Hamza ibn Abdul Muttalib (رضي الله عنه) — The Lion of Allah

A halaqa on the strength that finally found its purpose — and the mercy that reaches even those who took it

Opening

Bismillāhi'r-Raḥmāni'r-Raḥīm. All praise is for Allah, who guides the hearts He wills, who takes the strength a man was wasting and turns it into a shield for His religion, and whose mercy is so vast that it reached even the ones whose hands were stained with the blood of His beloved servants. We send peace and blessings upon our beloved Prophet Muhammad ﷺ, upon his family, his companions, and all those who follow his way until the Day of Judgment.

My brothers and sisters — tonight I want to talk about a man who, before Islam, had everything the world admires in a man, and none of it pointed anywhere. He was the strongest man in Mecca. The greatest hunter. The finest archer and wrestler and warrior. Every young man in the city wanted to be him. And he spent all of it — every ounce of that strength — on nothing. On hunting exotic animals in the desert. On adventure. He had no interest in religion, no interest in the arguments of Mecca, no real anchor for any of it. Until one afternoon, he came back from a hunt, heard that someone had humiliated his nephew — and in a single moment, all of that raw, unused power found the thing it had been made for.

This is the story of Hamza ibn Abdul Muttalib (حَمْزَة بْن عَبْد المُطَّلِب), raḍiyAllāhu 'anhu — the uncle of the Prophet ﷺ, Asad Allāh wa Rasūlih (أَسَد الله وَرَسُولِه), the Lion of Allah and of His Messenger, and Sayyid al-Shuhadāʾ (سَيِّد الشُّهَدَاء), the Master of the Martyrs.

Why This Story Matters Tonight

Before I begin — hold one question with me.

Every person in this room has been given some kind of strength. For some it is physical. For others it is a sharp mind, or wealth, or charisma, or a way with words, or influence over people, or a talent the world praises. And here is the uncomfortable truth: strength, on its own, is neutral. It does not come with a direction. A strong man can be a protector or a bully. A brilliant mind can build or destroy. Money can feed the poor or corrupt a soul. The strength is not the question. The question is what your strength is serving.

Hamza had more raw strength than almost anyone alive — and for most of his life, it served nothing. It was spent on adventure and hunting and pride. And then Allah redirected it, in a single afternoon, into becoming the visible strength that Islam needed at the exact moment it needed it. The same man, the same muscles, the same courage — but now pointed at something eternal.

So the question I want you to carry tonight is this: what is the strength Allah gave me actually serving right now? Is it pointed at anything that will matter to me when I stand before Him — or is it just being spent?

And there is a second thread I want you to hold, because this story carries it all the way to the end: no one is beyond the mercy of Allah. Not even the man who killed Hamza. Keep that in the back of your mind, and watch where this story goes.

Part One: A Name That Means Lion

Let me start with something the scholars love to point out, because it is beautiful. Almost everything about this man, down to his very name, points to a lion.

The Arabs had different names for the lion depending on what it was doing. 'Abbās (عَبَّاس) — the name of the Prophet's ﷺ other uncle — refers to the lion when it is roaring, pacing, scoping out its prey before the attack; it speaks to the calculated, patient way the lion stalks. Usāma (أُسَامَة) refers to the lion after it has taken its prey. And Hamza (حَمْزَة) refers to the lion at the moment it has seized its prey and begins to tear into it — the moment of raw, overwhelming, physical strength. His very name means the lion in its full power.

And he lived up to it completely. Before Islam, Hamza was tall, strong, handsome, popular, beloved. A wrestler, a hunter, an archer, a warrior. Every young man in Mecca looked up to him — when he walked into town from one of his expeditions, people would crowd around him the way people crowd a champion. They told legends about his strength. He hunted the animals no one else dared to hunt — including, they say, lions themselves. He hunted lions. He walked with a visible pride, the walk of a man who feared nothing and no one.

That is who Hamza was in his society. The lion of Mecca. But not yet the Lion of Allah.

Part Two: A Brother More Than an Uncle

Now, we call Hamza the Prophet's ﷺ uncle — and he was. But the truth is he was far closer than the word "uncle" suggests. He was, in every practical way, more like a brother to the Prophet ﷺ.

