Fatimah Treats the Prophet's Wounds; the Ansari Women at Uhud

Shaykh Yasir Qadhi explains:

By the time the Prophet (ﷺ) returned home to Medina, he had been bleeding from his facial wounds for hours, likely half a day since the morning's fighting. Fāṭimah (raḍiyallāhu ʿanhā) attempted to wash the wounds while ʿAlī (raḍiyallāhu ʿanhu) continually poured water, but the bleeding would not stop. Fāṭimah then burned a piece of date-palm matting, crumbled the ashes into a paste with water, and used it to literally seal the wound shut, this finally stopped the bleeding. This detail, preserved in Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī, illustrates how severe the Prophet's (ﷺ) wounds truly were.

It is also narrated that Anṣārī women played an active role tending to the wounded during the battle itself. Anas ibn Mālik, narrating as a child witness, reports that ʿĀʾishah bint Abī Bakr and Umm Sulaym bint Milḥān were seen running about the battlefield with their skirts tied higher for freedom of movement, carrying water and food, moving between the wells of Medina and the battlefield to wash the wounded and tend to the sick.

The Shaykh notes two points of context: this occurred before the revelation of the verses on ḥijāb (which came around the time of the Battle of al-Aḥzāb, later than Uḥud); and Uḥud was an unusual case for women's involvement in a military expedition generally, it was within walking distance of their homes, and the necessity of the moment justified their presence in a way that would not ordinarily apply.