Muhammad: Seal of the Prophets — Page 270
MUHAMMAD : SEAL OF THE PROPHETS 270 should escape and, returning to Medina, should inform the Holy Prophet of what had happened; but Mundhar did not agree with him and said that he would not run away from the place where their leader, Mundhar bin Amr, had become a martyr. He went to the spot and was killed fighting. Amr was taken prisoner and would have been executed, but when Aamir bin Tufail found that he was a Dhamri, he let him go, observing that his mother had made a vow to free a slave belonging to his tribe and that he would release hi m in fulfilment of his mother’s vow. Thus, out of the seventy Muslims, only two, Amr bin Umayya Dhamri and Kaab bin Zaid, escaped with their lives. Among the Muslims who were massacred at Be’r Ma’oona was the devoted freedman of Abu Bakr, Aamir bin Fuhairah, who was killed by Jabbar bin Salma, who later embraced Islam. He used to mention that he had been attracted to Islam by the last words of Aamir b in Fuhairah, which were ‘By Allah, I have achieved my purpose’. Whenever Jabbar recalled this incident he wondered why Aamir, with his last breath, had uttered these words, and then he learnt that the Muslims considered laying down their lives in the cause of Allah as the greatest achievement. He was so deeply affected by this that, eventually, he embraced Islam in appreciation of this spirit of sacrifice. The Holy Prophet learnt of the tragedies of Raji’ and Be’r Ma’oona about the same time and was deeply grieved over them. The sudden tragic loss of about eighty devoted Companions of his, many of whom had committed the Holy Quran to memory, and all of whom were poor, humble and pious people, was a deeply distressing event. However, all he said was, ‘To Allah we