Welcome to Ramadans That Changed The World! A series of stories about Ramadan moments that shaped the course of history, and the lessons we can take from them today!
It wasn’t supposed to go like this.
The plan was simple:
Intercept the Makkan caravan and take back what’s rightfully ours.
It had been two years since the Hijra, when the Muslims were driven out of the city they knew and loved, and all their wealth had been unjustly usurped by the Quraysh.
Now, with the permission of Allah and His prophet ﷺ, they were finally taking it back, and while in times of peace, raiding caravans would be forbidden, this was war.
So, on the 17th of Ramadan, 313 had set out, with the Messenger himself ﷺ at the head of it all, lightly armed and with a couple of horses between them. This should have been more than enough to send the message across.
But what they met out on the barren plains was not a caravan, but an army, 1000 strong, with 200 mounted, armed to the teeth.
As it turned out, word had reached Abu Sufyan about the raid within enough time for him to divert his caravan, but that alone wasn’t enough for him. This was more than some potentially lost goods, this was the pride of the Quraysh being put on the line.
How dare these Muslims threaten our trade route? Who do they think they are?
Enraged, the chiefs of Makkah gathered and mobilized, and to ensure there was no turning back, Shaytan himself appeared, taking the form of one of their neighboring chiefs, and assuring them:
وَإِذْ زَيَّنَ لَهُمُ ٱلشَّيْطَـٰنُ أَعْمَـٰلَهُمْ وَقَالَ لَا غَالِبَ لَكُمُ ٱلْيَوْمَ مِنَ ٱلنَّاسِ وَإِنِّى جَارٌۭ لَّكُمْ ۖ
“Satan made their foul deeds seem fair to them, and said, ‘No one will conquer you today, for I will be right beside you’…”
[Quran, 8:48]
But in the end, even Shaytan saw what those two parties did not, and when the hour came, even he fled:
لَّكُمْ ۖ فَلَمَّا تَرَآءَتِ ٱلْفِئَتَانِ نَكَصَ عَلَىٰ عَقِبَيْهِ وَقَالَ إِنِّى بَرِىٓءٌۭ مِّنكُمْ إِنِّىٓ أَرَىٰ مَا لَا تَرَوْنَ إِنِّىٓ أَخَافُ ٱللَّهَ ۚ وَٱللَّهُ شَدِيدُ ٱلْعِقَابِ…
“…but when the armies came within sight of one another, he turned on his heels, saying, ‘This is where I leave you: I see what you do not, and I fear God- God is severe in His punishment.”
[Quran, 8:48]
The Muslims set out with a plan, the Quraysh set out with another, but above all others, Allah’s plan is always supreme.
وَإِذْ يَعِدُكُمُ ٱللَّهُ إِحْدَى ٱلطَّآئِفَتَيْنِ أَنَّهَا لَكُمْ وَتَوَدُّونَ أَنَّ غَيْرَ ذَاتِ ٱلشَّوْكَةِ تَكُونُ لَكُمْ وَيُرِيدُ ٱللَّهُ أَن يُحِقَّ ٱلْحَقَّ بِكَلِمَـٰتِهِۦ وَيَقْطَعَ دَابِرَ ٱلْكَـٰفِرِينَ ٧
لِيُحِقَّ ٱلْحَقَّ وَيُبْطِلَ ٱلْبَـٰطِلَ وَلَوْ كَرِهَ ٱلْمُجْرِمُونَ ٨
“Remember how God promised you [believers] that one of the two enemy groups would fall to you: you wanted the unarmed group to be yours, but it was God’s will to establish the truth according to His Word and to finish off the disbelievers; to prove the Truth to be true, and the false to be false, much as the guilty might dislike it.” [Quran, 8:8-9]
This wasn’t going to be a raid or skirmish, nor was it going to be the surprise attack that would destroy the believers.
This was the day that would forever change the course of history.
This was truth establishing itself by Divine right, and falsehood would be uprooted.
