Al-Zuhrī said:

“No conquest in Islam prior to this was greater. In the past, whenever the two sides met, fighting broke out; but once the armistice was concluded, the swords were sheathed, and all people felt secure with one another. They met, conversed, and disputed, and no person of sound mind who was spoken to about Islam failed to accept it. In those two years as many—or even more—entered Islam as had embraced it before.”

Ibn Hishām said:

“The proof for al-Zuhrī’s statement is that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ set out for Ḥudaybiyyah with one thousand four hundred men, according to Jābir, and two years later [at the Conquest of Mecca] he marched with ten thousand.”

Al-Bukhārī said (1): Yūsuf ibn ʿĪsā narrated to us; Ibn Fuḍayl narrated to us; Ḥuṣayn narrated to us, from Sālim, from Jābir, who said:

“The people were thirsty on the day of Ḥudaybiyyah while the Messenger of Allah ﷺ had a small water-skin before him. He performed ablution from it, and then the people crowded toward him. The Messenger of Allah ﷺ asked, ‘What is the matter with you?’ They replied, ‘O Messenger of Allah, we have no water for ablution or for drinking except what is in your water-skin.’ He thereupon placed his hand in the water-skin, and water gushed from between his fingers like springs. We drank and performed ablution.”

We said to Jābir, “How many were you that day?” He replied, “Had we been one hundred thousand it would have sufficed us; we were one thousand five hundred.”

Al-Bukhārī has also recorded this report, as has Muslim (2), through several chains from Ḥuṣayn, from Sālim ibn Abī al-Jaʿd, from Jābir.

Al-Bukhārī further said (3): al-Ṣalt ibn Muḥammad narrated to us; Yazīd ibn Zurayʿ narrated to us; Saʿīd narrated to us, from Qatādah. I said to Saʿīd ibn al-Musayyib, “I have heard that Jābir ibn ʿAbd Allāh used to say they were fourteen hundred.” Saʿīd replied, “Jābir told me they were one thousand five hundred—those who pledged allegiance to the Prophet ﷺ on the day of Ḥudaybiyyah.” Abū Dāwūd corroborated this (4): Qurrah narrated to us, from Qatādah. This version is unique to al-Bukhārī.

Al-Bukhārī then said (5): ʿAlī ibn ʿAbd Allāh narrated to us; Sufyān narrated to us. ʿAmr said, “I heard Jābir say: The Messenger of Allah ﷺ said to us on the day of Ḥudaybiyyah, ‘You are the best people on earth.’ We were one thousand four hundred. Had my eyesight been sound today, I would show you the exact spot of the tree.”

Al-Bukhārī has likewise transmitted this ḥadīth, and so has Muslim (6), through various chains from Sufyān ibn ʿUyaynah.