With Indian swords we strike their very crowns—one blow after another, each draught of steel followed by a second.

Ibn Isḥāq relates: 1) Ḥassān ibn Thābit—may Allah be pleased with him—answered:

(from the metre al-ramal)
A clash swept off with Ibn al-Zubʿarā; had he dealt justly, he would have owned that the merit was ours.
Though you took some and we took more, such is war: its turns are shared.
We lodge our blades in your shoulders wherever we please, stroke upon stroke, quenched and struck again.
We drag your entrails out through your rumps, like the ripping teeth of full-grown camels chewing tough boughs.
You wheeled and ran on your heels, bolting through the pass like milk-laden she-camels.
Then we charged a charge that did not waver and herded you down to the mountain’s foot
With weighty thrusts, gulps of death—whoever met them among mankind reeled away.
The ravine proved too narrow once we stormed it; we packed its upper and lower courses with men,
Men the like of whom you cannot match—Gabriel came down to aid them with victory.
On the Day of Badr we prevailed through piety, obedience to Allah and faith in the Messenger.
We killed every leader among them, every swaggering champion in his finery;
We left among Quraysh an open wound that day of Badr, a tale still told in proverb.
Allah’s Messenger himself was witness on the Day of Badr—while the worthless dolts of Quraysh stood by;
They had massed great multitudes, like stray herds gathered in a season of plenty.
We are not, like you, the spawn of a backside; we stand the test whenever the test descends.

Ibn Isḥāq also said: 4) Kaʿb composed verses lamenting Ḥamzah and those Muslims killed at Uḥud—may Allah be pleased with them:

(from the metre al-mutaqārib)
A sob has seized you—how will you find release? Whenever you recall them, your tongue falters.
I remember a people of whom tales have come to me from this crooked age.
Your heart flutters at their mention, kindled by longing and refining grief.
Their slain abide in Gardens of Bliss, honored in their entering and their exit,
For they held their ground beneath the banner’s shade—the banner of the Messenger in the heat of the melee.