Adventures in taxis – Uhud re-visited
Following my exciting adventure up Jabal Nour, I decide to embark on my next escapade… Mount Uhud. Free to go where I want, when I want, how I want… the prospect is exciting.
Following another negotiation with a taxi driver in which I know he is overcharging me, I swiftly agree to 50 Riyals – £10.
He asks me how long I’ve been learning Arabic. I start laughing – 43 years I say. He looks confused. Are you forty three? Oh no. I mean 23 years. He is still confused wondering why after 23 years, my Arabic is so dodgy…
Within ten minutes, we arrive and I see the now familiar rocky landscape. With the mountains before me, I anticipate the climb with excitement. I ask the driver if he knows where everybody stood – the position of the armies, where Khalid bin Waleed came round to attack from?
But instead of pointing to the main mountain, he turns to the opposite direction and gestures towards a small mound. “This is where the sahabah stood,” he says.
What? That little hill, Jabal al-Rumah, the one packed with tourists in multicoloured clothes? I stare at it. It looks like a two-minute climb. I can’t help but feel a little disappointed. I had imagined something far bigger.
Then it hits me: the huge mountain behind us is actually Uhud itself. The battlefield wasn’t on the mountain, it was here, facing it. The small mound was the archers’ position; the great mountain was the protection for their backs. I see the mastery of their positioning. I consider this mound and try to comprehend why the Prophet ﷺ once said,
هَذَا جَبَلٌ يُحِبُّنَا وَنُحِبُّهُ
“This is a mountain that loves us, and we love it” (Bukhari)
Has it been worn down by successive waves of tourists I wonder. I will go and inspect it, but first there is a rectangular space surrounded by fencing, which is the cemetery of the 70 martyrs.
I raise my hands to pray for them, but the young driver is not happy. He thought he had negotiated a good price but he now realises I don’t just want to take a photo and come back, I want to understand what happened at Uhud, soak in the history and imagine what it felt like…
I am still trying to fathom why Uhud is special. It is not that easy given that it is surrounded by car parks, tourists and coaches. Yet this mound is where 50 archers once stood. No less than 600 million to 900 million years old, Mount Uhud is older than the dinosaurs, older than most mountain ranges in the world and one of the oldest exposed rock formations on Earth. The lower base has some rocks that look as porous as colanders, but further up the dust-coated rocks are hard with a glazed brown sheen.
Perplexed by the fact that I am taking so long, the driver he tells me he will wait in his car.
As I stand by the graves of the martyrs of Uhud a wave of sadness sweeps over me. My heart travels back to the day when the companions marched there, 300 men had deserted along the way, depleting the army by a third. I imagined how demoralised the remaining men must have felt, their resolve flickering like a light whose plug had been dislodged by the hypocrites. Morale flagging, some weighed down by their armour, sweating in the heat, they would have assumed their positions on the hill.
What must it have been like to await the enemies – not knowing if this would be the last day of their life or a supreme victory as Badr had been? Courage waxing and waning, their hearts swinging like a pendulum between hope and fear, the echoes of the misgivings and mutterings of the hypocrites whispering the fear of death and defeat in their hearts.
Alas, from the jaws of victory, they snatched defeat. The blessed souls of the 70 martyrs, out of an army of almost 700, ascended to heaven that day, including the Prophet’s uncle ﷺ, Hamza (may Allah be pleased with him). He had been the first power-house protector of the Prophet ﷺ, the strongest figher in Quraysh, and the major reason for success at Badr. He was the emotional backbone of the Prophet and one of his close companions. His death sent shockwaves through the army. They felt it’s heart had been ripped out.
What had gone so badly wrong? Enticed by the prospect of scooping up their share of booty the archers raced down the mountain abandoning their positions, and in doing so, going against the command of the Prophet ﷺ.
Wait. Isn’t this the situation we are in now? The civilisation that once spanned half the globe, at the forefront of education, enlightenment, and invention, is now picking up the pieces.
Just as the soldiers ran down attracted by the prospect of acquiring booty we too allowed materialism to override our obedience to the commands of the Prophet ﷺ. We succumbed to our baser desires, letting down our Prophet ﷺ. In doing this, we gave the advantage and the upper hand to those whose agenda it is to maintain power without regard for ethics.
Islam sees power as a tool to spread goodness, relieve oppression and deliver justice, while the opponents of Islam wilfully misconstrue and malign its aims and belittle Muslims in pursuit of a society, devoid of the beauty of morality, ethics, compassion, justice and love that God created us for.
25th November 2025
