One day the Negus sent for Jaʿfar ibn Abī Ṭālib and his companions. They entered to find him in a room wearing thread-bare clothes, seated directly on the bare earth.
Jaʿfar relates: “We became anxious when we saw him in that condition. Noticing the look on our faces, he said, ‘I bring you glad tidings that will please you. A messenger of mine has just come from the direction of your land and informed me that Allah has granted victory to His Prophet and destroyed His enemy. So-and-so and so-and-so were taken prisoner, and so-and-so and so-and-so were killed. The armies met in a valley called Badr, rich in arak trees; I can almost see it now, for I once pastured my master’s camels there—a man of Banū Ḍumrah.’
“Jaʿfar asked, ‘Why are you sitting on the ground without a carpet beneath you and wearing these worn clothes?’
“He replied, ‘We find in what Allah revealed to Jesus that it is binding upon the servants of Allah to humble themselves to Him whenever He grants them a blessing. So when Allah granted me the victory of His Prophet ﷺ, I adopted this posture of humility.’
Section: How the news of the casualties at Badr reached their families in Mecca
Ibn Isḥāq said: The first to arrive in Mecca with news of Quraysh’s calamity was al-Haysamān ibn ʿAbd Allah al-Khuzaʿī.
The people asked him, ‘What news do you bring?’
He answered, ‘ʿUtbah ibn Rabīʿah, Shaybah ibn Rabīʿah, Abū al-Ḥakam ibn Hishām, Umayyah ibn Khalaf, Zamʿah ibn al-Aswad, Nabīh and Munabbih, and Abū al-Bukhtarī ibn Hishām have been killed.’ As he went on listing the nobles of Quraysh, Safwān ibn Umayyah exclaimed, ‘By Allah, the man must be out of his senses—ask him about me!’
They said, ‘What happened to Safwān ibn Umayyah?’
He replied, ‘There he is, sitting in the Ḥijr; by Allah, I saw his father and brother when they were slain.’
Mūsā ibn ʿUqbah narrated: When the people of Mecca heard and confirmed the report, the women cut off their hair, and many horses and riding beasts were hamstrung.
Al-Suhaylī, citing Qāsim ibn Thābit’s work Dalāʾil, reports that after the Battle of Badr the people of Mecca heard a supernatural voice from the jinn reciting:
Have the monotheists struck at Badr in fierce array—
A blow that shall topple the thrones of Chosroes and Caesar?
It annihilated warriors of Luʾayy and drove forth maidens,
Unveiled, beating their breasts in anguish.
So woe to whoever has become an enemy of Muhammad;
He has strayed from the path of guidance, bewildered and astray.