They were nearly the same age — some scholars say the exact same age. In fact, it is narrated that ʿAbdullāh (عَبْد الله) and Āmina (آمِنَة), the parents of the Prophet ﷺ, were married in the very same gathering in which Abdul Muttalib (عَبْد المُطَّلِب) married Hala bint Wuhayb (هَالَة بِنْت وُهَيْب), the mother of Hamza. And beyond that — and this is the detail that seals it — they were nursed by the same woman. A nursemaid named Thuwayba (ثُوَيْبَة) nursed both Hamza and the Prophet ﷺ as infants, which made them brothers through nursing, in addition to being uncle and nephew.

So think about the layers here. Hamza is his uncle by blood. His brother by nursing. His near-twin in age. His second cousin through the mothers' side. He was there at the Prophet's ﷺ wedding to Khadīja (خَدِيجَة) (RA) — some narrations say he was one of the witnesses. He was woven into the Prophet's ﷺ life from the very beginning.

Years later, when Hamza was martyred and there was a discussion about who would raise his daughter, someone suggested the Prophet ﷺ marry her — and the Prophet ﷺ said no, "her father is my brother, for Thuwayba nursed us both." That is how he thought of him. Not "my uncle." My brother.

Hold that closeness in your mind, because it is what makes the end of this story so heavy.

Part Three: The Man Who Wasn't Interested

So here is the question the scholars ask: if Hamza was this close to the Prophet ﷺ — his brother, his blood, at his wedding, in his life — then why did he not embrace Islam right away? The Prophet ﷺ called his own family first. Why was Hamza so late?

The scholars mention two reasons, and both of them are worth sitting with, because they describe people we all know.

First: Hamza was almost never in Mecca. While other men were doing trade, buying and selling, sitting in the tribal councils, arguing about Banu Hashim and Banu Makhzum — Hamza was out. Out in the desert, hunting, exploring, chasing the next adventure. He was the man of the wilderness. Think about a person so completely absorbed in their craft, their sport, their passion, that nothing else in the world seems to count. That was Hamza with his hunting and his archery. When you actually look through the accounts of the Prophet ﷺ calling Banu Hashim to Islam in those early days — Hamza's name never even comes up. He wasn't there. He was somewhere out in the desert.

Second: Hamza simply was not a man who cared much about religion. He believed in Allah — he had that fiṭrah, that natural sense of a supreme God — but the whole discussion of dīn, of worship, of this life and the next, none of it clicked with him. He wasn't hostile to it. He just wasn't interested. "I love my nephew. I love Muhammad. But this religion business — that's not for me. I'm going to keep hunting."

I want you to notice something here, because it matters for us. Hamza was not a bad man. He was not an enemy of the Prophet ﷺ. He loved him. He was just distant — physically out in the desert, and mentally checked out of anything to do with faith. How many people do we know exactly like that? Good people. Kind people. People who love what is good. But when it comes to their dīn, they're just… absent. Busy with something else. Not against it — just not engaged.

And here is the beautiful thing: Allah was not done with Hamza. Allah rarely gives up on a heart just because it is distracted. And the way He turned this heart was one of the most unexpected turns in the whole Sīrah.

Part Four: The Afternoon Everything Changed

Here is what happened.

Abu Jahl (أَبُو جَهْل) — the great tyrant of Mecca, the one the Prophet ﷺ called the Pharaoh of this Ummah (فِرْعَوْن هَذِهِ الأُمَّة) — had been escalating his persecution. He started with the weakest Muslims, the ones with no tribe to protect them; he was the one who murdered Sumayya (سُمَيَّة) (RA), the first martyr. And slowly he worked his way up, getting bolder and bolder, until he began getting physical with the Prophet ﷺ himself.

One day, Abu Jahl found the Prophet ﷺ near the Ka'bah, and — seeing that none of the Prophet's ﷺ clansmen were around to defend him — he started shoving him, insulting him, and then he threw a truly vile insult at him, an insult that dragged in the Prophet's ﷺ family and lineage. And the Prophet ﷺ, dignified as always, said nothing back. He simply bore it and left. Some of the people watching saw it, and they were disgusted — but no one stood up.

