This whirlwind was the track of Jibra'il riding his horse, Haizum, that Mohammad had seen at the head of three thousand angels flying to his aid. The whirlwind of sand, uplifted by the tempestuous wind, allied itself to the human whirlwind swept along by the stormy breeze of faith and both, at one bound, rushed upon Allah's foes. The shock was irresistible. The furious billows of the raging sands struck the idolaters straight in the face, blistering the flesh, filling mouths and nostrils, blinding eyes, so that they knew not where to strike, nor where to turn to defend themselves.
The Believers, on the contrary, felt their impetuosity increased by the pushing of the hurricane, and their eyes, freely open, enabled them to avoid their adversaries' attack, and cut them down to a certainty. Better still: unknown, supernatural strength increased the strength of their arms tenfold, to such an extent that they fancied they struck at empty air, because they felt no resistance to the impact of their weapons. "Scarcely did I threaten a head with the edge of my blade," one of the conquerors narrated later, "than I saw it fly off my adversary's shoulders and roll on the ground, even before my weapon touched it." "So it was not ye who slew them, but Allah slew them." (The Qur'an, viii, 17). Seventy idolaters bit the dust; and, among them, all the conspirators who tried to assassinate the Prophet at Makkah. Twenty-four of the dead belonged to the highest aristocracy: Utbah, Al Walid, Shaibah, Umaiyah ibn Khalaf, Abu Bukhtari, Hanzalah, Abu Sufyan's son, etc., and, most important of all, the chief of the expedition, the famous Abu Jahal.
Knowing that the latter was the life and soul of the plots weaved against the Prophet, the Faithful sought for the arch-conspirator everywhere in the fight. One of them, Muaz ibn Amr, having succeeded in falling across him, pierced his thigh with a furious lunge. Ikrimah, Abu Jahal's son, rushed to his father's assistance and, with a scimitar, avenged him by hacking the left arm of Muaz. It hung from his shoulder by a strip of flesh. His movements hampered by the useless, swinging limb, Muaz stooped, and placing his foot on it, tore it off by roughly standing erect again. He threw it far from him and went on fighting.
Two young Ansars, sons of Afrah, coming to the rescue, dragged Abu Jahal out of the saddle and left him for dead, riddled with wounds.
The Prophet's mind was more engrossed with the fate of Abu Jahal than with that of any other of his foes. Ibn-i-Masud went out to search, and found him at last, in the midst of a pile of corpses. The chief of the idolaters was still breathing. Ibn-i-Masud placed his foot on the dying man's neck, even as one stamps on a viper, but just as he leant over, Abu Jahal, to brave him, seized him by the beard, and gazing at his conqueror, with a mad look of impotent rage, he shouted, the death-rattle sounding in his throat: 'Hast ever seen such a noble fellow as I, murdered by such vile ploughmen?'
To put an end to the infidel's insults, Ibn-i-Masud cut off his head and brought it to the Prophet. At the sight of the blood-stained face of his enemy, Mohammad exclaimed: 'Verily, this man was the detestable Pharaoh of his nation!'
Corpses soon became decomposed, exposed to the sun's torrid rays; the tumefied faces of the dead took on the colour of pitch. This phenomenon proved to the Believers that the infidels had been struck down by celestial warriors, for were they not already carbonised by the flames of hell? Mohammad scoured the whole of the battlefield, ordering all the dead bodies he came across to be buried at once, no matter of which creed. Huzaifah, one of the early Islamic adepts, accompanying Mohammad, suddenly came upon the remains of Utbah ibn Rabiyah, his father. The son's features became distorted and blanched with mortal pallor. 'Hast thy father's death shattered thy soul?' asked the Prophet.—'No, by Allah! but I knew my father was endowed with intelligence, goodness and generosity. I had hopes that he would have trodden the path of salvation. His death depriveth me of that hope. Hence my grief!'
The Prophet, impressed by the reply of this stoical Mussulman, called down the blessings of the Lord on his head. Mohammad then had his she-camel led to him and, mounting, rode to a dried-up well in which he ordered twenty-four of his best-known enemies to be buried. He stopped his she-camel in front of the mouth of this well and called on the dead by name:
'O such an one, son of such an one! And thou, such an one, son of such an one! Would ye not have preferred this day to have obeyed Allah and His Messenger? Of a surety, we have found that which Our Lord promised us; but you—have ye found that which your divinities promised you?—'O Apostle!' said Ura, 'why dost thou speak to soulless bodies?'—'By Him who holdeth in His hands the soul of Mohammad!' he replied, 'I swear that thou dost not hear my words as distinctly as they!'
By this he meant to inform Ura that these infidels, now dwelling in hell, were compelled to acknowledge the truth of words that he had ofttimes repeated to them when they were in the land of the living. Thus does a "hadis" of Ayishah explain this scene, for it is said in the Qur'an: "Verily then, thou canst make the dead to bear." (xxx, 51). The Believers only lost fourteen men, six Mohadjirun and eight Ansars, winning eternal glory as the first fallen in the Holy War.