Burdah transmitted—through Abū Burdah—from Abū Mūsā al-Ashʿarī that the Prophet ﷺ said:
“I saw in a dream that I was emigrating from Mecca to a land in which there are date-palms. My first thought was that it might be Yamāmah or Hajar, but it turned out to be Madinah, Yathrib. In that same vision I shook a sword and its blade broke off near the hilt; that represented those believers who were struck down on the Day of Uhud. I then shook it a second time and it became better than it had ever been; that was the conquest and the subsequent unity that Allah brought about. I also saw cattle, and Allah brings only good; they signified a group of believers at Uhud, while the ‘good’ referred to the bounty and the reward for truthfulness that Allah granted us after Badr.”
Al-Bayhaqī (2) said: Abū ʿAbd Allah al-Ḥāfiẓ told us, al-Aṣamm told us, Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allah ibn ʿAbd al-Ḥakam told us, Ibn Wahb told us, Ibn Abī al-Zinād informed me, from his father, from ʿUbayd Allah ibn ʿAbd Allah ibn ʿUtbah, from Ibn ʿAbbās, who said:
“The Messenger of Allah ﷺ chose for himself the sword Dhū al-Faqār on the Day of Badr. It is the same sword,” Ibn ʿAbbās added, “about which he saw the dream on the Day of Uhud. When the idolaters came upon him at Uhud, his own view was to remain in Madinah and fight them there. But some men who had not been at Badr said, ‘Go out with us, O Messenger of Allah, and let us meet them at Uhud,’ hoping to attain the merit gained by the people of Badr. They kept pressing the Messenger of Allah ﷺ until he donned his battle-gear. Then they regretted it and said, ‘O Messenger of Allah, stay; your judgment is best.’ He replied:
‘It is not fitting for a prophet, once he has put on his armour, to remove it until Allah has judged between him and his enemy.’
He went on to say: ‘Earlier today, before I put on my armour, I told you that I had seen myself in a strong coat of mail—which I interpreted as Madinah; that I was riding behind a ram—which I interpreted as the ram of the army; that my sword, Dhū al-Faqār, had developed a notch—which I interpreted as a wound among you; and that I saw cattle being slaughtered—cattle, and Allah brings only good.’ Tirmidhī and Ibn Mājah have also related this ḥadīth from ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Abī al-Zinād, from his father, with the same wording (3).
Al-Bayhaqī (4) likewise reports—through Ḥammād ibn Salamah, from ʿAlī ibn Zayd, from Anas—in a marfūʿ narration that the Prophet said:
“In a dream I saw that I was riding behind a ram, and that the edge of my sword was broken. I interpreted that I would slay the ram of the people, and that the breaking of my sword’s edge signified the killing of a man from my own household.”
Thus Ḥamzah was killed, and the Messenger of Allah ﷺ slew Ṭalḥah, who had been the standard-bearer.
Mūsā ibn ʿUqbah said: Quraysh then returned and summoned every idol-worshipper of Arabia who would answer their call. Abū Sufyān ibn Ḥarb marched at the head of the Quraysh forces in Shawwāl of the year following Badr until they camped in the valley of