Now, at that very time, Hamza was returning from a hunting trip. And there was a woman — a servant from the household of Abdullah ibn Jud'an — who had witnessed the whole ugly scene. As Hamza came back and headed, as he always did, straight to the Ka'bah to greet people and go about his routine, she came out to him and confronted him. She said, in effect: "How can you be okay with this? Here you are, showing off your strength, walking with your pride — and your own nephew was humiliated like that right here, and you did nothing?"

Hamza said, "What do you mean?" And she told him the whole thing. And Hamza said, "Did he really do that?" She said yes. He said, "Did my nephew — did Muhammad — respond to him at all?" She said, "No, he was too dignified; he never answers the insults of the people." And Hamza said, "And not a single person stood up for him? Not one person had the decency to answer Abu Jahl?" She said, "No."

And something erupted in Hamza.

The narrations describe him marching toward the gatherings at the Ka'bah with the anger burning in his face, sweating with rage, not greeting a soul, everyone getting out of his way because they could see something was terribly wrong. He went straight to Abu Jahl — right into the middle of Banu Makhzum (بَنُو مَخْزُوم), Abu Jahl's own tribesmen, with no fear at all — and he took his bow and cracked it across Abu Jahl's head so hard that it split his head open and the blood ran down. (And understand — when a man like Hamza strikes you, that is a killing blow. Abu Jahl was a huge man, the size of ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb (عُمَر بْن الخَطَّاب), or it would have finished him.)

And then Hamza stood over him and roared: "You dare insult Muhammad — when I am on his religion, and I say what he says?!"

Now catch that. In the heat of his rage, Hamza said "I am on his religion." He didn't really know what that religion was yet. He didn't know its teachings, its prayers, its beliefs. He said it because he knew it would wound Abu Jahl most. It came out as a war cry — a challenge — more than a considered declaration of faith.

Part Five: The Night That Settled It

And here is where the story becomes something deeper than a strong man defending his nephew's honor. Because that same night, Hamza went home — and he could not sleep.

Something was gnawing at him. Shayṭān came whispering: "What have you done? You've thrown away the religion of your forefathers. You've shamed Abdul Muttalib. You've abandoned everything your family stood for — and for what? For your nephew's new religion that you don't even understand?" And Hamza sat there, confused, conflicted, tormented. Did I really just declare myself a follower of my nephew's religion? Did I mean it? Did I just say it in anger?

And then Hamza did the most important thing he ever did in his life. He turned to Allah. Now remember — he believed in Allah, even in his days of distraction, because he had that fiṭrah. So that night he raised his hands and he asked. He said, in his own way: "O Allah, if this is truly the right thing — then settle it in my heart. Make it firm. Show me." He asked Allah for guidance, sincerely, from the depths of his confusion.

And subḥān Allāh — look at what Allah did. Look at the qadar in this.

Allah used Abu Jahl — the man who was terrified of Islam growing, the man who was trying to crush it — as the very cause of Hamza's Islam. Abu Jahl thought he was scoring a victory when he humiliated the Prophet ﷺ that day. And instead, that humiliation became the exact means by which Allah guided Hamza — turning the strongest man in Mecca into the most powerful defender the Prophet ﷺ had. Think about how Allah works. The enemy of the religion, doing his worst, was made into the doorway through which the Lion of Allah entered Islam.

By morning, it was settled. Hamza went to the Prophet ﷺ and said: "Ash-hadu innaka la-ṣādiq" — "I bear witness that you are truthful." And he said, "So proclaim your religion openly, O son of my brother. By Allah, I would not trade this for the whole world. Go out and announce it — and I will protect you."

