So they beat the two of them, and when the blows began to wear them down, the captives said, “We belong to Abū Sufyān.” The men therefore let them go. Meanwhile the Messenger of Allah ﷺ bowed, performed the two prostrations, and concluded his prayer. He then said,

“When they tell you the truth you strike them, and when they lie you spare them! By Allah, they have spoken truthfully—they are with Quraysh. Now tell me about Quraysh.”

They replied, “They are behind that sand-dune you see on the far side of the valley.” (The dune was known as al-ʿAqnqal.)

The Messenger of Allah ﷺ asked, “How many are the people?”

They said, “Many.”

He asked, “What is their number?”

They answered, “We do not know.”

He said, “How many camels do they slaughter each day?”

They replied, “One day nine, another day ten.”

The Messenger of Allah ﷺ concluded, “They are between nine hundred and a thousand.”

He then asked, “Which of Quraysh’s nobles are with them?”

They said, “ʿUtbah ibn Rabīʿah, Shaybah ibn Rabīʿah, Abū al-Bukhtarī ibn Hishām, Ḥakīm ibn Ḥizām, Nawfal ibn Khuwaylid, al-Ḥārith ibn ʿĀmir ibn Nawfal, Ṭuʿaymah ibn ʿAdiyy ibn Nawfal, al-Naḍr ibn al-Ḥārith, Zamʿah ibn al-Aswad, Abū Jahl ibn Hishām, Umayyah ibn Khalaf, Nubayh and Munabbih the sons of al-Ḥajjāj, Suhayl ibn ʿAmr, and ʿAmr ibn ʿAbd Wudd.”

The Messenger of Allah ﷺ then turned to the Muslims and said, “Here is Mecca casting forth to you the very pieces of its liver!”

Ibn Isḥāq relates: Basbas ibn ʿAmr and ʿAdiyy ibn Abī al-Zaghbāʾ had already gone on ahead until they reached Badr, where they dismounted by a small rise near the water. They had with them a waterskin from which to draw. Majdī ibn ʿAmr al-Juhanī was in charge of the water there. Basbas and ʿAdiyy overheard two servant girls of the encampment arguing at the well. One of them said to the other, “The caravan will come tomorrow or the day after; work for them now, then I will pay you what I owe.”

Majdī said, “She speaks the truth,” and separated them. Basbas and ʿAdiyy heard this, mounted their camels, and hurried back to the Messenger of Allah ﷺ to report what they had heard.

Abū Sufyān, meanwhile, had ridden ahead of the caravan on high alert until he reached the water. He asked Majdī ibn ʿAmr, “Have you noticed anyone?”

Majdī answered, “I saw no one suspicious—only two riders who dismounted by that rise, filled a waterskin, and then rode off.” Abū Sufyān went to the spot where they had been, picked up some of the droppings of their camels, crumbled them, and found date stones inside. “This, by Allah, is fodder from Yathrib,” he said.

He hurried back to his companions, turned the caravan off the main road, took the coastal route—leaving Badr to his left—and pressed on at speed.

Quraysh advanced. When they camped at al-Juhfah, Juhaym ibn al-Ṣalt ibn Makhramah ibn al-Muṭṭalib ibn ʿAbd Manāf had a dream. He said, “As I dozed, half asleep and half awake, I saw a man riding a horse approach, leading a camel beside him. He announced: ‘ʿUtbah ibn Rabīʿah, Shaybah ibn Rabīʿah, Abū al-Ḥakam ibn Hishām, Umayyah ibn Khalaf, and so-and-so and so-and-so have been killed,’” counting the men who in fact fell on the Day of Badr