Part 9

After marching another six or seven miles, Muslim forces set tents a short distance from the wells of Badr, which the opposing army was also approaching, each being ignorant of the other's movement. The informant employed by Muhammad brought him news that the Meccan forces were on their way to the place where his troops were encamped. At this news, the hearts of some of Muhammad's fighters sank, for they had joined the foray, expecting a little fight and much plunder. Now, they felt overwhelmed by the reported strength of their opponents, and dismayed at the prospect of fighting a fierce battle. Muhammad assured them victory in the following words:

O Apostle! Rouse the Believers
To the fight. If there are
Twenty amongst you, patient
And persevering, they will
Vanquish two hundred: if a hundred,
They will vanquish a thousand
Of the Unbelievers: for these
Are a people without understanding (8:65).

Muhammad's above statement was based on the Meccans' reported strength of about one thousand fighters. For raising his men' fighting spirits, he equated one of them with ten of their enemies. When his men questioned the absurdity of the equation, he unashamedly revised his nonsensical statement, stating:

For the present, God
Hath lightened your (task),
For He knoweth that there is
A weak spot in you:
But (even so), if there are
A hundred of you, patient
And persevering, they will
Vanquish two hundred, and if
A thousand, they will vanquish
Two thousand, with the leave
Of God: for God is with those
Who patiently persevere (8:66).

He brought down the fighting strength of his one man to that of two men of his enemy. This equation seemed reasonable to his fighting men, for they were three hundred and fourteen and their opponents about six to seven hundred, which means one Muslim combatant was required to take on, approximately, 1.91 to 2.23 men of the pagans in order to win the battle. Under the difficult conditions the Meccans faced, Muslim needed no heavenly intervention to overcome the superior number of their opponents.

After assuring success to his troops, Muhammad positioned them on a raised ground, with water at its foot. The troops, using the branches of date trees, erected a hut on the summit for Muhammad to take rest therein. They also kept a fleet camel standing by for him to escape, should the Meccan army defeat them.

The vanguard of the Meccan troops entered the valley, panting with thirst, and hastened to the stream for a drink. Hamza, the uncle of Muhammad, set a number of his men upon them and slew their commander with his own hand. Only a single soldier of the Meccan vanguard escaped the slaughter.

The main body of the Meccan forces now arrived at the venue of the last massacre, challenging the bravest of the Muslim fighters to equal combat. A number of individual fights took place in which all of the Meccan challengers were defeated and slain. The battle then turned into a general melee.

Muslims, aware of their inferior strength, at first adopted a defensive posture from their strategic position on top of the hill (8:42). From their upper ground, they assailed the Meccans with flights of arrows, whenever they sought to quench their intolerable thirst at the stream below. Muhammad, during all this time, remained within his hut worrying about the outcome of the battle.

The sporadic arrow flights soon flared up into a furious sword fight. In spite of their superior numbers, the Quraishites suffered a number of tactical disadvantages. They had advanced against the Muslims across the soft sand dunes, which left them victims of exhaustion after travelling for 12 days on foot, mules and horses (see Dr. Muhammad Hamidullah, The Battlefield of the Prophet Muhammad, p.49), whereas the believers awaited them standing on firm soil, precluding any exertion whatsoever. Moreover, Muslims controlled the most essential commodity of the desert warfare: the water. The Meccans had none, and without it, no army - -no matter how strong and large its size - - could win a battle even against a smaller enemy, let alone the highly charged Muslim forces the pagans were faced with in this battle.

In spite of their setback, the Meccans were engaging the Muslims in a fierce fight when a violent squall whipped the sand into their faces, almost blinding them.

"Gabriel," cried Muhammad ecstatically, "with a thousand angels is falling upon the enemy!" God increased the number of the angels to three thousand strong; in order to defeat a force of infidels, numbering about six to seven hundred, that was fighting a battle under some of the most insurmountable conditions.

