Seerah (48) - The battle of Uhud part 4; the Prophet (s) is injured In our last lesson we mentioned the

sahaba and their specific stories and we mentioned Khalid bin Waleed's attack and how it happened. In this lesson we will mention what happened with the Prophet (s) and there are about 15 narrations of this. The issue again becomes piecing together the various narrations and today we will discuss an interpretation of the events. Every original book has it's own version of the events and their own chronology. Frankly we will never know the answer because we were not there. What we do know is that the Prophet (s) was surrounded by nine people. What we can interpret is that this was beginning of when the contingent of Khalid bin Waleed was coming. Amongst them was Sa'ad bin Abi Waqqas and Talha bin Ubeidellah and the other 7 were all Ansar whose names we do not know. Two Muhajiroon and 7 Ansar thus. Abu Bakr, Ummar and other sahaba were dispersed in other places. When Khalid returns the Prophet (s) is only with a small band. Initially the Prophet (s) began shouting to the Muslims to be careful, and the ayah in the Qur'an mentions this that from the back the Prophet (s) was calling at them. And we know that this group of 9 along with the Prophet (s) understood that they need to flee from the forces of Khalid bin Waleed. They decided to take shelter in the mountains, having the advantage of distance and seeing the forces of Khalid. They also have the advantage to hide into the mountains that they were very familiar with, 7 of them being the Ansar from Madinah who were familiar with Uhud. In comparison Khalid's forces would not know the mountains of Uhud well at all. This was of course one of the biggest advantages that the Muslims and the Prophet (s) had. As we know from our general knowledge from the Seerah, the Prophet (s) sought refuge in small cave, rather a narrow crevice or slither into the mountains. Perhaps only 1-2 could actually go in here while the rest would be outside. It appears that someone in this group knows exactly where to go. As they were heading back though the contingent of the Quraysh got very close and the Prophet (s) asked, "who will take on these people and they shall be my companion in Jannah?" and immediately Talha offered this. But the Prophet (s) asked him to stay by his side as he was the best warrior amongst them and when an Ansar offered than he accepted this. The Ansar went forward and died a shaheed thus fending off the incoming army. What we can understand is that likely the 9 sahaba are taking retreat in the mountain while trying to throw off the scent of their retreat by ensuring that no one follows them. So perhaps one by one they were luring the Quraysh to a different location, to go and fight them and lead them elsewhere as a decoy, while the group of the Prophet (s) goes to the mountain. And this continued to happen until all 7 of the Ansar died as a Shaheed and every single time Talha would offer to go next but the Prophet (s) would rather have him stay by his side. Finally it was only the Prophet (s), Sa'ad and Talha and in the entire Seerah of the Prophet (s) perhaps this was the most critical moment. No doubt the people of Ta'if were nasty and mean but they only intended to humiliate him but not kill him. Even in the Hijrah it was only Suraka versus both the Prophet (s) and Abu Bakr, and he would never kill them as he wanted the prize money. Whereas here this is an open battle and war. There is no protection after Allah than Sa'ad and Talha. Again, the Prophet (s) was never as dangerous or critical in a situation as this. Both Talha and Sa'ad were expert archers and Talha was also a warrior as well. Sa'ad was more known as an archer. The both of them began using their bows and arrows against the enemy coming off and here we can assume that the Prophet (s) had reached the cave. The both of them began throwing volleys of arrows at anyone approacing from below and the people were searching and scouring the land for the Prophet (s). A narration proves this; it says that the Prophet (s) would look outside to see anyone coming and Talha would say to him, "may my mother and father be given in ransom to you oh Messenger of Allah (s), do not look outside for perhaps a stray arrow might strike you, my chest instead of yours, let me be guard in front of the crevice." This also shows us that the Prophet (s) is trying to see what is going on but Talha offers his life over the Prophet's. Sa'ad also began sending volleys of arrows, so many so that the Prophet (s) began finding arrows on the ground and giving it to him, and the Prophet (s) gave Sa'ad an amazing honor which he held proud for the rest of his life and this was, "may my father and mother be given in ransom for you, shoot oh Sa'ad shoot." This phrase, "may my father and mother be given in ransom to you" is the highest expression of respect, literally meaning that the mother and father

