It is narrated from Wathila that I accompanied Umar bin Khattab one day, he became so worried that I could hear his heart beat as if when one is about to swoon. I asked him what the matter was. He said: “Perhaps you can’t see the brave one who fights with two swords, that he is approaching.” I looked up to see Ali Ibn Abi Talib (a.s.) and I said: “This is Ali!” He said: “Come with me and I will narrate to you a story about his valor.
The Messenger of Allah (S) on the day of the Battle of Uhud took the pledge that none of us would flee from Jihad and one who does so, will be a deviant and one who will be killed would be a martyr. And the Prophet would guarantee Paradise for him. When we stood up to fight, we saw a hundred fighters of Quraish move to us, each with a hundred soldiers. They attacked and defeated us and all of us fled the battlefield. At that time we saw Ali attacking the idolaters like a ferocious lion without caring for them.
When he saw us fleeing from there, he said: “May your faces be destroyed! Where are you running to? Are you running to Hell?” When he saw that we were not returning, he pursued us with sword from which death was dripping. And then he said: “You have broken the pledge you gave to the Prophet regarding not fleeing from the battlefield.
So you have also become more eligible to be killed like idolaters.” When we looked at his eyes we found that they were shinning like two lamps of olive oil and were red due to anger like two cups of blood. We were certain that he would kill us with a single stroke. At last, from those who were fleeing, I went to him and said: “O Abu Hasan, I adjure in the name of Allah to leave us alone since it is the practice of Arabs that they sometimes fight and sometimes flee.
And when we attack, we erase the insult of fleeing. So Ali had mercy on our helplessness and he left us alone and attacked the infidels and till this day that fear has not gone away. I am terrified like this, whenever I see him.”