Abdul Nasir Jangda – Stories of the Prophets #18 The Battle of Badr
AI: Summary ©
The history of the Badr victory was a intimidation of Muslims to back down, leading to a strategy of intercepting the caravan and putting a hurt on their enemy. The Westerners were desperate to win the fight, but were not successful. The Islamist plan to destroy the people and end suffering was successful, but they were outflanked by police and police officers were eventually outflanked by large contingent of asylum seekers and Muslims. The importance of understanding and cooperation between Muslims of different cultures is emphasized, and resolving issues with the Islam community is a blessing for those who have not yet experienced it.
AI: Summary ©
Today is the
17th or today was the 17th
day, 17th fast
of the month of Ramadan.
And the 17th
day or 17th fast of Ramadan
is
something that holds a very special place
in Islamic history
because
it is the day on which the battle
of Badr occurred.
We've been going
through in Ramadan here
our series on the stories of the prophets
in the Quran.
And insha Allah we're continuing with
that. However, I'm going to talk about one
of the stories
in the Quran
from the life of the prophet sallallahu alaihi
wasallam.
Are we talking about
the events of the life of the prophet
sallallahu alaihi wasallam that are spoken about in
the Quran towards the end of the month.
But I felt that it was beneficial
to talk about this particular event
from the life of Muhammadur Rasulullah
that is mentioned within the Quran today.
Even if even if it be out of
sequence
because it is the day of the battle
of Badr.
And I'm not going to go into a
detailed historical,
discussion,
a recounting of events leading to Badr, during
Badr, after Badr
because that would take a lot of time,
4 or 5 hours at the very least.
We have a lot of detail. We have
a lot of knowledge about the battle of
Badr. 100 and 100 of pages have been
written within the books of Sira, the books
of Islamic history, prophetic biography
on the battle of Badr.
But I would like to just outline
very quickly exactly what it is when we're
talking about the battle of Badr.
The battle of Badr
occurred in the 2nd
year of hijrah.
That's the 2nd year of the Prophet sallallahu
alaihi wa sallam's residence in Madinah.
When he made the hijrah and he came
to Madinah,
the 2nd year the battle of Badr happened.
The battle of Badr happened in the month
of Ramadan.
The battle was on 17th
day of the month of Ramadan.
The battle
of Badr is called that
Badr was is the name of a place.
That place is there till today and it's
called
It's the city of Badr, the area of
Badr.
And
that region, that area, even back then 1400
years ago was also called Badr. Badr is
the word in the Arabic language, which refers
to the full moon.
And there's lots of theories as to why
that area was called, but the most,
the predominant theory
is that there were these big large wells
out there. And when the full moon it
would be the night of the full moon,
the whole full moon would reflect inside the
well. Hence, it got the name
Badr.
Nonetheless, this place
Al Badr
is about a day and a half or
2 days worth of journey on foot
outside of Medina, away from the city of
Medina.
And
what transpired at this time, the Muslims have
been living in Madinah for about a year
and a half. And
while they've been living here for a year
and a half,
very happy to have a home, very happy
to have a community,
very happy to have a Masjid where they
can pray freely and safely.
The Quraysh
of Mecca
are not happy with this situation. They are
not satisfied with this arrangement,
but they resent the fact and the idea
that these people believed
and that these people
did not back down,
that they remained rebellious to our ways, quote,
unquote.
And not only that, but they went over
there.
And now their community is growing.
Because
Islam started to grow very rapidly
when they arrived in Medina.
There were people, dozens of people accepting Islam
every week and eventually every day.
The community was doubling in number every few
months.
And so they resented this fact. And at
some level, they feared it.
And so they were not satisfied with this.
So they started launching attacks
against the Muslims.
There were about a half a dozen occasions
where the Makkan sent a cavalry or a
small unit, a battalion
to come right outside of Madinah to intimidate
the Muslims.
