Seerah Lesson 47: The battle of Uhud part 3 Previously we had discussed the initial victory of the Muslims

and Allah references this in the Qur'an. Surah Al-'Imran primarily deals with the battle of Uhud. In these verses, Allah says,

3:152 Allah did indeed fulfil His promise to you when ye with His permission Were about to annihilate your enemy,-until ye flinched and fell to disputing about the order, and disobeyed it after He brought you in sight (of the booty) which ye covet. Among you are some that hanker after this world and some that desire the Hereafter. Then did He divert you from your foes in order to test you but He forgave you: For Allah is full of grace to those who believe. Allah thus says when you were sincere I gave you what I promised you but when you yourselves faltered, became greedy, argued and fell back than Allah says this is when the disaster struck. In the books of Seerah we learn the details of what happened. As previously said, one of the problems of piecing together Uhud is that we do not have a detailed picture, rather various highlighted stories, especially those of Sahabah, through-out the battle. Therefore reconstructing Uhud is the toughest tasks of the entire Seerah. Trying to understand exactly what happened is hard because while it was an important battle it was chaotic and somewhat of a disaster. And if we put ourselves in the shoes of the people who were alive at the end of Uhud, they would only mention 1-2 incidents and humans generally do not dwell on bad memories. What we do know is that the primary cause of the change in the battle was when the Mushrikoon fled and the sahaba became complacent enough to put their arms away, take off their armors in many cases and when they started collecting the war booty. And we can imagine what would be left behind; most importantly and prized are good weapons. They are hard to come by, are usually imported and thus very expensive. The Arabs were not the best weapon makers. They also lasted generations and were often inherited. Tents, animals (such as camels) are also important as well. The sahaba thus discarded their arms when they saw the enemy fleeing and started collecting war booty. We must also understand that the rules of Ghanema or war booty had not been finalized though some verses had come down at Badr. But at Badr there were only few sahaba compared to now at Uhud (about less than 1 half of them were at Badr). The sahaba were not aware that technically speaking every single person would get the same share of war booty. Though in Islamic fiqh if a warrior kills another warrior he gets their possession immediately. But if the battle ends, what is left behind is collected and divided (those that own an animal are given more, but other wise it is divided roughly equally) and it is a major sin to take the war booty at this time. The sad part is that those eager for this war booty did not get their share because they thought this would be their's and they also caused the disaster that they did. Being greedy for this duniya did not help, they neither got the duniya nor did they get the better reward of the victory of Uhud. This is major symbolism and the reality of those who prefer the duniya, they neither get this duniya or from the Hereafter. As for the archers, when they saw others collecting the booty and the Quraysh fleeing they are likely waiting and waiting, and it has likely been an hour or two since the Quraysh fled, and they see other Muslims collecting the booty but they themselves have not yet received word from any Muslim at all to come down or to stay on the mountain. This is when shaytaan got to them - that they are waiting and waiting without a messenger - and for the Prophet (s) this battle is not over yet, it is too early to call off the battle. So from the perspective of the archers they feel neglected. They see the weapons, tents, food and animals and see the Muslims collecting this Ghanema. So they began disputing between themselves and this is what Allah refers to in the Qur'an as one of the debates between the Muslims at this battle. We have a few phrases recorded but we can imagine and be realistic that the archers are arguing amongst themselves extensively whether