Suddenly, as if to bolster the faith of his fighters in him, Muhammad rushed out of his hut, and picking up a handful of dust, cast it at the Meccans, crying out, "Confusion on their faces." Then ordering his men to charge upon the enemy, he cried: "Fight, and fear not," for "the gates of Paradise are under the shade of sword. He will assuredly find instant admission who falls fighting for the faith." While the battle was raging, Abu Jahl, who was urging his horse into the thickest of the conflict, received the blow of a scimitar and fell to the ground. Abdullah Ibn Masoud put his foot upon his breast and severed his head from his body.

For some time, the fight swayed back and forth, without either side gaining a clear advantage. At long last, the Meccans began to waver and lost ground. Then suddenly they broke and fled. Fifty of them remained dead on the ground, and nearly the same number was taken prisoners. Of the Muslims, eight were slain, whose names remain on record as martyrs to the faith.

The battle over, Abdullah Ibn Masoud brought the head of Abu Jahl to Muhammad. Eyeing the grisly trophy with exultation, he exclaimed, "This man was the Pharaoh of our Nation."

The number of causalities on the pagan side prove one point: That there were not as many pagan warriors involved in the battle of Badr as Muslim historians made out in their recollection of the event.. They exaggerated the number of the pagan enemy in order to extol the Muslim virtues by dint of which, most Muslims believe, Muhammad and his followers defeated a "huge" number of their enemies, an inspiration that most Muslims of the present time are exhorted to employ while fighting their infidel foes. Or, the battle fought was not a fierce one, but the Muslim historians made it as such so that Muhammad looked like a victim, and not a perpetrator, of the crime that he committed against the pagans.

Muslim ascribes attribute success in this battle to invisible angelic participation, noting that a thousand of them clad in long dazzling robes with white and yellow turbans, mounted on black and white stallions, came rushing like a blast and swept the Quraishites before them. They mention a pagan shepherd who had witnessed the miracle taking place and he, in this connection, is believed to have made the following statement:

"I was with a companion, a cousin," said the witness, "upon the fold of the mountain, watching the conflict, and waiting to join the victors to share the spoil. Suddenly we saw a great cloud moving toward us, and within it were the neighing of steeds and sound of trumpets. As it approached, we heard the terrific voice of the archangel as he urged his mare Haizum, "Speed! Speed! Oh Haizum!" At which awful sound the heart of my companion burst with terror, and he died on the spot. I, too, had almost shared his fate."

Ibn Abbas, who had testified to the occurrence, his statement having been confirmed by none other than Muhammad himself, corroborated the pagan's statement.
The gist of the matter stands as follows: God had sent down a large contingent of angels to fight against a small number of human beings, and the angels rode steeds - - in spite of their having at least a pair of wings to fly with - - undetected by human eyes and senses.

Before the victorious Muslims returned to Madina, a quarrel broke out among themselves over the distribution of the spoils. Though the caravan of Abu Sofian, which God had promised to the believers, had escaped, yet considerable booty of weapons and camels had fallen to the lot of the Muslims. Additionally, the prisoners were also expected to produce, through their ransom, a large sum of money, a prospect that none of the Muslim soldiers wanted to miss.

Muhammad ordered the booty divided equally among all the Muslims, who fought the battle.  Although it was a long established custom among the Arabs to give a fourth part of the booty to their chief, he contended himself with the same share as that of the rest.

The equal distribution of the booty caused great dissatisfaction among the troops. Those who had taken part in the actual fighting and had been most active in collecting the spoils demanded a larger share than those who had stood aloof from the fray, as well as those old men who had remained back to guard the camp. The settlement of the issue became an important matter for Muhammad, especially when he, as a leader, was about to embark upon a career of predatory warfare. He, accordingly, decreed that in future, a fifth of the war-spoils would go to him and God, and the remaining would be distributed among those who fought in the battles (8:41). In the distribution of the booty, Muhammad and God were to have first preference of choice: They were to select their part first, whereafter the leftovers were to be distributed among other claimants of the booty (Ibn Ishaq, op. cit. p.643).