And the prophet
was forced
to rally together some of the companions
and send them out to go and stand
across from them
to at least make a show of force
and let them know we're not afraid of
you. We're not going to back down.
The fighting never occurred. A few arrows were
launched,
but that was about it. And then they
would turn around and leave.
But they hadn't stopped at that. They had
even conducted raids.
They came and they raided one of the
gardens that belonged to the Muslims
on the outskirts of the city of Madinah.
And they burned the garden down, and somebody
ended up dying inside of the garden.
So they were constantly
engaged in this intimidation
of the Muslims and not letting them live
in peace.
The prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam, he had a
strategy
to try to curb
this kind of bullying behavior
on the part of the Quraysh. And that
strategy was that the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa
sallam said, we're going to start intercepting their
trade caravans.
Medina is to the north of Mecca. Medina
is on the route on the way to
what was referred to in those in those
times as Biladusham,
the Levant.
Syria, Palestine,
Jordan, these areas. And in fact, the the
the Quraysh, when they used to go for
trade, their primary destination was actually Palestine.
They would go to Al Quds. They would
even go as far as as far as
Gaza.
The great grandfather of the prophet salallahu alaihi
wa sallam, Hashim,
he
died actually on one of these trade care
vans and he's buried in Gaza.
And so
they used to have to pass by Madira.
So the prophet salallahu alaihi wasalam said, we're
gonna make them regret
bullying us constantly,
intimidating us nonstop.
We're going to start intercepting their caravans.
And their economy
depends on these caravans.
So then all of a sudden,
when it hurts their wallets,
then that's the only language they speak.
So they had this tactic, and they were
successful a couple of times. And then they
heard the news that there was a very,
very large
caravan on its way.
And the Muslims
the prophet salallahu alaihi wasalam told the Muslims,
let's intercept this caravan. They tried to intercept
it on its way to a sham,
but they missed it. And
when Abu Sufyan, who was leading the caravan,
one of the leaders of Quraysh,
when he realized they tried to intercept us,
he knew that, okay, they're going to try
to catch us on the way back.
So he was already worried and concerned. He
sent the word ahead to Mecca,
and he said they're going to
catch us.
They were already preparing an army in Mecca.
So he said, deploy the army.
And then while he was on his way
back, he deliberately took a very different unexpected
route.
And he was able to evade
the Muslims.
And when the Muslims realized
that, oh, we missed the caravan again.
Right as they were thinking about, okay, I
guess we'll just go back home.
So these this was a group of 313
Muslims.
They came primarily
to raid a caravan, not fight a war,
not fight a battle.
And when they realized, well, the caravan slipped
away from us again,
I guess we'll go back home
next time.
But then they got the news from some
of their scouts.
There's a huge army,
like a day, a day and a half's
journey away.
And then as they started gathering the intel,
they realized they were 313.
The army that was coming was
about a1000.
They them 3 to 1.
While they were here to stop a caravan,
a trade caravan,
so they were equipped accordingly.
The other
army
is equipped like an army with armor and
artillery and weapons and the like.
While the Muslims
were very humble
and largely in a state of poverty
because it was already a small, poor farm
town, Medina.
And then you infused into it
100 of
refugees,
asylum seekers,
Muslims, So
poor people became even more poor
cause they shared everything half and half.
And so the Muslims
barely have food, barely have clothes, barely have
some of them didn't have shoes on their
feet. They were holding sticks in their hands.
And the other army that outnumbers them 3
to 1 is armed from head to toe.
They have entire lavish feasts
that they brought with them.
All of this.
At that point in time, Allah Subhanahu Wa
Ta'ala talks about this in the Quran
that Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala says,
Allah told you 1 of 2 things was
gonna happen.
Either you stop the caravan
and get a payday,
hit the jackpot
while putting a hurt on your enemy. It's
a win win.
Or you might end up in a fight.
And you really, really hoped and wished and
prayed
that it would be the latter. That it
would be the former. Excuse me. That it'd
be the fact that you're gonna intercept the
caravan, put a hurt on your enemy, take
home a payday.
