a Yemeni broadsword. This alone shows that they had inflicted heavy casualties; had it been otherwise, they could never have broken free. That, in itself, is independent proof—and Allah knows best.

This is the view adopted by Mūsā ibn ʿUqbah, al-Wāqidī, and al-Bayhaqī, and it is transmitted by Ibn Hishām (1) from al-Zuhrī.

Al-Bayhaqī (2), may Allah have mercy on him, says: “The scholars of the campaigns differed over whether the Muslims fled and withdrew. Some asserted that they did, while others maintained that the Muslims gained the upper hand and that the idolaters were the ones who turned and ran.

“Furthermore, the ḥadīth of Anas ibn Mālik from the Prophet ﷺ—‘Then Khalid took the banner, and Allah granted him victory’—indicates that the Muslims prevailed.” Allah knows best.

I add: Ibn Isḥāq (3) reports that Qutbah ibn Qatādah al-ʿUdhri, who commanded the Muslim right wing, charged Mālik ibn Zāfilah—(Ibn Hishām says: or Rāfilah, with a rāʾ), the leader of the Christian Bedouins—killed him, and boasted:

I speared Ibn Zāfilah, son of al-Irāsh,
With a lance that pierced him through and splintered;
I struck his neck a blow
That made him sway like a bending sallow;
And we drove the women of his clan
On the morning of Raqūqīn as herds are driven.

This supports our position: when an army’s commander is slain, his troops customarily flee, and the poet explicitly states that they captured some of their womenfolk. This clearly corroborates what we have said—Allah knows best.

As for Ibn Isḥāq, he held that there was nothing more than skirmishing and that the Muslims merely extricated themselves from the Byzantines; he called this a victory and a conquest—in view of the enemy’s encirclement and overwhelming numbers, which by normal reckoning should have annihilated them. Their escape and withdrawal, under such circumstances, would indeed be the utmost one could hope for. This reading is possible, yet it seems at odds with the plain wording of the divine statement: “so Allah granted them victory.”

Ibn Isḥāq supports his view with the lines of Qays ibn al-Muḥassir al-Yaʿmurī, who, reflecting on what befell the people and Khalid’s maneuvering and withdrawal, apologized for what he and the others did that day:

By Allah, my soul will never cease to chide me
For the stand I took while the horses stood motionless before me.
I stood—neither seeking refuge so as to press on,
Nor shielding the one whom death had befallen.
Yet I consoled myself with Khalid—
For among the people there is none his equal.