"Whilst the archers continued to distress us with their darts, we discovered that the entry into the pass was barricaded by another detachment of our enemies who had allowed us to ride through and now awaited our return. At their head was a soldier of the Hawazin, bestriding a gigantic red camel and he was signalling with a spear to which he had fixed a black flag. When a Believer passed within reach, he lowered his lance to run him through, and perchance he missed, he signalled with his flag lifted again to those following him, and they pursued the Mussulman and put him to death."
The defeat seemed irretrievable. Already many of the Prophet's old enemies, their hearts still brimming with, rancour, began to gloat over the critical situation of the Mussulmans. 'Their flight will not cease until they reach the sea coast!' cried Abu Sufyan, who busied himself with consulting his divining arrows which he carried concealed in his quiver. 'Mohammad's sorcery is powerless this day!' exclaimed Kalada ibn Hanbal in his turn. But his brother Safwan, although not yet converted, silenced him with these words: 'May a gag close thy mouth!'
In the midst of general confusion, the Prophet alone was cool and collected. He posted himself on a low hill, to the right of the valley. 'I am the Prophet of Allah and no impostor!' he declared, and urging his mule forward, went to throw himself in the thick of the fight. Abu Bakr rushed in front of the animal and, seizing the bridle, held it back. To try and rally his troops, Mohammad ordered Abbas to shout: 'O Ansars and Mohadjirun, my companions! O ye who took their oath over there!' (at Al-Hudaibiyah). When, from the top of a rock, his stentorian voice carried the Prophet's cry to the fugitives, they were covered with great confusion. Regaining their self-control, they replied: 'We are here at thy service!'
But what was to be done to stem such a torrent of fleeing men and beasts, crowded together between the two vertical sides of the ravine? The Faithful did their best to lash the camels, twisting their necks by pulling the bridle contrariwise. With great strides, the frightened animals kept on in their flight.... It was then that the warriors of Allah slung their shields round their necks and jumped out of the saddle, leaving their camels to go on alone. Unsheathing their swords, the soldiers turned back to begin fighting again.
The Prophet, standing up in his stirrups, saw with joy that the situation was changed, and when his gaze fell upon the countless warriors rushing into the brazier of the battle, he cried out: 'The furnace is alight!'
Ali, accompanied by an Ansar, resolved to put a stop to the exploits of the Bedouin of the Hawazin, proudly waving his spear adorned with the black flag. With one blow of his scimitar, Ali hamstrung the camel, and at the same moment, the Ansar brought down the Infidel by slicing his leg from the knee to the heel, putting an end to his misery as soon as he was flattened out on the ground.
Mad terror seized the idolaters when thinking they had crushed the Mussulmans, they resumed the offensive. It was now the Infidels' turn to give way.... Mohammad ordered his mule to lie down. The animal bent its knees until its belly rested on the ground. Then taking up a handful of dust, the Prophet, as he had done at Badr, threw it towards his enemies whose flight became a mad rout. It seemed as if they had been blinded by this dust and that their soldiers were dispersed exactly the same as these impalpable atoms....
"Now hath Allah helped you in many battle-fields, and, on the day of Hunain, when ye prided yourselves on your numbers; but it availed you nothing; and the earth, with all its breadth, became too strait for you: then turned ye your backs in flight. * Then did Allah send down a spirit of tranquillity upon His Apostle, and upon the Faithful; and He sent down hosts which ye saw not and punished the Infidels." (The Qur'an, ix, 25, 26.)
Harried by the sword during their retreat, Malik and the remains of his army managed to find safety in the fortified town of Taif.
Less lucky, Durayd, the Infidels' second leader, was unable to escape his fate. Ninety years of age and blind, he was unable to direct his camel when abandoned by his panic-stricken fellow-countrymen, and he fell into the hands of a mere lad, Rabi'a ibn Rafia. When he saw the litter in which reclined this celebrated warrior, paralysed by the infirmities of great age, the youth thought he had captured a woman. He made the camel kneel, parted the hangings and was petrified at only finding an old man. Vexed and disappointed, he dealt Durayd a sabre-cut, but the aged fighter did not even seem to know that he had been struck. 'What sort of weapon hath thy mother placed in thy hands, O little vagabond?' he asked in accents of supreme scorn. 'Take my sabre, hanging from my camel's saddle. Lift the blade aloft and hit between the vertebrae of the back and those of the head. That was how I used to strike men down.'