they should go or not. Abdullah ibn Jubayr (ra) reminds them though of the command of the Prophet (s) that they are to stay where they are until the Prophet (s) commands them to, actually even the Prophet (s) himself had promised to not move his place by Allah until the command came. We can imagine the disputing occurred quite a bit before a decision was made. This is human nature - that you see how many people are with your opinion and if you are alone in your opinion you forget it and stick with the group, but when you get more and more to your opinion you feel confident. We can imagine that in the beginning only 1-2 first thought to leave their posts on the mountain but over time, likely an hour or so, eventually 40 of the 50 archers now agreed that they do not need to wait anymore and rather they should descend the mountain and collect the war booty. They than descended down and only left 10 archers on the mountain. This was the opportunity that Khalid bin Waleed saw. What does this mean? As he was fleeing he was not running for dear life, rather he was fleeing like a army general in that he was looking for an opportunity to see what he could do. Here we see that the only person who ever really inflicted a loss on the Muslims was Khalid bin Waleed, and Allah chose him to convert and join the Muslims later. Otherwise in the Makkan and Madinah period he was the only person who inflicted a military defeat on the Muslims. This shows his military genius and we know that he has a steller career ahead of him, carving out most of the Muslim empire with Allah's blessing. Here he was a young man in his early 20s, and this was his first real battle (he was not present at Badr) and we see his military genius here already. So we can imagine that he is looking back to see what he can do and as soon as he sees the 40 go down his brain went into action and he knew what to do. This also means that the area covered by Jabal-Al-Ruma was empty. As to how he attacked, there are two opinions in the books; firstly (and this opinion is found in many books) that Khalid went around the mountain of Uhud but this is absolutely impossible to do as by car this would take 40 minutes, imagine walking? It would take 6-7 hours and by than even the Muslims would have packed and gone. Secondly, more realistically, likely he launched a frontal assault by carving his way from the outside. Likely he made a slight U-turn so that no one can see him, through a valley or more correctly an empty water way that went underneath the land. If in this empty water canal, people at ground level would not be able to see him. Likely this is how Khalid gathered a group (this could estimate when we look at the damage he ultimately caused to be around 100 to 150 maximum), entered the ditch and attacked. The problem here is that when Khalid comes from behind the mountain in effect he is cutting the Muslim army into half because he is coming in and on his right is the camp of the Prophet (s) and on his left are the Muslims that are collecting ghanema. He has thus cut off the strength of the Muslims when they were fighting in one vicinity, that of the 300m narrow area. And remember that the Prophet (s) was camped right in the corner with 3 corners sides protecting him. Now this protection turns against him as he is blocked off and this is why the Prophet (s) understood the danger of an attack from this side. Now Khalid is coming with his sudden attack and they have no where to flee as they are effectively cut off. Similarly the Muslims to his left or to the front are cut off. We can also infer that many of them did not have their armor or weapons ready as they were pilling up ghanema, and when you are collecting war booty you will likely not have a sword in one hand (though the books do not mention this we can infer this). Furthermore, an hour and a half has passed by and likely the Muslims are feeling very complacent about their win. Khalid than attacks from behind Jabal al-Ruma and the first person to actually see Khalid was the Prophet (s) who was monitoring the situation. And this shows us that infact the Prophet (s) felt uneasy at this situation and he was being extra cautious while the sahaba were being complacent. It was his nature to always take caution. It is human instinct to flee when you see an enemy come like this and secondly it would be very risky to point out that Khalid was coming as this would pinpoint the location of the Prophet (s) - the one person that the enemy is really targeting. And we can imagine if any of us would have been in a similar situation we would have immediately fled quietly without drawing attention to ourselves, but this was our beloved Prophet Mohammed (s) and what else would he do but what he did? He started yelling at the top of his lungs, "Oh Muslims! Behind you!." And by yelling out he effectively gave away his own co-ordinates and everyone recognized his voice, and who else but him would yell this out? He has done something thus that is extremely brave but had he not done so probably the massacre of the Muslims would have been doube or triple what it was. Some people thus did take up precautions, take arms and put on their armor. And this is what Allah mentions in the Qur'an when He says,

