They placed a bag of provisions in a leather sack; Asmāʾ daughter of Abū Bakr tore off a strip from her waist-belt and tied it around the mouth of the sack, and for that she was called “the Woman of the Two Waist-bands.”
She said: The Messenger of Allah ﷺ and Abū Bakr then reached a cave in Mount Thawr and stayed there for three nights. ʿAbdullāh son of Abū Bakr—an intelligent, quick-witted youth—would spend the night with them; at the last part of the night he would leave, and at daybreak he would be with Quraysh in Mecca as though he had slept among them. Whatever plot he heard hatched against the two, he memorised, and when night had fully fallen he would bring them the news.
ʿĀmir ibn Fuhayrah, Abū Bakr’s freedman, grazed a small herd (1) of sheep for them. When a portion of the evening had passed he would drive the animals to them, so they spent the night on their milk and supper (2)—that is, the milk of the herd and their evening meal (3)—until ʿĀmir ibn Fuhayrah would call to them at first light (4). He did this every one of those three nights.
The Messenger of Allah ﷺ and Abū Bakr hired a guide from Banū al-Duʾil (5), a man of Banū ʿAbd ibn ʿAdī, an expert tracker—khirrit, meaning one highly skilled at finding the way (6). He had a pact (7) with the clan of al-ʿĀṣ ibn Wāʾil al-Sahmī and followed the religion of the Quraysh idolaters; yet they trusted him, handed over to him their two mounts, and arranged to meet him at the cave of Thawr after three nights, in the morning of the third day (8). ʿĀmir ibn Fuhayrah went with them together with the guide, who led them along the coastal route.
Ibn Shihāb (9) said: ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Mālik al-Mudlijī—Suraqah’s nephew—told me that his father told him that he heard Suraqah ibn Mālik ibn Juʿshum say:
“Messengers from the unbelievers of Quraysh came to us, offering the blood-money of either the Messenger of Allah ﷺ or Abū Bakr to anyone who killed or captured him. While I was sitting in a gathering of my clan, Banū Mudlij, a man came up, stood over us as we sat, and said, ‘Suraqah, I have just seen some silhouettes along the coast (10); I think they are Muḥammad and his companions.’
“I realised that it was indeed them, but I said to him, ‘It is not them; you have only seen so-and-so and so-and-so who have set out…’”