of glory and high standing, Kaʿb and Kilāb would not have stayed away, and I would have wished that you had done what they did. So who has actually come?”

They replied, “ʿAmr ibn ʿĀmir and ʿAwf ibn ʿĀmir.” He said, “Those two youngsters are neither harmful nor helpful.”

Mālik disliked the idea that Durayd should have a voice in the matter, so he declared, “You have grown old, and your knowledge has grown old with you. By Allah, O people of Hawāzin, you will obey me, or I shall lean on this sword until it comes out of my back.” They said, “We obey you.”

Mālik then told the people, “When you sight the enemy, smash the sheaths of your swords and then charge as one man.”

Al-Wāqidī relates: The Messenger of Allah ﷺ set out from Mecca six days into Shawwāl at the head of 12,000 men. Abū Bakr remarked, “Today we shall not be defeated for lack of numbers.” They arrived at Ḥunayn ten days into Shawwāl. The Prophet ﷺ ordered his Companions to form their ranks, assigning the banners and standards to their bearers. He mounted his mule, put on two coats of mail, and donned a chain-mail hood and a helmet.

There confronted them from the Hawāzin something the like of which they had never seen for sheer blackness and multitude, and that was in the dim light of dawn. The battalions poured out from the narrow defiles of the valley and its side gullies and launched a single, united assault. The cavalry of Banū Sulaym broke and fled; the Meccans followed them, and the people followed after.

The Messenger of Allah ﷺ kept calling, “O helpers of Allah and helpers of His Messenger! I am the servant of Allah and His Messenger!”

Those who stood firm with him that day were: his uncle al-ʿAbbās and al-Faḍl his son, ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib, Abū Sufyān ibn al-Ḥārith ibn ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib, his brother Rabīʿa, Abū Bakr, ʿUmar, Usāma ibn Zayd, and a number of others.

Yūnus narrated from Ibn Isḥāq, who said: ʿUmayya ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAmr told me