These views are further supported by the Qur’ānic reading that recites, “with a thousand angels, one contingent after another (mardafīn),” with the dāl pronounced with a fatḥah—and Allah knows best.

Al-Bayhaqī said: Al-Ḥākim narrated to us; al-Aṣamm narrated to us; Muḥammad ibn Sinān al-Qazzār narrated to us; ʿUbayd Allāh ibn ʿAbd al-Majīd Abū ʿAlī al-Ḥanafī narrated to us; ʿUbayd Allāh ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Muhab related to us; Ismāʿīl ibn ʿAwn ibn ʿUbayd Allāh ibn Abī Rāfiʿ informed me, from ʿAbd Allāh ibn Muḥammad ibn ʿUmar ibn ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib, from his father, from his grandfather, who said:

“When the Day of Badr came, I fought for a while and then hurried back to see what the Messenger of Allah ﷺ was doing. I reached him and found him in prostration, repeating, ‘O Living, O Sustainer! O Living, O Sustainer!’—saying nothing else. I returned to the fighting, then came back and found him still prostrating and saying the same. I went back to the fighting once more, then returned to find him again in prostration, repeating those words, until Allah granted victory at his hand.”

Al-Nasāʾī also recorded this report in his work “The Day and the Night,” through Bundār, from ʿUbayd Allāh ibn ʿAbd al-Majīd Abū ʿAlī al-Ḥanafī, with the same chain.

Al-Aʿmash narrated—through Abū Isḥāq, from Abū ʿUbaydah—from ʿAbd Allāh ibn Masʿūd—who said:

“I never heard anyone plead more earnestly than Muhammad ﷺ on the Day of Badr. He kept saying, ‘O Allah, I implore You by Your covenant and Your promise! O Allah, if this band is destroyed, You will not be worshiped [on earth].’ Then he turned, and it was as though one side of his face were the moon. He said, ‘It is as though I can already see where each of these people will fall this evening.’” Al-Nasāʾī transmitted this ḥadīth as well through the narration of al-Aʿmash.

He also said: “When we confronted the enemy on the Day of Badr, the Messenger of Allah ﷺ stood in prayer, and I have never seen anyone claim a right more insistently than the Messenger of Allah ﷺ did on that day …” and he mentioned the rest of the incident.

It is firmly established—in Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim, in the ḥadīth of Anas ibn Mālik cited earlier—that the Prophet ﷺ pointed out the exact spots where the leaders of the idolaters would fall on the Day of Badr. The same will be reported in Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim on the authority of ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb.

Ibn Masʿūd’s narration implies that he made this prediction on the very day of the battle, which is entirely plausible. The other two reports—from Anas and ʿUmar—indicate that he stated it a day earlier. There is no contradiction: he may have informed them one or more days beforehand and then repeated the information an hour before the encounter itself—and Allah knows best.