The rearguard had scarcely caught up with ʿAlī when Allah granted victory to him and to the rest of the Muslims.

Yūnus related from Ibn Isḥāq: ʿAbd Allāh ibn al-Ḥasan told me—on the authority of some of his family—from Abū Rāfiʿ, the Prophet’s freedman ﷺ, who said: “We set out with ʿAlī after the Prophet ﷺ had dispatched him carrying his banner. When he drew near the fortress, its defenders sallied out and fought him. One of the Jews struck ʿAlī, knocking his shield from his hand. ʿAlī then seized the gate of the fortress and used it as a shield. It remained in his hand as he fought until Allah granted him victory; afterward he cast it aside. I later saw myself among seven men—making eight in all—straining to turn that gate over, yet we were unable to move it.”

Al-Bakkāʾī also narrated it from Ibn Isḥāq, from Abū Rāfiʿ with a broken chain; in his wording: “ʿAlī picked up a door that was by the fortress,” and the remainder agrees in meaning.

Ismāʿīl ibn Mūsa al-Suddī reported: Muṭlib ibn Ziyād told us, from Layth ibn Abī Sulaym, from Abū Jaʿfar Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī, who said: “I visited him, and he told me that Jābir ibn ʿAbd Allāh said ʿAlī carried the gate on the day of Khaybar until the Muslims climbed over it and captured the fortress; it was later demolished, and even forty men could not lift it.” Fudayl ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhāb corroborated Muṭlib’s report.

Yūnus ibn Bukayr transmitted from Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Abī Laylā, from al-Ḥakam and al-Minhāl ibn ʿAmr, from ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Abī Laylā, who said: “ʿAlī would wear, in both intense heat and winter cold, a thickly padded qabāʾ and pay no heed to the temperature. My companions came to me and said, ‘We have noticed something about the Commander of the Believers—have you seen it?’ I asked, ‘What is it?’ They replied, ‘We have seen him come out to us in the searing heat wearing that qabāʾ…’”