 

THE BATTLE OF UHUD

Muhammad and his troops returned in triumph to Madina with the spoils and prisoners taken in the battle. Their success on the battleground propelled their prestige and morale to an extraordinary height. Having tasted the fruits of success, Muslims clamored for more expeditions against the pagans, primarily to loot them and to turn their womenfolk into their slaves.

Muhammad was not oblivious to the desires of his people. In fact, he himself possessed just such a yearning in his own heart. But in the absence of an opportunity, he dared not initiate an action that could have turned off those pagans who were seriously considering their assimilation into his religion. Wherefore, in wait for an opportunity, he busied himself momentarily in the propagation of his faith.

In this effort, he found himself making little progress due to assaults launched against him by the satirical poets of the city. Muhammad, however, found an effective way to deal with this menace: he engaged one of them to defend him. Hassan Ibn Thabit was middle-aged and had already achieved fame as a poet. He had spent some years at the court of Bani Ghassan princes in Syria. Asked by Muhammad if he could defend him from the attacks of his enemies, Hassan is said to have stuck out his tongue and declared, "There is no armor that I cannot pierce with this weapon."

Many of the pagan and Jewish satirical poets were silenced by Hassan's quick-witted responses. Still, there remained some who continued, unabated, to ridicule Muhammad and his doctrines with their satires. Hassan could not handle them ultimately, so Muhammad decided to take measures against them.

In implementation of his decision, Asma, a Jewish poetess, was put to death for her satirical effusions. Abu Afak, an Israelite of very ripe age, was likewise slain for indulging in satire against Muhammad. Another Jewish poet, Kaab Ibn Ashraf, who tried to rouse the Quraishites to vengeance paid dearly with his life.

Having rid himself of the satirical poets, Muhammad turned his attention to another serious problem. The Jews of Madina, he felt, had become increasingly hostile to him as time passed, and he found them erecting stumbling blocks on his way to success. He, therefore, decided to confront them with an iron hand.

The recent victory at Badr had completely changed Muhammad's position; he was now a triumphant chief of a growing power. He felt highly confident of success in campaigns that he thought of initiating against his Jewish enemies. The first Jewish community that he took action against was the tribe of Bani Qainuqa. The members of this tribe were goldsmiths and were probably the richest among the Jewish tribes. They numbered about seven hundred; three hundred of whom are said to have been armed. They also made armor but owned no fields or fruit gardens. An altercation in the market, involving two Muslims and a Jew, provided Muhammad with an excuse to lay siege against the entire settlement to which the offending Jew belonged. It lasted for two weeks and then the Jews surrendered. Muhammad promptly sentenced them to death.

Two tribes among the Aus and the Khazraj were allies of Bani Qainuqa, but both had embraced Islam. The leader of the first tribe went to Muhammad and renounced the alliance. Abdullah Ibn Ubay was the leader of the other ally whom we have already met as being a peace-loving man who abhorred bloodshed. On hearing of the death sentence declared on the tribe of Bani Qainuqa, Abdullah rushed to Muhammad, and taking hold of his cloak, begged him to spare the lives of the condemned Jews.

Muhammad, reacting in an angry rage, at first refused to oblige him, but overtaken by his insistence as well as by his political insight, relented and spared the lives of the seven hundred doomed Jewish men.  He however ordered them to leave Madina and settle in Syria. At the time of their migration, they were compelled to leave most of their property behind them. They were permitted to take that many animals as were necessary to carry them to their destination.

The expulsion of the Jews from Madina helped Muhammad to overcome some of his immediate problems. It enabled him, first of all, to solve most of the accommodation problem of the Meccan refugees by allotting them the abandoned homes of the expelled Jews. Secondly, the wealth the Jews had left behind helped him to start building up his own state exchequer to finance the future expeditions, which, he knew, were just around the corner.

