Al-Umawī also records the account in his Maghāzī, adding after Saʿd’s declaration: “Take from our possessions whatever you wish and give us whatever you wish; what you take is dearer to us than what you leave behind. Issue any command and we shall obey. By Allah, even if you march until you reach the pools of Ghamdān, we shall march with you.”

Ibn Isḥāq relates that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ then set out from Dhafrān. He crossed the mountain passes known as al-Aṣāfir and descended into a locality called al-Dabbah, leaving al-Ḥannān—a huge sand-hill resembling a great mountain—on his right. He halted near Badr and mounted together with one of his Companions.

Ibn Hishām notes that this Companion was Abū Bakr.

Ibn Isḥāq—on the authority of Muḥammad ibn Yaḥyā ibn Ḥabbān—continues: The Prophet ﷺ stopped at an elderly Arab and questioned him about Quraysh, about Muḥammad and his Companions, and what reports had reached him.

The old man replied, “I will not inform you until you tell me who you are.”

The Messenger of Allah ﷺ said, “If you give us your information, we will tell you.”

The man asked, “One for one?”

He answered, “Yes.”

The old man said, “It has reached me that Muḥammad and his Companions left on such-and-such a day. If my source is truthful, they are today at such-and-such a place”—naming the very spot where the Messenger of Allah ﷺ actually was. “And it has reached me that Quraysh left on such-and-such a day. If my source is truthful, they are today at such-and-such a place”—meaning the place where Quraysh then were.

When he had finished he asked, “So who are you?”

The Messenger of Allah ﷺ replied, “We are from water,” and departed.

The narrator adds: The old man kept saying, “From water? Do you mean the waters of Iraq?”

Ibn Hishām remarks that this elder was Sufyān al-Ḍumari.

Ibn Isḥāq continues: The Messenger of Allah ﷺ returned to his Companions. When evening fell he dispatched ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib, al-Zubayr ibn al-ʿAwwām, and Saʿd ibn Abī Waqqāṣ with a number of men to the spring of Badr to gather intelligence, as related by Yazīd ibn Rūmān from ʿUrwah ibn al-Zubayr. They captured a water-skin of Quraysh in the charge of Aslam, the servant of Banū al-Ḥajjāj, and ʿArīḍ Abū Yasār, the servant of Banū al-ʿĀṣ ibn Saʿīd. They brought the two back and questioned them while the Messenger of Allah ﷺ was standing in prayer.

The prisoners said, “We are the water carriers of Quraysh; they sent us to draw water for them.” The men disliked that answer, hoping the captives belonged to Abū Sufyān,