The Death of Umayyah ibn Khalaf

Another important scene concerns Umayyah ibn Khalaf. Saʿd ibn Muʿādh (may Allah be pleased with him) said, "I was friends with Umayyah ibn Khalaf, and when he would visit Madīnah, he would stay with me, and when I would visit Makkah, I would stay with him." Saʿd ibn Muʿādh said that he visited Makkah and stayed with Umayyah ibn Khalaf after the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) had made hijrah to Madīnah, and he told Umayyah, "I want you to find me a time when it is not crowded, so that I can make ṭawāf around the Kaʿbah." They went out to make ṭawāf, and Abū Jahl saw Saʿd ibn Muʿādh and asked Umayyah ibn Khalaf, "Who is this?" He said, "This is Saʿd ibn Muʿādh." Abū Jahl said, "I see that you are safe in Makkah when you have given refuge to the apostates, and you claim that you are going to support them and give them victory and protect them. If it were not that you are with Umayyah, I would have killed you." Saʿd ibn Muʿādh responded, loudly, "If you do that, I will do something that is worse for you — I will prevent your caravans from passing through Madīnah," for Madīnah controlled the lifeline of Quraysh, the route between Makkah and al-Shām. Umayyah ibn Khalaf told Saʿd ibn Muʿādh, "Do not speak like that with Abū al-Ḥakam, because he is the chief of this valley." So Saʿd let the matter drop, but said, "I have heard the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) say that they are going to kill you." Umayyah ibn Khalaf said, "They are going to kill me?" He said, "Yes." Did he say whether they would kill him in Makkah or outside Makkah? Saʿd said, "I do not know."

Umayyah went back to his home and told his wife, "Do you know what my friend from Madīnah told me?" She said, "What?" He said that Muhammad had promised his followers that he was going to kill him. She said, "Did he tell you where?" He said, "No — I asked him whether it is in Makkah or outside Makkah, and he said he does not know. But I am never going to leave Makkah, then." They would accuse the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) of being a liar, but then they would believe everything that he said, which shows that deep inside their hearts they knew he was truly the Messenger of Allah, even as they rejected the message. When the call came to respond to the Battle of Badr, Umayyah did not want to leave, so Abū Jahl brought him a censer — a thing in which they burn incense — and told him, "Take it, because you are an old woman, so use this as old women do," insulting him as a coward who would stay behind with the women. Umayyah was obviously insulted, and Abū Jahl kept trying until he was able to convince Umayyah ibn Khalaf to go out with them. Umayyah went back home, preparing to leave, and his wife told him, "Did you not remember what your friend from Madīnah told you?" He said, "Yes, I do, but I am just going to go partway with them, and then I am going to come back." It is related that whenever they would stop, he would make the intention that the next stop would be his last, until he ended up entering the fray of the battle itself.

Umayyah ended up being captured by ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn ʿAwf, who narrates the story himself. He had a bundle of coats of mail with him, armour, expensive pieces he had collected one by one as booty, and then Umayyah saw him and called out. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān and Umayyah had been friends in Makkah, and the name of ʿAbd al-Raḥmān had been ʿAbd ʿAmr; when he became Muslim, he changed his name to ʿAbd al-Raḥmān. In one account, ʿAbd al-Raḥmān said that when Umayyah would call him ʿAbd ʿAmr, he would not respond, so Umayyah told him, "When I call you ʿAbd ʿAmr, you refuse to respond, and I do not recognise al-Raḥmān, so I cannot call you ʿAbd al-Raḥmān — so how about you choose for yourself a name just for me and you?" ʿAbd al-Raḥmān said, "Well, you go ahead and choose a name," and Umayyah said, "I will call you ʿAbdullāh, the servant of God," since the polytheists of Quraysh did not acknowledge "al-Raḥmān." In another narration, related in Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī, ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn ʿAwf said that he had an agreement with Umayyah ibn Khalaf that he would take care of Umayyah's business interests in Madīnah while Umayyah took care of his in Makkah, and ʿAbd al-Raḥmān said he did not respond when Umayyah called "ʿAbd ʿAmr," but responded when he said "ʿAbdullāh." Umayyah then said, "Do you want something better for you than those coats of mail that you are carrying?" ʿAbd al-Raḥmān said, "What is it?" He said, "Me, and my son" — for Umayyah was rich, so his ransom would fetch a lot of money, and the same with his son ʿAlī. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān said, "I threw the armour from my hand, and I held Umayyah and his son ʿAlī in both of my hands" — so now they were his prisoners of war, and, by the tradition that whoever captures a man gets the ransom for him, it was a better deal for ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn ʿAwf.

However, someone spotted Umayyah ibn Khalaf — Bilāl, Bilāl ibn Rabāḥ, the former slave of Umayyah, the one who had been tortured by him, and the story of Bilāl's torture is well known. Bilāl ibn Rabāḥ, on seeing him with ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn ʿAwf, said, "Umayyah, the head of the disbelievers!" ʿAbd al-Raḥmān said, "Bilāl, he is my prisoner." Bilāl said, "I will not live if he does." ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn ʿAwf said, "Listen, Bilāl, he is my prisoner." When Bilāl realised that ʿAbd al-Raḥmān was not willing to give him up, Bilāl went to some of the Anṣār and told them, "That man is Umayyah ibn Khalaf, the head of the disbelievers — I am not going to live if he does." So they pounced on them, they attacked; ʿAbd al-Raḥmān said they enclosed the group, and, feeling he would not be able to defend them both, he released ʿAlī to get the attackers busy with him, and told Umayyah to run with him. They attacked ʿAlī and killed him, cutting him into pieces, and ʿAbd al-Raḥmān was telling Umayyah to run, but he was a heavy man, so they ended up catching up with them; ʿAbd al-Raḥmān told him to lie down, and jumped over him to protect him with his own body. The swords of the Anṣār were digging deep under him, tearing Umayyah apart; one of them even injured ʿAbd al-Raḥmān in his foot, and it is related that ʿAbd al-Raḥmān would show the scar that was left by the swords of the Companions. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān would then say, "May Allah have mercy on Bilāl — he made me lose my armour and lose my prisoners, I lost them both." So this is what happened to Umayyah ibn Khalaf, who was, as Bilāl said, an imām of disbelief.