The recent defeat at the hands of the Muslims at Badr had struck the Quaraishites of Mecca with humiliation and astonishment. They failed to understand how a fugitive recently driven from their midst could muster the strength to challenge them to a battle and then rob them of their pride. Several of their bravest and ablest men had fallen victim to his sword; yet, as if not content with this, he had taken many of their men captives and now awaited a humiliating ransom.

Abu Lahab, Muhammad's uncle and always his staunchest opponent, had been unable to take part in the last battle due to his illness. He died a few days after hearing of the Meccans' ignominious rout, his death, it is believed, having been hastened by the exasperation of his spirits.

But no one was as much touched by the tragedy of the battle, as was Abu Sofian. It was one thing to reach Mecca safely; it was another to hear about the triumph of the man he detested from the core of his heart, and finding his own home desolate. He was more agonized by the lamentations of his wife, Hinda, who had lost her father, her uncle, and her brother to the swords of Hamza and Ali. She was now crying out in rage day and night for vengeance on those men.

In her desire for revenge, Hinda vowed not to anoint her hair and not to sleep with her husband or any of her lovers until all the deaths of her near and dear ones were avenged. Abu Sofian also swore not to eat food cooked in oil and not to sleep with his wife or any of his paramours until he had taken revenge for the deaths of the leaders of his Quraish clan.

Abu Sofian and Hinda had taken those vows of vengeance following a tribal law of the Arabs, which ordained that whoever shed the blood of a man owed blood on that account to the family of the slain person. Muhammad upheld this ancient barbarous law and gave sanction to retaliatory acts of bloodshed, for he said: "Believers, retaliation is decreed for you in bloodshed: a free man for a free man, a slave for a slave, and a female for a female."

While Abu Sofian was thinking to raise a Meccan army to attack the Muslims, Muhammad set out, in June of 624 A.D., with four hundred and fifty men to raid the tribes of Ghatafan. They received timely warning, however, and moved away to safety. Muslims returned home without fighting or spoils. This expedition is called "The raid of Dhu Amr."

Two months later, Muhammad again set out with three hundred of his raiders to raid Bani Sulaim. They reached a place called Bahran and, finding no one, returned to Madina, again empty-handed.

The Meccans regularly heard about those raids, conducted by Muhammad, and they quivered in fear. While they were still trying to figure out ways to contain his growing power, time came to send their yearly caravan to Syria. Knowing the risk their caravan faced if it traveled by the conventional route, they decided to send it to its destination via Najd, a route that was not frequently used by caravans and which they considered to be a safe passage. Somehow, information about the caravan bearing toward Najd reached Madina, giving Muhammad ample time to prepare himself for its seizure.

He gathered a team of one hundred brigands headed by his adopted son, Zaid Ibn Harith, and detailed it with its mission. The marauders surprised the caravan and captured it at the well of Qadra in Najd. The rapine proved extremely rich for the Muslims, for a great part of the caravan had been laden with silver.

Following the events of Badr and Najd, the Quraishites set up a fund with the intention of financing the build up of a powerful army. It seems that the fund was well subscribed, the ordinary Meccans and their merchants keenly recognizing the perils with which the Muslims had endangered their means of livelihood. At the same time, they called upon Bani Kinana, who lived on the coastal plain and had a pact of cooperation with them, to assist them in their struggle against the Muslims. As was the custom, eminent poets were also asked to join the expeditionary forces to stir up their valor and ferocity in the impending battle.

Soon after the raising of a strong force was completed for curtailing Muhammad's plunderous activities, it left Mecca on its way to Madina under the command of Abu Sofian, presently the most prominent leader of the Meccans. It consisted approximately of three thousand men, the majority of them fully equipped for the battle. The Meccan army arrived on a Wednesday below the mount called Uhud and remained there, resting until Thursday. In the meantime, the news of the arrival of this massive force reached Muhammad, causing serious consternation among the Muslims. They held hasty consultation to find ways to face the threat, Muhammad being inclined to defend the city from within, in order to avoid the exposure of his forces in an open field.