Wa rasoolu yaduukom fi Recall, remember when you were fleeing onto the mountains and you were not caring about anybody and your Prophet (s) was calling you from behind And so Allah vividly describes the reality of the situation that when some of the sahaba saw the surprise attack they started fleeing, and the Prophet (s) calling them to come back, fight and take precaution. As can be expected such a surprise attack led to total chaos in the ranks of the Muslims. Some had not even re-grouped, being in small pockets of 5 or even 1-2 fighters, and as Allah describes in the Qur'an, because of this they turned their backs and fled just like the ladies of Quraysh had fled earlier. There is much symbolism here; this is what happens when you disobey Allah and His Messenger (s). As for other Muslims that were closer to the base of Prophet (s), it appears that Shaytaan played a trick on them. He wanted to cause choas between the Muslims that would now face each other. Remember the situation, that there are two Muslim camps, the one of the Prophet (s) and the ones ahead collecting the war booty, and there is Khalid bin Waleed in the middle. So the two groups were facing each other and in the chaos some Muslims were killed at the sword of other Muslims. There are narrations that shaytaan instigated this confusion, warning them that there was an enemy behind them when it was really another Muslim. And we can imagine that many of them were wearing helmets and they could not recognize who the person was. Unfortunately there were many tragic deaths here and the most tragic death was that of the father of Hudhayfa (ra), Husayl ibn Jaabir or Al-Yamaan. He was Abasi and in the days of ignorance he had committed a murder which forced him to flee from his own people and tribe. He formed an alliance with a tribe of Madinah that would become the Ansar and when he did so his people started calling him Yamani (they called the people of Madinah Yamani) and so this became his nic name. Than he married a woman from Madinah and eventually when the Prophet (s) began preaching in Makkah he was of the earliest converts. And Hudhayfah also embraced Islam before the Prophet (s) came to Madinah. Remember that Hudhayfah is famous for being Sahib-us-Sirr, the secret keeper of the Prophet (s). He knew the name of all the hypocrites as the Prophet (s) told him. Ummar had once come to Hudhayfah and asked him if he was a hypocrite or not, and Hudhayfah answered that the Prophet (s) had not mentioned him and that he was a man of Jannah (and likely he said this not to disclose the secret of the Prophet (s) but likely because Ummar was one of the ten promised Jannah anyway - Hudhayfah was telling Omar what he should have known anyway). When the Prophet (s) immigrated to Madinah, Husayl asked him if he was Ansar or Muhajir as he was from neither city really, emigrating from another land to Madinah and also living in Madinah. The Prophet (s) honored him by telling him he was both an Ansari and Muhajir. At the Battle of Badr Hudhayfah and his father Al-Yaman were either going to or exiting Madinah, heading to fight along side the Prophet (s) in the battle, when they were captured by the Quraysh. And the Quraysh knew that Yaman was not from Madinah so they did not have the same amount of animosity toward him. But they asked the both if they were fighting along side the Prophet (s)? So with a sword to their necks they lied and said no - but the Quraysh made them promise by Allah that they were not going to fight against them at Badr - and they promised. When they made their way to the Prophet (s) they told him the story, and he answered that they should fulfill their promise and return to Madinah. So both Hudhayfah and Yaman got the reward of Badr without being at Badr because of their intention and their promise to not fight. This shows us that we are not allowed to break our promise, even if we made it to an enemy. Husayl at Uhud was very elderly and losing his eye sight. He was one of two men at Uhud that were so old the Prophet (s) asked to stay in the city and not fight along side the Muslims. So the two were sitting during the battle with the women and children and obviously their emaan got the best of them. They began to rebuke each other and asked themselves how long they had left to live anyway. The companion affirmed and told Husayl that they should both go and fight and perhaps Allah would end their lives being a shaheed. But by the time they come, this is when Khalid is now attacking and the battle for the Muslims is highly chaotic. This was when shaytaan cried out "oh Muslims, behind you!" and when they turned around Yaman was standing right there. He was not in the battle in the morning and was now here, so a group of Muslims surrounded Yaman and they began using their swords on him. Hudhayfah from a distance

