Famous Battle

As always in Arabia, the battle of Badr began with single combats. Al Aswad sprang out of the ranks of the Quraysh toward the Muslims seeking to destroy the trough and drink from the well of Badr but Hamzah stood ready striking him with his sword, cutting off his legs and killing him.

As soon as al Aswad fell, other members of the Quraysh leapt forth challenging the Muslims to duel wanting to fight their own tribesmen. At this, Hamzah, Ali, and ‘Ubaydah ibn al Harith advanced forth. No sooner had they charged forth were all three men of Quraysh lying dead on the ground. ‘Ubaydah received a lethal blow to his leg, severing it. As the marrow oozed from it’s stump he had only one thought. “Am I not a martyr, O Messenger of God?” he said as the Prophet approached him. “Indeed thou art,” he answered. When the Qurashite army saw this, they advanced and the two armies collided.

In between battle the Prophet prayed to his Lord ceaselessly and persistently to come to their help and when the fierce engagement reached its climax he again began to supplicate his Lord saying, “O God! Should this group (of Muslims) be defeated today, You will no longer be worshipped.”

When the believers were ordered to charge, they did not charge alone, for the prophet had been promised by revelation: “When you sought aid from your Lord, so He answered you: I will assist you with a thousand of the angels following one another. The presence of the Angels was felt by all, but that presence was only visible or audible to a few, and in varying degrees.”

During the course of battle Bilal killed Umayyah ibn Khalaf, his previous master who would torture him by placing a large rock on his chest and letting him burn under the scorching sun in order to force him to renounce Islam. Mu’adh ibn `Amr killed Abu Jahl. Hamzah, Ali and other Muslim heroes penetrated deeply into enemy lines, forgetting themselves, their small numbers, and their being surrounded by their enemies. Muslims hurled themselves into the encounter chanting, “God is one! God is one!” By midday the Quraysh, who had expected to have to make a show of force, panicked and fled in disarray, leaving about fifty of their leading men, including Abu Jahl himself, dead on the field.

When the dust begun the settle and the unbelievers had fled the battle field, the Muslims collected the dead of the Quraysh and buried them on the spot. The Prophet and his companions spent that night on the battlefield burying their dead, collecting the booty and keeping watch of the captives. The outcome of the battle was a humiliating defeat for the polytheists. They sustained heavy casualties, seventy were killed and a like number taken prisoners. Many of the principal men of Makkah, and some of the Prophet‘s bitterest opponents were among the slain.

Fourteen Muslims were killed, of who six were from the Muhajirin and eight from the Ansar.

In 624 the Quraysh and their allies began their march against Muhammad equipped with great amounts of armor, two hundred horses, and three thousand camels. The Emigrants and Helpers were extremely apprehensive, and the next morning the prophet called a counsel of war. Through mutual consultation it became evident that the majority were not in favour of fighting from within the city walls, and so the prophet decided to attack. At noon they assembled for the Friday prayer, and the theme of his sermon was Jihad and all that it demands of earnestness and effort; and he said that victory would be theirs if they remained steadfast. Then he commanded them to make preparations for war; in the name of God.

The prophet set out in the direction of Uhud in search of an advantage point for his army and when they were half-way the sun began to set. The prophet gave instructions that the army should be ready to move off shortly before dawn. But, Abdullah ibn Ubayy, had been in consultation with some of his nearest followers during the night, and when it was time to raise camp he turned back to Medina with three hundred of the hypocrites and doubters without even speaking to the prophet. Reduced now to seven hundred against the three thousand Makkan fighters the believers marched on.

When the Muslim force reached Uhud the Prophet ordered his companions in rows and placed fifty of his best archers on the side of the mountain, in case of a surprise attack from the rear. He explicitly ordered the archers to protect that side under all circumstances and never to leave until he commanded them otherwise. Thus the two parties were poised for battle. Hamzah gave the war cry, “Die! Die!” and charged into the thick of the Quraysh. Ali ibn Abu Talib engaged Talhah ibn Abu Talhah, carrier of the Makkan flag, and killed him with a single stroke. The prophet‘s archers shot a volley of arrows into Khalid ibn Walid’s cavalry.

The Quraysh forces advanced fiercely and the disproportionately numbered sides began their engage. Hamzah, who was unmistakable for his unusually powerful stature was recognized by Wahshi, who had found him out. He threw his javelin aiming for a tiny chink in his armour fatally pierced Hamza’s abdomen. The great warrior staggered a few paces forward and fell to the ground in the throes of death.

But the Muslims continued in valour, and upon killing all the flag bearers who rose to hold the banner of the allies, the enemy realised defeat was imminent and began to flee. However, defeat is followed by booty and the archers whom Muhammad had commanded to remain behind now sought to join their comrades and gain their share. Abdullah ibn Jubayr appealed to them to remain but they descended to the plain with only ten men keeping their ground. This provided Khalid, commander of the Makkan cavalry, the prime opportunity to attack and seize the mountainside where the archers were. By doing so, he managed to flank the believers and take them by surprise. After he occupied the mountainside, Khalid signaled to the Quraysh to attack again as he advanced upon the Muslims from the rear. The defeated Makkans rallied to his call, and the Muslims soon found themselves in trouble; disunited on the battle field. With the believers being attacked from every direction, all sense of strategy started to crumble, and with the cry that Muhammad was killed, chaos reigned supreme and the Muslims began to flee.

However, those with steadfast faith stood close to the Prophet drawing a close circle around him for his protection. The Prophet had been hit with a stone thrown by Utbah ibn Abu Waqqas which caused him to fall to the ground with a wounded face and a broken tooth. A cry swept through the battlefield that the Prophet had been killed. The sheer force of the throw pushed two links of the Prophet‘s helmet chain into his wound and Abu Ubaydah ibn al Jarrah broke his front teeth in forcing the links out of the prophet‘s cheek. As he recovered they then began to retreat towards the mountain of Uhud while fighting their pursuing enemies and the heat of the battle abated once more. In this manner the two forces regrouped and decided to retire.

Before his army moved off, Abu Sufyan heard the disappointing news that Muhammad had not been killed after all. The struggle with Madinah was not over. ‘Next year at Badr!’ he cried, as a final challenge, and on behalf of Muhammad one the companions cried: ‘Yes, it is an appointment between us!’

In March 626 CE, a massive army of ten thousand men-the Quraysh and their confederates-were on the March towards Madinah, and upon reaching it’s outskirts they encamped. Word had reached the prophet almost a week before the arrival and adopted a stratagem suggested to him by Salam al-Farsi, a Persian convert. The prophet mobilized the entire community to dig a huge trench around the most vulnerable parts of the city. Time was short and all efforts would have to be strained to the utmost if no dangerous gap was to be left in the defenses. The prophet worked alongside them, sometimes with a pickaxe, sometimes with a shovel and sometimes as a carrier. With tremendous effort, the whole trench was dug in six days.

The Prophet amassed three thousand Muslims on the side of Sal’ mountain in Madinah with only the trench separating the believers from the enemies.

When the Quraysh arrived with their army, they stared blankly at the trench; they were bewildered. The earth from the ditch had been used to build a high escarpment, which effectively shielded the Medinese in their camp. Given the impossibility of crossing the trench, both sides maintained a simple exchange of javelins for a number of days.

The siege last only a month, but it seemed endless. Feeding and supplying the allies of Medina as well as their own people put a great strain on the city’s resources. The trench had to be manned day and night, so that each man would have to keep watch for long hours. On one occasion the time for noon prayer came and went without it being performed even by the prophet. It was only when the last light had faded from he west that they moved back to their camps.

Abdullah Ibn Ubayy and his party of hypocrites, accused Muhammad of bringing the ruin upon them and the Jewish tribe of Banu Qurayzah openly began to support the Quraysh, breaking their treaty with the prophet.

Throughout the Battle of the Trench, as the siege became known, the Muslims were terrified. Faced with the prospect of extermination, some came close to despair. But even as those inside the city trembled, on the outside of the ditch, the Quraysh were becoming exhausted. Their resolve began to waiver and finally snapped when a violent rainstorm devastated their camp. Abu Sufyan recognised defeat. Horses and camels were dying, the Qurayzah had failed to deliver any real help. “Be off,” he announced to his men, “for I am going.”

When the Muslims peered over the escarpment the next morning, the plain was completely deserted.

When the Quraysh got news of Muhammed’s 1500 strong army setting out to Kahybar, they were jubilant, certain that the Muslims would be defeated. Surrounded, like Madinah, with plains of volcanic rock and defended by seven large fortresses, Khaybar was thought to be impregnable.

The Prophet and his men reached Khaybar in three days with the Jews caught extremely by surprise. The Jews sent for help from the tribe of Ghatafan but the Muslim army prevented any such assistance from reaching Khaybar. Moreover, they were able to benefit from the internal strife within the Khabarite ranks as each tribe was autonomous and they found it difficult to unite against a common enemy.

The siege lasted a month with the Muslims systematically surrounding each fort in turn, bombarding it with arrows until it surrendered. And so each fort fell one after the other. Eventually the Jews approached Muhammad with an offer of peace when it was quite clear that they could not possibly win. The Prophet mercifully accepted their plea and permitted them to stay on their land whose title now passed to him by right of conquest. The terms of their surrender were that Muhammad would give the Jews of Khaybar military protection in return for half their date-crop.

Thus, all the Jews of the Peninsula submitted to the authority of the holy Prophet and the northern flank of Muslim power, namely the whole area north of Medina, was now as secure as the south had become through the treaty of al Hudaybiyah.

The battle of Hunayn took place soon after the conquest of Makkah, in fact the Prophet and his men had not yet returned to Madinah but a confederation of clans were consolidating their forces to attack the Muslims; known as the Hawazin.

The Hawazin were from the north of Taif and included the clans of Thaqif, Nasr, Jusham, and Sa’d ibn Bakr; the clan with whom the prophet had spent his infancy and early childhood with. Their commander-in-chief was a thirty-year-old man of Nasr named Malik who had a reputation for great valour and might.

The prophet marched out with his whole army, now increased by an additional force of two thousand Quraysh who had embraced Islam upon the conquest of Makkah.

Malik sent out three scouts to bring him information about the army now approaching from Makkah, but it was not long before they returned almost speechless, in a strangely shattered condition, for they had seen unearthly creatures galloping ahead of the Prophet‘s army. They had seen white men on black and white horses and knew that they were from Heaven; they at once warned their leader to withdraw but Malik refused to listen. After dark he gave orders to the army to advance towards the valley of Hanayn, through which he knew the enemy were bound to pass. He posted large contingents of cavalry to hide upslope with orders to charge down upon the enemy on his signal.

The Prophet encamped that night not far from the other end of the valley; and, having prayed the dawn prayer with his men, he exhorted them, and gave them glad tidings of victory if they were steadfast. The sky was overcast making it almost dark as they descended into the valley bed. In half-light a group of fighters led by Khalid caught view of some stationary hosts of Hawazin. It was a formidable spectacle as the twenty-thousand strong army of Hawazin loomed into view. Malik gave his orders and the squadrons suddenly wheeled out from their positions and swept down upon Khalid and his men. The onslaught was so fierce that he could do nothing to rally them; instead they fled headlong into the rear of the Muslim army back upslope. The Prophet was further back and made a stand with a hundred men, including Abu Bakr and Umar by withdrawing a little to the right. As they fought back the Prophet ordered Abbas, who had a voice of exceptional power, to call the others by shouting out: “O Companions of the Tree!” immediately the summons was answered from all sides-Labbayk!, Here at your service”- as Helpers and Emigrants rallied to him and they all managed to momentarily check the onslaught of the enemy.

As the Hawazin were about to muster up another attack the Prophet stood up and prayed: “O God, I ask You of Your promise!” Then asked for some pebbles which he cast into the enemy ranks as he had done at Badr. The tide of the battle suddenly turned for no apparent reason- or rather, it was not apparent to the believers, but it was apparent to the enemy, as it had been previously to their scouts; and afterwards there came revelation:

God has helped you on many occasions, including the Day of Hunayn when your great numbers delighted you but did not help you in any way, and the earth seemed narrow to you for all its great breadth, and you turned your backs. Then God sent down His serenity on His Messenger and on the believers, and sent down troops you could not see, and punished those who were disbelievers. That is how the disbelievers were repaid.

The following year after the conquest of Makkah growing rumours began to spread in Madinah that Heraclius had advanced a year’s salary to his army in view of a lengthy campaign against Madinah. However, the Prophet was also expecting his armies to open up Syria to Islam and so he too set about mustering by far the largest and best equipped army which he had led.

This time there was no attempt at secrecy with Muhammad ordering even the Makkans and the allied tribes to send at once to Madinah all their available armed and mounted men for the Syrian campaign.

The army arrived at al Hijr where the rock-hewn remains of Thamud stood, and the Prophet commanded the army to dismount for watering and a brief rest. Then, when the army reached the spring of Tabuk they encamped for twenty days. It was evident that the rumors of danger from the Byzantines had been unfounded; perhaps the news of the Muslim army’s approach had already reached the Byzantines who had withdrawn to the safety of their vicinity. The prophet chose not to pursue the Byzantines, but instead invited all of the tribes to join in allegiance to the Muslims.