And that changed everything in Mecca. Ibn Masʿūd (ابْن مَسْعُود) (RA) said that when Hamza became Muslim, the Quraysh knew that the Prophet ﷺ had now become strong and protected. Up until that moment, there was no powerful man, no warrior, no one of Hamza's stature standing openly beside the Prophet ﷺ — which is exactly why Abu Jahl had felt free to pick on the Muslims. Now, for the first time, Islam had not just moral truth — it had visible strength standing next to it. The scholars say this is precisely when the Quraysh first started talking about negotiating with the Prophet ﷺ, trying to compromise — because they knew that if it ever came to a fight, Hamza would cause a bloodbath. His conversion shifted the entire balance of the city.

That is what one strong man, pointed at the right thing, can do.

Part Six: The First Flag of Islam

From that day, Hamza became the guardian. He became a regular at Dar al-Arqam, studying the Qur'an, learning his religion — the man who used to be absent from every gathering of faith was now a student in the house of Islam. And whenever there was a knock at the door, a noise outside, any hint of danger, it was Hamza who stood up, drew his bow and his sword, and put himself between the Muslims and whatever was coming. He became the de facto protector of the believers.

And when the migration to Madīnah came and the battles began, the Prophet ﷺ gave Hamza an honor that tells you his exact standing: Hamza carried the first flag of Islam. He was the first general the Prophet ﷺ ever commissioned, the first flag-bearer, sent out on the very first expeditions before Badr. When the Prophet ﷺ needed someone to lead, he reached for Hamza.

There is a detail from those early days that captures him completely. On one of those first expeditions, Hamza went out with just thirty men — and they came upon a caravan guarded by three hundred, and Abu Jahl himself was among them. Thirty against three hundred. And Hamza's response? "We'll fight all three hundred of them." He did not flinch at ten-to-one odds. That was the Lion.

And here is something that shows you the inside of this man, not just the outside. Hamza was so ready to meet Allah that before every battle, he would give his will and his final instructions to his brother-in-faith Zayd ibn Ḥāritha (زَيْد بْن حَارِثَة) — telling him what to do with his affairs after he was gone. He lived in a constant state of readiness for death. This was not a reckless man in love with violence. This was a man who had made his peace with Allah and stood ready to be taken at any moment. The Prophet ﷺ also counted him among his closest advisors — one of the fourteen he consulted in the early Madinan period. So he was not only a sword. He was a mind, a counsel, and a heart the Prophet ﷺ leaned on.

Part Seven: Badr

Then came Badr — the first great battle, the day of furqān, the day Allah separated truth from falsehood.

And this is where the whole of Arabia got to see what Hamza looked like in war.

He had a signature. Hamza used to wear the feather of an ostrich — one of those exotic birds he had hunted — pinned to his chest or his helmet in battle. Now understand what that means. In battle, most men try to blend into the ranks, to not be singled out. Hamza did the opposite. He marked himself, deliberately, so that everyone would know exactly who he was. The feather said one thing: "If anyone wants to fight, here I am. Come and find me. I am not hiding from you." The scholars say it was a sign of his sheer courage — that he would make himself the most visible target on the field.

And he fought with two swords. Most men could barely wield one of those heavy swords with two hands. Hamza fought with one in each hand.

The battle actually opened with Hamza. An arrogant Meccan named al-Aswad ibn ʿAbd al-Asad (الأَسْوَد بْن عَبْد الأَسَد) swore he would march through the Muslim lines and drink from the well of Badr (بَدْر), or destroy it, or die trying. Hamza met him, struck off his leg, and finished him inside the basin — making al-Aswad the very first man to die at Badr, and Hamza the one who struck the first blow of the first great victory of Islam.

Then came the famous duel of champions. Three of the Quraysh stepped forward — ʿUtba ibn Rabīʿa (عُتْبَة بْن رَبِيعَة), his brother Shayba (شَيْبَة), and ʿUtba's son al-Walīd (الوَلِيد). The Prophet ﷺ sent out three of his own blood to meet them: ʿUbayda ibn al-Ḥārith (عُبَيْدَة بْن الحَارِث), Hamza, and ʿAli (عَلِيّ). When the Meccans asked who they were, it was Hamza who answered: "I am Hamza, the Lion of Allah and the Lion of His Messenger." Hamza faced Shayba and killed him. ʿAli faced al-Walīd and killed him. ʿUbayda, the oldest, faced ʿUtba, and the two badly wounded each other — so Hamza and ʿAli turned together and finished ʿUtba, then carried ʿUbayda back (he would die of that wound days later, a martyr). That duel broke the confidence of the Meccan army before the main battle even began. The narrations tell us that afterward the Quraysh survivors asked one another, "Who was that man with the feather on his chest?" And when they were told, "That was Hamza," they said: "He is the one who brought disaster upon us."