would be sacrificed literally for them, and the sahaba used it all the time for the Prophet (s). Giving yourself up is easy, but giving your parents up for someone else? Who would do this. And no one deserves for it to be used other than the Prophet (s). And this was was expected of both Talha and Sa'ad as they are both of the 10 elite. Another incident reported is that when all 7 of the Ansar had died and Talha was the only one left armed as a warrior (Sa'ad was likely in the archery section and only had arrows). Nobody was left and an enemy was coming up the mountain so Talha was sent to deal with him. Talha fights and kills this man but before this happens the man uses his sword and some of his fingers were cut off. And when this happened, he cried out, "Hiss!" meaning ouch. And the Prophet (s) said at this, "had you only said Bismillah, the angels would have lifted you up to heavens while the people would be watching.." meaning that there is nothing wrong with saying ouch but that his level was already so high that one phrase and he would be honored by the lifting of the angels. And during this time a number of sahaba began figuring out the location of the Prophet (s) and one of the first of them was an Ansari by the name of Qatadah ibn Al-No'man al Awsi and he narrates that, "on the day of Uhud the Prophet (s) gave me a bow and I continued to use it so much that it was no longer flexible" and this was in the cave. And this also shows that the Prophet (s) collected weapon instruments which he than gave away, so as he was ascending the mountain he was collecting weapons. And Qatadah used the bow so much that it lost it's flexibility even. So Qatadah said that, "when the arrows continued to come I decided to use my body to shield the Prophet (s)" and as we can imagine the arrow is a small, fast instrument and especially when there are volleys of arrows coming this is very deadly. This is why the Prophet (s) said, "the real strength is in arrows, the real strength is in arrows" because you can not find against them and horses will not run into arrows. So Qatadah narrates that he monitored the arrows and everytime it would come he would block it until an arrow was seen and he could use nothing but his face to protect against this arrow and so he did and the arrow hit Qatadah's eye. And when the Prophet (s) saw this, he himself began to cry. And he said, "oh Allah, Qatadah has protected your Prophet with his face so let his eye become the best eye and let it be the most precise in eye sight" and the Prophet (s) took the arrow out and Qatadah narrates that eye healed instantly and it became the best and more accurate of his two eyes. This was a miracle that occurred infront of the sahaba. Sometime while all of this is going on, another scene happened where the Prophet (s) killed a pagan and this is the only pagan that ever died at the hands of a Muslim. And this was Ubayy ibn Khalaf, the filthy evil mushrik that had done so much vulgar taunting and had a long list of such tactics against the Prophet (s), including that had carried the intestines upon the Prophet (s) upon his doing sajdah. And Allah gave him a very special dishonor that was not given to any other Quraysh, and he was the only pagan to be killed directly by the hands of the Prophet (s). It is narrated that Ubayy bin Khalaf would mock the Prophet (s) like no one else would and he would tell him I would kill you one day. This is really disrespectful as you do not say this to a fellow Qurayshi. One day he mocked the Prophet (s) saying, "I have a special horse and I am feeding it the choiciest barley and grain so it grows fat and healthy so I may kill you while riding it." And the only time the Prophet (s) responded was here when he said, "no I will actually be the one killing you in sha Allah." On the day of Uhud Ubayy saw the Prophet (s) from afar, and this must have been a time that there were a few sahaba around him, and when he saw the Prophet (s) he aligned his horse to face him. And remember that being on a horse you have a huge advantage, you can strike below and with extra momentum of the horse. The person on the ground though has no momentum and does not have the spped or agility of the horse, and most importantly you can not aim for the person's head. And Ubayy started charging, and when the sahaba saw this they began to huddle around the Prophet (s) to protect him, and he said, "No, he is mine" and the Prophet (s) grabbed a spear from Al-Hareth ibn As-Saamit and as Ubayy came rushing the Prophet (s) manages to avoid his blow and instead uses his spear and directly pierces the armor straight into the neck of Ubayy ibn Khalaf. But it did get stuck in the armor and it only went in a small amount into the neck, wounding him. And Ubayy began screaming at the top of his lungs, "Mohammed has killed me! Mohammed has killed me!" And he rushed back to Khalid screaming this. And he the "medics" of the time were called who saw that this was rather a small wound and that it would heal. But he had begun to panic and said, "this is not a minor wound, it is a death wound, wallahi if he spat in my face I would have fallen dead" i.e. this is that promise being met of

