The Battle
Ali, along with his uncle Hamza and cousin Ubaydah ibn al-Harith, proceeded to single duels. Ali's duel was against Walid ibn Utba, one of Mecca's fiercest warriors.
The youngest pair engaged first, Ali stepping forward to meet Walid. After a few moments of fencing, Waleed fell by the sword of his Muslim opponent. Then Hamza engaged Otba and cut him down. Ubayda ibn Harith, the third Muslim champion, received a fatal wound from Shaiba. Ali and Hamza hastily dispatched Shaiba, carrying Ubaida to die in the Muslim lines.
By noon the battle was over. The Quraysh fled. Forty-nine of the enemy had fallen and Ali had killed twenty-two, either alone or with the help of others. An equal number was captured. The believers had lost fourteen men on the field of battle.
Ali first distinguished himself as a warrior in 624, at the Battle of Badr. He defeated the Umayyad champion Walid ibn Utba as well as many other Meccan soldiers. According to Muslim traditions he killed at least twenty people and at most thirty five, but most of them agree with twenty seven.
Read more about this topic: Military Career Of Ali, The Battle of Badr
Famous quotes containing the word battle:
“How good bad music and bad reasons sound when we are marching into battle against an enemy.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“One may confidently assert that when thirty thousand men fight a pitched battle against an equal number of troops, there are about twenty thousand on each side with the pox.”
—Voltaire [François Marie Arouet] (1694–1778)