Arguing thus they left the pass and plunged into the battle. The fleeing Meccan army included Khalid bin Walid(ra), who later became a great Muslim general. His keen eye fell on the unguarded pass. There were only a few men guarding it now. Khalid(ra) shouted for another Meccan general Amr bin al-As(ra), and asked him to have a look at the pass behind. Amr(ra) did so, and thought it the chance of his life. Both generals stopped their men and climbed on to the hill. They killed the few Muslims who were still guarding the pass and from the eminence started an attack upon the Muslims. Hearing their war cries, the routed Meccan army collected itself again, and returned to the field. The attack on the Muslims was sudden. In their pursuit of the Meccan army they had dispersed over the whole of the field. Muslim resistance to this new attack could not be assembled. Only individual Muslim soldiers were seen engaging the enemy. Many of these fell fighting. Others fell back. A few made a ring round the Prophet(sa). They could not have been more than twenty in all. The Meccan army attacked this ring fiercely. One by one, the Muslims in the ring fell under the blows of Meccan swordsmen. From the hill, the archers sent volleys of arrows. At that time, Talha(ra), one of the Quraish and the Muhajirin (Meccan Muslims who had taken refuge in Medina), saw that the enemy arrows were all directed to the face of the Prophet(sa). He stretched out his hand and held it up against the Prophet's(sa) face. Arrow after arrow struck Talha's(ra) hand, yet it did not drop, athough with each shot it was pierced through. Ultimately it was completely mutilated. Talha(ra) lost his hand and for the rest of life went about with a stump. In the time of the Fourth Khalifa of Islam when internal dissensions had raised their head, Talha(ra) was tauntingly described by an enemy as the handless Talha(ra). A friend of Talha(ra) replied, "Handless, yea, but do you know where he lost his hand? At the Battle of Uhud, in which he raised his hand to shield the Prophet's(sa) face from the enemy's arrows."
Long after the Battle of Uhud friends of Talha(ra) asked him, "Did not your hand smart under the arrow shots and the pain make you cry?" Talha(ra) replied, "It made me smart, and it almost made me cry, but I resisted both because I knew that if my hand shook but slightly, it would expose the Prophet's(sa) face to the volley of enemy arrows." The few men who were left with the Prophet(sa) could not have stood the army which they faced. A party of the enemy advanced forward and pushed them off. The Prophet(sa) then stood alone like a wall, and soon a stone struck his forehead and made a deep gash in it. Another blow drove the rings of his helmet into his cheeks. When the arrows were falling thick and fast and the Prophet(sa) was wounded he prayed, "My God, forgive my people for they know not what they are doing" (Muslim). The Prophet(sa) fell on the dead, the dead who had lost their lives in his defence. Other Muslims came forward to defend the Prophet(sa) from more attacks. They also fell dead. The Prophet(sa) lay unconscious among these dead bodies. When the enemy saw this, they took him for dead. They withdrew in the certainty of victory, and proceeded to line up again. Among the Muslims who had been defending the Prophet(sa) and who had been pushed by the avalanche of enemy forces, was Umar(ra). The battlefield had now cleared. Umar(ra) who saw this, became certain that the Prophet(sa) was dead. Umar(ra) was a brave man. He proved it again and again; best of all, in fighting simultaneously the great Empires of Rome and Iran. He was never known to blench under difficulties. This Umar(ra) sat on a stone with drooping spirits, crying like a child. In the meantime another Muslim, Anas bin Nadr(ra) by name, came wandering along in the belief that the Muslims had won. He had seen them overpower the enemy but, having had nothing to eat since the night before, had withdrawn from the battlefield, with some dates in his hand. As soon as he saw Umar(ra) crying, he stood amazed and asked, ''Umar(ra), what is the matter with you that instead of rejoicing over a magnificent victory won by the Muslims, you are crying?''
Umar(ra) replied, "Anas(ra), you do not know what has happened. You only saw the first part of the battle. You do not know that the enemy captured the strategic point on the hill and attacked us fiercely. The Muslims had dispersed, believing they had won. There was no resistance to this attack by the enemy. Only the Prophet(sa) with a handful of guards stood against the entire enemy and all of them fell down fighting."
"If this is true," said Anas(ra), "what use is sitting here and crying? Where our beloved Master has gone, there must we go too."
Anas(ra) had the last date in his hand. This he was about to put in his mouth but, instead, he threw it away saying, "O date, except thee, is there anything which stands between Anas(ra) and Paradise?"
Saying this, he unsheathed his sword and flung himself into the enemy forces, one against three thousand. He could not do much, but one believing spirit is superior to many. Fighting valiantly, Anas(ra) at last fell wounded, but he continued to fight. Upon this the enemy horde sprang barbarously upon him. It is said that when the battle was over, and the dead were identified, Anas's(ra) body could not be identified. It had been cut into seventy pieces. At last a sister of Anas(ra) identifying it by a mutilated finger said, "This is my brother's body" (Bukhari).
