Hishām also transmitted it from Qatādah, from Zurārah, from Abū Hurayrah (1)—and Allah knows best.

Al-Bukhārī (2) recorded: “Yahyā ibn Bukayr related to us; al-Layth related to us; from ʿUqayl; from Ibn Shihāb; from ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Kaʿb ibn Mālik—that ʿAbd Allāh ibn Kaʿb said: I heard Kaʿb ibn Mālik say, ‘I never stayed behind the Messenger of Allah ﷺ in any expedition he led except the expedition of Tabūk—though I did stay behind at Badr, and Allah did not censure anyone who stayed back from it. The Messenger of Allah ﷺ had only set out in pursuit of a Quraysh caravan, until Allah brought them together with their enemy without prior arrangement.’ He alone reported this.”

Ibn Isḥāq (3) said: “The Messenger of Allah ﷺ then followed his route from Madinah toward Mecca: first by the city pass, then al-ʿAqīq, then Dhū al-Ḥulayfah, then Ulat al-Jaysh. He passed Turbān, then Malal, then Ghamīs al-Ḥamām, then Sukhayrāt al-Yamāmah, then al-Sayyalah, then the Fajj of al-Rawḥāʾ, then Shanūkah—the level road—until, when he reached ʿIrq al-Dhabyah, he met a Bedouin. They asked him about the people, but he had no information. The people said to him, ‘Greet the Messenger of Allah ﷺ.’ He asked, ‘Is the Messenger of Allah ﷺ among you?’ They replied, ‘Yes.’ So he greeted him and then said, ‘If you are truly the Messenger of Allah, tell me what is inside the belly of this she-camel of mine.’

Salamah ibn Salāmah ibn Waqsh said to him, ‘Do not ask the Messenger of Allah ﷺ; come over to me and I will tell you: I mounted her, and she is carrying your fetus.’ The Messenger of Allah ﷺ replied, ‘Enough! You have spoken obscenely to the man.’ He then turned away from Salamah.

The Messenger of Allah ﷺ stopped at Sajsaj—a well in al-Rawḥāʾ—then moved on. When he had travelled some distance, he left the Meccan road to his left and turned right along al-Nāziyah, heading for Badr. He continued along one of its tracks until, after crossing a valley called Ruḥqān (4) lying between al-Nāziyah and the pass of al-Ṣafrāʾ, he climbed the pass and descended on the other side. When he drew near to al-Ṣafrāʾ, he dispatched Basbas ibn ʿAmr al-Juhanī, an ally of the Banū Sāʿidah, and ʿAdiyy ibn Abī al-Zaghbāʾ, an ally of the Banū al-Najjār, to Badr to gather intelligence about Abū Sufyān Ṣakhr ibn Ḥarb and his caravan.

Mūsā ibn ʿUqbah (6) stated: ‘He had sent the two men before he left Madinah; when they returned and informed him about the caravan, he summoned the people to pursue it.’ If the accounts of Mūsā ibn ʿUqbah and Ibn Isḥāq are sound, then he must have dispatched them twice—and Allah knows best.