Its due

Before the fighting began, the Prophet ﷺ held up his sword and asked who would take it and give it its due.

More than one man stepped forward, hoping for the honour, and each was turned away. Abu Dujana came and asked, in substance, what its due actually was. He was told: to strike the enemy with it until it bends.

He took it, and then tied on a red band — a mark, recognised by those around him, of a man who had resolved to fight until he was killed.

He is reported to have walked out between the ranks with a proud, swaggering gait, the kind of bearing that in almost any other setting would draw disapproval. The Prophet ﷺ is reported to have remarked that it was the kind of walk Allah dislikes, except in a place like this one.

The battle turned badly. The archers left the high ground, the Muslim position collapsed, and for a time the Prophet ﷺ was exposed with only a small number of people still near him.

Abu Dujana was one of them. He put his own back between the Prophet ﷺ and the arrows falling toward him, crouching over him and taking the strikes himself rather than let them land.