Suraqah's Pursuit

Suraqah ibn Mālik was the head of one of these Bedouin tribes. He said that he was sitting in a gathering of his people when a man showed up and said, "I saw two men on the horizon, and I think that these are the two men Quraysh are looking for." Suraqah said that he told him, no, those two men were just here a while ago and they just left — he said that to deceive him, but he knew, or he felt, that those men were Muḥammad (peace be upon him), but he told him that because he wanted to get the camels for himself. So Suraqah said he stayed in the gathering for a while so that they would not be suspicious, and then he left. He went to his house and told his servant to go and prepare his horse, the saddle and all, and to hide it behind a hill. And then he left from the back door, and he was carrying his spear, and his spear was dragging on the ground, because the spear was long, so he did not want anybody to see it. And then he mounted his horse and went in the direction that man had seen the two men, and it was as he thought — the two men were Muḥammad (peace be upon him) and Abū Bakr.

So now only a few strides separated Suraqah from becoming a millionaire, a hundred camels each — he was right there. So Suraqah says Abū Bakr was looking back while Muḥammad (peace be upon him) was reciting Qurʾān, and he never looked back. The Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) was confident that Allah (swt) would give him victory, while Abū Bakr was very concerned — not for himself, but concerned for the safety of Muḥammad (peace be upon him) — so he was staring back while Muḥammad (peace be upon him) was reciting Qurʾān. Abū Bakr told the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) that there was somebody pursuing them. The Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) made duʿāʾ, and the horse of Suraqah sank in the sand, and Suraqah fell off its back. Suraqah said, "So I cast lots" — his people had all of these superstitious beliefs — and he cast lots, should he follow them or should he not follow them; the lots told him that he should not follow them. But he insisted on following them; his greed drove him further. So what is the point of casting the lots if one is going to disobey them anyway? He followed them another time, and the same thing happened: he fell off his horse, and he said, "This never happened to me. I never fell off my horse." The third time it happened to him, a cloud of dust exploded in his face from in front of his horse, so he knew that Allah was supporting this man. So he rushed toward him asking him to grant him peace. Suraqah, who was pursuing Muḥammad (peace be upon him), now became the one worried for his own safety, asking Muḥammad (peace be upon him) to grant him peace.

So the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) told him, "I grant you peace." So Suraqah told him, "Write that down for me on a piece of paper. I want to make sure — write it down for me." So the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) told ʿĀmir ibn Fuhayrah to write down a document stating that the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) was granting Suraqah ibn Mālik peace. Suraqah put this piece of paper in his pocket, and years passed by, and, subḥānallāh, eight or nine years later he was arrested when the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) was laying siege to Ṭāʾif. And when they were going to kill him, he pulled that document out and told them, "This is a paper, a document from the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him), granting me peace." That document saved his life. Now Suraqah went back and told the people of Quraysh that they were not going to find Muḥammad (peace be upon him) — forget about it — because the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) had told him to turn away anybody who was trying to pursue them, drive them away from them. So Suraqah, who was trying to arrest them, now became their guard; Suraqah became a bodyguard for Muḥammad (peace be upon him).