The Hill at Uhud

A year after Badr, Quraysh came for revenge, three thousand strong, to the slopes of Mount Uhud outside Madinah. The Prophet ﷺ marched out with about seven hundred, after some of the hypocrites under Abdullah ibn Ubayy peeled away. He arranged his lines with the mountain at their backs and placed fifty archers on a small hill to guard the army's rear, with an order absolute in its clarity: do not leave this place even if you see us being snatched away by birds; even if you see us victorious, do not move.

At first the believers swept the field. Quraysh broke and ran, and the Muslims began gathering the spoils. Seeing the enemy in flight, most of the archers concluded the battle was won and came down from the hill for their share, against the explicit order, while their commander and a few held their post pleading with them to remember the command.

Khalid ibn al-Walid, then still a warrior of Quraysh and a genius of the battlefield, saw the gap, wheeled his cavalry around the now-undefended hill, and struck the Muslims from behind. In moments a victory became a rout. The believers were scattered, a cry went up that the Prophet ﷺ had been killed, and hearts failed; some sat down in despair, until others rallied them: if Muhammad is killed, his Lord is not killed, fight for what he fought for.

The Prophet ﷺ himself was struck down, his face gashed, a tooth broken, the rings of his helmet driven into his cheek, and he fell into a pit. The Companions formed a ring of bodies around him; Abu Talhah (ra) shielded him with his own chest, Abu Dujanah (ra) covered him as arrows struck his back, and a woman, Nusaybah bint Ka'b (ra), Umm Amarah, fought with sword and bow taking wound after wound in his defence. As blood ran down his blessed face he did not curse them; he said: how can a people prosper who have wounded their prophet? Yet even then: O Allah, forgive my people, for they do not know.

The Muslims withdrew up the mountain, bloodied and grieving, having tasted defeat in the very place they had expected triumph. Seventy of the best of them lay dead. The day of Uhud was a wound that the Qur'an would spend much of Surah Aal Imran explaining, not as abandonment, but as a lesson the young community needed in obedience, in humility, and in the difference between fighting for Allah and fighting for spoils.