He said, “Who will rise, go and see what the enemy is doing, and then come back? The Messenger of Allah ﷺ guarantees him safe return. I ask Allah to let him be my companion in Paradise.”

Not a single man stood up—so great were fear, hunger, and cold. When no one responded, he called me, and once he called my name I had no choice but to rise. He said,

“O Ḥudhayfah, go, slip in among the enemy, find out what they are doing, and do not do anything until you return to us.”

I went and mingled with them while the wind and the hosts of Allah battered them so that no cooking pot, fire, or shelter could remain in place. Then Abū Sufyān stood and said, “People of Quraysh, let each man look to see who is sitting beside him.”

Ḥudhayfah continued, “I immediately grasped the hand of the man next to me and asked, ‘Who are you?’ He replied, ‘So-and-so, son of so-and-so.’

“Abū Sufyān then announced, ‘People of Quraysh, by Allah, you are not in a place fit to stay. Our horses and camels have perished, Banū Qurayẓah have deserted us and we have heard from them what we detest, and this violent wind is doing to us what you can see: no pot stays upright, no fire remains lit, and no structure holds together. Break camp, for I am departing.’

“He went to his camel, which was hobbled, mounted it, struck it, and it sprang up on three legs; by Allah, he did not even release its tether until he was already astride it. Had it not been for the pledge the Messenger of Allah ﷺ had taken from me—‘Do not do anything until you return to me’—I would have shot him with an arrow and killed him.

“I returned to the Messenger of Allah ﷺ while he was standing in prayer, wrapped in a patterned cloak belonging to one of his wives. When he saw me, he drew me to his legs and placed part of the cloak over me, then he bowed and prostrated while I was beneath it. When he ended the prayer I told him what had happened. When Ghaṭafān heard what Quraysh had done they too broke camp and headed back to their homeland.”

(This chain is disconnected in this particular route.)

Muslim ibn al-Ḥajjāj recorded this ḥadīth in his Ṣaḥīḥ (1) through al-Aʿmash, from Ibrāhīm ibn Yazīd al-Taymī, from his father, who said:

“We were with Ḥudhayfah when a man said to him, ‘If I had met the Messenger of Allah ﷺ I would have fought beside him and shown great valor.’

“Ḥudhayfah replied, ‘Would you really have done so? By Allah, I remember us with the Messenger of Allah ﷺ on the Night of the Confederates, on a night of fierce wind and bitter cold, when the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said:

“Is there no man who will bring me news of the enemy so that he may be with me on the Day of Resurrection?”

‘None of us answered him, then he repeated it a second time and a third.

‘Then he said, “O Ḥudhayfah, stand and bring us news of the enemy.” Because he called me by name I had no choice but to rise.

‘He said, “Go and bring me news of the enemy, but do not alarm them on my account.”

‘So I set off as though I were walking in a bathhouse until I reached them, and there was Abū Sufyān warming his back by the fire. I placed an arrow on the string of my bow and wanted to shoot him, but I remembered the words of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ: “Do not alarm them on my account.” Had I loosed the arrow I would have struck him.

‘I returned as though walking in a bathhouse until I came back to the Messenger of Allah ﷺ. On my way back the cold overtook me and I began to shiver. I informed the Messenger of Allah ﷺ, and he wrapped me in a spare cloak he had been praying in. I slept until dawn, and when morning came the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said, “Get up, sleepyhead!”’

Al-Ḥākim and the ḥāfiẓ al-Bayhaqī have likewise related this ḥadīth in full in Dalāʾil al-Nubuwwah (2) through ʿIkrimah ibn ʿAmmār, from Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allāh al-Duʾalī, from ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz, the nephew of Ḥudhayfah, who said:

“Ḥudhayfah recalled their exploits with the Messenger of Allah ﷺ, whereupon those present said, ‘By Allah, had we been there we would have done this and that.’

“Ḥudhayfah said, ‘Do not wish for such a thing…’”