The Martyrdom of Hamzah ibn Abd al-Muttalib

Shaykh Yasir Qadhi explains:

The death of Ḥamzah ibn ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib (raḍiyallāhu ʿanhu), the Prophet's uncle, Sayyid ash-Shuhadāʾ (Master of Martyrs), is one of the most documented and most painful individual incidents of the entire Sīrah. Ḥamzah had converted to Islam from family loyalty and grown into one of its fiercest defenders. At Uḥud he had already cut through a long list of Qurashī fighters, including Ṭuʿaymah ibn ʿAdiyy at Badr.

❧THE ARRANGEMENT

Ṭuʿaymah's death at Badr ignited a desire for revenge in Ṭuʿaymah's nephew, Jubayr ibn Muṭʿim. He promised his Abyssinian slave Waḥshī ibn Ḥarb his freedom in exchange for killing Ḥamzah. For Waḥshī, this was not about religion or war, it was the price of freedom.

❧WAHSHĪ'S FIRST-PERSON ACCOUNT

Waḥshī narrated his story in the first person to two Tābiʿūn who visited him in Iraq in his old age, when he was nearly blind. He recognised one of the visitors by his feet alone, for the Arabs had a tradition of reading genealogy through feet, saying, "I played with your feet when you were a baby in Mecca." He told them he would narrate exactly as he had told the Prophet (ﷺ) himself:

"I was a slave who had no desire to fight and no hatred for anyone. My only goal was my freedom. I took my best javelin and entered the battle with one intention: kill Ḥamzah. I began following him wherever he went, hiding from his sight. He was like a lion, wherever he struck, he cut men down. I kept circling and waiting, until the moment he had just killed a Qurashī and lowered his sword. I stepped out from behind my cover. His back was to me. I threw my javelin with everything I had. The force was such that it passed entirely through his body and came out the other side. Ḥamzah turned to face me and tried to raise his sword, but before he could, he collapsed and died."

Waḥshī also aimed at a gap in Ḥamzah's armor, an expert throw from an expert hand. As the Shaykh reflects: nobody could have killed Ḥamzah in direct one-on-one combat. The only way such a lion could be felled was like this.

Note: Ḥamzah was killed during the first, victorious phase of the battle, before Khālid's counter-attack. Hind and the Qurashī women reached his body before they fled.

❧HIND'S MUTILATION

Hind bint ʿUtbah, wife of Abū Sufyān, queen of the Quraysh, had lost her father ʿUtbah, her brother al-Walīd, and other relatives at Badr. In an act of pure spite aimed at inflicting pain upon the Prophet (ﷺ), she:

- Slit open Ḥamzah's stomach and removed his liver, bit into it, then spat it out

- Cut off his fingers and toes

- Made a necklace from them

There was no military reason for this, it was done solely to wound the Prophet (ﷺ).

❧THE PROPHET'S GRIEF AND ALLAH'S CORRECTION

When the Prophet (ﷺ) saw Ḥamzah's mutilated body after the battle, he wept. He said: "Were it not for Ṣafiyyah's grief", Ṣafiyyah bint ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib was Ḥamzah's full sister (same father and mother), "and were it not that this would become a Sunnah after me, I would have left his body for the birds and beasts to consume, so that Allah would gather him from a million places as a karāmah (honour) for Ḥamzah."

In his grief, he vowed: "If Allah gives me victory over the Quraysh, I shall mutilate thirty of their bodies for this one." He never acted on this vow. Allah (subḥānahu wa taʿālā) then revealed Sūrah an-Naḥl (16:126): "Wa-in ʿāqabtum fa-ʿāqibū bi-mithli mā ʿūqibtum bihi, wa-la-in ṣabartum la-huwa khayrun li-ṣ-ṣābirīn, If you punish, punish in proportion to what was done to you. But if you are patient, that is better for those who are patient."

Upon receiving this verse, the Prophet (ﷺ) issued a permanent ruling: no dead body shall ever be mutilated, Muslim or non-Muslim. This prohibition is absolute and became Sunnah from this moment forward.

❧WAHSHĪ'S LATER LIFE AND REDEMPTION

Waḥshī accepted Islam but struggled with alcohol throughout his life. His conversion itself came under duress, not conviction. After the Conquest of Mecca, certain Waḥshī would be sought out for Ḥamzah's killing, he fled to Ṭāʾif, which held out against Islam for another year. When Ṭāʾif's own delegation finally went to submit, Waḥshī weighed fleeing further, to Syria, until someone advised him that the Prophet (ﷺ) never killed anyone who accepted his message. He travelled to Mecca with his face wrapped in his turban, and before anyone could stop him, declared the shahādah in the Prophet's presence. Asked to confirm he was truly Waḥshī, he admitted it and, at the Prophet's request, recounted the killing in full. The Prophet (ﷺ) wept until his beard was wet, then told him only to keep himself out of his sight from then on, sparing his life while unable to bear looking at him. ʿUmar (raḍiyallāhu ʿanhu) punished him multiple times (the ḥadd for drinking is forty lashes), remarking: "By Allah, I knew Allah would not leave the killer of Ḥamzah untouched." Later, Waḥshī joined Khālid ibn al-Walīd's campaign against Musaylimah al-Kadhdhāb. He made duʿāʾ to Allah to let him kill Musaylimah with the same spear as kaffārah for Ḥamzah. In the battle, he hurled his javelin at Musaylimah at the same moment an Anṣārī struck with a sword, Allah knows which of the two actually killed him. Waḥshī considered this his redemption. He died a Ṣaḥābī, and we say raḍiyallāhu ʿanhu.

Jubayr ibn Muṭʿim also eventually accepted Islam. He had been a prisoner at Badr, housed in the Masjid. It was while tied to a pillar, hearing the Prophet (ﷺ) recite Sūrah aṭ-Ṭūr in Ṣalāt al-Maghrib, that the first stirrings of īmān entered his heart. He said: "Kāda qalbī an yaṭīr, my heart was about to fly out of my chest." He became a Ṣaḥābī after the Conquest of Mecca (raḍiyallāhu ʿanhu). Hind bint ʿUtbah also accepted Islam at the Conquest. Allah guides whom He wills.