Many elders, including Abdullah Ibn Ubay, strongly supported Muhammad. All the younger people, who had not had the chance to take part in the battle of Badr and were consequently deprived of the booty, insisted on going out to fight the enemy in the open. Their insistence had its roots in their belief in Muhammad, who had attributed the Muslim victory at Badr to the heavenly help, rather than to human strength. They believed that God would help them with angels this time, too, and make them victorious over their enemy. Their inferior number, therefore, was of no consequence to them, nor it made any difference in their thinking process.
Nevertheless, Abdullah still insisted on remaining within the city and defending it without putting their lives at unnecessary risk. Muhammad stalled a decision, but when his young followers became irresistible, he gave in. Donning his armor, he left the safety of the city, accompanied by his troops, to fight his enemy on the turf that the latter had chosen to test his strength once again.

On Saturday morning, Muhammad and his troops sighted the enemy. Abdullah Ibn Ubay, seeing the strength of the Quraish forces, turned back with three hundred of his followers, leaving Muhammad with only seven hundred Muslims to fight the large number of the infidels. Undeterred by the defection, Muhammad continued his advance, in course of which, he assured his soldiers of receiving help from five thousand angels, provided he and his followers remained firm and acted diligently. In a short time, Muhammad found himself facing his formidable antagonists, determined to inflict a singular defeat on him and his followers.

In spite of being outnumbered by the enemy, Muhammad proceeded to draw his men in order of battle. To deal with the mounted Meccans, he placed fifty of his archers on the Muslim flank, with strict orders to repel any attack by the enemy's horsemen and on no account to leave their strategic position. He then handed over his standard to Musab Ibn Omar and his sword to Abu Dujana, with orders to smite the enemy until it bent in his hand.

Both sides now faced each other. As was their tradition, single combats between valiant warriors from both sides opened the contest. When Muslims saw the Meccan veterans being defeated by their warriors, they rushed forward shouting their war cry, "Allahu Akbar," and fell upon the enemy with the same defiance and fury that had brought them a grand victory at the battle of Badr. In the rampant bloodshed that ensued, Muslims, it is said, gained the upper hand when some of the pagans took flight. At this juncture, the archers posted on the flank to keep the enemy horsemen at bay allegedly left their station to join their advancing swordsmen in order to lay their claim to the plunder.

At this moment, a Meccan cavalry saw the Muslim archers leaving their position. Seizing the opportunity, they swung around and charged the unprotected rear of the advancing Muslim line, which included Muhammad, and some of his soldiers. The unexpected onslaught created a state of pell-mell in the rank of the Muslim forces- a situation that inspired the Meccans to rally around their standard of war.

In the confusion that occurred in the Muslim rank and file, a swordsman by the name of Ibn Qamia, of Bani Kinana, attacked Musab Ibn Omar, Muhammad's standard-bearer, and cut him down with a single slash from his sword. Mistaking his victim for Muhammad, Qamia waved his sword over his head and cried, "I have killed Muhammad! Muhammad is dead!" Muslims, already disoriented by the rear attack of the horsemen, panicked uncontrollably by the news of their leader's death and fled. In their haste, they ran past Muhammad and the little group around him without even seeing him. His shouts to reunite and to fight also went unnoticed. Taking advantage of the disarray in the Muslim camp, the Meccans began moving toward the small group that was surrounding Muhammad, showering on it a rain of arrows, as well as stones from their slings. A stone struck Muhammad in the face, knocking out one of his incisors. He also received a blow on his head, forcing him to fall to the ground, his visage fully covered with blood.

