Mahomet placed fifty archers in his rear, and ordered them to keep their post.  Then Hamza fought stoutly, and killed Arta, the standard-bearer of the idolaters; and as Seba, son of Abdal Uzza, came near him, Hamza struck off his head also; but was himself immediately after run through with a spear by Wabsha, a slave, who lurked behind a rock with that intent.  Then Ebn Kamia slew Mosaab, the apostle’s standard-bearer; and taking him for the prophet cried out, “I have killed Mahomet!” When Mosaab was slain the standard was given to Ali.

At the beginning of the action the Mussulmans attacked the idolaters so furiously that they gave ground, fell back upon their rear, and threw it into disorder.  The archers seeing this, and expecting a complete victory, left their posts, contrary to the express orders that had been given them, and came forward from fear of losing their share of the plunder.  In the mean time Kaled, advancing with his cavalry, fell furiously upon the rear of the Mussulmans, crying aloud at the same time that Mahomet was slain.  This cry, and the finding themselves attacked on all sides, threw the Mussulmans into such consternation that the idolaters made great havoc among them, and were able to press on so near the apostle as to beat him down with a shower of stones and arrows.  He was wounded in the lip, and two arrow-heads stuck in his face.  Abu Obeidah pulled out first one and then the other; at each operation one of the apostle’s teeth came out.  As Sonan Abu Said wiped the blood from off his face, the apostle exclaimed, “He that touches my blood, and handles it tenderly, shall not have his blood spilt in the fire” (of hell).  In this action, it is said, Telhah, while he was putting a breast-plate upon Mahomet, received a wound upon his hand, which maimed it forever.  Omar and Abu-Bekr were also wounded.  When the Mussulmans saw Mahomet fall, they concluded he was killed and took to flight; and even Othman was hurried along by the press of those that fled.  In a little time, however, finding Mahomet was alive, a great number of his men returned to the field; and, after a very obstinate fight, brought him off, and carried him to a neighboring village.  The Mussulmans had seventy men killed, the idolaters lost only twenty-two.

The Koreishites had no other fruit of their victory but the gratification of a poor spirit of revenge.  Henda, and the women who had fled with her upon the first disorder of the idolaters, now returned, and committed great barbarities upon the dead bodies of the apostle’s friends.  They cut off their ears and noses, and made bracelets and necklaces of them; Henda pulled Hamza’s liver out of his body, and chewed and swallowed some of it.  Abu Sofian, having cut pieces off the cheeks of Hamza, put them upon the end of his spear, and cried out aloud, “The success of war is uncertain; after the battle of Beder comes the battle of Ohud; now, Hobal,[55] thy religion is victorious!” Notwithstanding this boasting, he decamped the same day.  Jannabi ascribes his retreat to a panic; however that may have been, Abu Sofian sent to propose a truce for a year, which was agreed to.