and saw some of their horses. He climbed up on one of the slopes of Mount Salʿ and cried out, “Alarm! Alarm!” He then sprinted after the raiders—moving like a wild beast—until he caught up with them. With his arrows he kept forcing them back; whenever the horsemen turned toward him he would retreat, then reappear ahead of them, and whenever he found an opening he let fly another shot.

When news of this reached the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, he called out in Medina, “To arms! To arms!” Riders hurried to the Prophet: al-Miqdād, ʿAbbād ibn Bishr, Usayd ibn Ẓuḥayr, ʿUkkāshah ibn Miḥṣan, and others. He placed Saʿd ibn Zayd over them and said, “Set out in pursuit of the enemy; I shall overtake you.”

It has also reached me that the Messenger of Allah said to Abū ʿIyāsh, “If only you had given your horse to someone who rides better than you!” I replied, “O Messenger of Allah, I am the best horseman there is.” I struck the horse, but—by Allah—it had not taken me more than fifty cubits before it threw me. I was astonished that the Messenger of Allah had said, “If only you had given it to someone better mounted than you,” and at the reply I had given him.

Salamah ibn al-Akwaʿ was not mounted that day, yet he was the first to catch up with the raiders on foot. The mounted pursuers followed after them, and the first to reach them was Muḥriz ibn Naḍlah al-Asadī. He overtook them, stood in their path and said, “Stand fast, you sons of cowards, until the Muslims coming behind you arrive!” One of them charged at him and killed him; he was the only Muslim slain that day.

ʿAbd al-Malik ibn Hishām adds: That day another Muslim, Waqāṣ ibn Mujazziz al-Mudlijī, was also killed.

Al-Bakkāʾī, reporting from Ibn Isḥāq, says: Someone I do not doubt told me on the authority of ʿAbd Allah ibn Kaʿb ibn Mālik that Mujazziz had in fact been riding ʿUkkāshah’s horse, which was called