recognized his father and starting screaming, "Abi! Abi!" i.e. "this is my father" but in the heat and emotion of the battle they did not hear this. They struck and killed him thus. At the end of the battle they asked forgiveness and Hudhayfah did forgive them. The Prophet (s) paid him the blood money of 100 camels to him as the fault of the Muslims. Hudhayfah took this money and distributed it to the poor. This elevated his status and as one of the sahaba said that Hudhayfah forever lived in good after this one incident, "he always lived in good" and the Prophet (s) rewarded him by making him his official secret keeper. The situation was very chaotic and we can only mention specific incidents that happened. One of the saddest such incident is the death of the uncle of the Prophet (s), Hamza bin Abdul-Muttalib. He was close to the Prophet (s) and had defended him often. He had initially converted out of family pride because Abu Jahl had insulted his nephew and he got so angry that someone insulted his family he approached Abu Jahl and without realizing what he was saying said he was also upon the religion of his nephew. After saying this he would obviously not take this back, but after this Allah guided him and his emaan became stronger until he became the syed of the shuhadah at this battle. His story is a beautiful example of the sacrifices of our ummah and the Prophet (s) himself and this story really increases our emaan. Wahshi was the slave of Jubayr ibn Mut'im (the son of Mut'im ibn Adi the noble person). Recall that his father Mut'im was the most noble of the whole Quraysh after Abu Talib. These were the two noble non-Muslims that were good to the Prophet (s) and Islam politically. After Badr, the Prophet (s) said about Mut'im that had he been alive (he had passed away before Badr), one word from him and all the prisoners of war would be released. At Badr, Jubayr's uncle and Mut'im's younger brother, Tu-aima bin Adi, was killed by Hamza. Jubayr in his family pride became so angry that he thought to avenge this killing. He offered his slave Wahshi his freedom thus for killing Hamza. This is a double revenge, first that his own uncle was killed so he would turn around and kill the uncle of the Prophet (s), and second that the nephew of the person that was killed turns around and kills the killer as a revenge. Wahshi himself narrates this story in the first person. How so in first person? Two tabi'oon many years later visited a city in Iraq where Wahshi was and visited him and asked him how he killed Hamza. So they entered upon Wahshi and he had grown almost blind, and he looked at the feet of one of them and immediately recognized them as he had played with this tabi' in Makkah. The Arabs actually had a science of feet reading where they could tell geneology by looking at the feet. There are many stories in the Seerah of this. One such is in Sahih Bokhari where Usama and Zaid were once lying in one blanket and Usama was dark skinned (his mother is Umm Baraka, an abysinnian slave) while Zaid was Arab. And there was a rumor going on when Usama was born. A feet reader came when the two were lying in a blanket and without knowing who they are he recognized that Usama is the son of such and such and Aisha narrates that the Prophet (s) was so happy to hear this (so the rumor would finish so the people could be relaxed). Wahshi thus says, "I will tell you word for word as I told the story to the Prophet (s)". He says, "I was a slave in Makkah and I had no desire to fight or kill (or get involved in war) however my master Jubayr promised me my freedom for killing Humza. So I took my best Javelin (and he was an expert with this weapon) and went into battle with no desire to fight except to kill Hamza for my freedom (and we can understand this emotion). So I began following Hamza to see what he was doing and I kept on hiding from him to go behind him until finally when Hamza killed so and so, he chopped him off and as soon as he lowered the sword I stepped out from behind the bush and his back was to me (this is very low to a kill a man from behind but he did not care about chivalry) and I threw my javelin with the most force that I could. It came in from the back and came out from the front such that it was half in the body. And Hamza turned around to try and fight me but before he could raise his sword he simply collapsed and died." It is also said that Wahshi aimed at an area between the armor that was vulnerable. And we can say that how else could Hamza ever be killed? Because of his bravery no one could kill him in one and one combat or with honor. And Wahshi made an excuse for himself: he only wanted his freedom. It is also amazing that Jubayr was also guided to Islam and his sins are forgiven insha Allah. Jubayr was actually one of the prisoners of Badr, and he narrates that the first time emaan entered his heart is when the heard the Prophet (s) recite Surah Tur. Remember that all prisoners from Badr were kept at the masjid so they saw Islam first hand. Surah Tur like Surah Najm is a powerful Surah, building to a crescendo with about 15 rhetorical questions at the end, and Allah

