"Now the Oven Is Hot"

At first it was only a few: al-ʿAbbās ibn ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib, and Abū Sufyān ibn al-Ḥārith, and one of the sons of al-ʿAbbās ibn ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib, and Ayman, the son of Umm Ayman, who had been the nurse of the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him). Only these were surrounding the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) and holding on to his mule; the rest had fled from their positions. At this particular moment, the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) told al-ʿAbbās — because his voice was very powerful — to call the Anṣār. So al-ʿAbbās ibn ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib made his call to the Anṣār. And then the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) told him to specify al-Khazraj, so he called al-Khazraj — and the Khazraj were special fighters; they were strong, powerful. So it says in the narration that they turned back like cows turning back to their calves. And the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) was surrounded by about a hundred men. These hundred men stood in front of an army whose number some narrations give as forty thousand strong, and another narration twenty. Anyway, the number was huge: one hundred standing in the face of an army of that size.

The Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) was marching ahead — the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) alone, marching ahead — and al-ʿAbbās says: we were pulling on his mule to slow him down. The Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) was facing this army of the enemy. It says that at the front of the enemy's army there was one man of Hawāzin carrying a very long spear, and on top of the spear there was a banner: if he was ahead, his spear would be used to stab at the Muslims, and if his companions caught up with him, he would raise it up as a banner. So this front of the enemy's army, the first row of the army of Hawāzin, was crushing the Muslim army; it was just rolling over them. And the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) was now facing them alone, and al-ʿAbbās was saying: we were trying to pull back his mule — until the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) had between eighty and a hundred around him.

And this is when the real fighting started, because at the beginning there was no fighting: it was an initial shock that caused Banū Sulaym to flee, followed by the ṭulaqāʾ and everybody else, and they were being slammed by arrows from every direction. But now the real fighting — the fighting with the sword — began. The Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) said: al-āna ḥamiya al-waṭīs (Muslim 1775) — now the fire of battle is raging; this is when the fire is becoming hot. The Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) stood in the stirrups and started making duʿāʾ. And then the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) took a handful of dirt in his blessed hand and threw it into the air towards Hawāzin, and said: shāhat al-wujūh — may the faces be disfigured (Muslim 1777).

This handful of dirt, which was in the hands of the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him), was a soldier of Allah, because one narration says that every enemy fighter felt something in his eyes. And they also had the feeling in their hearts. One of them, who later became Muslim, would describe the feeling they had when the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) threw this single handful of dirt at them. When he was asked, what happened? how did you feel?, he would take stones and throw them into an iron pan, and they would hear all that clattering sound, and he would tell them: this is how we felt inside — this shaking, this clattering sound, this terror is what we felt inside.

Here is the hadith in the Musnad of Imām Aḥmad (4336) that gives a brief description. Imām Aḥmad stated that it was related to him by ʿAffān, quoting ʿAbd al-Wāḥid ibn Ziyād, quoting al-Ḥārith ibn Ḥaṣīrah, quoting al-Qāsim ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn ʿAbdullāh ibn Masʿūd, from his father, who quoted ʿAbdullāh ibn Masʿūd as stating: I was present with the Messenger of Allah at the Battle of Ḥunayn. The men retreated from him, and eighty of the Anṣār and the Muhājirūn remained there with him. We drew back some eighty feet, but we did not turn our backs to the enemy. These men were the ones upon whom Allah sent down His sakīnah, tranquillity. The Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) was meanwhile still going forward on his mule, which veered to one side, so that he slipped off his saddle. I called out to him: up you get; may Allah raise you up. He replied: get me a handful of dirt. With this he struck them in their faces and filled their mouths. Then he asked: where are the Muhājirūn and the Anṣār? They are close by, I replied. Call for them, he said. I did this, and they came, their swords in their right hands, shining like stars. And then the mushrikūn turned their backs in retreat. This is the description ʿAbdullāh ibn Masʿūd (may Allah be pleased with him) gave of the Battle of Ḥunayn.