Ma'bad al-Khuza'i and the Quraysh's Retreat

Shaykh Yasir Qadhi explains:

As related in al-Wāqidī's Maghāzī, the Qurayshi army, once regrouped on the road home, fell into a heated debate over whether they had actually accomplished their aim. ʿIkrimah ibn Abī Jahl argued forcefully for turning back to finish the Muslims off entirely. Ṣafwān ibn Umayyah, one of the more measured senior figures who recurs throughout the Sīrah, pushed back, warning that returning would provoke a level of Anṣārī anger, particularly from Aws and Khazraj clans who had not even taken part in Uḥud, that the Quraysh had not yet faced. ʿIkrimah nearly won the argument regardless, framing it as a matter of unfinished honor: neither had they killed the Prophet (ﷺ), nor earned the admiration owed to a true victory.

At this critical moment, Maʿbad al-Khuzāʿī crossed paths with the army. Maʿbad, a respected nobleman of Khuzāʿah and not yet Muslim, had visited the Prophet (ﷺ) in Madinah shortly before to offer his condolences over what had happened, telling him he wished the outcome had gone the other way. Abū Sufyān, recognizing him as a neutral and trustworthy source, asked him directly for news of the Muslims' condition. Without revealing anything the Prophet (ﷺ) had told him, he was under no Islamic obligation, and had no reason to help the Quraysh regardless, Maʿbad described the Muslims as enraged and mobilizing for vengeance, independently confirming exactly what Ṣafwān had just warned about. Asked what he advised, Maʿbad told Abū Sufyān to flee as fast as his horses could carry him.

That a man of Maʿbad's standing was visibly alarmed settled the matter. The Quraysh abandoned any plan to turn back and continued their retreat to Mecca, a decisive intervention that came, as Dr. Qadhi notes, entirely from outside the Muslim camp, without the Prophet (ﷺ) even being aware it had happened until afterward.