Durayd Counsels the Young Malik

Shaykh Yasir Qadhi explains:

The tribes brought to the camp their oldest nobleman, Durayd ibn aṣ-Ṣimmah, blind, aged, a famed warrior of many battles, led by the hand, for the blessing of his presence and counsel. Hearing infants crying, goats bleating and mules braying, he demanded, "Who brought the women, the children, the whole of your flocks to a battlefield?" Told it was Mālik, wanting every man to fight with his family at his back, Durayd rebuked him sharply: "A man who is to lose is not saved because his family is behind him, victory is men with swords."

He asked after the shrewdest sub-tribes by name and learned they had all stayed away, a sign, he said, that the wise had judged this no day of glory; "go back, O Mālik." At least, he urged, send the women, children and herds back to the fortress: if you win you return to them, if you lose they are safe. The people began to see the sense of it. But the young Mālik, needing to prove himself, mocked the old man, "go back to the retired and leave war to us", and when they still wavered, swore he would run himself through with his own sword before them all if they disobeyed. So the families and flocks stayed. It is the age-old clash of youthful zeal and elderly wisdom, and by Allāh's decree, it delivered all of it to the Muslims.