The Exemption and the Refusal
Amr ibn al-Jumuh had a severe lame leg. Under the rules of Islamic military service, men with permanent physical disabilities were exempt from fighting — Quran 48:17 explicitly exempts “the lame” from the obligation of jihad alongside the blind and the sick.
His four adult sons were preparing to fight at Uhud. Amr said he wanted to fight alongside them. His sons argued that his leg qualified him for exemption, that God had given him an out, and they insisted he stay behind.
Amr went over their heads. He went to the Prophet directly and said: “My sons want to prevent me from going out with you. By God, I hope to step with this lame leg of mine into Paradise.”
The Prophet’s Permission and His Death
The Prophet allowed him to go. At Uhud, Amr ibn al-Jumuh fought and was killed.
The Prophet, when the bodies were being buried, ordered that Amr and his companion Abdallah ibn Amr (who was also killed) be buried together. He said: “They were close companions in this world; let them be together in the next.”
There is a moving account in which the bodies, after initial burial, were found undisturbed by flooding — the same state in which they were buried, as though the earth was returning them untouched.
The Walking in Paradise
The Prophetic statement recorded about Amr — that he would walk in Paradise with his lame leg healed and straight — became one of the most cited examples of Islamic eschatological mercy: that physical conditions of this world are transformed in the next.
See also: Seerah Al Khansa, Seerah Sad Ibn Muadh, Seerah Miqdam Ibn Madikarib, Seerah Umm Haram, Fiqh Al Iman Wa Kufr