Banu Abd al-Dar

After the Conquest of Makkah, the tribe of Thaqif (custodians of Ta'if and its idol al-Lat) resolved to fight rather than accept the end of paganism in Arabia and the loss of the Ka'bah's custodianship to the now-defeated Quraysh. Thaqif sent emissaries to every pagan tribe in the region, and over 20,000 pagan fighters gathered under their banner, the largest gathering of pagan Arabs in Arabian history. Thaqif and the Bedouin tribe of Hawazin were the two largest contingents, together forming around 10,000. The Prophet ﷺ sent the new convert Abdullah ibn Abi Hadrat RA to scout Ta'if's forces; he returned reporting he had never seen so large a gathering, prompting Umar ibn al-Khattab RA to doubt the report and Abdullah to rebuke him for once having disbelieved the Prophet ﷺ himself. The Prophet ﷺ then mobilized roughly 12,000 men (10,000 who had come from Madinah and 2,000 new Makkan converts, some of whom, like Safwan ibn Umayyah RA, were not yet even Muslim) and borrowed a hundred coats of mail with their weapons from Safwan as a loan to be returned. The Muslims left Makkah on the 6th of Shawwal, 8 AH (after roughly 19 days there, per Sahih al-Bukhari, though other reports give shorter periods), and reached the valley of Hunayn on the 10th, camping there rather than at Ta'if itself since Thaqif had already massed in that region. Among the pagan coalition, the elderly and blind nobleman Durayd ibn al-Sima urged the newly elected young chieftain Malik ibn Awf al-Nasri to send the tribe's women, children, and livestock back to safety rather than bring them onto the battlefield, warning that their presence would not help the men fight; Malik refused, even threatening to kill himself rather than be overruled, and the people's families and flocks stayed on the field. Thaqif and Hawazin had laid a trap: a small decoy contingent was stationed at the mouth of the valley the Muslims had to cross, while the bulk of their army and hundreds of archers hid in the mountains on either side. As the Muslims advanced, the decoy fled, drawing the Muslim army deep into the pass, at which point volleys of arrows fell from the unseen archers above and the main pagan force charged. The Muslim army, many of them raw new converts without proper armor, panicked and fled in every direction, leaving the Prophet ﷺ almost alone on his mule; among the small group who stayed near him was the Ansariyyah Umm Sulaym, who leapt from her mount and drew a hand dagger, telling the Companions that she would use it on anyone who reached her. He ﷺ called out, "Come to me! I am the Messenger of Allah ﷺ! I am Muhammad ﷺ, the son of Abdullah!" and declared, "I am the Prophet ﷺ, there is no lie about this! I am the son of Abdul Muttalib," invoking both his prophethood and his tribal lineage. He ﷺ called on his uncle al-Abbas ibn Abdul Muttalib RA, known for his powerful voice, to call the fleeing Muhajirun and Ansar back by name and by tribe; al-Abbas stood on his mount and rallied them to return, and as they came back fighting the Prophet ﷺ declared, "Now the real fight begins!", the first recorded use of this Arabic expression. He ﷺ then took a handful of dust, threw it toward Thaqif, and said, "May the faces be disfigured," after which the tide of the battle turned and the Muslims surged forward. As the Prophet ﷺ called out and al-Abbas rallied the Companions tribe by tribe, they slowly regathered around him. Allah then sent down His sakina (tranquility) upon the Prophet ﷺ and the believers and, as Surah al-Tawbah 9:25-26 relates, sent invisible forces to their aid; a number of Muslims and non-Muslims reported seeing these angels descend, among them Jubayr ibn Mut'im RA, who described a dense black cloud coming down from the sky and dispersing among the people like ants. Amid the chaos, Shayba ibn Uthman (a newly converted cousin of the Prophet ﷺ from the Banu Abd al-Dar whose father Uthman ibn Abi Talha had been killed at Uhud fighting the Muslims) rode at the Prophet ﷺ's unguarded back meaning to avenge his father, until a blinding light stopped him and the Prophet ﷺ, turning and sensing what was happening, made du'a for his guidance; Iman entered Shayba's heart at once and he turned to fight alongside the Muslims for the rest of the battle. Having relied entirely on the ambush, Thaqif and Hawazin had no fallback plan: once the Muslims regathered and charged, the pagan coalition fled in every direction. The Prophet ﷺ ordered the Companions to pursue them into the surrounding valleys and mountains before the scattered tribesmen could regroup, and a long series of mini-expeditions followed, in which several of the sahaba were wounded or killed, among them Abu Amir RA, the uncle of Abu Musa al-Ash'ari RA, mortally struck by a javelin. Walking the battlefield afterward, the Prophet ﷺ came upon the body of a woman who had been killed and said it was not right that she had been killed; learning it was Khalid ibn al-Walid RA who had killed her, he sent word forbidding him from killing any more women, children, or other noncombatants. A second large body of the fleeing coalition regrouped at a place called Awtas, where a further skirmish took place with some Muslim casualties before the Muslims prevailed. In total, only four Muslims were killed in the Battle of Hunayn itself, though many were wounded, famously including all four of the future Khulafa al-Rashidun, Abu Bakr, Umar, Uthman, and Ali RA, who all stood with the Prophet ﷺ and were all wounded that day.