as soon as he reached a location called ash-shaikhan, he paraded his army. he dismissed those whom he considered to be disabled or too young to stand the fight. among them were ‘abdullah bin ‘umar bin al-khattab. usama bin zaid; usaid bin zaheer, zaid bin thabit, zaid bin arqam. ‘araba bin aws, ‘amr bin hazm, abu sa‘eed al-khudri, zaid bin haritha al-ansari, sa‘d bin habba and al-barâ’ bin ‘azib, sahih al-bukhari pointed out that he had shared in the fight that day.

the messenger of allâh [pbuh] allowed both rafi‘ bin khadaij and samura bin jundub to join the army — though they were too young. the former proved to be skillful at shooting arrows; the latter wrestled the former and beat him. the admission of rafi‘ made samura say: "i am stronger than him, i can overcome him." when the prophet [pbuh] heard this saying he ordered them to wrestle. they did. samura won so he was also admitted.