When one evening — which is the period after midday — there were displayed before him the prancing steeds al-sāfināt ‘horses’ is the plural of sāfina which denotes a horse standing on three legs with the fourth supported on the edge of the hoof and derives from the verb safana yasfinu sufūnan; al-jiyād is the plural of jawād which is a ‘racer’; the meaning is that these horses are such that when they are halted they stand still and when they run they surpass others in speed. One thousand horses were displayed before him after he had performed the midday prayer for he had wanted to use them in a holy struggle jihād against an enemy. But when the display reached the nine-hundredth horse the sun set and he had not performed the afternoon prayer. So he was greatly distressed.
