He asked, “What is this path called?”
They replied, “al-Ḍayyiqah—the Narrow Pass.”
He said, “No, it is al-Yusrā—the Easy Way.”

He then left the pass at Nakhīb and halted beneath a lote tree known as al-Ṣādirah, close to an orchard belonging to a man from Thaqīf. The Messenger of God ﷺ sent word to him: “Either come out to us, or we will tear down your wall.” When he refused to appear, the Prophet ﷺ ordered the wall demolished.

Ibn Isḥāq relates (1), through Ismāʿīl ibn Umayyah from Bujayr ibn Abī Bujayr: I heard ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAmr say, “As we were travelling with the Messenger of God ﷺ toward al-Ṭāʾif, we passed by a grave and he said, ‘This is the grave of Abū Righāl, the ancestor of Thaqīf. He was one of the Thamūd and, so long as he remained within this Sanctuary, he was protected. When he left it, the punishment that befell his people overtook him here, and he was buried on this spot. The proof of it is that a branch of gold was buried with him; if you dig him up you will find it.’” He said, “The people rushed to the spot, exhumed him, and indeed found the branch.”

Abū Dāwūd transmits the report (2) from Yaḥyā ibn Maʿīn, from Wahb ibn Jarīr ibn Ḥāzim, from his father, from Muḥammad ibn Isḥāq; al-Bayhaqī (3) likewise records it through Yazīd ibn Zurayʿ, from Rūḥ ibn al-Qāsim, from Ismāʿīl ibn Umayyah.

Ibn Isḥāq adds (4): The Messenger of God ﷺ advanced until he camped near al-Ṭāʾif and set up his encampment. Some of his Companions were killed by arrows, for the army had drawn close to the fortress wall; [the arrows reached them, and the Muslims could not enter because it had been shut against them. When that group was struck by the arrows] they withdrew to the site of the mosque—still standing in al-Ṭāʾif today—which Thaqīf built after embracing Islam, the work of ʿAmr ibn Umayyah ibn Wahb. In that mosque, they say, there was a column that creaked every morning when the sun first struck it.

He laid siege to them for more than twenty nights. Ibn Hishām says: some report it as seventeen nights.

ʿUrwah and Mūsā ibn ʿUqbah, citing al-Zuhrī (6), state: The Messenger of God ﷺ proceeded to al-Ṭāʾif, leaving the captives at al-Jiʿrānah, and the porticos of Mecca were filled with them. He encamped on the rise opposite the fortress of al-Ṭāʾif for some ten-odd nights, fighting its people while they fought him from behind their walls. None of them came out to him except Abū Bakrah ibn Masrūḥ, the maternal brother of Ziyād; the Prophet ﷺ set him free. Wounds became numerous, and they cut down part of the enemy’s vines to provoke them, whereupon Thaqīf said to them: