Under The Shadow Of The Sword (Battle of Badr)

[ابوالوليد المسلم]

Under The Shadow Of The Sword (Battle of Badr)

Nayeem Siddiqui


The leaders of the non-believers had in their arrogance assumed that they had achieved something very great by turning out the Prophet and his companions from Makkah, but soon they realised that through the pledge of Aqaba the Prophet had secured the cooperation of Ansar which meant that Medina was to become a powerful centre of Islamic movement where a system of government would gradually develop and then confront them with such strength that it would not be possible for them to check or ******* its expansion.
Then on reaching Medina the Prophet contracted treaties with the Jews and other clans when the danger became all the more pronounced. Then the Prophet organised a defense system and began to send patrolling parties to look after the borders of the state of Medina and to watch the movements of the enemy in the neighbouring areas.
Soon the Quraish were confronted with many new dangers. Their trade route to Syria which passed through Medina faced the danger of being snapped. And when Abu Jehl prevented Sa’ad bin Ma'az from performing Umrah, there was every danger of their economic life-line being cut off.
The Prophet and his companions were outside their range of influence.
In Makkah he was only a preacher but now he was the head of the Islamic state, too: There he was oppressed and used to bear all this with patience but now he was in a position to repulse oppression by force.
The Quraish in opposing the call to truth at different stages had reached a point where war was inevitable. But while the Quraish with their oppressive activities and nefarious plots had developed a blood-thirsty mentality, the limited resources for constructing a new era which the Prophet had achieved and on whose basis the new state was launched could not be endangered as their destruction would have undone all the work accomplished so far. Its preservation and defense were of vital importance.
An adequate defense system had to be established to meet all eventualities. It was essential for the new movement to keep a strict surveillance on the movement of its opponents and to preserve its own power.
The Prophet and his companions fully realised that the next stage after migration was a full-fledged warfare and they had to be fully prepared for it.
This stage did not take long to come, but before we deal with this it will be of interest to describe briefly the Islamic concept of Jihad and its philosophy according to Qur'an.
When a revolutionary movement is launched to change a corrupt social system and reform it from its core, it generally meets opposition from vested interests who think that their position, both social and economic, will be affected in the new order and they use all methods, mostly foul, to crush the movement.
In such cases the sponsors of the movement cannot remain content with merely defensive measures, but must confront the opposition and break its obstructive power to clear the path of social reform.
It is, therefore, a mistake to assume that the Islamic concept of Jihad or holy war was merely of a defensive character.
It is, however, unfortunate that some of our educated elite influenced by anti-Islamic propaganda against Jihad, are trying to explain away some of its basic features and use all the force of logic and even misrepresentation of basic facts to prove that the Islamic Jihad is merely defensive which is absurd. The objectives of Jihad are.
It must safeguard the Muslim state and Muslim society.
Its main purpose is the preservation of the ideology on which the system of truth is based.
Its aim is to crush all such destructive forces which pose danger to the success achieved by the Islamic revolution and stand in the way of its further implementation.
It aims at removing and totally destroying all the obstacles in the way of social evolution and human welfare.
Now order to clarify these points I would like to refer to some relevant passages of the Qur'an:
“To those against whom war is made, permission is given (to fight) because they are wronged; - and verily Allah is most powerful for their aid; - (they are) those who have been expelled from their homes in defiance of right, - (for no cause) except that they say; ‘Our Lord is Allah’ * Had not Allah checked one set of people by means of another, there would surely have been pulled down monasteries, churches, and mosques, in which the name of Allah is commemorated in abundant measure. Allah will certainly and those who aid. His (cause); - for verily Allah is full of strength, exalted in might (able to enforce His will) * (They are) those who, if We establish them in the land, establish regular prayers and give regular charity, enjoin the right and forbid wrong: With Allah rests the end (and decision) of (all) affairs.” (Surat Al-Hajj: 39-41)
“Fight in the cause of Allah those who fight you, but do not transgress limits: for Allah loveth not transgressors * And slay them wherever ye catch them, and turn them out from where they have turned you out; for tumult and oppression are worse than slaughter, but fight them not at the Sacred Mosque, unless they (first) fight you there, but if they fight you, slay them * Such is the reward of those who suppress faith. But if they cease, All is Oft-Forgiving, most Merciful * And fight them on until there is no more tumult of oppression, and there prevail justice and faith in Allah; but if they cease, let there be no hostility except to those who practice oppression.” (Surat Al-Baqarah: 190-193)
“And why should ye not fight in the cause of Allah and of those who, being weak, are ill-treated (and oppressed)? Men, women and children, whose cry is: ‘Our Lord rescue us from this town whose people are oppressors; and raise for us from Thee one who will protect, one who will help’.” (Surat An-Nisa’: 75)
“But if they violate oath after their covenant and taunt you for your faith-fight ye the chiefs on unfaith for their oaths are nothing to them that thus they may be restrained * Will ye not fight people who violated their oaths, plotted to expel the Apostle and took the aggression by being the first to assault you.” (Surat At-Taubah: 12-13)
“Unless ye go forth, He will punish you with grievous penalty, and put others in your place, but Him ye would not harm in the least. For Allah hath power over all things.” ( Surat At-Taubah: 39)
There are several other important and thought-provoking verses in the Qur'an on the subject but the above-mentioned have been selected for their greater clarity and basic principle. A careful study of these verses will enable the reader to grasp and understand the true significance of the clashes between the Prophet and those who opposed and oppressed him and his followers and helpers.
For years Muslims had been persecuted. The oppressors did not allow the Muslim society to flourish, suppressed freedom of thought and conscience, and obstructed the propagation of truth.
The Muslims endured all this with extraordinary patience never retaliating against their oppressors and at last it became impossible for them to remain in their homes. They had to seek asylum elsewhere.
Islam allows maximum latitude to its opponents to understand and respond to the movement of reform and with this ****** it takes Muslims through a stage of endurance, but it cannot tolerate that its members should suffer oppression indefinitely or fall easy prey to their opponents.
In fact, the period of their patient suffering is only training to enable them to confront oppression and suppress it to make way for unobstructed progress in human welfare.
It is vital to eliminate oppressive and destructive force, for if evil is not crushed by force but left unhindered to do mischief, all virtue, nobility and fear of Allah would be destroyed.
The revolutionary ideology of Islam stipulates that gradually power should be taken from those who stand for anarchy, ignorance, vice and oppression and entrusted to those who establish the order of virtue, prayer and charity, and destroy the sources of evil.
“Fight those who fight against you” does not mean that only when your opponents attack, only then you do something to defend yourself.
The indication here is that there is a group among the opponents which is not active and may not be interfered with.
But in the case of those who obstruct you in your work and are bent upon killing you and your system by force, use of force against them is inevitable, and, it is not necessary for you to wait till they actually attack the Islamic state, but they should be put down wherever they may be.
Although bloodshed is not intrinsically good, attempts to obstruct the Islamic movement are much greater evils and in order to safeguard the movement and the system the lesser evil of resort to arms and war should be pressed with all the force till all the forces standing in the path of truth are completely subdued.
While the necessity for the maintenance of sanctity of religious conventions is stressed, the Muslims are also warned of the false notion of piety that if the enemy violates the sanctity and commits excesses in the prohibited month, they should quietly allow themselves to be slaughtered. On the other hand if they violate the sanctity they should be crushed.
The religious and moral duty of the Muslims in not only confined to care for the safety of their own lives but it is also incumbent on them that wherever the weak are oppressed, and cry out for help, they should do everything to relieve them.
Thus the Islamic movement has been made responsible for the redemption of the entire human race, and its wider responsibility is to preserve higher cultural and religious values.
Treaties and covenants are also useful means of breaking the forces of opposition. The Prophet made full use of them. In this respect, the Qur'an has sounded a solemn warning that those who violate the covenant must be forced to abide by it.
In particular, those who make plans in contravention of their pledges to destroy Islam and remove its leader, every act of conspiracy and intrigue should be interpreted as a declaration of war even if no such formal declaration is made.
In this connection the Islamic state is cautioned that the real purpose of a military action is not to kill the people but to destroy the leadership of the enemies of the movement.
Evading the duty of Jihad means the end of the state, your power and your system and blocking of your progress while opposing forces will come forward, remove your or rather totally crush you and establish their own rule and you will be able to do nothing.
You must realise what grievous penalty you will suffer.
It is only in the light of the above observations that we can comprehend the nature of the warfare between the sponsors of the revolutionary movement of Islam and its enemies.
The basic fact to be noted is that two forces were arrayed against each other in the history of Arabia. One aimed at rescuing the people from the grip of an evil and oppressive system of ignorance and the other was using all its forces to retain this system and kill the new movement. There was no room for a compromise between the aims and objects of the two, nor could the parties strike a bargain between them.
The situation was in the nature of “do or die”, or as the proverb says, “If you do not kill him, he will kill you.” If this situation is realised the question as to whether these wars were defensive does not arise and the criticism that the force was used to enforce belief becomes irrelevant and it is no longer necessary to discuss the immediate causes of each battle and to distort facts to prove that these wars were defensive and forced on the Muslims by the other side.
It is unfortunate that some of our educated people are advancing hairsplitting arguments to refute the charges of the European writers, particularly in respect of the Battle of Badr.
If they had grasped this basic fact they would have been saved from adopting an apologetic attitude or appealing for justice from their court.
We could tell them plainly that the best authority for judging the conduct of our Prophet are the Muslims and it is not the business of the writers of the West or East or North or South to question our authority.
To explain the significance of our past achievements and the meaning of our technical terms is our business and not that of anyone else.
In testing our beliefs, our history and our Prophet’s life we can never accept the standards framed by the Christian Church or those formulated by the new materialistic age. We absolutely refuse to judge our past by these false standards.
It should be clearly understood that the nature of military measures of the Islamic state was not like a war between two kingdoms or a conflict between two religious groups.
There was no idea of conquering the world like Alexander, Napoleon or Hitler or of establishing colonies by depriving free nations of their freedom like Holland, France and England.
It was a conflict between two groups of people of the same country and the same race on the point that one group was selflessly struggling to build a new life based on new values and the other was bent upon obstructing it or destroying it completely. The basic conflict was that while the Prophet and his followers were taking up a new line under Divine guidance and discarding the blind following of a system of ignorance, the Quraish were not conceding them the right of freedom of conscience. Against this healthy revolution, the Quraish, the Jews and the Beduin clans were reacting with the meanest type of strategy, mischief, conspiracies, and murder as mentioned above.
After years of suffering under hostile acts the only alternative left to them was to come in the open, sword in hand, and if possible to end the conflict forever. The Quraish formed the staunchest opposition and other elements followed suit but they were all beaten.
The outstanding feature of these ten years of military activities in Medina can be understood by looking at the total loss of life incurred and it will become clear that the Prophet had always in his mind to gain the Maximum loss of life he established a state which extended to over a million square miles.
The total number of killed in all the wars was 255 Muslims and 279 enemies. With this small number of casualties, all opposition was suppressed and the path was cleared for the felicity of hundreds of thousands of Arabs.
If these wars were for proselytizing non-Muslims, innumerable atrocities would have been committed as in the case of the Christians and the Jews and in a single war alone there would have been far more losses of life than this.
If the Prophet was motivated by conquest, he would have done what other conquerors had done in history and every patch of the desert of Arabia would have been soaked with blood. If it were a conflict between hostile kingdoms the loss of life would have been still greater.
Then the number of prisoners taken in all the wars was only 6,564 and of these, only two were executed for proved crimes, while 6,347 were released. The fate of the remaining 215 prisoners is not known; probably they accepted the Islam and merged into the Muslim society.
The proof that the Prophet was not a military hero in the accepted sense is further established by the fact that in the Battle of Badr he asked his men to spare the men of Banu Hashim as they were not willing partners of the enemy and not to kill Abbas bin Abdul Muttalib and Abul Bakhtari bin Hisham (the latter was, however, accidentally killed).
When he learned about suffering of the prisoners of war at Badr he could not sleep and himself got their bonds loosened, in the midst of war he intervened with the chief of Yamama to renew the supply of food grains to Makkah which was stopped on the people of Yamama accepting Islam and further sent 500 gold coins for the relief of the poor in Makkah, and lastly at the time of the conquest of Makkah he forgave all their inhuman excesses perpetrated on him and his followers during the past 15-20 years and declared, “There is no retaliation today. Go, you are free.
In fact, although the Prophet was forced to draw sword against the enemy as no other alternative was left, his eyes were not on the conquest of land but on the conquest of hearts and he did not want to subjugate human bodies by use of force but to convert the people’s minds by arguments and their hearts by kindness and moral force.