This was The Battle of Badr.
The Night Before The Battle
The question then came, whose fight was this?
The Ansar, the Muslims of Madinah, had vowed at the second pledge of Aqabah to defend the Prophet ﷺ as they would defend their own wives and children.
But the pledge was specifically within Madinah. Badr was outside the city. It didn’t ‘technically’ apply.
The Prophet ﷺ could have ordered them. If he had ordered, they would have obeyed. But that wasn’t his way. Instead, he stood among the companions and asked for shura, for consultation.
The Muhajireen, those who migrated from Makkah, kept standing up and pledging their support, but the Prophet ﷺ was clearly waiting for the Ansar.
Sa’d ibn Mu’adh رضي الله عنه read the room.
He stood and said: “By Allah, it seems as if you’re directing this at us, O Messenger of Allah.” The Prophet ﷺ said: “Yes.”
And Sa’d answered with words that lit up the face of Rasulullah ﷺ:
“We believe in you. We have testified to what you brought. We have given you our covenants. So go forward, O Messenger of Allah, wherever you wish, we are with you. By Allah, if you walked us into the sea, not a single one of us would stay behind. We do not dislike that you bring us face-to-face with our enemy tomorrow. Perhaps Allah will show you from us what will please your eyes.”
And with that, night came, and the Sahaba took to their tents, for the day ahead would be arduous.
On a night you might imagine would be full of restlessness and anxiety, the Companions slept, and slept deeply at that, with tranquility that Allah cast upon their hearts. All the while it rained heavily, settling the sand beneath their feet.
The Day of Badr
As the great battle drew near, the Prophet ﷺ turned to the qibla, with his hands raised so high that his shawl kept slipping from his shoulders, pleading to his Lord:
“”O Allah, accomplish for me what You have promised me. O Allah, bring about what You have promised me. O Allah, if this small band of Muslims is destroyed, You will not be worshipped on this earth.”
Rasulullah ﷺ repeated this over and over, not from a place of doubt in Allah’s promise, but from a place of humility. He ﷺ was worshipping his Lord as a slave should; humbly, vulnerably, recognizing the gravity of his circumstances, and recognizing the only One who can give him victory. This is the etiquette of dua.
The Prophet ﷺ understood his circumstances; he understood what it meant to head into action without means, so he turned to his Lord with everything he had, because there is no other recourse.
Some of the Sahaba watched as Abu Bakr رضي الله عنه ran forward, draping the shawl back over the Messenger ﷺ each time it fell, saying:
“At peace, O Messenger of Allah. Allah will fulfill His promise to you.”
The same prophet who assured his companion during the Hijra, ‘Do not worry, Allah is with us,’ now receiving that same reassurance ahead of the battle of all battles.
The battle soon opened, as was the custom, with a duel.
Three of the Quraysh stepped out and called for worthy opponents from among the Muhajireen, and three answered:
Hamza ibn Abd al-Muttalib, uncle of Rasulullah ﷺ . The Lion of Allah and His Messenger.
Ali ibn Abi Talib, cousin and now son-in-law to the Prophet ﷺ . The warrior who would go on to become the fourth khalifa in Islam.
Ubaydah ibn al-Harith, one who is not widely mentioned in the seerah, but who would on this day reach a legendary status.
Hamza رضي الله عنه struck down his foe, Utbah ibn Rabi’ah. Ali رضي الله عنه vanquished al-Walid ibn Utbah, but Ubaydah and his adversary, Shaybah ibn Rabi’ah, wounded each other gravely, and Ubaydah رضي الله عنه would be the first martyr of Badr as a result.
Thereafter, the battle was in full swing.
Swords clashed, blood spilled, dust filled the air, and one by one the vilest of the enemies of Islam met their end, chief among them Abu Jahl, who was the primary target of many.
