Ibn Isḥāq relates: Kinānah ibn ʿAbd Yalīl ibn ʿAmr ibn ʿUmayr al-Thaqafī replied to those verses—(the editor says: Kinānah later came with the Thaqīf delegation to the Messenger of God ﷺ and accepted Islam, as recorded by Mūsā ibn ʿUqbah, Ibn Isḥāq, Abū ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-Barr, Ibn al-Athīr, and others. Al-Madāʾinī, however, asserted that he never became Muslim, but travelled to Byzantine territory, adopted Christianity, and died there):

[long-meter]
“Whoever would seek us out, intent on battle,
let him know we dwell in a fortress we will never leave.
Here our fathers settled long before you ever saw it;
its slopes and vineyards have always been ours.
ʿAmr ibn ʿĀmir once tried us and found our mettle;
ask the prudent and the patient among them, they know.
Indeed she knows—if truth be told—that when proud cheeks turn away,
we straighten them and make them face us.
We keep at it until the fiercest spirit yields,
and every wrongdoer recognises the manifest right.
On us are close-fitting coats of mail, heirlooms of Muḥarriq,
sky-blue, their “stars” set like jewels.
We lift them with white, keen blades;
once drawn in the thick of battle, we never sheathe them.”

Ibn Isḥāq also said: Shaddād ibn ʿĀriḍ al-Jushamī composed the following as the Messenger of God ﷺ marched toward al-Ṭāʾif:

[basīṭ]
“Do not support al-Lāt, for God will surely destroy her;
how can anyone aid a thing that cannot aid itself?
That idol burned at al-Sadd and burst into flame—
it did not fight for the very stones on which it stood; its cause is lost.
If the Messenger sets foot in your land,
he will depart again, leaving not a single soul of its people behind.”

Ibn Isḥāq continues: The Messenger of God ﷺ—on his way from Ḥunayn to al-Ṭāʾif—passed by Nakhlah al-Yamāniyyah, then Qarn, then al-Mulayḥ, and finally Bahrat al-Rughāʾ in the district of Liyyah, where he built a mosque and prayed in it.

Ibn Isḥāq said: ʿAmr ibn Shuʿayb told me that, while encamped at Bahrat al-Rughāʾ, the Prophet ﷺ carried out retribution for bloodshed—the first legal retaliation (qiṣāṣ) enacted in Islam. A man from Banū Layth had killed a man from Hudhayl, and the Prophet put him to death in return. While still at Liyyah he ordered that the fortress of Mālik ibn ʿAwf be demolished, and it was.

Ibn Isḥāq adds: He then took a path known as al-Ḍayyiqah (“the Narrow Pass”). When the Messenger of God ﷺ entered it, he asked about its name