The Hardship of the Siege, and the Night Patrols

Shaykh Yasir Qadhi explains:

Reports on the exact duration of the Trench's construction vary, Ibn Saʿd gives six days, others as many as fifteen, and one report of a full month, which later scholars such as Ibn Ḥajar identify as a confusion with the length of the siege itself rather than the digging. The most authentic reports suggest around six days of digging, and in any case no more than two weeks, given how quickly the Confederate army was approaching. Including the roughly month-long siege that followed, the whole episode is estimated to have spanned around forty days, long enough that individual Companions' scattered recollections of two or three specific incidents each, without clear sequence, make reconstructing an exact day-by-day timeline effectively impossible, a challenge far greater than piecing together the few hours of Badr or Uḥud.

From the start of the digging, the entire community left their homes; the women and children were moved into a fortified stronghold belonging to one of the Anṣār, called al-Fāriʿ, out of the Prophet's ﷺ concern over possible treachery from Banū Qurayẓah. Companions patrolled the length of the trench in shifts through the night, calling out "Allāhu Akbar" continuously so that anyone approaching would believe a large force stood guard on the other side. Umm Salamah later said that of every battle she witnessed alongside the Prophet ﷺ, including al-Muraysīʿ, Khaybar, al-Ḥudaybiyah, the Conquest of Makkah, and Ḥunayn, none was more exhausting or more fearful for the Muslims than the Trench, given their fear for their own children left in Madinah so close to Banū Qurayẓah, and the continuous overnight patrols kept going until Fajr.

The Prophet ﷺ himself took a personal shift standing guard at part of the valley. ʿĀ'ishah, who stayed in the Prophet's ﷺ tent near the trench rather than with the other women, narrated that one night they heard the sound of armor approaching; the Prophet ﷺ called out to ask who it was, and al-Zubayr ibn al-ʿAwwām answered that he had come to relieve him of his watch. The Prophet ﷺ agreed and went to rest, falling asleep so quickly and deeply that ʿĀ'ishah could hear him snoring, a measure of his own exhaustion even while personally sharing the community's hardship. ʿĀ'ishah said she never forgot this favor from al-Zubayr. Alongside the hunger and fear, the Sīrah sources also record that the siege fell during the depth of winter, with the Companions periodically retreating into their tents simply to warm themselves before returning to their posts.