The traditionists have reported on the authority of Hasan bin Salih, on the authority of Amash, on the authority of Abu Ishaq, on the authority of Abu Abdullah Jadali, who said:
I heard Amirul Momineen (a) say: “When I broke down the gate of Khyber, I used it as a shield and I fought against them with it. When Allah brought about their humiliation and I had made the gate a means of overcoming their fort, I threw it into their trench.”
A man asked him: “How were you able to bear the weight of it?”
“It was only like my shield which was in my hands on other occasions,” he answered.
The biographers of the Prophet report that when the Muslims left Khyber, they tried to carry the gate. It could only be lifted by seventy men.
Concerning Amirul Momineen (a) carrying the gate, the poet says: Indeed a man who carried a huge gate at Khyber in the campaign against the Jews was supported by great power. He carried the great gate, a gate which was the door to the restless hearts, while the Muslims and the people of Khyber were mustered. He threw it down and it took seventy men to undertake the burden of picking it up again – all of these exerting themselves fully to do it.
At last they picked it up with much effort and difficulty and urging of one another to pick it up again.
(The gate was eighteen hands long and the moat was hands wide. Ali (a) placed the gate on one end of the moat but its other end could not reach the other end. So, Ali (a) descended into the moat and continued to hold one end of the gate while the while army passed over it. There were some people in the army who stepped gingerly on the gate and entered the fort. According to one report the strength of the Muslim army in this expedition was 8700 men.)
Ibne Shahr Ashob writes in Manaqib: 1
Irshaad, Shaykh Mufeed, Pg. 67;
Biharul Anwar, Vol. 21, Pg. 4, Tr. 11.