A Body Full of Scars
Hafs bin Khalid says, “The noble man who related this Hadith would travel to us from Mosul.” Mosul is a well-known city of Syria and was of great importance among the Islamic territories and cities in that time due to its large population and vast area. People would gather in this city from various cities. It is situated near Nineveh, 222 miles from the edge of the Tigris River in Baghdad. This is what is written in the lexicon which provides historical details of this city.
In any case, the narrator says, “He [i.e., the noble gentleman] would travel to us from Mosul. I have accompanied Hazrat Zubair bin al-Awwam (ra) on a number of journeys. On one occasion, when we were in a desert, he needed to wash himself, so he asked me to form a cover around him. I therefore formed a covering around him using a cloth as he washed himself. Unintentionally my gaze fell upon his body and I saw that his entire body was completely covered in sword wounds. I said to him, ‘By God, up until now, I have never seen such scars on a body left by sword-wounds as I have seen upon your body.’ He responded by asking, ‘You have seen the scars on my body?’ and then said, ‘By God, all these scars were received whilst fighting in the way of Allah alongside the Holy Prophet (sa).’”
(al-Mustadrak Ala al-Sahihain li al-Hakim, Vol. 3, p. 406, Kitab Marifat al-Sahabah, Hadith 5550, Dar al-Kutub al-‘Ilmiyyah, Beirut, 2002) (Sayyid Fadl al-Rahman, Farhang-i-Sirat (Karachi, Pakistan: Zawwar Academy Publications, 2003), p. 84)