Win win.
You really were wishing you were you
you so desperately wanted it to be that.
Where you read Allahu and you
But lesson number 1 from Badr.
We think all kinds of things
but Allah has a plan.
And Allah's plan is is exactly what happens.
We have a plan, but Allah has a
plan. And Allah's plan is that is what
actually occurs.
And if you're
compliant, obedient
with Allah's
plan, Allah says, I'll take care of you.
And if you defy try to defy Allah's
plan,
Allah says,
I will exhaust you
in the pursuit of your plan.
But guess what? At the end of the
day,
what happens is
Allah's plan.
So Badr is a lesson in that. Allah
said, Allah had
a plan that the truth should be made
clear.
And that the enemies would suffer a defeat.
So the truth could be known.
And the falsehood could be exposed.
Even if they did not want that to
happen.
That is what was going to happen.
So the army showed up
and it was a battle. So lesson number
1, Allah's plan.
Lesson number 2,
we know about the battle.
But do we
remember what happened on the night before the
battle?
The hadith,
the authentic narration tells us
the prophet
they pitched a tent for him
the prophet. It's called
the masjid of the tent.
In Abu Bakr
he
says in the middle of night, I went
to go check on the prophet
just,
you know, make sure he's okay.
And he says, when I walked into the
tent, I saw the prophet on his knees.
And he had his hands
stretched out
over his head. The prophet would normally make
dua like this,
but he had his arms stretched out like
this over his head. And he was crying
so profusely his beard was soaked until his
chest was wet with his tears. And he
had like a shawl on and it had
fallen off of his shoulders onto the ground
and he was insisting and he was crying
and he was saying, oh Allah help us.
Oh Allah, if you allowed these people to
perish tomorrow, there'll be nobody left on this
earth that worship you as you deserve to
be worshiped.
Allah, please help us. Send your aid. Send
your help.
And Abu Bakr picked up the shalom of
the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam and put it
on his shoulders. And then he said, I'm
set to who? I held the Prophet Sallallahu
Alaihi Wasallam until he kind of calm down
a little. And then I said,
Oh, messenger of God, Allah has heard your
prayers and Allah has answered your prayers.
His help is coming. I know it.
And then
when they went out into the battlefield,
then the promise of Allah. Allah's
plan, turn to Allah
and then wait for the promise of Allah.
And Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala tells us what
did the promise of Allah look like?
Allah you at the place of badar even
though you were weak.
You're outnumbered, outmanned, outgunned.
You're weak.
Allah will help you with 3,000
angels
descending from the sky.
If you are patient and conscious of God,
fearful of Allah,
Allah will send
5,000 angels in waves upon waves upon these
people.
And what happened?
Allah sent down his tranquility upon the believers
and they fell asleep standing in the battlefield.
Abdullah bin Masood
he said,
I dropped my sword multiple times in the
battlefield of Badr.
Dropped my sword. What does that mean? Only
2 explanations for that.
Explanation number 1 is not possible. That would
be incompetence.
Explanation number 2 is Allah made them drowsy.
And he said,
we fell asleep standing up.
There's a funny little
interaction.
I'll mention it.
Later on decades later when Abdullah bin Masooda
is in Kufa in Iraq.
He's elderly.
He's a teacher
and he's teaching people. A
young man
sitting in the front
started dozing off and falling asleep.
I know something about that. Alright.
So a young man started dozing off and
falling asleep.
So Abdullah ibn Masur
said, hey, what are you doing? Wake up.
We're like studying Quran, Tafsir, or something.
What are you doing sleeping?
And he said,
sorry. Sorry. Sakina Sakina.
I said, Sakina.
Your cousin Sakina? Right?
What's this Sakina? He said, This is not
Sakina.
He said,
sleeping in the halaqa of the dhikr of
Allah,
in
halaqa of 'ilm, this is gaflah.
