The Holy Quran with Five Volume Commentary (Vol 1) — Page clxxxi
GENERAL INTRODUCTION Victory Converted into Defeat Arguing thus they left the pass and plunged into the battle. The fleeing Meccan army included Khālid bin Walīd, who later became a great Muslim general. His keen eye fell on the unguarded pass. There were only a few men guarding it now. Khālid shouted for another Meccan general ‘Amr bin al-‘Āṣ, and asked him to have a look at the pass behind. ‘Amr 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. 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, Ṭalḥah, one of the Quraish and the Muhajirīn (Meccan Muslims who had taken refuge in Medina), saw that the enemy arrows were all directed to the face of the Prophet. He stretched out his hand and held it up against the Prophet's face. Arrow after arrow struck Talhah's hand, yet it did not drop, although with each shot it was pierced through. Ultimately it was completely mutilated. Ṭalḥah lost his hand and for the rest of life went about with a stump. In the time of the Fourth Khalifah of Islam when internal dissensions had raised their head, Talhah was tauntingly described by an enemy as the handless Ṭalḥah. A friend of Ṭalḥah 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 face from the enemy's arrows. " Long after the Battle of Uḥud, friends of Ṭalḥah asked him, "Did not your hand smart under the arrow shots and the pain make you cry?" Ṭalḥah 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 face to the volley of enemy arrows. " The few men who were left with the Prophet could not have stood the army which they faced. A party of the enemy advanced forward and pushed them off. The Prophet 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 was wounded he prayed, "My God, forgive my people for they know not what they are doing" (Muslim). The Prophet fell on the dead, the dead who had lost their lives in his defence. clv