During the night a voice was heard from the heights of Abū Qubays:

If the two Saʿds embrace Islam, then Muhammad shall awake
in Mecca unafraid of any opponent’s dissent.

At daybreak Abū Sufyān said, “Who are these two Saʿds? Saʿd ibn Bakr or Saʿd ibn Hudhaym?”

On the second night they again heard a voice reciting:

O Saʿd—Saʿd of Aws—be a steadfast helper,
and O Saʿd—Saʿd of the noble Khazraj—stand as a champion!
Answer the Caller of guidance and hope from God
in Paradise for the wish of one who truly knows.
For God’s reward to the seeker of guidance
is the gardens of Paradise, canopied in shade.

When morning came Abū Sufyān said, “By God, it means Saʿd ibn Muʿādh and Saʿd ibn ʿUbādah.”

Section

Ibn Isḥāq relates (1): When the Anṣār who had pledged allegiance to the Messenger of God—may God bless him and grant him peace—on the night of the Second ʿAqabah returned to Madinah, they declared their Islam openly. Yet among their clans there remained a few elders who still clung to idolatry. One of these was ʿAmr ibn al-Jamūḥ ibn Zayd ibn Ḥarām ibn Kaʿb ibn Ghanm ibn Kaʿb ibn Salamah. His son Muʿādh ibn ʿAmr had attended the ʿAqabah. ʿAmr ibn al-Jamūḥ was a leader and noble of Banū Salamah. In his house he had set up a wooden idol named Manāt—as the notables used to do—treating it as a god, revering it and keeping it ritually clean.

After the young men of Banū Salamah—his son Muʿādh and Muʿādh ibn Jabal—had embraced Islam, they would slip out at night, carry the idol away, and dump it head-down in one of the refuse pits of Banū Salamah where people threw their filth.

When morning came ʿAmr would say, “Woe to you! Who has attacked our god this night?” He would go in search of it, and when he found it he would wash, cleanse, and perfume it, saying, “By God, if I knew who has done this to you I would disgrace him!” Yet each evening, once ʿAmr had fallen asleep, they would repeat the same deed. Every dawn he would find the idol defiled, wash and scent it anew, and every night they would do the same again.

After they had done this many times, he once retrieved the idol, washed and purified it, then brought his sword, hung it upon the idol and said, “By God, I do not know who keeps doing this to you. If there is any good in you, defend yourself—here is the sword with you.”

That night, after ʿAmr had gone to sleep, they came, removed the sword from its neck, tied a dead dog to it with a rope, and hurled the idol into one of the wells of Banū Salamah filled with people’s refuse. At dawn ʿAmr ibn al-Jamūḥ could not find it in its usual place, so he went out searching for it. When he finally located it in that well, upside-down