God Most High says: “We did not send down upon his people, after him, any army from heaven, nor were We ever going to send one.” In other words, We had no need, when exacting retribution, to dispatch celestial troops against them. This is the meaning conveyed in the report transmitted by Ibn Isḥāq—through some of his teachers—from Ibn Masʿūd.

Mujāhid and Qatādah said that the phrase “nor did We send down a host” means: We did not send them another message. Ibn Jarīr held the first explanation to be preferable, and I consider it the stronger view. Hence His words, “nor were We ever going to send one,” that is, We had no need of such measures when they denied Our messengers and killed Our devoted servant. “It was but one mighty Blast, and suddenly they were extinguished.”

The exegetes relate that God sent Gabriel, peace be upon him; he grasped the two door-posts of the city gate and gave a single cry. Instantly they were extinguished—their voices silenced, their movements stilled, not an eye among them so much as flickered.

All of this shows that the town in question was not Antioch, for those people were destroyed for rejecting God’s messengers, whereas the inhabitants of Antioch believed and followed the messengers of the Messiah sent to them from among the disciples. For this reason it is said that Antioch was the first city to believe in the Messiah.

As for the ḥadīth reported by al-Ṭabarānī—through Ḥusayn al-Ashqar, from Sufyān ibn ʿUyaynah, from Ibn Abī Najīḥ, from Mujāhid, from Ibn ʿAbbās, from the Prophet ﷺ—who is quoted as saying:

“The forerunners are three: the one who hastened to Moses was Yūshaʿ ibn Nūn; the one who hastened to Jesus is the Companion of Yāsīn; and the one who hastened to Muhammad is ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib,”

this ḥadīth is not authentic. Ḥusayn al-Ashqar has been deemed unreliable and was an extremist Shīʿī, and his solitary transmission of this report is clear evidence of its complete weakness. God knows best.