The Killing of Ubayy ibn Khalaf
battleShaykh Yasir Qadhi explains:
Ubayy ibn Khalaf was among the most vicious Meccan opponents of the Prophet (ﷺ), the one who had once thrown crumbled bone at him mockingly asking, "Do you claim Allah will resurrect this?" (prompting the revelation of Sūrah Yā-Sīn 36:78-79), and who had sworn personally: "I have a horse I am feeding the choicest barley, fattening it, so that I may kill you while riding it." The Prophet (ﷺ) responded, the only time he is recorded responding to such a taunt: "Lā, bal anā aqtuluka in shāʾa-llāhu taʿālā, No, rather I will be the one to kill you, if Allah wills."
At Uḥud, Ubayy spotted the Prophet (ﷺ) from a distance, likely during the period when only a few Ṣaḥābah remained around him, riding the very horse he had promised to kill him with. He turned to charge. The Ṣaḥābah moved to shield the Prophet (ﷺ), since one cannot outrun a mounted charge and a rider has a decisive advantage of speed, momentum, and reach. But the Prophet (ﷺ) declared: "He is mine," and took up a small spear (ḥarbah) from al-Ḥārith ibn al-Ṣimmah. As Ubayy closed in, the Prophet (ﷺ) avoided his blow and thrust the spear through a gap in Ubayy's armor into his neck, the wound was not deep, lodging only a small distance in, but it proved fatal.
Ubayy fled back to Khālid's contingent screaming, "Muḥammad has killed me! Muḥammad has killed me!" His companions tried to reassure him the wound would heal, but he replied in panic: "This is not a minor wound, it will kill me! By Allah, if he had simply spat in my face I would have fallen dead, he promised to kill me, and that promise has been fulfilled." He died on the road home in the valley of Sarīf (near present-day Rāghib, between Makkah and Madīnah), never making it back to his city, and was buried in that remote location.
Years later, ʿAbdullāh ibn ʿUmar, traveling by night, passed through that same valley and saw a fire that frightened him. Investigating, he saw the image of Ubayy emerging from it, croaking repeatedly, "Thirst! Thirst!" Before anything could be given to him, a figure declared: "Do not give him anything, this is the one whom the Prophet (ﷺ) killed." In a related ḥadīth, the Prophet (ﷺ) stated that Allah's anger intensifies against anyone killed directly by a Prophet.