him promising to kill me. And indeed he did die in the valley of Sarif - a valley outside Makkah and he was buried in a no man land. Today this area is by the city of Raghib. It is mentioned in the Seerah books that many years later Ibn Ummar was travelling in an expedition and he passed by a fire that frightened him by the modern day city of Raaghib. So he went close to this fire and he found Ubayy bin Khalaf's image coming out of the fire crying out, "Thirst! Thirst!" but before he could do anything immediately a figure behind him said, "Do not give him anything, this is the one whom the Prophet (s) has killed." And in a hadith the Prophet (s) said, "Allah's anger is increased on anyone whom the Prophets kill." During this chaos the Prophet (s) was wounded. There are varying opinions about how many times he was wounded and in how many locations but it seems that there are at least three different times in three different areas where he was wounded. One of the reports says that Utbah bin Abi Waqqas (what irony! Sa'ad bin Abi Waqqas is defending the Prophet (s) while his blood brother is on the other side in the contingency of Khalid) threw stones at the Prophet (s) which hit him in the face and injured his lips. This is the first injury by a rock. Another injury was from Utbah ibn Abi Waqqas again and this was the most severe one because this was an arrow. He launched an arrow that entered into the armor of the Prophet (s) and it went straight through his cheek, dislodging his pre-molar tooth. The problem here was the arrow was stuck and it did not dislodge, going in through the gap of his armor and dislodging one of his teeth. This was the second injury. The third wound was either by Abdullah ibn Shihaab or Abdullah ibn Qami'ah, there are two reports of the two. This was a short distance wound with a sword. Thus the Prophet (s) had a wound with a rock to the lip, an arrow to one cheek and a sword to another cheek. We do not know when the sword wound took place as it was from very close but he came within striking distance on his horse and he raised his sword to strike the Prophet (s) but Talha managed to deflect the sword blow with his shield but it did not deflect completely, minimizing the blow but still hitting the helmet of the Prophet (s) and it appears that there are two wounds to his face; the first by the lodged arrow and the second this sword blow that the sword did not hit him but his own armor hit him that went into his face. Thus both cheeks of the Prophet (s) were wounded. It was here when the Prophet (s) was bleeding from his face, in Sahih Muslim it is narrated that he continually was wiping the blood from his face when he says the phrase, "how can a nation be successful when they have injured their own Prophet" or "how can Allah forgive them (or how can they attain Allah's mercy) when they do this to their Prophet (or when I am calling them to Islam)." And at this Allah revealed an ayah when they returned to Madinah Surah Al-'Imran a verse that applies to this phrase of the Prophet (s) and it is important in that it demonstrates the reality of Tauheed, the meaning of our Shahadah:

3:128 Not for thee, (but for Allah., is the decision: Whether He turn in mercy to them, or punish them); for they are indeed wrong-doers. The way Allah phrases this is also very blunt - you have nothing! it is not your business! you have no share in dictating - whether Allah punishes or forgives. But Allah does admit that yes they have wronged the Prophet (s). The Prophet (s) had originally said that there is no way that they would be forgiven or achieve Allah's mercy, but Allah reprimanded His Prophet (s) by telling him that it was not his job to decide this. This is very very powerful ayah here because it shows us the reality of who is Allah and who is the slave, the Prophet (s). Even the Prophet Mohammed (s) despite being who he is does not have the right to judge, as Allah tells him that it is the Prophet's job to preach and Allah's job to decide (who goes where). And if this the status of the best and most noble of creation Allah, our Prophet Mohammed (s), what is the status of others beside him? Even our Prophet (s) is being told that he can not decide whom Allah forgives and does not. And if this is his status than what about the status of any other creation? And if people just understood this one incident there would be no shirk in the Ummah. Why do people go to the grave of the righteous? Because they think they will use their intercession to get to the Prophet (s). Unfortunately there are groups in our

times that believe that the Prophet (s) will decide who will go to heaven and hell and Allah just checks this. They make the Prophet (s) the real being in charge and Allah executing his commands, but the Qur'an or hadith clearly do not say this. This also shows us the humanity of our Prophet (s) and the fact that yes he is human - he bleeds, gets angry and irritated - and he has every right to be emotional and his concern was how will Allah forgive them. And it is said that after this ayah came down the Prophet (s) completely reversed, saying, "Oh Allah please forgive my people for they do not know." And he made du'a for those people. And this shows us that infact many of them were forgiven. Khalid was the best example, being the one who led the charge and than being known as