Ibn Isḥāq relates: The Prophet ﷺ continued on his way until he camped at Marr ad-Dhahrān with ten thousand men. The tribe of Sulaym mustered seven hundred—some say a full thousand—and Muzaynah likewise produced one thousand. Not a single Emigrant or Helper stayed behind.

Al-ʿAbbās had met the Messenger of Allah ﷺ on the road; ʿAbd al-Malik ibn Hishām states that this encounter took place at al-Juhfah as he was emigrating with his household.

Ibn Isḥāq also reports that Abū Sufyān ibn al-Ḥārith ibn ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib and ʿAbd Allāh ibn Abī Umayyah ibn al-Mughīrah met the Messenger of Allah ﷺ at Niq al-ʿAqab, a point between Mecca and Medina. They sought permission to see him, whereupon Umm Sulaym interceded, saying, “Messenger of Allah, he is your cousin, and the other is the son of your aunt and your brother-in-law.” He replied, “I have no need of them. As for my cousin, he violated my honor; as for the son of my aunt, he is the one who said to me in Mecca what he said.”

When those words reached them, Abū Sufyān declared, “By Allah, he will admit me, or else I shall take this son of mine by the hand and wander the earth until we die of thirst and hunger.” When the Messenger of Allah ﷺ heard this, he was moved to pity, admitted them, and they both embraced Islam. Abū Sufyān then recited:

By your life, the day I bore a banner high—
That Lat’s cavalry might vanquish Muhammad’s—
I was like a night-bound traveler, lost in pitch-black gloom;
The moment has come for guidance and right direction.
A guide not my own self has led me aright,
And with Allah I have gained what I had driven far away.
I long strove to shun Muhammad and keep my distance,
Yet now I am called, though I claim no blood from Muhammad.

They say that when he recited these lines before the Prophet ﷺ, the Prophet struck him on the chest and said, “You were the one who drove me away time after time!”

Saʿīd ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz narrated, on the authority of ʿAṭiyyah ibn Qays, from Abū Saʿīd