Shaykh Abū ʿUmar states in al-Istīʿāb (1): “The man who went in search of Saʿd was Ubayy ibn Kaʿb. Allah knows best.”

Saʿd ibn al-Rabīʿ—may Allah be pleased with him—was one of the twelve naqibs on the Night of al-ʿAqabah, and he is the Companion whom the Messenger of Allah ﷺ made a brother to ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn ʿAwf.

Ibn Isḥāq (2) relates: The Messenger of Allah ﷺ, so I have been told, went out looking for Ḥamzah ibn ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib. He found him in the bottom of the valley: his abdomen had been split open, his liver torn out, and his body mutilated—his nose and ears severed. Muḥammad ibn Jaʿfar ibn al-Zubayr told me that when the Messenger of Allah ﷺ saw this, he said:

“Were it not that Ṣafiyyah would grieve and that it might become a precedent after me, I would leave him to be consumed by the beasts of the earth and the birds of the sky. And, by Allah, if He grants me dominance over Quraysh on any battlefield, I shall surely mutilate thirty of their men.”

When the Muslims perceived the sorrow of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ and his anger at what had been done to his uncle, they said, “By Allah, should Allah grant us victory over them one day, we shall mutilate them in a way no Arab has ever done.”

Ibn Isḥāq (3) said: Buraydah ibn Sufyān ibn Furwah al-Aslamī narrated to me from Muḥammad ibn Kaʿb, and a trustworthy source narrated to me from Ibn ʿAbbās, that Allah, Exalted is He, revealed concerning this:

“If you retaliate, then retaliate with the like of that with which you were afflicted. But if you endure patiently, surely that is better for those who are patient. Be patient, and your patience is only through Allah.”
(Qur’an 16:126–127)

Consequently, the Messenger of Allah ﷺ forgave, exercised patience, and forbade mutilation.

I comment: These verses are Meccan, whereas the events of Uḥud occurred three years after the Hijrah; how the two correspond is known only to Allah.

Ibn Isḥāq (4) also related—on the authority of Ḥumayd al-Ṭawīl, from al-Ḥasan, from Samurah—that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ never rose to address a gathering and then left it without first enjoining charity and forbidding mutilation.

Ibn Hishām (5) reports: When the Prophet ﷺ stood over Ḥamzah he said, “Never shall I suffer a calamity like yours; I have never stood in a position more galling to me than this.” He then added, “Gabriel has just come to me and informed me that Ḥamzah is recorded in the seven heavens as: Ḥamzah ibn ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib, the Lion of Allah and the Lion of His Messenger.” Ibn Hishām further notes that Ḥamzah and Abū Salamah ibn ʿAbd al-Asad were the Prophet’s foster-brothers, for all three had been nursed by Thuwaybah, the freedwoman of Abū Lahab.

Imām Aḥmad (6) said: Sulaymān ibn Dāwūd al-Hāshimī related to us; ʿAbd al-Raḥmān—meaning Ibn Abī al-Zinād—reported to us