The Prophet's Du'a Against the Confederates, and Qur'an 33:9

Shaykh Yasir Qadhi explains:

ʿĀ'ishah's well-known description of the Prophet ﷺ, that whenever a matter troubled him he would rise to pray (كَانَ إِذَا حَزَبَهُ أَمْرٌ قَامَ إِلَى الصَّلَاةِ, kāna idhā ḥazabahu amrun qāma ilā al-ṣalāh), is borne out directly in Ḥudhayfah's account of that stormy night: rather than pacing anxiously, the Prophet ﷺ turned to tahajjud through the worst of the crisis. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī and Muslim preserve one of his supplications from that night: "Allāhumma Munzil al-Kitāb, Sarīʿ al-Ḥisāb, ihzim al-Aḥzāb, Allāhumma ihzimhum wa zalzilhum" (اللَّهُمَّ مُنْزِلَ الْكِتَابِ، سَرِيعَ الْحِسَابِ، اهْزِمِ الْأَحْزَابَ، اللَّهُمَّ اهْزِمْهُمْ وَزَلْزِلْهُمْ), "O Allah, Revealer of the Book, swift in reckoning, defeat the Confederates; O Allah, defeat them and shake the ground beneath them."

A fuller version of this night's events reached later generations through ʿAbdullāh ibn Abī Awfā, who, roughly thirty years afterward, during the wars against the Khawārij in ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib's khilāfah, wrote to the Muslim forces preparing for that conflict, relaying what he had preserved from the night of the Trench. He recorded that after sunset the Prophet ﷺ rose to pray, then addressed the people directly: "Do not wish to meet the enemy, but if you do meet them, be patient, and know that Paradise lies in the shade of swords", followed by a fuller version of the du'a: "Allāhumma Munzil al-Kitāb, Mujrī al-Saḥāb, Hāzim al-Aḥzāb, ihzimhum wa unṣurnā ʿalayhim" (اللَّهُمَّ مُنْزِلَ الْكِتَابِ، مُجْرِيَ السَّحَابِ، هَازِمَ الْأَحْزَابِ، اهْزِمْهُمْ وَانْصُرْنَا عَلَيْهِمْ), "O Allah, Revealer of the Book, Driver of the clouds, Defeater of the Confederates, defeat them and grant us victory over them." Dr. Qadhi highlights the care Companions took in preserving and re-transmitting even a single battlefield du'a across decades and different conflicts, a testament to how deliberately the early community safeguarded the Prophet's ﷺ words.

This du'a, specifically invoking Allah as the one who "drives the clouds", was answered directly, as Allah records in Sūrat al-Aḥzāb: "O you who believe, remember the favor of Allah upon you when armies came to you and We sent against them a wind and armies you could not see" (يَا أَيُّهَا الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا اذْكُرُوا نِعْمَةَ اللَّهِ عَلَيْكُمْ إِذْ جَاءَتْكُمْ جُنُودٌ فَأَرْسَلْنَا عَلَيْهِمْ رِيحًا وَجُنُودًا لَمْ تَرَوْهَا, 33:9), the wind being the storm itself, and the unseen armies understood to be the angels Ḥudhayfah encountered on his return. Ibn Isḥāq records that not a single Confederate tent remained standing, no pot could stay upright, and no fire could remain lit, forcing the entire coalition to scatter in retreat without further resistance.