He continued:

ʿAbd Allāh ibn Rawāḥah then encouraged the people, saying, “My brethren, by Allah, the very thing you shrink from is the thing for which you set out—martyrdom. We do not fight men on the strength of numbers, power or multitude; we fight them only with this religion with which Allah has honored us. Advance, for before us lie only the two noble outcomes: either victory or martyrdom.”

The people replied, “Indeed, Ibn Rawāḥah has spoken the truth,” and they moved on. While they were halted there Ibn Rawāḥah composed the following verses:

We have mustered the horses from Ajaʾ and Faraʿ,
their girths still green with grazing in the meadows;
We pared their hooves on flinty rock until they shone,
smooth as the surface of well-tanned leather.
They stayed two nights at Maʿān, and after their lull
came sweeping clouds, heavy and dark.
We set out, our branded chargers snorting,
the desert heat steaming from their nostrils.
By the Lord of Maʾab, we shall reach that place
though Arabs and Romans both be gathered there.
We tightened their reins and they came on grim-faced,
thick dust twisting round them like spun thread.
Amid the din, the helmets glimmered—
when their crests appeared, they were like stars.
The life of ease, content with comfort, our spear-points have divorced it;
let it seek a new spouse or live abandoned.

Ibn Isḥāq relates: ʿAbd Allāh ibn Abī Bakr told me—on the authority of Zayd ibn Arqam—who said:

“I was an orphan under the care of ʿAbd Allāh ibn Rawāḥah. He took me with him on that expedition, riding me behind him on the cushion of his saddle. By Allah, while he was traveling one night I heard him reciting these verses:

When you have carried me and borne my gear
a march of four stages after the evening meal,
then yours is ease—may you be blessed—and you are free of blame;
I shall not return to the family left behind me.
The Muslims will come and will leave me
in the land of Syria, longing to remain.
Every kinsman, however near, will hand you back
to the All-Merciful, severing the tie of brotherhood.
There I shall care neither for Baʿl’s fresh fruit
nor for date palms whose bases drink their fill.

“When I heard him recite them I wept, and he tapped me with a whip, saying, ‘What is the matter with you, little rascal? If Allah grants me martyrdom, you will return seated between the two pommels of the saddle!’

On that same journey ʿAbd Allāh ibn Rawāḥah later began to chant in the rajaz metre:”}