questions at the end the origin of man, "Where did you come from? Did you come from nowhere or create yourselves?" and Jubayr narrates that when he heart the Prophet (s) reciting this it was as if his heart was coming out of his chest. Imagine the Prophet (s) reciting so beautifully. And Jubayr did not become Muslim but eventually he would accept Islam after facilitating the murder that was with the Wisdom and Plan of Allah. As for Wahshi, when Makkah was conquered he fled to Ta'if to avoid the Prophet (s). Ta'if was also conquered the next year and Wahshi narrates that he felt the entire world would collapse on him. So he went onto exile in Syria until someone told him, "Woe to you! Do you know not know that if you accept this man's religion he never kills anyone who accepts his religion." So his reason for accepting Islam was obviously not the same as other Muslims, but he narrates, "I hid myself in my turban and made my way to Makkah and came into the Prophet (s) and unfolded my turban and before anyone could say anything (or do anything against me) I gave the shahadah infront of everyone" and the Prophet (s) confirmed that this was Wahshi and Wahshi affirmed. So the Prophet (s) asked for the story of how Wahshi killed Hamza. As Wahshi told him this he narrates that the Prophet (s) cried immensely and told Wahsi to hide himself and not let the Prophet (s) see his face. Imagine that Wahshi would always have to hide himself from the Prophet (s) every time he would see him, what a difficult punishment in this life. Wahshi did have other flaws that are mentioned in other authentic books and in sha Allah Allah will forgive him. He was known for drinking til the end of his days and Ummar had him punished multiple times, so much so that Ummar said, "Wallahi I knew that Allah would leave the one who killed Hamza without some reckoning (punishment)." Of course drinking in Islamic fiqh carries a lashing of 40 times. Wahshi was thus lashed a number of times til Ummar got irritated at him and said this about him. However Washi did repent towards the end of his life, and he narrates that when he heard about Musaylama Al-Kadhaab he made du'a to Allah to allow him to take the life of Musaylama in substitution for what he did to Hamza. This was his forgiveness for killing Hamza. So he took the same spear he killed Hamza with and many years later as an old man he narrates, "I went with Khalid bin Waleed, taking the same Javelin as I used to kill Hamza, and I targeted Musaylama like I targeted Hamza and when I was infront of him I threw my Javelin and at the same time one of the Ansar attacked him with a sword so Allah knows which of us killed him." He considered this to be his forgiveness though and technically he killed Hamza when he was non-Muslim so it will not be held accountable to him on the day of Judgement. But still we can imagine the guilt that he must have had. And inshaAllah Allah will forgive him as he was a sahabi. Often people get confused about the sahaba sinning, but remember while being the best generation they also had problems and were humans. After all remember that there were people that committed zina in the time of the Prophet (s), fought in the masjid and so on. And we differentiate between pointing out these types of sins in order to show their humanity, not to denigrate them. Allah says in the Qur'an that He is pleased with them as a generation. So for every sahabi we say this about them. And for no matter what the sahaba would do we say that there is one sin that Allah has protected them from and this is the sin of lying about Allah and His messenger (s). This is very true. Other issues such as fighting, zina, khamr, getting angry are human issues and that they fell into them does not diminish them from their status that Allah mentioned in the Qur'an about them. We also know that when Wahshi had killed Hamza we know what Hind did at the battlefield. We also see that Hamza was killed in the victory half of Uhud not in the losing half, before Khalid came in. Before Hind runs away what does she do? As a sign of pure hatred and inflicting pain upon the Prophet (s) she uses her own dagger to slit open the stomach of Hamza, takes out his liver, bites into it and spits it out. And she cuts off his fingers and in some reports his toes as well and she builds a necklace out of them. All this is done in order to inflict utter pain upon the Prophet (s). This was her level of hatred at the time that they had. And she also accepted Islam so Allah did forgive her, this is His wisdom. It is absolutely amazing that He guided her, but we trust His judgement. After the conquest of Makkah she embraced Islam along with her husband Abu Sufyaan. Being the husband of Abu Sufyaan, she was like the Queen of the Quraysh. When the Prophet (s) saw the body of Hamza he cried after the battle was over and said, "were it not for the fact that Safiyyah (Hamza's full sister) would grieve in her heart and the people would take this as sunnah, I would have left his body untouched until it dispersed in the bellies of the

