in the face, and one of his incisors was broken.
Ubayy ibn Khalaf, when he had ransomed himself, had boasted, “By Allah, I have a horse that I feed every day a farq of barley, and on it I will kill Muhammad.” When these words reached the Messenger of Allah ﷺ, he replied, “Rather, I—if Allah so wills—shall be the one who kills him.”
Ubayy then advanced, fully encased in iron, mounted on that very horse and shouting, “I will not live if Muhammad lives!” He charged straight at the Messenger of Allah ﷺ. Musa [ibn ʿUqbah] relates from Saʿid ibn al-Musayyib: some men tried to bar his way, but the Messenger of Allah ﷺ ordered them to let him pass. Musʿab ibn ʿUmayr stepped forward to protect the Prophet ﷺ and was killed. The Messenger of Allah ﷺ spotted Ubayy’s collarbone through a gap between the rim of his helmet and his coat of mail, thrust his spear into it, and Ubayy toppled from his horse; not a drop of blood issued from the wound.
Saʿid said: One of his ribs was broken, and concerning this Allah revealed, “You did not throw when you threw; rather, it was Allah who threw” (Qur’an 8:17). His comrades came to him while he was bellowing like a bull. They said, “Why all this distress? It is only a scratch.” He told them of the Prophet’s statement, “Rather, I shall kill Ubayy,” and added, “By Him in whose hand is my soul, if what I now suffer had befallen the people at the marketplace, they would all have perished.” He died before reaching Mecca.
Ibn Ishaq said: Yahya ibn ʿAbbad ibn ʿAbd Allah ibn al-Zubayr narrated to me, from his father, from his grandfather, that al-Zubayr said, “By Allah, I saw with my own eyes the maidservants of Hind’s marketplace and her companions, skirts hoisted, fleeing for their lives—nothing stood between us and seizing them, little or much—when the archers left the camp, once we had driven the enemy from it, to loot the spoils. They exposed our backs to the cavalry, so we were struck from the rear, and a crier shouted, ‘Behold, Muhammad has been killed!’ We turned back, and the enemy wheeled round upon us after we had already cut down the bearers of their standard, so that none of us could even draw near…”