This is heedlessness. This is negligence, my friend.
He's going to tell you what Sakina is
and then he told them about Badr.
Sakina is sleeping in the battlefield while the
enemy is trying to kill you.
That's a gift from Allah. That's Sakina. The
Sahaba say we opened our eyes, we're rubbing
our eyes like when you wake up from
that
you know
afternoon Ramadan.
Y'all know something about that. Right?
So rubbing our eyes and we looked and
more than 70 of the enemy were dead.
More than 70 of them were tied up
waiting to be taken into custody
and everybody else was on the run.
The battle was over.
That's the help of Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala.
That's the promise of Allah. We believe that.
We hope for that. We wait for that.
We know that it's coming.
And there's one more lesson that I wanna
highlight. And I apologize. I'm going a little
bit here. Forgive me,
but this is very important lesson.
It's not difficult, but it's technical. So please
pay attention.
When the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasall made the
hijrah to Madinah, he came to Madinah. The
uncle of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam,
Al Abbas
insisted that there be some terms of understanding
and agreement between the Muslims of Madinah and
the Muslims of Makkah. The Ansar and the
Muwajirun.
One of the terms of the agreement
was that if anybody attacks Medina, we all
defend it together.
Everybody.
But if any of the 2 groups goes
outside of Madinah
to engage in battle
with someone that they have a pre existing
conflict
with, the other group is not obligated to
go and help them. Does that make sense?
Right. If 2 people live together, something goes
wrong in the house, they both repair it.
But if one of their cars gets damaged,
the other person is not responsible.
That was kind of the idea.
The
had a conflict with the Quraysh from before.
They went all the way out to Badr,
and now they're about to engage in a
battle.
The went
with them because they thought they were intercepting
a caravan. But when they found out that
it was gonna be a battle, the prophet
actually conducted a meeting.
And he said, here are the facts.
We did not come here for a battle,
but it is now a battle.
What do you think?
What say you?
And
an Ansari
stood up,
a leader, Saab bin Wa'ad, and he said,
you Rasulullah, we were lost. We were astray.
We were aimless. We were rudderless. We were
hopeless.
You came to us, brought us the light,
iman,
faith, guidance,
showed us the way, showed us how to
live life,
and we would follow you to the ends
of the earth. And if you jumped off
the ends of the earth, we would jump
out after you. We will never leave your
side.
And remember, the Ansar did not have to
participate in the battle. They could have gone
home and they would not have been committing
a sin.
I told you there were 313
people in Badr. Muslims.
Out of 313,
73 were Muhajirun.
How many does that leave?
Very nice.
240. 240 were the Ansar.
240
of the 313
did not have to be there. They did
not have to pick up a sword. They
did not have to fight. They could have
picked packed up their bags and they could
have gone home.
But they said, this is not the moment
where you ask, do I have to do
this? This is the moment where you say,
I get to do this.
And happened in Ramadan.
Ramadan in Ramadan, we need to revive the
spirit of Badr.
Stop asking the question.
I need to stop asking the question, do
I have to do this? Do I have
to pray? Is
Do I
have to? Do I have to? Is that
is it necessary? Is it necessary?
And I need to start asking the question
what more can I do?
And seize the opportunity.
Take the opportunity, the blessing that Allah is
granting us.
And that is the spirit of Badr.
That the Sahaba on that day,
they said Allah has given us an opportunity
whether we have to be here or not,
we are here
and we're not going nowhere.
And that's why the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam
said
that
Go live your lives. After Badr, he said
go live your lives
because Allah has already forgiven you.
Allah has given a special mercy to the
people of Badr.
They were chosen people
and they were created
for the sacrifice they made.
May Allah
grant us all the spirit of Badr. May
Allah
allow us to be able to
revive the spirit of Badr in this Ramadan.
And may Allah
grant a victory, the victory of Badr to
our brothers and sisters in Gaza and all
across the world.