beasts and birds" i.e. he wanted his body to be plucked even more til Allah honors him even more so that He would collect Hamza's body from everywhere as an honor and blessing for him. And he said, "if Allah gives me victory over the Quraysh I shall mutilate 30 of their bodies because of this 1" And Allah later revealed a response to this: wa in aakabtum "If you are going to take revenge, take revenge exactly equivalent as what happened to you, but if you are patient and forgive it is better" After this ayah came down the Prophet (s) gave a permanent command that no dead body should ever be mutilated. Firstly this shows us that the Prophet (s) made ijtihaad and Allah corrected him but also secondly that mutilation has been uncategorically prohibited. So the Prophet (s) took this ayah from Allah and said that from now on no body, regardless of religion, shall ever mutilate a dead body. Musa'ab ibn Umayr was also killed as we know. He was most likely killed in the 2nd phase of the battle. He was killed in a brutal way and if the Muslims were so victorious in the beginning it is difficult to imagine Musa'ab being killed the way he was. He was targeted because unlike those taking booty he was still carrying the flag. And remember that being the flag bearer means you are a likely target. So Allah knows best but it seems Musa'ab was killed in the second half. Musa'ab bin Umayr was the young spoiled prince of Makkah. His father was a rich trader in Makkah, buying him the most expensive perfumes and new garments and his mother was known to be spoiling him completely. But after Islam his own mother and father tortured him, locking him up in their house. His own mother deprived him of food and water when he converted. He had to break his chains and run away to Madinah and thus he was the first Muhaajir to Madinah. He had no place to live so he was sent two years before the Hijrah. His role in Madinah beside running away was to preach Islam. Because of his intelligence and nobility he won the hearts and minds of the Ansar. And at his hands the books mention that every tribe of Madinah had a Muslim that converted because of him. Remember that he was also the one who gave the first Khutbah in Islam. He was known for being gentle and loving and because of his youth and poverty he also did not get married. At the battle of Uhud he died a tragic (but honorable) death. He was holding the flag and he had no Muslims around to defend him, so his right arm first was cut off. Here he than held his flag with his left arm which was than also cut off. Defenseless he than held the flag with whatever stumps of his arms were left, basically waiting for shahadah at this time. Here is when he was killed by multiple wounds and swords. And this is why it makes sense that it happened in the counter offensive when Khalid was coming in. Sahih Bokhari narrates the long hadith of Khabbab ibn Al-Arat who was also one of those tortured in Makkah and also an early convert like Musa'ab. And Allah blessed him to life a long life and he had a large house and he was the governor of a province. This was completely opposite to his torturous conditions in early Islam in Makkah. At his death he gave a moving speech that made his family and those around him cry, he said, "We all immigrated with the Prophet (s) seeking the reward from Allah and it is indeed with Allah but some of us left this duniya without seeking any reward from Allah, their full reward is with Allah, and of them is Musa'ab ibn Umayr. He was killed on the day of Uhud and all that he had was the one garment that he was wearing. So if we tried to cover up his body, if we covered his bottom the top half was naked, and if we covered his top the bottom was naked. And the Prophet (s) asked us to cover the top half only and the bottom half was covered with grass or dried up leaves. As for the rest of us we lived and Allah blessed us and we do not know what Allah will do with us" The story of Handhala is also well known. He was the son of Al-Raahib now called Al-Faasik. It is said that he was just about to kill Abu Sufyaan when a spear came out of nowhere and killed him. After the battle the Prophet (s) said that the angels were seen by him washing Handhala's body as they took it up, so his wife was asked why he was in that state of major impurity as this she was possibly the only reason of the angels were washing him (the body of the martyr is usually not washed as the Prophet (s) told us that their wounds and blood will smell of musk on the day of Judgement). So they found out that he was young and newly married and his wife did not want him to go. So before he left she tempted him and he became intimate with her but than he did not have enough time to wash up before leaving for the battle of Uhud. So he left in this state and he went into battle and died in this state. He instead received a much better bath by the angels. And