Prior to the battle, two Ansari boys, both named Mu’adh, stood beside Abd al-Rahman ibn Awf رضي الله عنه on the battlefield. Separately, without the other knowing, each one whispered to him:
“Uncle, point out Abu Jahl to me. I heard he used to harm the Prophet ﷺ. I want to be the one to kill him today.”
These were young men, just in their teens, but their ambitions were lofty. Their goal wasn’t to survive, it was to give the most to Allah ﷻ that they possibly could. Abd al-Rahman ibn Awf’s worry about having young fighters beside him disappeared instantly.
He pointed Abu Jahl out, the most defended man on the field, surrounded by Qurayshi warriors, in the thickest of the fighting, and without hesitation, both boys charged straight towards him.
Both boys struck him down together, and returned to the Prophet ﷺ cut, bloodied, but equally excited, both claiming to have killed him. When Ibn Mas’ud went to examine, he found Abu Jahl breathing his last breath, smuggly remarking, “Can there be a man more superior to one whom his own folk have killed?”
The Angels of Badr
The battle raged on, and as it did, something remarkable happened.
Amidst the dust clouds, the sound of cracking whips thundered through the air.
Enemy soldiers fell with burned lacerations searing their flesh.
A sound akin to raging stallions followed, with invisible riders commanding them, one shouting:
“Charge ahead, Hayzum!”
A brigade of angels entered the battle, 1000 strong, as Allah commemorates in His book:
إِذْ تَسْتَغِيثُونَ رَبَّكُمْ فَٱسْتَجَابَ لَكُمْ أَنِّى مُمِدُّكُم بِأَلْفٍۢ مِّنَ ٱلْمَلَـٰٓئِكَةِ مُرْدِفِينَ
“When you begged your Lord for help, He answered you, ‘I will reinforce you with a thousand angels in succession.”
[Quran, 8:9]
The battle was over within a few hours. The Quraysh turned their backs and fled like Iblis before them, and Umar رضي الله عنه remembered a verse that had been revealed back in Makkah, which puzzled him at the time:
سَيُهْزَمُ الْجَمْعُ وَيُوَلُّونَ الدُّبُرَ
“Their forces will be routed and they will turn tail and flee.”
[Quran, 54:45]
Standing at Badr, watching the Quraysh flee, he finally understood.
The chiefs of Quraysh had been wiped out, many of their nobles were taken as prisoners of war, and the people of Makkah were beside themselves.
These were the same Muslims they had oppressed so brutally just two years ago.
This was the same Ibn Mas’ud who was beaten in front of the Ka’ba now standing over the corpse of Abu Jahl.
This was the same Bilal who was tortured with boiling stones under the blazing sun, now smiting his former master, Umayyah ibn Khalaf.
This was the same Muhammad ibn ‘Abdillah ﷺ , whose family had been driven into ghettos, now standing at the head of an army. The Messenger ﷺ , showing mankind now and forever that the promise of Allah is true.
That day was more than a battle in the empty desert.
It was a message that would rock the whole of Arabia, telling them of a new nation that was brewing, and a wave that would echo throughout the peninsula, and the world soon thereafter. A nation whose loyalty did not reside with any idol, but with the One true God. A people not bound by tribe, wealth, or by lineage, but by the brotherhood of faith and by the mutual aspiration of piety.
This truly was a day that truth prevailed over falsehood, and it unfolded one fateful Ramadan.
The lessons we can take from Badr are too many to enumerate, but one for us all to reflect on is this:
It’s not enough to simply ask for miracles; you have to put in the effort.
The Muslims came to Badr unprepared. The Prophet ﷺ knew it. That’s why he made dua with such urgency. Muslims cannot simply expect miracles without putting in the effort. At Badr, Allah ﷻ supplied the miracle, the angels, but the companions still showed up, still lined up, still charged.
The cause was still there, even if incomplete.
All of us seek miraculous change in Ramadan; it could be in our finances, our family life and relationships, for our parents, children, spouses, and so on…
But how many of us are making an effort to enact that change?
If you want a miracle this Ramadan, you have to pair your dua with action.