But that victory came with a price that would be paid at the next battle. Among the Meccan chiefs who fell at Badr was ʿUtba ibn Rabīʿa — the father of a woman named Hind bint ʿUtba (هِنْد بِنْت عُتْبَة). And from that day, Hind lived for one thing: revenge. (She would later fix that vengeance on Hamza specifically, since it was his family's side that had cut down her father.)

Part Eight: Uhud

Hind did not forget. When the Quraysh came back for the Battle of Uhud (أُحُد), they did not just come with a bigger, better-equipped army. They came boiling with the need for vengeance. They even brought their women out with them, chanting poetry about revenge, and they brought extra provisions and wine because they intended to celebrate over the corpses of the Muslims. They did not just want to win. They wanted to mutilate.

And at the very center of Hind's obsession was Hamza. She had been composing poetry about her thirst for revenge on him. She found a man to carry it out for her — Waḥshi ibn Ḥarb (وَحْشِيّ بْن حَرْب), an Abyssinian slave who was a master of the spear, the javelin. His master, and Hind, promised him his freedom and a great reward on one condition: kill Hamza.

Now here is what you may not know about that day. Before Hamza fell, he fought. He is remembered as having cut down a large number of the enemy — the narrations speak of around thirty across his battles — and at Uhud he came out and did what Hamza does: he tore through the enemy lines like a lion until the very moment he was struck.

Waḥshi described the moment himself. He said: "I went out on the day of Uhud, and I hid behind a rock. I had no interest in the rest of the battle. I kept my eyes only on Hamza, waiting for a single opening." He watched Hamza roaring through the battlefield, demolishing everyone in his path. And then, at one moment, as Hamza struck down an opponent, his armor lifted slightly and his lower body was exposed for just an instant. Waḥshi said: "That was my chance." He threw his spear — and it went clean through Hamza's body.

And even then — listen to this — Waḥshi said that Hamza was so strong that with the spear through his body, he still got up, still picked up his sword, and still came after Waḥshi, until finally he succumbed to the wound and fell. He died the way he lived: pursuing, fighting, unbroken to the very last breath. The Master of the Martyrs. Sayyid al-Shuhadāʾ.

Part Nine: The Grief of the Prophet ﷺ

The battle of Uhud was hard. Around seventy Companions were martyred that day. But then something happened after the fighting that made it almost unbearable.

The Quraysh, in their moment of gloating, went through the battlefield and began mutilating the bodies of the martyrs — cutting off their ears, their noses, disfiguring them. And Hamza's body was mutilated at Hind's instigation.

When the Muslims returned to the battlefield, the Prophet ﷺ went looking for his uncle. And he found him — his body disfigured beyond what any heart could bear to see.

And the Companions said that the weeping of the Prophet ﷺ over the body of Hamza that day was unlike his weeping on any other day of his life. This was his uncle. His brother. His near-twin. The man who had stood over Abu Jahl and said "I am on his religion" when Islam had no protectors. The man who carried the first flag. His weeping was different. It was the deep cry.

But watch what the Prophet ﷺ did even inside that grief. His first thought was not for himself. He turned to Zubayr (الزُّبَيْر) and said: "Stop your mother. Do not let Safiyya see this sight." Safiyya (صَفِيَّة) — Hamza's own sister, the Prophet's ﷺ aunt — was marching toward the battlefield looking for her brother. And the Prophet ﷺ thought: if I can barely bear this sight, what will it do to her? Even drowning in his own grief, he was trying to protect someone else's heart.

And then he stood over Hamza and said: "Raḥimaka Allāh yā ʿammī (رَحِمَكَ الله يَا عَمِّي)" — "May Allah have mercy on you, my uncle. You were always one who kept the ties of kinship. You were always at the forefront of every good."

