I had felt one of Ali's fingers reach my shoulder, and it pained me. I said to Abu Sufyan: 'I find a severe pain in my shoulder.' I uncovered my garment and looked at my shoulder, and there was the mark of his finger in my shoulder—it had become like a well in its place. No blood appeared from it, nor did it become a wound; there was nothing but its depth.

Then [Mu'awiya] uncovered it until he exposed his shoulder and said: 'Look at it, O 'Amr.' 'Amr looked at it, and it was like the circle of a signet ring in the depth of a well. Then [Mu'awiya] said: 'Yes, O 'Amr; and since that day, I have not been able to draw a sword or shake it, and nothing is more burdensome to me than that. Do you think, then, that he might be with us this hour, hearing what we are immersed in?' My father took me out of the house and said to me: 'Keep this secret to yourself and from [the clan of] 'Abd Shams, lest you be killed or the master of the house be killed because of it.' Later, [Suraqa's] family entered upon him and found him slain, and they said: 'Suraqa killed a man from the people of Yemen, and indeed the family of that [Yemeni] man came and entered upon him in his house and killed him. 'Amr said: 'O Mu'awiya, the terror of Muhammad did not cease to weigh upon the heart of Abu Sufyan from the moment he appeared until he died; likewise, the terror of Ali shall not cease to weigh upon your heart until you join your father. Do not speak of this to anyone from the Banu Umayya besides me, lest they attribute to you confusion and madness (al-Suluk wal-Ikhtilat), for this is not something that could ever [normally] be.'