Uhud as a Prime Place of Visitation in Madinah

By Spahic Omer

The battle of Uhud provides an infinite well of wisdom regarding the triumphs and losses that come to everyone over the course of life. Whether victory or defeat, Muslims must stay true to their morals and garner respect. The key is to win with humility and lose with grace. Both are to be grounded in faith and accountability because they are nothing but part of Allah’s majestic plan for His creation. Only then can success be seen as a true achievement and failure as a chance. In the end, the latter can even result in a victory. Regardless, victories are to be celebrated and losses eased by turning them into opportunities only if they are customized to the needs of realizing the ultimate success of the Hereafter, for indeed there is no true victory except that of the Hereafter in Paradise (Jannah), and there is no true loss except that of the Hereafter in Hell.

The Uhud battle and its aftermath had a huge influence on Islamic civilization, making it one of the most significant events in the history of Islam. Its repercussions were transformative. It was therefore typical of the Prophet to visit the graves of the martyred heroes at the Uhud battlefield once a year, praying for them and beseeching Allah for their absolution. This action of his has been a lasting tradition, followed by the local people and visitors alike. Doing so as a feature of the Prophet’s Sunnah swiftly turned into a fundamental Muslim custom with a wide range of supplementary nuances, some of which were controversial and some still objectionable.

Indeed, the Uhud milieu is loaded with extraordinary meaning and worth, hence it continuously served as a pull factor for the forces and protagonists of funerary and other forms of memorial architecture. Sure enough, soon after, the pertinent advocates and campaigners began to capitulate to the pressure. Over the years, there were between eight and ten commemorative mosques as well as shrines erected at the Uhud battlefield and in the vicinity. They were meant to mark and memorialize the most critical aspects of the battle of Uhud and its aftereffects.

The highlight was the grave of the Prophet’s uncle Hamzah – who on the basis of his piety and courage acquired the status of the prince of martyrs (sayyid al-shuhada’) and that of the lion of Allah and the lion of His Messenger – and the graves of the rest of the Uhud martyrs around him. However, apart from the location of Hamzah’s grave, no other grave, yet no other detail relating to the Uhud battle as a whole, is precisely known or agreed upon. For that reason did the funerary complex created in conjunction with Hamzah’s grave, which included a mausoleum and a mosque, overshadow the rest of the Uhud memorial buildings. There was a full itinerary about how to visit and behave at the complex.

Today one can find the ruins of masjid al-Fash, the beautifully preserved masjid al-Dir’, and the exquisitely rebuilt and enlarged masjid al-Mustarah, as three landmarks from the surrounding locales of the Uhud battleground. As far as the Uhud battleground itself is concerned, all its structures have been wiped out. Myriads of inappropriate viewpoints and activities linked with them have been accumulated over centuries, warranting their elimination, which, when all is said and done, was tantamount to the acts of purification and restoration of the true spirit of Uhud.

Apart from the natural sights of the archers’ hill (jabal al-rumah), the location where the main clashes of the battle had taken place, and the enclosed martyrs’ burial ground, the only manmade building in the area today is a huge modern mosque called masjid (jami’) Sayyid al-Shuhada’. Its purpose is to be neither a funerary nor memorial mosque, but rather just a mosque in the conventional sense of the word and to cater to the regular religious needs of visitors (pilgrims) and the people working and living close at hand.

Ultimately, it cannot be emphasized enough that the places and buildings associated with the historic Uhud battle never contained any specific religious significance. They were merely historical sites and creations, as a result of which there was nothing – real or concocted – that could upgrade them from the level of historicity to that of religiosity. It is unacceptable, it goes without saying, to use the Uhud places and structures for a particular religious purpose. They are just like any other piece of history and should be treated as such, without spiritualization or ritualization. 

The initial lack of any built environment components at the place, and the recent removal of the sedimented ideological, behavioural and architectural miscalculations therefrom, are redolent of indications as to what the jurisdiction of Uhud and its battle in reality are and how they should be dealt with. Those miscalculations – sandwiched between the periods of the first and at the same time best generations of Islamic civilization, and the modern times which are mindful of the need for an Islamic revival-qua-reform, but struggle to actualize comprehensive visions and action plans – rested on an “undermined sand-cliff.” Thus, as soon as any opportunities for antidotal or reconstructive measures emerged, the miscalculations were promptly addressed through both thought and practice, both at an individual and institutional level.

If the battle of Uhud served as a purifier of the faith and conduct of the people, so that they could become worthy protagonists in the enterprise of advancing the nascent Islamic community in the city-state of Madinah, Uhud itself: the idea, the place, the battle, the persons and the history, became likewise in need of recurring purification processes. The Uhud battle has indeed become an institution in its own right, and this fate has been true of all its aspects throughout the ages. ***

(Assoc. Prof. Dr. Spahic Omer is an academic in Department of History and Civilisation, AbdulHamid AbuSulayman Kulliyyah of Islamic Revealed Knowledge and Human Sciences. The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of IIUMToday.)