Two Warriors and a Siege — How Hamza and Umar Changed Everything

The Story of Muhammad (SAW) · Chapter 10

The life that changed the world — written for non-Muslims, beginners, and the curious.

Adapted from Dr. Yasir Qadhi's seerah lecture series. This chapter draws on episode 18.

By the end of Chapter 9, the Muslims were split — some sheltering safely in Abyssinia, a small, battered group still holding on in Makkah under constant pressure.

Then, in the span of a few days, two men joined the faith who changed the entire balance of power. Neither of them was an obvious candidate. One converted out of anger. The other was on his way to commit murder.

Hamza: the convert who didn't mean to

Hamza (RA) was the Prophet's uncle — close to him in age, and one of the most feared warriors and hunters in Makkah. He was not, at this point, a Muslim.

One day, while Hamza was out hunting, Abu Jahl — the Quraysh's most vicious enemy of the message — caught the Prophet (SAW) near the hill of Safa and unloaded on him: a stream of insults and abuse, cursing him and his ancestors. The Prophet (SAW) said nothing back and walked away.

When Hamza returned from the hunt, still carrying his bow, the women of his clan told him what Abu Jahl had done — and needled him: what kind of protector are you, when your own nephew is humiliated in public and no one lifts a finger?

Hamza's blood boiled. He marched straight to the Kaaba, found Abu Jahl, and struck him across the face with his bow so hard it drew blood. Then — almost without thinking — he shouted: "I follow his religion too! Do something about it!"

He hadn't planned that. It just came out, from tribal fury. And that night, back home, he was tormented: I've declared myself a Muslim — but do I even believe it? He prayed, in his confusion, for God to guide his heart if this was truly the truth.

By morning he had his answer. He went to the Prophet (SAW), heard him out properly this time, and accepted Islam — now with a settled heart, not just hot blood. Hamza (RA) would go on to become one of the greatest of all Muslims, later honored as the "leader of the martyrs."

For the first time, a senior man of Makkah — a son of the ruling family — was openly on the Prophet's side. It was a huge boost. And three days later came an even bigger one.

Umar: the enemy on his way to kill

Umar ibn al-Khattab was, at this stage, one of the most dangerous enemies the message had — strong, respected, and utterly hostile. He was so feared that the Prophet (SAW) had actually made a specific prayer about him:

Hadith

“O Allah, honor Islam through the more beloved of these two men to You: through Abu Jahl, or through Umar ibn al-Khattab.”

— Jami' at-Tirmidhi 3774

The narration adds: and the dearer of the two to God was Umar.

His turning point began by accident. One night, restless, Umar wandered to the Kaaba and found the Prophet (SAW) there alone, praying aloud in the dark. Umar crept close to eavesdrop — and found himself, for the first time, actually listening to the Quran.

As he listened, a silent argument ran through his head. This is a poet's work, he thought — and the very next verse answered him:

Quran

“It is the word of a noble Messenger. It is not the word of a poet; little do you believe. Nor the word of a soothsayer; little do you remember. It is a revelation from the Lord of the worlds.”

— Surah Al-Haqqah 69:40–43

Then it's a soothsayer — and the verse had already ruled that out too. It was, he said later, the first time Islam entered his heart. He wasn't ready to admit it. But something had cracked.

The sword, the sister, and the blood

A while later, Abu Jahl publicly offered a fortune — a hundred camels — to anyone who would kill the Prophet (SAW). Umar took up the challenge himself. He drew his sword and set out.

On the way, someone stopped him with a warning: before you deal with Muhammad, sort out your own house — your sister and her husband have become Muslims. Enraged, Umar changed direction and stormed to his sister Fatimah's (RA) home.

At the door he heard recitation. They had been reading a page of the Quran with a teacher, who hid as Umar burst in. He struck his sister's husband; when Fatimah (RA) threw herself between them, his blow landed on her and drew blood.

And the sight of his own sister bleeding — yet refusing to back down, saying do what you want, we will not leave Islam — stopped him cold. Something in him gave way. Show me what you were reading, he said. She made him wash first, because the Quran is honored. Then he read the page — from Surah Ta-Ha:

Quran

“Indeed, I am Allah. There is no deity except Me, so worship Me and establish prayer for My remembrance.”

— Surah Ta-Ha 20:14

That was it. Take me to him, he said.

The sword still in his hand, Umar went to the secret house of al-Arqam. The believers saw him coming through a crack in the door and froze — but Hamza (RA), newly a Muslim himself, said to let him in. Umar sat before the Prophet (SAW) and declared his faith. The Prophet (SAW) called out "Allahu Akbar!" — God is greatest — so loudly that everyone in the house knew: Umar was one of them.

The day they prayed in the open

Umar's conversion was a genuine turning point — not just emotionally, but practically.

Until then, the Muslims had prayed in hiding. Now, with two of the city's strongest men openly among them, they walked to the Kaaba and prayed there publicly, together, for the first time. Umar (RA) even went and personally told Abu Jahl to his face that he was now a Muslim.

The companion Ibn Mas'ud (RA) summed up what changed in one sentence: "We have been powerful ever since Umar became Muslim" (Sahih al-Bukhari 3700). For his role in bringing the truth into the open, Umar earned the title al-Faruq — "the one who separates truth from falsehood."

The siege

Two of their best had defected, and most of the community had escaped their reach to Abyssinia. The Quraysh were rattled — and they answered with their cruelest move yet.

They resolved to kill the Prophet (SAW), and demanded, one final time, that Abu Talib hand him over. He refused. So the Quraysh drew up a formal pact and hung it inside the Kaaba: a total boycott of the Prophet's entire clan, Banu Hashim — believers and non-believers alike.

The terms were brutal and complete. No one could trade with them, sell them food, or marry into their family. The clan was cut off and driven out of the city into a barren valley, where they were left to starve into surrender.

They held out for around three years. The hunger was so severe that they were reduced to eating leaves and boiling old scraps of leather. One survivor said their bodies grew so weak they could barely tell their own condition from a starving animal's. Children's cries of hunger could be heard beyond the valley.

They survived only through quiet mercy. A few sympathetic non-Muslims of Makkah — men like al-Mut'im ibn Adi and Hakim ibn Hizam — risked the Quraysh's anger to smuggle camels loaded with food into the valley under cover of night.

The document the ants ate

The boycott finally broke through a combination of guilt and a strange sign.

Several fair-minded men of Makkah had grown ashamed of starving their own relatives, and quietly organized to overturn the pact. And at the same moment, the Prophet (SAW) told Abu Talib something remarkable: God had informed him that the boycott document hanging in the Kaaba had been eaten by ants — every word of it destroyed except the phrase "In Your name, O Allah."

Abu Talib walked into the assembly of the Quraysh and staked everything on it. My nephew says your document has been devoured except for the name of God. If he's wrong, I'll hand him over to you. If he's right, you must end this boycott.

They took the pact down, opened it — and found exactly what he had said. The writing was gone; only the opening words remained. The boycott was over, and after three years of siege the clan returned to Makkah.

The believers had survived mockery, torture, exile, and starvation. They had won two mighty converts and outlasted a siege. It should have felt like the tide finally turning.

Instead, the hardest year of the Prophet's life was about to begin.

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Up next: The Year of Sorrow — within months, the Prophet (SAW) loses the two people who had shielded and loved him most, and is driven to a nearby town where he is stoned in the streets. It is the lowest point of the entire story — and the doorway to a miracle.