As we discussed the muslims won the initial phase of the battle.

Allah reference
s this in the Quran where He said "As I promised you, I helped you. Then when yo
u yourselves lost your, and began arguing amongst yourself, and saw that what yo
u loved, this is when the disaster struck. In the books of seerah we learn in de
tail what happened and again the issue of Uhud is it is difficult to peice toget
her all the events. Reconstructing Uhud is the most difficult task in the whole
seerah. Uhud was very chaotic and a distaster - to this day there are alot of qu
estions about Uhud we don't even know.
The primary cause of the change of tide was the fact that the sahabah felt compl
acent enough to let go of their arms and collect the war booty. Most prized poss
essions are good weapons and good armour. The Arabs were not the best of iron we
ilders; they would import weapons and so weapons were very expensive. Animals, t
ents and everything else - it's alot of money and goods. Thus when the Quraysh f
led the sahabah instatly started collecting the ganeema. At Badr only some of th
e rules are revealed, and so the sahabah were not aware technically speaking eve
ryone gets their own share (apart from the ganeema you get from the person you k
ill). In fiqh, if the enemy flees that which is left behind is shared amongst th
e army. It's collected, piled and distributed in the correct accordance. So the
sad part is that, those who were eager to collect the war booty, they didn't eve
n get that share AND they caused the disaster it caused. They neither get the bo
oty or the victory of the battle. Its the reality of those who prefer the dunya
over akhira: they neither get dunya or akhira either.
So when the archers saw the Quraysh has fled, at least 20 minutes have gone by a
nd there's a feeling of complacency and victory. The Quraysh are nowhere to be s
een. The archers are waiting and waiting but no one sends them a message. Meanwh
ile they are seeing everyone collect the ganeema. Of course the prophet PBUH und
erstood very clearly the battle was far from over. But the archers at the top of
Jabalal Ay Nayn can see all the muslims collecting stuff; all the tents, weapon
s etc. They thus feel neglected and they began disputing amongst themselves. Thi
s is what Allah refers to: "a number of debates happened between the muslims". S
o the archers began debating amongst themselves. It wasn't one conversation - th
ere was a constant back and forth. One group says "let's go let's go the victory
is done". Another group says "No no we haven't go the message". Of course Abdul
lah ibn Jubair says "have you forgotten what the prophet PBUH told you? 'Stay wh
ere you are until the command comes to you'. By Allah I will not leave my positi
on". And we can imagine the bickering that went on between the archers - back an
d forth etc. From the 50, perhaps only 1 or 2 are raising the banner to go and c
ollect the ganeema. But slowly but surely more and more people join this banner
to the point 40 out of 50 of the archers say "come on let's go now". Therefore t
hey descended down and left only 10 people on the mountain.
This is the grand opportunity Khalid ibn Waleed saw. Even as he is fleeing, he i
s not running for dear life. He is thinking 'how can I win this battle?'. It sho
ws us the military genius he had. The only person who inflicted a genuine milita
ry loss on the muslims was Khalid ibn Waleed. He is in his early 20s but he is s
howing the genius we know he is. So immediately the 40 go down from the mountain
, his brain clicks. One opinion is Khalid went behind the mountain, but it's imp
ossible for this to happen. It would have taken 6 hours to go all the way round
and attack. Therefore, realistically when he saw what was happening from the dis
tance, he carved his way in from the right hand side. There was a ditch that goe
s under the land from which people cannot see at ground level - and from here he
suprised the muslims. So Khalid gathered his army for a counter attack, and a r
ough estimate that makes sense is around 100-150.
The problem here is that when Khalid ibn Waleed is coming back, in effect he is
cutting the muslim army into half. He is basically walking in - on his right wil
l be the camp of the prophet PBUH. On his left will be the muslims collecting ga
neema. Therefore he has cut off the strength the muslims utilised in the initial

phase. They were one tight unit. From the muslims on the right, the protection
of Uhud which was their protection first now turns against the muslims. Because
they have nowhere to flee. Similarly, the muslims on the left are just collectin
g ganeema and are fully dispersed. We also can infer many of them abadonded thei
r armour. They didnt even have a weapon on them. They assumed the war was won an hour and a half has gone by and they were feeling very complacent. However, i
ts nowhere enough time. Rather, its just the right amount of time for Khalid to
come back with an entourage and counter attack the muslims. The first person to
see Khalid ibn Waleed was in fact the prophet PBUH himself. He is constantly mon
itoring as carefully as possible, while the sahabah are just collecting ganeema.
So the prophet PBUH sees Khalid ibn Waleed. And it's human nature to flee instan
tly when you're faced with such an attack but rather, the prophet PBUH starts sh
outing out "Oh muslims behind you!!" He is yelling as LOUD as he can. That "take
your precautions they are coming from behind". By yelling out, he has given his
own location away. SubhanAllah. He has done something extremely brave here. But
had he not given this warning, the massacare would have been double. This is wh
at Allah mentions in the Quran "Recall when you were fleeing onto the mountains,
and you were not caring about any, and your prophet was calling you from beind"
. So Allah describes vividly the reality of the situtaion. When some of the saha
bah saw the suprise attack, they themselves started fleeing. But the prophet PBU
H was calling them out, come back and fight. As can be expected, such a suprise
attack led to total chaos. Some of them had not regrouped; others were in small
pockets and many of them because they were unarmed simply turned their backs and
fled. Again there is symobolism here: this is what happens when you disobey the
prophet PBUH. Other muslims closer to the camp of the prophet PBUH, it appears
Shaitan did a trick. He wanted to cause chaos between the muslims who were facin
g each other. We had muslims in the camp, and other muslims on the battlefield.
In the middle was Khalid - but in the chaos and confustion, shaitan made it so t
hat muslims killed other muslims.
One of the most tragic deaths was Husayn ibn Jabir, the father of Hudhayfa. He f
ormed an alliance with the people of Madinah and so his nickname was 'Yaman'. Th
en he married one of the ladies of Madinah, and when the prophet PBUH started pr
eaching he was of the earliest converts. Hudhayfa embraces Islam before the prop
het PBUH immigrates. And Hudhayfa was known as 'the keeper of secrets' - the one
who told all the names of the munafiqs to the prophet PBUH. Husayn asked him "A
m I an ansari of muhajir?" The prophet PBUH said "you are both". This is was an
honour of being both of them (Yaman). In the battle of Badr, Hudhayfa and his fa
ther Yaman were caught by the Quraysh on the way to the battle. And they said "w
ill you fight with Muhammad?" They said "no no we're not". And they said "you ha
ve to promise by Allah you won't fight against us". So there's no alternative an
d they agreed. They told the prophet PBUH the story and the prophet PBUH said "f
ulfill your promise - go back to Madinah". So Hudhayfa and Yaman got the reward
of Badr without fighting in Badr. Yaman is elderly - one of the two people in Uh
ud they were so old that the prophet PBUH said "go back to Madinah you are exemp
t from fighting". So they did but they started rebuking each other "how long do
we have left to live?" And his companion said "you are right - let us go and per
haps Allah will end our life with a shahadah". There's one issue - by the time t
hey come, Khalid is attacking. So they join the battle at a time of chaos. This
was when Shaitan cries out "Oh muslims behind you". So a group of muslims not re
cognising Yaman surrounded him and began killing him. Hudhayfa recognises his fa
ther of course from the distance and screams "this is my father stop stop". But
the muslims simply could not hear. And so they killed him. The prophet PBUH paid
him the blood money (100 camels) for his father from the baytul maal. Hudhayfa
distrubted the money to the poor. And one sahabah said Hudhayfa forever lived in
good after that incident.