Saif-Ullah, and this is exactly as Allah tells the Prophet (s) that it is not up to him who is guided and who isn't. One may ask: wasn't Allah protecting the Prophet (s)? How could he get wounded? In Sahih Bokhari, Sa'ad bin Abi Waqqas narrates that, "I saw the Prophet (s) on the day of Uhud and there were two people in front of him wearing the whitest of white, fighting a fight I had never seen before and or after this incident" and of course these are the angels. And yet can the angels fall short? That an arrow is going to miss the angels? No, so this means the injuries that the Prophet (s) sustained were done for a wisdom that Allah intended and there is great wisdom and benefit for us in them. And the Prophet (s) was being protected and had it not been for that protection he would not have lived through that incident. The angels protected his life by the permission of Allah and he managed to return the next day with scars and wounds, but they did not incapacitate him and the wound did heal after some time. And again, this happened by Allah's Qadr. The death of Musa'ab ibn Umayr also happened at the same time. He had the same complexion as the Prophet (s) and it is said his eyes or facial features resembled the Prophet (s) and according to another report he may have been wearing a borrowed cloak of the Prophet (s). So from this we understand that when Abdullah ibn Qami'ah, the same who attacked the Prophet (s) with the sword, when he eventually killed Mus'ab sometime later on he assumed that he had killed the Prophet (s) and he began screaming at the top of his lungs, "I have killed Mohammed! I have killed Mohammd!" and the news began to spread rapidly amongst the Quraysh present and the small groups of Muslims. Later on we learn a huge wisdom and benefit that this news was advantageous for the Muslims in the long run because when the news spread to the Quraysh they felt satisfied, and no one wants to fight in battle so this was their incentive to pack up and leave. And this was a major demoralizing factor for the sahaba, many wondering aimlessly and some sitting down with their swords not knowing what to do. In Sahih Bokhari it is narrated such an incident of Anas ibn Nadr (the uncle of Anas ibn Malik) who passed by a group of sahaba and asked them why they were not fighting and they answered that the Prophet (s) had been killed. So Anas replied, "even if the Prophet (s) has been killed than the Lord of Mohammed has not been killed! And besides what will you do with life now that the Prophet (s) is dead, so let us go and die as he died" and he held his sword and met Sa'ad ibn Muadh (and they were close friends) and he told him, "oh Sa'ad, verily I can smell the scent of Jannah from that mountain" and as he is walking to meet his death he asks Allah, "oh Allah I ask your forgiveness for these (my fellow Muslims) have done and I dissociate from what they (meaning the Quraysh) have done." And he threw himself into battle to try and basically kill as many Quraysh as he could, and he fought in such bravery that eventually a body was discovered with over 80 wounds from top down and it was unrecognizable until his sister came and by the tips of his fingers recognized him as Anas ibn Nadr. This shows us that he fought very well, and for him Allah revealed:

33:23 Among the Believers are men who have been true to their covenant with Allah. of them some have completed their vow (to the extreme), and some (still) wait: but they have never changed (their determination) in the least: By now the rumor began spreading that the Prophet (s) had passed away yet still the sahaba were frantically searching and slowly but surely when they see a group gathering at the mountain

they head there. And one of the first to recognize the Prophet (s) from the battlefield was Ka'ab ibn Malik and he did so simply by the brightness of the eyes of the Prophet (s) and he shouted as loud as he could, "Muslims! Rejoice for the Prophet (s) is alive" in emotion but at the same time the Prophet (s) asked him to be quiet. And he was one of the first to rush up the crevice, handing him his own armor. Why so? Perhaps the Prophet (s) had lost his armor's functionality and also because in those days people would recognize each other by their armor (this was a unique battle symbol for each warrior) and perhaps he wanted people to not recognize the Prophet (s) anymore. And Ka'ab was left without any armor and it is said by the end of the battle he had over 20 wounds, all caused by his lack of armor. And so the news spread amongst the Muslims of the Prophet (s) being alive and now he was joined by the rest of the sahaba; Ummar, Abu Bakr, Ali and Zubayr. And Abu Bakr narrates, "When the people were rushing I saw one man protecting and fighting for the Prophet (s), and I asked Allah for it to be Talha to have this honor and it was. And while I was rushing up another man rushed behind me so fast that he overtook me and came forth in enthusiasm, and this was Abu Ubeidah bin Al Jarrah. And we both got to the Prophet (s) and saw that two arrows had pierced his helmet (this version says two arrows, but other versions say that it could have been one