in the guise of Suraqah ibn Mālik ibn Juʿshum.
Satan then said to the idolaters:
“No one can overcome you today, and I am indeed your protector.” (Qur’an 8:48)
When the two lines had formed, Abū Jahl cried out, “O Allah, grant victory to the party that is closer to the truth.”
The Messenger of Allah ﷺ raised his hands and prayed,
“O Lord, if this small band is destroyed, You will never again be worshipped on earth.”
Gabriel said to him, “Take a handful of dust.” He took a handful and flung it at them; there was not a single idolater whose eyes, nostrils, and mouth were not filled with dust from that throw, and they turned and fled.
Gabriel advanced toward Iblīs. When Iblīs saw him—his hand still clasping the hand of one of the polytheists—he tore his hand away and fled with his followers. The man called out, “O Suraqah, did you not claim to be our ally?” He replied,
“Indeed, I see what you do not see; indeed, I fear Allah, and Allah is severe in punishment.” (Qur’an 8:48)
This occurred when he beheld the angels. Al-Bayhaqī relates it in Dalāʾil al-Nubuwwah.
Al-Ṭabarānī (1) reported: Masʿadah ibn Saʿd al-ʿAṭṭār told us; Ibrāhīm ibn al-Munḏir al-Ḥizāmī told us; ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz ibn ʿImrān told us; Hishām ibn Saʿd, from ʿAbd Rabbih ibn Saʿīd ibn Qays al-Anṣārī, from Rafāʿah ibn Rāfiʿ, who said:
When Iblīs saw what the angels were doing to the idolaters on the Day of Badr he feared that [the killing] might reach him. Al-Ḥārith ibn Hishām clung to him, thinking he was Suraqah ibn Mālik, so he jabbed al-Ḥārith in the chest and knocked him down, then fled until he hurled himself into the sea, raising his hands and saying, “O Allah, I ask that You spare me Your gaze!” He was afraid that the slaughter would reach him.
Abū Jahl then came forward and said, “People, let not (2) the desertion of Suraqah ibn Mālik alarm you—he had an understanding with Muhammad. Nor let the deaths of Shaybah, ʿUtbah, and al-Walīd disturb you; their fate was simply hastened. By al-Lāt and al-ʿUzzā, we shall not return until we scatter them among the mountains (3). Let me not find one of you killing a man; rather, seize them alive so that you may show them the evil of their deed in abandoning you and turning away from al-Lāt and al-ʿUzzā.”
He then declaimed in rajaz verse:
“What can the scorching, tireless war reproach me for?—
A prime bull-camel, two full years old, my teeth still fresh;
It was for such a day that my mother bore me.”
Al-Wāqidī (4) narrated—through Mūsā ibn Yaʿqūb al-Zamʿī, [from his uncle] (5), from Abū Bakr ibn Abī Sulaymān ibn (6) Abī Ḥathmah—that he heard Marwān ibn al-Ḥakam ask Ḥakīm ibn Ḥizām about the Day of Badr, but the old man was reluctant