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Companions · Killer of Hamza · then of Musaylimah

وحشي بن حرب

Wahshi ibn Harb

The spear that killed the best of men later killed the worst.

The account

An Abyssinian slave promised freedom for one throw: at Uhud his javelin killed Hamza, and he watched Hind mutilate the fallen lion. After the Opening he fled until the door of tawbah found him; he came to the Prophet ﷺ, testified, and was accepted, though the Prophet, in his humanity, asked him to keep his face from him, and Wahshi complied with a debtor's humility. At Yamamah he took his old spear hunting a new target and killed Musaylimah the arch-liar. His own summary survives in Bukhari's narration: "I killed the best of people in my ignorance and the worst of people in my Islam, and I hope one cancels the other." The Codex keeps him as tawbah's hardest test case, passed.

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