There is one more detail that will break your heart. When the Muslims returned to Madīnah, every household had lost someone at Uhud, and the women were wailing and mourning their dead all over the city. And the Prophet ﷺ walked through those streets, hearing all of that grief — and he said quietly: "But Hamza — there is no one to weep for him." His whole family had been in Mecca; there was no one in Madīnah to mourn his uncle the way these families mourned their own. And when the Anṣār (الأَنْصَار) heard that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ had said this, they did something beautiful: the women of Madīnah went to the Prophet's ﷺ house and wept for Hamza — out of love for the Prophet ﷺ. They would not let the Lion of Allah go unmourned.

Part Ten: The Verse That Held Him Back

In the rawness of that grief, standing over his mutilated brother, the Prophet ﷺ said something in his pain: "By Allah, I will make an example of seventy of them, the way they made an example of us." And some of the Anṣār swore the same — we will mutilate them the way they mutilated our loved ones.

And in that exact moment, Allah sent down Jibrīl (جِبْرِيل) with the verse at the end of Surat al-Naḥl (سُورَة النَّحْل):

And then: "Be patient — and your patience is only by Allah."

Think about what Allah was asking of him in that moment. Standing over the mutilated body of the man he loved most among his uncles, with every human instinct screaming for revenge — Allah told him: maintain the higher ground. Do not become what they are. And where will you find the strength for that patience? From Me. And the Prophet ﷺ said: "I will be patient."

And here is the fruit of that patience. Years later, at the conquest of Mecca, those very same people — the ones who mutilated the Muslim dead at Uhud — were completely at the mercy of the Prophet ﷺ. He could have done to them exactly what they did to Hamza, and it would have been justice. And instead, he forgave them. That is what the patience at Uhud grew into. The moral high ground he held onto in his moment of deepest pain became the mercy that conquered Mecca without vengeance.

Part Eleven: The Mercy That Reached the Killers

Now I have to tell you how this story ends — because it is one of the most staggering demonstrations of the mercy of Allah in the entire Sīrah.

Waḥshi, the man who threw the spear that killed Hamza. And Hind, the woman whose vendetta drove the mutilation of his body at Uhud.

Both of them became Muslim. And not just Muslim — the sources describe their Islam as excellent. They became genuinely pious.

When the Prophet ﷺ conquered Mecca, Hind came to him, terrified — how could she possibly face the man whose beloved uncle she had mutilated? And the Prophet ﷺ forgave her. She went on to become a pious Muslim woman.

And Waḥshi. When Waḥshi came to accept Islam, the Prophet ﷺ accepted him — he forgave him — but he said to him gently, "Hide your face from me." Because every time the Prophet ﷺ looked at Waḥshi's face, he saw the death of Hamza. He forgave him fully — but the human heart still grieves. And Waḥshi understood, and he carried that pain with him. He said, "I lived knowing that I caused the Messenger of Allah ﷺ that much pain."

But listen to what Waḥshi did with the rest of his life. He said: "I killed the best of men with this spear — Hamza. So let me use it to kill the worst of men." And in the wars against the false prophet Musaylima the Liar (مُسَيْلِمَة الكَذَّاب) — the man who slaughtered so many memorizers of the Qur'an — Waḥshi took that same spear he had killed Hamza with, and he threw it, and he killed Musaylima. And he said: "With this spear I killed the best of people, and with it I killed the worst of people."

The scholars, when they think of Waḥshi, think of the verse he himself was given when he despaired of ever being forgiven: ﴿قُلْ يَا عِبَادِيَ الَّذِينَ أَسْرَفُوا عَلَىٰ أَنفُسِهِمْ لَا تَقْنَطُوا مِن رَّحْمَةِ اللَّهِ إِنَّ اللَّهَ يَغْفِرُ الذُّنُوبَ جَمِيعًا﴾ — "Say: O My servants who have transgressed against themselves, do not despair of the mercy of Allah. Indeed, Allah forgives all sins." If there was ever a man who might think his sin was too great to be forgiven — surely it was the man who killed Hamza. And Allah opened the door of that verse to him.

