Muhammad: Seal of the Prophets — Page 201
MUHAMMAD : SEAL OF THE PROPHETS 201 to respond to the challenge, when the Holy Prophet stopped them and told Hamzah bin Abdul Muttalib, Ali bin Abi Talib and Ubaidah bin Muttalib, who were his close relations, to go forward. According to Arab custom, each side identified itself and then Ubai dah confronted Waleed and Hamzah confronted Utba and Ali confronted Shaiba. Hamzah and Ali cut down their opponents almost immediately, but Ubaidah and Waleed exchanged several thrusts and in the end both fell down severely wounded. Upon this, Hamzah and A li quickly dispatched Waleed and carried Ubaidah back to their camp. He succumbed to his injuries during the journey back to Medina. After these single combats, the Holy Prophet, peace be on him, returned to his tent, after directing the Muslims, ‘Do not start the general fight till I order it; but if the other side should advance in force, shoot your arrows at them carefully and use yo ur swords only for hand to hand fighting. There are some people among the opposing host who have joined them under coercion, but who bear no enmity towards us, like Abbas bin Abdul Muttalib. There are others to whom we owe gratitude for their kind treatmen t of us when we were being persecuted in Mecca, for instance, Abul Bakhtari. If a Muslim finds any of them at his mercy, he should spare him. ’ In his tent, the Holy Prophet occupied himself with supplicating the Divine. Abu Bakr was with him in the tent and a company of Ansar, under the leadership of S’ad bin Muaz, stood at guard around the tent. Presently, shouts were heard which indicated that the Quraish army had begun the attack in force. The Holy Prophet continued his supplications and was heard to