Here a miracle-like event is again believed to have taken place. A group of Meccans went past Muhammad, who was lying helplessly on the ground, mortally wounded. As willed by God, his enemies failed to recognize him. The so-called miracle that saved Muhammad from his enemies inspires Muslims even today. The very mention of it turns them into a kind of ecstasy that is not possible for a man to display in a normal condition.

Once the Meccans passed by, Muhammad got up from the ground and supported by a small group of his followers, he hurried up the rocky slopes of Mount Uhud, where he concealed himself in a hollow.

For the Meccans, the battle was over.  They took pride in the fact that they had defeated the Muslims. Before leaving the battlefield, however, Abu Sofian stood at a point opposite the hollow where Muhammad had hidden himself, and called up to the Muslims to know if, in fact, Muhammad was dead. On being told by Omar that he was alive and that he was hearing them speak at that very moment, Abu Sofian threw a challenge to the Muslims to meet him at Badr next year for another round of fighting, and then left the grounds to saddle his camels and horses in preparation for the journey that would take him back to Mecca and into the arms of those on whose behalf he had, in 625 A. D, waged and won the just concluded battle.

Muslims attribute the lack of desire on Abu Sofian's part to kill Muhammad to a miracle, which they claim, God had caused, along with others, as described above, to save him from death.  Unfortunately, it is one of the fallacious beliefs that is known to have always been helping the believers in adhering to their faiths. In reality, neither science nor philosophy accepts the existence of miracles. "For instance," wrote Dr. Rafiq Zakaria, "Cicero declared that 'there are no such things as miracles;' they were invented 'for the piety of the ignorant folk.' Celsus said that miracles, whether attributed to Christ or Moses, were 'insufficiently attested and most improbable.'" But, despite knowing the fact that miracles do not exist, many scholars and scientists, inspired by their respective religions, suffered from its tantalizing spell. The above-named Muslim gentleman is one among many scholars who believed in the scientific fact, but forced by his Muslim conviction, he sacrificed science at the altar of his religion so that he could attribute Muhammad's success at Badr to a miracle. He concurred: "The fact that he {Muhammad} won the battle {of Badr} was, indeed, a miracle. That is why he attributed it entirely to God (Muhammad & the Quran, pp. 25 & 32).

The real reason behind sparing Muhammad's life by Abu Sofian was, perhaps, the non-blood thirsty nature of the pagans. The nomadic pagans fought wars and battles among themselves, either for plundering or for revenge, but they always avoided shedding blood of their own people. It was this tribal practice that prevented Abu Sofian from killing Muhammad, whom he considered to be one of his kindred, despite the fact that he had committed many offences against his own people. Alternatively, Abu Sofian might have believed that by sparing his life, he was doing Muhammad a favor in reciprocation of which, he expected him to abandon his murderous attacks on the Meccan caravans. But, as history tells us, he was dead wrong in his assumptions, for Muhammad continued on his path until such time the entire population of the Peninsula surrendered themselves to his dictatorial authority for nothing else, but to save their lives.

In order to sooth his followers' injured ego, Muhammad attributed their defeat to the Will of God. Asked why God did not help them this time with five thousand angels from heaven, he told them: "God did this {promised the angels} only as good news for you that your hearts might be at rest herein. Victory comes only from God, the Mighty the Wise, i.e. I mentioned the armies of My angels only as a good news for you and that your hearts might be at rest herein, because I know your weakness and victory comes only from Me because of My sovereignty and power for the reason that power and authority belong to Me, not to any one of my creatures (Ibn Ishaq, op. cit. p. 392).

The aforesaid statement makes it clear: God had no intention to help the Muslim fighters, and Muhammad knew it. God made the promise of the angelic help only to boost their moral; and they lost their moral when they failed to stand firm and wavered in the face of their enemy's onslaught. It did not matter to God that the Muslims suffered an ignominious defeat at the hands of the infidels, for this defeat was intended to teach them a lesson, which would prevent them, in future, from doing what they did in the just concluded battle.