Had the Banū Lihyān but stood their ground and faced the fray,
They would have met compact battalions in their very homes, steadfast and sure;
They would have found swift riders whose onrush filled each pass with dread,
Preceding a grinding host—an army spread as wide as the Milky Way.
Yet they scurried like timid hyraxes, harried through stony ravines
Where no open path could be found.

The Expedition of Dhū Qarad

Ibn Isḥāq (1) relates: After that, the Messenger of Allah ﷺ returned to Madinah and had remained there only a few nights when ʿUyaynah ibn Ḥiṣn [ibn Ḥudhayfah] ibn Badr al-Fazārī, leading a cavalry band from Ghatafān, swooped down upon the Prophet’s milch-camels at al-Ghābah. Among the herd was a man of the Banū Ghifār accompanied by his wife; they killed the man and carried the woman off together with the camels.

Ibn Isḥāq (2) continues: ʿĀṣim ibn ʿUmar ibn Qatādah, ʿAbd Allāh ibn Abī Bakr, and others whose reliability I do not question—passing on the report of ʿAbd Allāh ibn Kaʿb ibn Mālik, each having preserved a portion of the account of Dhū Qarad—told me that the first to notice the raiders was Salamah ibn ʿAmr ibn al-Akwaʿ al-Aslamī. He had set out early for al-Ghābah, his bow and arrows slung across him, accompanied by a servant of Ṭalḥah ibn ʿUbayd Allāh who was leading one of Ṭalḥah’s horses. When Salamah reached the Farewell Pass (Thaniyyat al-Wadāʿ) he caught sight of some of their mounts. He climbed a rise on the flank of Mount Salʿ and cried at the top of his voice: “Wa-ṣabāḥāh!”—“Alarm at dawn!” He then raced after the raiders like a predatory beast until he overtook them.

He kept driving them back with arrows, and whenever he shot he cried:

“Take it! I am the son of al-Akwaʿ—
To-day is the day the suckling babes shall learn!”

Whenever the horsemen wheeled toward him, he would dart away; then he would appear again, and when he found an opening he loosed another shaft, repeating:

“Take it! I am the son of al-Akwaʿ—
To-day is the day the suckling babes shall learn!”

One of the raiders exclaimed, “Shall we be thwarted at this early hour of the day?”

The cry of Ibn al-Akwaʿ reached the Messenger of Allah ﷺ, who thereupon called out in Madinah, “To arms! To arms!” Horses streamed toward the Prophet ﷺ. The first horseman to reach him was al-Miqdād ibn al-Aswad, followed by ʿAbbād ibn Bishr, Saʿd ibn Zayd, and (though there is some doubt) Usayd ibn Zuhayr, together with ʿUkkāshah ibn