so his nic name was, Ghaseel al-Mala'ika, the one washed by the angels. The story of Quzmaan is also very interesting. He was of the hypocrites and he had returned with Abdullah ibn Ubai before the battle. He was also a warrior so when he returned the Muslim ladies began making fun of him, "what type of men are you? You leave the men in battle and return to us? Have you no shame?" He was so embarrassed at this so he made the intention to prove his manhood (not to please Allah) so he returned to the battle fully armored and ready to fight bravely. It is narrated that he fights an amazing battle, so much so that one of the sahaba comes to the Prophet (s) and praises his battle. Wherever he was going he was wreaking havoc. But to this the Prophet (s) replied, "He is in Hell". The sahaba narrates that he got a shock like never before and he thought something was wrong. So he decided to follow Quzmaan. Quzmaan was eventually hit with an arrow and he began wailing out of pain until not being able to bear the pain of one arrow (remember we just saw Musa'ab and other sahabahs and how much pain they had taken) he takes out his sword, puts it upside down with the handle on the ground and the sharp side on his stomach and he jumps on his own sword. He thus commits suicide because of this pain. Immediately the sahabi returned and told the Prophet (s) what happened, affirming what the Prophet (s) said about Quzmaan being in Hellfire. To this the Prophet (s) said, "verily sometimes Allah helps His religion through an evil man" Al-Usayrim Amr ibn Thabit was one of the few remaining pagans in Madinah. Remember that ibn Ishaac said that after Badr all Pagans converted to Islam, yet here Al-Usayrim was one of the last Pagans. So we reconcile by saying that after Badr by in large everyone had converted and there was no community of Pagans, but maybe a few remained though there was no public worshiping of idols. Al-Usayrim was thus not Muslim, not a Jew and not a hypocrite. So Al-Usayrim on the day of Uhud goes and sees the city completely dead. He asks of Saad bin Muadh (this was their leader) and he asked of a few other leaders, and he was given the answer that they were all at Uhud. This was when he realized that this was a powerful force if all of his friends, peers and leaders were at Uhud. And he thought there must be a reason for this and thus he accepted Islam on Saturday morning the 15th of Uhud. It is narrated that he takes his sword and armor and tells his pagan family that if he dies his money would go to the Prophet (s). He walks to Uhud and the Muslims see him and ask him to get away. But he tells them that he has accepted Islam and thus he is allowed to fight. He soon dies as a shaheed, converting after Fajr and dying before Dhuhr, and so he does not even pray a single Salah, he did not perform a single Sajdah in his life! And the Prophet (s) said about him, "he did very little but his reward is a lot" and Abu Hurayrah would test his students by asking about him, "who is that one Muslim who entered Jannah without making one Salah?" Allah thus guides whom He wills and how many of us have heard of people converting on their death beds? Allah knows their good and He gives them guidance in the final moments of their lives. Mukhayreeq was part of one of the Jewish tribes of Madinah. Technically the treaty of Madinah required the Jews to fight with the Muslims as Madinah was being attacked. But in his wisdom, the Prophet (s) did not even bother asking them as he knew they would not help. This also shows us that there was much tension developing between the Muslims and Jews of Madinah. Mukhayreeq though kept on inciting the Jews to help as was their duty. But they kept belittling him til it was Saturday and this was their Sabbath when they excused themselves from fighting. He got irritated at his own people and cursed them, saying, "May you have no sabbath after this" and he took his armor and sword with the intention of being faithful to the treaty (and not with the intention of pleasing Allah). He also told his people that upon his death his property would go to the Prophet (s). He died a brave battle as well with the Muslims but as a non-Muslim. The Prophet (s) thus also praised him as he did Mut'im ibn Adi but to a lesser extent as he said, "Mukhayreeq is the best of all Jews as he fulfilled his promise above all others." This shows us that as part of our Islamic culture we praise and honor those non-Muslims who support us.