayfah responded, “My nephew, by Allah, I remember us with the Messenger of Allah ﷺ at the Trench. He prayed for a portion of the night, then turned to us and said, ‘Who will rise, go and see what the enemy have done, and then return?’—and the Messenger of Allah ﷺ guaranteed that he would be allowed to come back—‘I shall ask Allah to make him my companion in Paradise.’
“No one stood up because of the intense fear, hunger, and cold. When no one volunteered, he called me, and once he had called me I had no choice but to rise. He said, ‘Hudhayfah, go and slip in among the enemy; find out what they are doing, and do not do anything until you return to us.’
“So I went and merged into their camp while the wind and the hosts of Allah battered them—no fire would stay lit for them, no tent or structure remained standing. Abu Sufyān then stood and said, ‘People of Quraysh, let each man verify who is sitting next to him.’
“I at once grabbed the hand of the man beside me and asked, ‘Who are you?’ He replied, ‘So-and-so, son of So-and-so.’
“Then Abu Sufyān said, ‘People of Quraysh, by Allah, this is no place to linger. Our horses and camels have perished; Banū Qurayẓah have broken faith with us and we have heard from them what we hate; the violent wind you see has struck us—no pot stays upright for us, no fire remains alight, no shelter holds together. Break camp, for I am breaking camp.’
“He then went to his camel—which was hobbled—sat upon it, struck it, and it leaped up on three legs. By Allah, he had not even loosed its hobble before it was standing. Had it not been for