of Ḥudaybiyyah we were one thousand four hundred.’ Authentic.

Al-Aʿmash narrated—through Abū Sufyān, from Jābir—‘In the year of Ḥudaybiyyah we sacrificed seventy camels; one camel covered seven men.’ We asked Jābir, ‘How many of you were there that day?’ He answered, ‘One thousand four hundred, counting both our horsemen and our infantry.’

The same number was affirmed by al-Barāʾ ibn ʿĀzib, Maʿqil ibn Yasār, Salamah ibn al-Akwaʿ (in the sounder of the two reports from him), and al-Musayyab ibn Ḥazm, in the chain that runs: Qatādah—Saʿīd—from his father.

Al-Bukhārī said: Maʿmar transmitted from al-Zuhrī, from ʿUrwah, from al-Miswar and Marwān ibn al-Ḥakam—each one corroborating the account of the other—that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ set out during the year of Ḥudaybiyyah with some fourteen hundred of his Companions. When they reached Dhū al-Ḥulayfah, the Messenger of Allah ﷺ garlanded and marked the sacrificial animals and entered iḥrām for ʿumrah. He then dispatched ahead of him a scout from the tribe of Khuzaʿah to bring him news about Quraysh.

He continued until, at ʿAdhbatu al-Ashṭāṭ, near ʿUsfān, the Khuzaʿī scout returned and said, ‘I left Kaʿb ibn Luʾay and ʿĀmir ibn Luʾay mustering forces against you; they are resolved to fight you and to bar you from the House.’ The Prophet ﷺ said, ‘Give me your counsel: do you think we should strike at the families of those who have aided them, seizing them, so that if they remain, they remain bereft, and if—’