Ibn Hishām relates—on the authority of Abū ʿAmr ibn al-ʿAlāʾ, from Abū ʿAmr al-Madani—that he said: “Their commander was Makraz ibn Ḥafṣ.”

I add: al-Wāqidī transmits two opinions on the matter: one that it was Makraz, and another that it was Abū Sufyān Ṣakhr ibn Ḥarb, preferring the latter. Allah knows best.

Ibn Isḥāq then cites the ode attributed to Abū Bakr al-Ṣiddīq concerning this expedition, opening with:

Is it the phantom of Salmā on those low, soft plains
that robbed you of sleep, while misfortune visits the clan?
You see among the sons of Luʾayy a faction
whom neither reminder nor any caller can turn from unbelief.
A truthful Messenger came to them, yet they cried him a liar
and said, “You shall not remain among us.”
Whenever we summon them to the truth they turn away,
snarling like panting, shackled she-dogs.

The poem continues to its end.

Ibn Isḥāq also gives the rejoinder composed by ʿAbd Allāh ibn al-Zibʿarā in refutation, which begins:

Do you weep at a homestead whose traces weeds have effaced,
shedding tears that soon run dry?
Strange indeed are the days—and all of time is wondrous—
filled with marvels, both bygone and new.
A fierce host came upon us,
led by ʿUbaydah—called in the fray the son of Ḥārith.
Should we forsake the idols of Mecca, round which worshippers throng—
an inheritance nobly handed down to its heirs?

He quotes the remainder of the ode, yet we have omitted it because Imām ʿAbd al-Malik ibn Hishām—may Allah have mercy on him—himself a master of Arabic, states that most scholars of poetry reject both poems as inauthentic.

Ibn Isḥāq further relates that Saʿd ibn Abī Waqqāṣ said, regarding the arrow he loosed that day:

Has word reached the Messenger of Allah that I
protected my companions with the tips of my arrows?
I drove back their vanguard time and again,
across every rugged height and every plain.
No archer, O Messenger of Allah, can claim
a shot against the foe before mine.
For your religion is a faith of truth,
a rightful, noble message you have brought.
By it the believers are saved, and by it
the unbelievers are disgraced when they stand for judgment.
So wait awhile—you have strayed; do not revile me,
O misguided man of the clan—woe to you, son of ignorance!