The Archers Leave the Hill

But the tide was turning. The archers, whom the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) had instructed to remain on the hill and not move — "if you see us winning, don't come down until I tell you; if you see us losing, and vultures picking off our bodies, still don't come down until I tell you" — had been given very clear, explicit instructions. But in the heat of battle, when emotions take over, the mind can become obscured. So what happened is that when the archers saw the Muslims below gathering the spoils, al-ghanāʾim, they wanted to go down and join in. Their commander, ʿAbdullāh ibn Jubayr, said, "Don't you remember the instructions of the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him), that we shouldn't come down until he tells us so?" They answered that the battle was over, and they left anyway. So out of the fifty archers, forty of them defected — a mutiny, since this was a serious disobeying of the commander's order in the middle of a battle, and they simply left their post.

Khālid ibn al-Walīd, who was the head of the cavalry of Quraysh, and ʿIkrimah ibn Abī Jahl, detected the weak point that had been exposed, and they immediately took advantage of it and outflanked the Muslim army. Because the Muslims were not expecting this, and were taken by surprise, it was a chaotic state for them; and when the army of Quraysh saw this, they attacked from the other side as well. So now the Muslims were sandwiched, attacked from both the front and the rear, and this disoriented the Muslim soldiers, fighting now in two directions, and their ranks became disorganised — they were no longer lined up properly as they should have been. That is when the Muslims were defeated, and that is when they began to be killed, falling one after the other. It is said that only twelve men remained around the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him).

ʿAbdullāh ibn Masʿūd said, "I didn't know that there were some of us who loved and desired this world until this āyah was revealed." So the Qur'an was exposing what was in the hearts — this is how the Qur'an writes history; it does not only take the outward events, but it also takes in the inner dimension of the soul. Allah, Mighty and Majestic, tested the believers with victory at Badr, and He was now testing them with defeat at Uḥud — it was all a test from Him. Ibn Isḥāq said, "The Muslim ranks broke, and the enemy gained the advantage over them. It was a day of trial and testing, in which Allah honoured some with martyrdom."