And that is the image I want to leave you with. The man who threw the spear that killed the Lion of Allah, and the woman whose vendetta drove the mutilation at Uhud — Allah brought both of them, in the end, into this religion and into the mercy He offers to anyone who turns back to Him. That is the redemption Islam offers. If Waḥshi and Hind were not beyond Allah's mercy, then no one — no one — is. Not you. Not the person in your life you have already given up on. Never despair of the mercy of Allah, for yourself or for anyone.

The Lessons

Let me bring this back to us, sitting here tonight.

One: Your strength is neutral — what matters is what it serves. Hamza had immense strength, and for most of his life it served nothing but adventure and pride. The moment it was pointed at Allah's cause, he became the Lion of Allah. Whatever your strength is — your body, your mind, your money, your voice, your influence — ask the hard question tonight: what is it actually serving? Strength pointed at nothing is a waste of a gift. Strength pointed at Allah changes history.

Two: Being distant from your dīn is not the same as being against it — but do not stay there. Hamza was not an enemy of Islam. He was just absent — busy, distracted, not interested. Many good people live exactly there. But Allah did not leave Hamza in his distraction, and He did not let a good heart go to waste. If you know that you are one of the "distant" ones — good, kind, but disengaged from your faith — do not assume there is time. Turn, the way Hamza turned, and ask Allah to settle it in your heart.

Three: Allah can guide you through the very thing meant to harm you. Abu Jahl's cruelty was meant to crush Islam — and Allah made it the doorway for the Lion of Allah to enter it. The thing that hurt you, the injustice done to you, the person who wronged you — Allah can turn all of it into the very cause of your growth. Trust the qadar (قَدَر). He is planning something you cannot see.

Four: Live ready to meet Allah. Before every battle, Hamza gave his will to Zayd. He lived in constant readiness for death. Most of us live as if death is always far away. Hamza teaches us to keep our affairs with Allah and with people in order, always — because we do not get to choose our moment.

Five: Hold the moral high ground, especially when you have every right not to. Standing over his mutilated brother, the Prophet ﷺ was told: be patient, do not become what they are. And that patience became the mercy that later conquered Mecca. When you have every justification for revenge, for cruelty, for giving as good as you got — that is exactly the moment Allah is watching to see if you will hold the higher ground. "And your patience is only by Allah."

Six: No one is beyond the mercy of Allah. The man who speared Hamza and the woman who drove the mutilation of his body both ended their lives inside this religion, forgiven — and by the mercy of Allah, recipients of the same door of repentance that is open to us all. If they were not beyond mercy, then neither are you, and neither is that person you have written off as hopeless. Never despair of the mercy of Allah, for yourself or for anyone else.

Closing

O Allah, the One who took the strength of Hamza and made it a shield for Your religion — take whatever strength You have given us, and make it serve You.

O Allah, the One who guided a distracted heart and made him the Lion of Allah — guide our hearts when they wander, and do not leave us in our distraction.

O Allah, the One who taught Your Prophet ﷺ patience over the body of the one he loved — grant us that patience when we have every reason to abandon it.

O Allah, the One whose mercy reached even the killers of Hamza — do not let us ever despair of Your mercy, and let us never decide that anyone is beyond it.

O Allah, gather us with Your Messenger ﷺ, with Hamza the Master of the Martyrs, and with all the shuhadāʾ who gave everything for You — in the highest gardens of Firdaws.

Āmīn.

And may Allah's peace and blessings be upon our Messenger Muḥammad ﷺ, his family, and his companions.

Sealing the Gathering (Kaffārat al-Majlis)

Let us close the way the Prophet ﷺ taught us to seal any gathering — asking Allah to forgive whatever slips passed in it:

Subḥānaka Allāhumma wa bi-ḥamdika, ashhadu an lā ilāha illā anta, astaghfiruka wa atūbu ilayk.

"Glory be to You, O Allah, and praise be to You. I bear witness that there is no god but You. I seek Your forgiveness and I turn to You in repentance."