“Indeed, I remember us on the Night of the Confederates: we were sitting in ranks. Abū Sufyān and those with him of the allied tribes were positioned above us, while the Jews of Qurayẓah were below us, and we feared for our children. Never had a night come upon us darker or more stormy—the roar of the wind was like thunderbolts, and in the pitch-blackness none of us could see even his own finger. The hypocrites began seeking permission from the Prophet ﷺ, saying, ‘Our houses are exposed,’ though they were not; whenever any one of them asked, he granted him leave, and they slipped away. We were about three hundred men when the Messenger of Allah ﷺ passed by us, one man after another, until he reached me. I had no protection from the enemy or the cold save a cloak belonging to my wife that reached only to my knees.

He came to me while I was crouching on my knees and said, ‘Who is this?’ I replied, ‘Ḥudhayfah.’ He exclaimed, ‘Ḥudhayfah!’ I tried to shrink into the ground and said, ‘Yes, O Messenger of Allah,’ reluctant to stand. He said, ‘Stand up.’ So I stood, and he said, ‘There is news among the enemy; go and bring me word of them.’

I was among the most fearful of people and the most chilled. I set out, and the Messenger of Allah ﷺ supplicated: ‘O Allah, protect him in front of him, behind him, on his right, on his left, above him, and beneath him.’ By Allah, every trace of fear and cold that Allah had created within me left my chest; I felt none of it. As I turned away he called, ‘Ḥudhayfah, do not do anything among them until you return to me.’

I went on until, when I neared the enemy camp, I saw by the light of a fire they had kindled a dark, heavy-set man warming his hands over the flames, rubbing his side and saying, ‘Break camp! Break camp!’ I had not recognized Abū Sufyān before that. I drew a white-fletched arrow from my quiver, set it on the bow-string to shoot him in the firelight, but I remembered the words of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ: ‘Do not do anything among them until you come back to me.’ So I held back and returned the arrow to my quiver. Then I steeled myself and entered the camp. The nearest people to me were the Banū ʿĀmir, crying, ‘O clan of ʿĀmir, break camp, break camp—there is no staying here!’ The wind inside their camp did not extend beyond it by even a handspan, yet by Allah I could hear stones striking their tents and bedding as the wind hurled them.

I turned toward the Messenger of Allah ﷺ, and when I was about halfway back I encountered roughly twenty horsemen with their heads covered. They said, ‘Tell your companion that Allah has spared him.’

I returned to the Messenger of Allah ﷺ, who was wrapped in a cloak and praying. No sooner had I arrived than the cold returned and I began to shiver. The Messenger of Allah ﷺ beckoned to me with his hand while still praying; I drew near and he let his cloak drape over me. Whenever a matter weighed heavily upon him, the Messenger of Allah ﷺ would pray. I informed him of the enemy’s situation—that I had left them breaking camp.

Then Allah the Exalted revealed: “O you who believe, remember Allah’s favor upon you when hosts came against you and We sent against them a wind and forces you did not see, and Allah has ever been Seeing of what you do … And Allah repelled those who disbelieved in their rage; they gained no good. And Allah sufficed the believers in fighting, and Allah has ever been Powerful, Mighty” (al-Aḥzāb 33:9–25).

That is, Allah turned their enemy away by the wind He unleashed against them and by the troops—angels and others—He dispatched. “And Allah sufficed the believers in fighting,” meaning they had no need to confront them in battle or duel with them; rather, the All-Powerful, the Almighty repelled them by His might and strength.