While he was still a disbeliever, he said:
“Once we confronted the Messenger of Allah ﷺ and the Muslims, they could not stand against us for even the time it takes to milk a goat. We closed in, hacking with our swords before the Messenger of Allah ﷺ, and when we drew near, suddenly men with handsome faces appeared between us and him, saying, ‘May your faces be disgraced—turn back!’ We broke and fled at nothing more than those words.” Al-Bayhaqī narrates this report (1).

Yaʿqūb ibn Sufyān (2) said: Abū Saʿīd ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Ibrāhīm narrated to us; al-Walīd ibn Muslim narrated to us; Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allāh al-Shuʿaythī related to me, from al-Ḥārith ibn Badal al-Naṣrī, from a man of his tribe who witnessed the Day of Ḥunayn—
—and ʿAmr ibn Sufyān al-Thaqafī said:

“The Muslims broke ranks on the Day of Ḥunayn until only al-ʿAbbās and Abū Sufyān ibn al-Ḥārith remained with the Messenger of Allah ﷺ. The Messenger of Allah ﷺ then scooped up a handful of pebbles and flung them into their faces, whereupon we fled; it seemed to us as though every rock or tree had turned into a horseman chasing us.” Al-Thaqafī added, “I spurred my mount on until I reached Ṭāʾif.”

Yūnus ibn Bukayr relates in his “Maghāzī” (3) through Yūsuf ibn Ṣuhayb, from ʿAbd Allāh (4), that on the Day of Ḥunayn no one remained with the Messenger of Allah ﷺ except a single man named Zayd.

Al-Bayhaqī (5) also transmits, through al-Kudaymī: Mūsā ibn Masʿūd narrated to us; Saʿīd ibn al-Sāʾib ibn Yasār al-Ṭāʾifī narrated to us, from al-Sāʾib ibn Yasār, from Yazīd ibn ʿĀmir al-Suwaʾī, who said:

“When the Muslims momentarily broke ranks on the Day of Ḥunayn and the idolaters pursued them, the Messenger of Allah ﷺ seized a handful of earth, faced the polytheists, cast it into their faces, and declared, ‘Turn back; may your faces be disgraced!’ After that, every man who met his companion was rubbing his eyes and complaining of grit in them.”

He then reports (6) through two chains from Abū Ḥudhayfah: Saʿīd ibn al-Sāʾib ibn Yasār al-Ṭāʾifī told us, “My father al-Sāʾib ibn Yasār related to me that he heard Yazīd ibn ʿĀmir al-Suwaʾī—who had fought at Ḥunayn on the side of the idolaters and later embraced Islam—say:

We asked him about the terror that Allah cast into the hearts of the polytheists on the Day of Ḥunayn—what was it like? He would pick up a pebble, throw it into a basin, and it would ring with a clang. ‘That,’ he said, ‘is exactly what we felt inside our chests.’”

Al-Bayhaqī (7) also said: Abū ʿAbd Allāh al-Ḥāfiẓ and Muḥammad ibn Mūsā ibn al-Faḍl informed us; Abū al-ʿAbbās Muḥammad ibn Yaʿqūb narrated to us; al-ʿAbbās narrated to us, from Muḥammad ibn Bukayr al-Ḥaḍramī; Ayyūb ibn Jābir narrated to us, from Ṣadaqah ibn