“And strike from them every fingertip.” Atiyyah said: This means every joint. Ibn Abbas, Ibn Jurayj, and al-Dahhak said: It means the extremities. Banān is the plural of banānah, referring to the tips of the fingers and toes. Ibn al-Anbari said: The angels did not know how human beings were killed, so Allah taught them.

Ismail ibn Abd al-Qadir al-Jurjani informed us; Abd al-Ghafir ibn Muhammad al-Farisi informed us; Muhammad ibn Isa al-Juludi informed us; Ibrahim ibn Muhammad ibn Sufyan narrated to us; Muslim ibn al-Hajjaj narrated to us; Zuhayr ibn Harb narrated to us; Amr ibn Yunus al-Hanafi narrated to us; Ikrimah ibn Ammar narrated to us; Abu Zumayl—namely, Simak al-Hanafi—narrated to us; Abdullah ibn Abbas said:

While a Muslim man was pursuing a polytheist before him that day, he suddenly heard the crack of a whip above him and the voice of a horseman saying, “Advance, Hayzum!” He then looked at the polytheist before him and saw that he had fallen onto his back. Looking at him, he found that his nose had been smashed and his face split open as though struck by a whip, and all of it had turned green. The Ansari then came and related this to the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, who said: “You have spoken the truth. That was part of the reinforcement from the third heaven.” That day, they killed seventy and took seventy captive. (1)

It is also related from Abu Dawud al-Mazini, who had witnessed Badr, that he said: “I was following a polytheist in order to strike him, when his head fell before my sword could reach him. I then knew that someone other than I had killed him.” (2)

Abu Umamah ibn Sahl ibn Hunayf narrated from his father that he said: “By Allah, at Badr we saw one of us merely point his sword toward a polytheist, and his head would fall from his body before the sword reached him.” (3)

Ikrimah said that Abu Rafi, the freedman of the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, said: “I was a servant of al-Abbas ibn Abd al-Muttalib, may Allah be pleased with him. Islam had entered our household: Umm al-Fadl had embraced Islam, and so had I. Al-Abbas feared his people and disliked opposing them, so he concealed his Islam. He was a man of considerable wealth, dispersed among his people.

“Abu Lahab, the enemy of Allah, had remained behind from Badr and sent in his place al-As ibn Hisham ibn al-Mughirah. When news reached him of the calamity that had befallen the people of Badr, Allah humiliated and disgraced him. We, meanwhile, felt within ourselves strength and honor. I was a weak man, and I used to make and carve arrow-shafts in the chamber of Zamzam.

“By Allah, while I was sitting and carving arrow-shafts, with Umm al-Fadl seated beside me, the wicked Abu Lahab came dragging his feet until he sat at the side of the chamber, with his back against mine. While he was seated there, the people said: ‘Here is Abu Sufyan ibn al-Harith ibn Abd al-Muttalib, who has arrived.’ Abu Lahab said: ‘Come here, nephew, for you have the news.’ So he sat.” (4)