Those Muslims who made a ring round the Prophet(sa) but were driven back, ran forward again as soon as they saw the enemy withdrawing. They lifted the Prophet's(sa) body from among the dead. Abu Ubaida bin al-Jarrah(ra) caught between his teeth the rings which had sunk into the Prophet's(sa) cheeks and pulled them out, losing two teeth in the attempt.
After a little while, the Prophet(sa) returned to consciousness. The guards who surrounded him sent out messengers to tell Muslims to assemble again. A disrupted force began to assemble. They escorted the Prophet(sa) to the foot of the hill. Abu Sufyan(ra), the enemy commander, seeing these Muslim remnants, cried aloud, "We have killed Muhammad(sa)." The Prophet(sa) heard the boastful cry but forbade the Muslims to answer, lest the enemy should know the truth and attack again and the exhausted and badly-wounded Muslims should have again to fight this savage horde. Not receiving a reply from the Muslims, Abu Sufyan(ra) became certain the Prophet(sa) was dead. He followed his first cry by a second and said, "We have also killed Abu Bakr(ra)." The Prophet(sa) forbade Abu Bakr(ra) to make any reply. Abu Sufyaran followed by a third, and said, "We have also killed Umar(ra)." The Prophet(sa) forbade Umar(ra) also to reply. Upon this Abu Sufyan(ra) cried that they had killed all three. Now Umar(ra) could not contain himself and cried, "We are all alive and, with God's grace, ready to fight you and break your heads." Abu Sufyan(ra) raised the national cry, "Glory to Hubal. Glory to Hubal. For Hubal has put an end to Islam." (Hubal was the Meccans' national idol.) The Prophet(sa) could not bear this boast against the One and Only God, Allah, for Whom he and the Muslims were prepared to sacrifice their all. He had refused to correct a declaration of his own death. He had refused to correct a declaration of the death of Abu Bakr(ra) and of Umar(ra) for strategic reasons. Only the remnants of his small force had been left. The enemy forces were large and buoyant. But now the enemy had insulted Allah. The Prophet(sa) could not stand such an insult. His spirit was fired. He looked angrily at the Muslims who surrounded him and said, "Why stand silent and make no reply to this insult to Allah, the Only God?"
The Muslims asked, "What shall we say, O Prophet(sa)?" "Say, 'Allah alone is Great and Mighty. Allah alone is Great and Mighty. He alone is High and Honoured. He alone is High and Honoured.' "
The Muslims shouted accordingly. This cry stupefied the enemy. They stood chagrined at the thought that the Prophet(sa) after all had not died. Before them stood a handful of Muslims, wounded and exhausted. To finish them was easy enough. But they dared not attack again. Content with the sort of victory they had won, they returned making a great show of rejoicing.
In the Battle of Uhud, Muslim victory became converted into a defeat. Nevertheless, the battle affords evidence of the truth of the Prophet(sa). For in this battle were fulfilled the prophecies the Prophet(sa) had made before going into battle. Muslims were victorious in the beginning. The Prophet's(sa) beloved uncle, Hamza(ra), died fighting. The commander of the enemy was killed early in the action. The Prophet(sa) himself was wounded and many Muslims were killed. All this happened as it had been foretold in the Prophet's(sa) vision.
Besides the fulfilment of the incidents told beforehand this battle afforded many proofs of the sincerity and devotion of Muslims. So exemplary was their behaviour that history fails to provide a parallel to it. Some incidents in proof of this we have already narrated. One more seems worth narrating. It shows the certainty of conviction and devotion displayed by the Prophet's(sa) Companions. When the Prophet(sa) retired to the foot of the hill with a handful of Muslims, he sent out some of his Companions to look after the wounded lying on the field. A Companion after long search found a wounded Muslim of Medina. He was near death. The Companion bent over him and said, "Peace on you." The wounded Muslim raised a trembling hand, and holding the visitor's hand in his own, said, "I was waiting for someone to come."
"You are in a critical state," said the visitor to the soldier. "Have you anything to communicate to your relations?"
"Yes, yes," said the dying Muslim. "Say peace to my relations and tell them that while I die here, I leave behind a precious trust to be taken care of by them. That trust is the Prophet of God(sa). I hope my relations will guard his person with their lives and remember this my only dying wish" (Mauta and Zurqani).
Dying persons have much to say to their relations, but these early Muslims, even in their dying moments, thought not of their relations, sons, daughters or wives, nor of their property, but only of the Prophet(sa). They faced death in the certainty that the Prophet(sa) was the saviour of the world. Their children if they survived, would achieve but little. If they died guarding the Prophet's(sa) person, they would have served both God and man. They believed that in sacrificing their families they served mankind and they served their God. In inviting death for them they secured life everlasting for mankind at large.
The Prophet(sa) collected the wounded and the dead. The wounded were given first-aid and the dead were buried. The Prophet(sa) then learnt that the enemy had treated the Muslims most savagely, that they had mutilated the bodies of the dead Muslims and cut off a nose here and an ear there. One of the mutilated bodies was that of Hamza(ra), the Prophet's(sa) uncle. The Prophet(sa) was moved, and said, "The actions of disbelievers now justify the treatment which we so far thought was un-justified." As he said this, he was commanded by God to let the disbelievers alone and to continue to show them compassion.