78 No god but God
The massive Meccan army makes quick work of Muhammad’s
forces on the ground. The bodies of the dead litter the battlefield. As
the Quraysh draw closer, some of Muhammad’s men form a tight cir-
cle to shield him from the advancing army and the volley of arrows
raining down on all sides. One by one the men fall at his feet, their
bodies riddled with arrows, until only one man is left. Then he falls.
Now alone, Muhammad kneels beside his dead warriors and con-
tinues to fire his arrows blindly at the Quraysh until the bow snaps in
his hands. He is defenseless and seriously wounded: his jaw cracked,
his teeth broken, his lip split, his forehead cut and covered in blood.
For a moment, he considers summoning what strength he has left and
charging the enemy, when suddenly one of his men—a hefty warrior
named Abu Dujanah—runs onto the battlefield, catches hold of him,
and drags him into the mouth of the gorge, where the last of the sur-
vivors have gathered to attend their wounds.
The Prophet’s sudden disappearance from the battlefield launches
a rumor that he has been killed, and ironically, this is exactly the
reprieve Muhammad’s men need. For with news of his death, the
Quraysh halt their assault and the battle is over. As the remnants of
Muhammad’s army quietly creep back toward Yathrib—bloodied and
humiliated—the victorious Abu Sufyan climbs atop a hill and, raising
his bowed sword in the air, cries: “Be exalted, Hubal! Be exalted!”
Afterward, when a sense of calm has settled upon Uhud, Hind and
the rest of the women of Quraysh roam the battlefield mutilating the
bodies of the dead, a common practice in pre-Islamic Arabia. The
women cut off the noses and ears of Muhammad’s fallen warriors so as
to fashion necklaces and anklets from them. But Hind has a more
urgent purpose. She separates from the rest to search the gorge for
the body of Muhammad’s uncle, Hamzah—the man who had killed
her father and brother at Badr. Finding him at last, she kneels beside
his corpse, rips open his body, pulls out his liver with her bare hands,
and bites into it, thus completing her vengeance against the Mes-
senger of God.
Islam has so often been portrayed, even by contemporary scholars, as
“a military religion, [with] fanatical warriors, engaged in spreading
their faith and their law by armed might,” to quote historian Bernard