Ibn Isḥāq relates (1): Anas ibn Zunaym al-Duʾalī offered an apology to the Messenger of God ﷺ for the words that ʿAmr al-Khuzaʿī had uttered against them when he came seeking their aid, as mentioned above (2). He recited:
Is it you by whose command Maʿadd finds guidance?—
No! God guides them; to you He said, “Bear witness.”
No she-camel ever bore upon its saddle
a man more loyal, more faithful to his pledge than Muḥammad.
None urges to good more eagerly, none is more open-handed—
when he strides forth he is a burnished, Indian blade.
He clothes his kinsman before the old cloak frays,
and he rewards the champion stripped for the race.
Know, O Messenger of God, that you will overtake me,
and that a threat from you is like a hand held fast.
Know, O Messenger of God, that you have power
over every clan in Tihāmah and in Najd.
Know that the caravan is the caravan of ʿUwaymir—
the liars who default on every pledge.
They told the Messenger of God that I had lampooned him;
were that so, may my hand never again lift a whip!
All that I said was, “Alas for the mother of youths
struck by ill omen, not by fortune and felicity.”
They were slain by one unfit to shed their blood—
my tears welled up, my numbness deepened.
You surely have betrayed protection, if you are pleading
for ʿAbd son of ʿAbd Allāh and the daughter of Mahūd.
Dhuʾayb, Kulthūm, and Salmā fell in succession;
if the eye will not weep, let it darken with grief.
Salmā—ah, Salmā!—no tribe equals hers or her brothers’;
where can kings be found to rival Aʿbad?
I have torn no religion, spilled no blood—
so grasp the truth, O man of insight, and be just.
Ibn Isḥāq also says (3): On the day of the Conquest Bujayr ibn Zuhayr ibn Abī Salmā recited (4):
At dawn Muzayna and the sons of Khafāf
drove the folk of al-Ḥaballaq from every pass.
We struck them in Mecca on the day
the Prophet of goodness conquered it, with gleaming, ready swords.
We surprised them with seven companies of Sulaym
and a full thousand from the Banū ʿUthmān.
We trampled their shoulders with blows and thrusts
and with volleys of fine, well-fletched arrows.
Among the ranks you heard their whispering hum
like the hiss of the arrow leaving the bowstring’s clasp.
We rode back rejoicing, our steeds coursing through them
with spears straightened on the polisher’s anvil.