Muhammad: Seal of the Prophets — Page 241
MUHAMMAD : SEAL OF THE PROPHETS 241 appointed to command the city, and lead the public Prayers. The Holy Prophet mounted his horse and, surrounded by his followers, took the road to Uhud. There was but one other horse in the Muslim army. Arrived at an eminence, the Holy Prophet turned around and saw following, amid the palm plantations on the right, a rude and disorderly band of men, and being told that they were the Jewish confederates of Abdullah bin Ubayy, he commanded that they should go back to Medina. He then passed onwards to Sheikhein , halfway to Uhud, and having reviewed the force, and sent back some striplings unequal to the fight, there halted for the night. Abdullah bin Ubayy, with his followers, encamped near at hand; but, displeased at the rejection of his advice, and also at the unfriendly treatment of his Jewish friends, he kept sullenly aloof. The Holy Prophet passed the night with Bani Najjar, and a guard of devoted followers was stationed over him. Muhammad bin Maslamah patrolled the camp with fifty men. At early dawn the Muslim army was in motion. In the dim morning light they marched, by the nearest path, through the intervening fields and gardens, and emerged upon the sandy plain beneath the peak of Uhud. The vicinity owes its verdure to a water - course, which carries off the drainage of the country lying to the south and east. The hill of Uhud, three miles distant from Medina, is a rugged and almost insulated off - shoot of the mountain range, projecting eastwards for three or four miles into the plain. Th e torrent, sometimes swollen so as to inundate the adjacent track, a sweep along its southern and western face and discharges its flood into the low basin lying beyond. Now dry, its