arrow and one armor link broken, but there were clearly two wounds), both in each cheek of the Prophet (s). And when we saw the arrow I rushed forward to dislodge the arrow but Abu Ubeidah begged me to let him do this.." and Abu Bakr was soft so he allowed this. Two arrows (according to this narration) stuck to the Prophet (s) had both been immersed into his check, one dislodging a tooth. There was a dilemma now of how to dislodge this, so Abu Ubeidah decided to bite the arrow with his teeth to gently nudge it out. And he bites so hard that he loses his own two teeth in the process, wanting to cause the pain on him and not the Prophet (s). And Abu Bakr insists that it is his turn for the other side (this again shows clearly that there are two wounds) and Abu Ubeidah again insists and wins over, and he again loses one of his teeth to get rid of the other side, and so he had 3-4 teeth missing for the rest of his life. Imagine the pain of the Prophet (s) when it came in and out if Abu Ubeidah lost some teeth getting rid of it. Bokhari mentions that when the Prophet (s) returned home Fatimah tried to wash wounds off the Prophet's face and Ali tried to pour water and stop the wounds but no matter what the blood would continue to flow. Imagine that he has been bleeding continuously for half a day now. Even when the wounds are tried to wash they do not. Finally Fatimah burned some date palm leaves and made a paste out of this and literally than glued the wound shut. This shows how severe the wounds of the Prophet (s) were. It is also narrated that the Ansari women also took an active role of being nurses and bringing water to the sick in the battlefield. Generally women did not participate in military expeditions but Uhud was different because it was walking distance from the houses and secondly it was a time of necessity. Anas narrates as a child that Aisha and Umm Sulaym were running around the battlefield and they had tied their skirts higher to allow freedom of movement (the legislations of Hijab had not been revealed at this time and at such a time and place rules become laxed anyway) and they were bringing water from the ponds and wells of Madinah to the wounded in the battle field and wash their wounds. We know that the battle had ended by the conversation of Abu Sufyaan and the Muslims. So Abu Sufyaan returned after Khalid bin Waleed's forces had scoured the area and returned home. Abu Sufyaan is likely called back after he ran away (likely he did not participate in Khalid's counter attack as there was no narrations of this), so he stands at the foot of Uhud and he cries out as loud as he can, "is Mohammed alive? Answer me" and the Prophet (s) told Ummar and Abu Bakr, "Don't answer him" and this occurs twice without an answer. And he asks, "is the son of Abu Qahafa alive?" and the Prophet (s) instructs them to not answer. And he asks, "is the son of Khattab alive?" and the Prophet (s) instructs them again to not answer. Notice that even Abu Sufyaan, a pagan at this time, and as early as the battle of Uhud recognizes who the first and second after the Prophet (s) is, how unfortunate are those that do not recognize Abu Bakr and Ummar. Abu Sufyaan asks the Prophet (s), Abu Bakr and than Ummar without an answer. After this he begins to feel proud, saying, "we have killed all of them" and at this Ummar could not contain his anger. He shouts as loud as he can, "You are lying oh enemy of Allah for verily Allah has called all of them to live and they will remain to harm you at another day!" and now with this confirmation Abu Sufyaan says, "today is in retaliation for the day of Badr" and war is in turns. So

he basically says this is his victory and revenge for Badr. And than he says, "you shall find amongst the dead mutilation, I did not command them to do this but I am not angry with it either." Ummar responds at this, "they are not the same, our dead are in Jannah and your dead are in Jahannum." And Abu Sufyaan's parting shot was, "Hubal be honored!" and this was their main idol and where idolatory began. And the Prophet (s) asked him to answer back and they responded how to respond? And the Prophet (s) told them to say, "Allah is Mightier or Higher and He has more honor." And than Abu Sufyaan responded, "we have Uzzah and you have no Uzzah" and this was another of their major idols. And the Prophet (s) told them again to respond, and with what? He responded, "Allah will protect us and you have no protector." Ibn Qayyum comments on this in Zaad al-Ma'ad that when Abu Sufyaan called out is Mohammed, Ummar and Abu Bakr are alive no response was given to not even give him a dignity of a response to show him complete humiliation and contempt, but when he mocked Allah by praising the idols only than the Prophet (s) encouraged them to respond to defend Allah. For himself he did not respond, but when the idols were praised the Prophet (s) did not allow this. Thus silence at the time of silence was preferred, and vocalization when needed was preferred. It is also reported that Abu Sufyaan promised to meet again, one year from this day, in the same plains of Badr. With this they left the battlefield of Uhud.