over the very crown of Hind bint ʿUtbah’s head, then he turned the sword away from her.
Al-Zubayr said, “So I remarked, ‘Allah and His Messenger know best.’”
Al-Bayhaqī has also transmitted this report in Dalāʾil (1) through the isnād of Hishām ibn ʿUrwah, from his father, from al-Zubayr ibn al-ʿAwwām.
Ibn Isḥāq (2) relates that Abū Dujānah said, “I saw someone savagely slashing at the people, so I made straight for him. When I raised the sword against him he let out a shriek, and—lo and behold—it was a woman! I deemed the sword of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ too noble to strike a woman with it.”
Mūsā ibn ʿUqbah adds that when the Messenger of Allah ﷺ first offered the sword, ʿUmar asked for it and he turned away from him; then al-Zubayr asked for it and he likewise turned away, and both men felt some unease because of that. When he offered it a third time, Abū Dujānah asked for it; the Prophet gave it to him, and he fulfilled the sword’s due.
The narrator continued: They allege that Kaʿb ibn Mālik said, “I was among the wounded Muslims. When I saw what the idolaters were doing to the Muslim dead, I rose and moved on. There I found a polytheist in full armor, driving the Muslims back while shouting, ‘Close in, just as a flock of goats is herded together!’
“I noticed a Muslim standing in wait for him, likewise armored. I slipped behind the Muslim and began sizing them up: the unbeliever looked the better equipped and more imposing of the two.
“I kept watching until they met. The Muslim struck the unbeliever across the base of his neck with his sword; the blow reached his hip and split him in two. Then the Muslim lifted the visor from his face and said, ‘What do you think now, Kaʿb? I am Abū Dujānah.’”
(The Slaying of Ḥamzah, may Allah be pleased with him)
Ibn Isḥāq (3) says: Ḥamzah ibn ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib fought on until he killed Arṭāh ibn ʿAbd Sharaḥbīl ibn Hāshim ibn ʿAbd Manāf [ibn ʿAbd al-Dār], one of the men carrying the banner. He also killed ʿUthmān ibn Abī Ṭalḥah, the standard-bearer, while chanting:
Upon the bearers of the banner lies a duty:
Either to dye the spearhead red, or else to see it shattered!
Ḥamzah charged him and killed him. Then Sibaʿ ibn ʿAbd al-ʿUzzā al-Ghabshānī, who was known as Abū Niyār, came up, and Ḥamzah called out, “Come here, son of the clitoris-cutter!”—for his mother, Umm Anmār, a freedwoman of Sharīq ibn ʿAmr ibn Wahb al-Thaqafī, used to circumcise girls in Mecca. When they closed, Ḥamzah struck and killed him.
Wahshī, the servant of Jubayr ibn Muṭʿim, recounts: “By Allah, I kept watching Ḥamzah hewing down the people with his sword, sparing nothing, like a dapple-gray camel. Sibaʿ reached him before I did, and Ḥamzah cried, ‘Come here, son of the clitoris-cutter!’ He struck him a blow that all but severed his head. Meanwhile I was shaking my spear; when I was satisfied with it I hurled it at him. It pierced his lower abdomen (4) and came out between his legs. He moved toward me, but his strength failed, and he fell. I left him…"