Lesley hazleton the first muslim the story of muhammad

Whether abu-Jahl actually said these words or not, the story perfectly expressed the insult of the defeat for the Meccans. “Here the Quraysh have flung their dearest flesh and blood to you,” Muhammad told his men as he surveyed the field afterward, as much in sadness as in pride. The crème de la crème of Mecca had fought what they thought was a ragtag group of outcasts, including freed slaves—their own former slaves!—and lost. What had happened at Badr was simply not possible, not in their scheme of things. The natural order of their world had been upended.

T he herdsman’s story of abu-Jahl’s leg flying off so spectacularly is one of many such details in the accounts of Badr. Both ibnIshaq’s life of Muhammad and alTabari’s history of early Islam are Homerically resplendent with battlefield gore. Enemy feet and legs are cut off with one slice of the sword so that “the marrow flowed on out.” Intestines spill out of gaping bellies.

Wounds are bravely suffered, no deterrent to further bravery, so that when an enemy sword leaves one believer’s arm hanging by shreds of skin and tendon, “I put my foot on it and stood on it until I pulled it off, then went on fighting.”

Exaggerated combat stories had been part of the foundation legends of every culture from the Sumerians down to the Byzantines. They were to be expected. But