The Madinan Period, Part 10: The Martyrs of Uḥud
Section 15 of 15 · The Life of the Prophet Muhammad: The Madinan Period
The Lame Man's Request
ʿAmr ibn al-Jamūḥ was another martyr. Ibn Ḥazm narrates — his father related it to him, from the elders of Banū Salamah — that ʿAmr ibn al-Jamūḥ was a man exceedingly lame, though he had four sons who fought like lions alongside the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him). When it came time for the Battle of Uḥud, his sons wanted to restrain him, saying that Allah had excused him. So he went to the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) and said, "My sons want to restrain me from going out to battle with you, but by Allah, I want to step this lame foot of mine into Paradise." The Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) told his sons it was not obliged upon ʿAmr to fight, because he was lame — but then he told the sons it was not their duty to restrain him either: if he wanted to fight, let him go, since Allah might well grant him martyrdom. And he did die a martyr. So it is learned from this that even a person excused from fighting is allowed to fight — if it is not obligatory on him, he can still fight, just as the blind and the lame and those with other conditions are known to have fought in battles. This also shows how eager the Companions, may Allah be pleased with them all, were to die as martyrs.
***
* Kept as said. ʿAbdullāh ibn al-Zubayr was a small child at the time of Uḥud (3 AH); in the sīrah sources this account is from his father, al-Zubayr ibn al-ʿAwwām.
** Kept as said. The narration that follows, from Anas ibn Mālik (al-Bukhārī 3811), names Abū Ṭalḥah al-Anṣārī, a different Companion from Ṭalḥah ibn ʿUbaydillāh.
*** The source breaks off here: what follows Ṣafiyyah's response is a word-for-word duplicate of a passage already given earlier in this chapter (the reaction to the defeat, above under "The Rumour That He Had Been Killed"), before new material resumes. This reads as a splice in the underlying audio rather than a deliberate repetition, and the true continuation of this account could not be recovered from either available reading of the source audio. It is left unfinished here, marked with an ellipsis, rather than invented.