8 Yet at Badr—ask the men you met that day—
For tidings from the unseen still profit those who heed.

9 We stand in the land of fear; had its people been other than us,
They would have slipped away by night and vanished from sight.

10 Whenever a rider of ours returns, his very first words are,
“Make ready for what Ibn Ḥarb is driving and mustering!”

11 Whatever schemes the people devise to harm us,
We are, beyond all others, more than equal to them.

12 Had all creation conspired against anyone but us,
They would have stretched out their hands in submission and scattered.

13 We fight till no tribe remains untouched by our blows,
Save that it is seized with awe and dread.

14 When they encamped at al-ʿArḍ our nobles declared:
“Why sow the land if we will not guard our honour?”

15 The Messenger of God is in our midst; we obey his command.
When he speaks, we look to no other voice.

16 Upon him the Spirit descends from his Lord—
Down from the vault of heaven and up again.

17 We consult him on our aims; and when he wills,
We submit—obedient, attentive.

18 And the Messenger of God said, when the foe faced us:
“Cast from yourselves the dread of death and aspire!

19 Be like a man who sells his life to draw near to a King
With whom he lives and to whom he will return.

20 But take up your swords and put your trust in Allah;
All matters belong to Allah altogether.”

21 So we marched on them openly, in their very tents, at high noon,
Our bright blades aloft, unbowed and unafraid.

22 A close-packed force whose claws and lances bristled:
When their hooves struck the earth they never flinched.

23 We reached a billow of men—mid-sea a swarm of allies,
Some bare-headed, others helmed.

24 Three thousand they numbered; we were a chosen band—
Three hundred, and at most three hundred four.

25 We raided them, death coursing between the ranks;
We grappled at the pool of doom and drank its water.

26 Nabʿ-wood bows passed to and fro among us and them—
Only Medinan shafts, clean-cut and lethal.

27 Barbed Ḥaramī-Saʿadī arrows,
Dusted with venom at the hour they were made.

28 At times they plunged into men’s bodies; at others
They hissed past faces with a rattling whir.

29 Steeds on the open plain looked like locusts
Driven by a chill east wind, scattering.

30 When at last we met and the millstone of war began to grind—
There is no turning back what Allah has decreed—

31 We struck them until their nobles lay in the dust,
Like felled logs strewn upon the plain.

32 We toiled from dawn until evening’s respite,
As though wrapped in the scorching heat of fire.

33 They hurried off, wounded and in pain,
Like a barren cloud whose water a tearing wind has poured away.

34 We withdrew, our rearguard lingering,
Like lions crouched over meat in Biʿshah valley.

35 We gained, and they gained from us—as happens—
Yet what lies with Allah is broader still.

36 The millstone turned for us and for them alike,
Till each had taken his full share of harm.

37 We are a people who count killing no disgrace
For anyone who guards his sanctuary and defends it.