Wars During The Lifetime Of Holy Prophet

Battle of Badr:
 The trade caravans of the Quraish used to pass through Madinah,.
 The Prophet decided to threaten the caravans which would hurt the
Quraish economically. He started sending parties to watch the caravans.
 In 624 A.D, Abu Sufyan, the leader of Quraish was coming from Syria with a
huge trading caravan. He was afraid that the Muslims might intercept his
caravan and therefore he summoned troops from Makkah.
 Hence an army of 1000 men came to escort the caravan.
 Although the caravan safely reached Makkah, yet Abu Jahl insisted on
fighting the Muslims. So, Quraish, with an army of 1000 men marched
towards Medina.
 When the Prophet heard of this, he consulted his companions and decided
to fight them outside Medina.
 The Muslims raised an army of 313 men.
 Both the armies met at Badr. The Quraish had arrived first so they occupied
all the important positions.
 The area that Muslims got was sandy land.
 That night, Allah sent down rain and not only were the Muslims able to
collect ample water but their land also got smooth.
 The Quraish heavily outnumbered the Muslims and so the Prophet spent
the entire night praying to Allah.
 Allah responded to his prayers by sending heavenly assistance.
 Regarding this, the Quran says: “remember ye implored the assistance of
thy Lord and he answered I will assist you with a thousand angels, ranks
on ranks”.
 Initially whne the battle started; there was a single combat in which Hazrat
Ali Hazrat Hamza and Hazrat Abu Ubaidah bin Jarrah fought against Utba,
Sheeba and Waleed.
 After the Muslim success in the single combat, general fighting began.
  While the battle was going on, the Prophet prayed to Allah saying: “O
Allah! If this small band of men perishes today there will be no one left to
worship you and your faith will be destroyed forever”.
 This shows that the Prophet was constantly seeking Allah’s help and Allah’s
help did arrive for despite being less in number, Muslims were able to
defeat the Quraish.
 Even Abu Jahl, the leader of Quraish was killed by Abdullah Bin Masood.
 Overall, 70 pagans were killed and 70 were taken as captives, the Prophet
treated the prisoners of war humanely and many were freed.
 On the other hand, only 14 Muslims were martyred. A large amount of
booty was also captured which was distributed among the Muslims.

Battle of Uhad:
 After the defeat of Battle of Badr, the Quraish were waiting to take
revenge.
 They included those who had lost their family members at Badr and those
who had invested their profits in the war.
 They instigated the Quraish leader, Abu Sufyan, to wage war.
 Therefore, the Quraish prepared an army of 3000 men and marched
towards Medina in 625 A.D under the leadership of Abu Sufyan.
 When the Prophet heard of this, he consulted his companions.
 Although he himself was in favor of fighting inside Medina, upon the
suggestion of most of the companions it was decided that they would
outside Medina.
 Initially, the Muslim army consisted of 1000 men but 300 hypocrites left the
army under the leadership of Abdullah Bin Ubayy saying that their demand
of fighting inside Medina was not fulfilled so they would not fight.
 Therefore, the remaining 700 people marched towards Uhad.
 In the battlefield, the Prophet appointed 50 archers under the command of
Abdullah Bin Jubair to guard a pass.
 The Prophet clearly instructed them to not leave the pass under any
circumstances.
 Initially, when the battle started, Muslims had an upper hand and they
were successful in defeating the Quraish such that the Quraish were began
to flee, leaving behind a lot of booty.
  When the archers saw this, they too left their posts and came to collect the
spoils of war, assuming that the war was over. However, when Khaild Bin
Waleed saw the pass unguarded,
 he along with his companions attacked from the rear.
 At this point, the victory of Muslims turned into a near defeat. As the
Quraish had attacked from the back, Muslims did not know what to do and
chaos & panic prevailed.
 In this confusion, the Prophet himself was attacked and badly wounded.
 He even lost two of his teeth, and became unconscious for some time.
 The nearest of the Prophet’s companions formed a defensive ring around
him, yet rumors spread that the Prophet had been martyred.
 However, the Prophet tried to control the situation and lessened the panic.
 Over all, the Muslims suffered heavy losses and 70 of them were martyred.
 These martyrs included Hazrat Hamza, an uncle of the Prophet, who had
been killed by a slave Wahshi, upon the instructions of Hinda, the wife of
Abu Sufyan.
 Hinda later chewed the dead body and mutilated it to avenge her father’s
death at the hands of Hazrat Hamza.

Battle of Trench:
 After the Battle of Uhad, the Muslims were able to regain their former
position.
 The Quraish could not reconcile themselves with the growing power of
Muslims and felt threatened.
 Meanwhile, the Jewish tribe of Banu Nazir who had settled at Khyber kept
on plotting against the muslims. Their chiefs went to Makkah and asked for
help against the Muslims, which the Quraish agreed to give.
 Then they went to Ghatafan tribe and gained their support too.
 Some other tribes also agreed to give full support against the Muslims, so
with an army of 10,000 men under the command of Abu Sufyan they
marched to Medina in 5 A.H. when the Prophet came to know of this, he
consulted his companions.
 Hazrat Salman Farsi, who was a Persian, suggested that a trench be built.
 This suggestion was unanimously accepted by all.
  As medina was safe from all other sides, a trench was built only in the
north. '
 The Prophet himself took part in digging the trench.
 It took 8 days to build a trench 15 feet deep and 3 km wide, 3000
companions took part in digging the Trench. '
 When the Quraish arrived, they were shocked and did not know what to do
as this trench was far beyond their imagination.
 Despite several attempts, the Quraish were unable to cross the trench and
so they camped behind it.
 Minor skirmishes took place for a couple of days in which Muslims had an
upper hand. Whenever, a person would attempt to cross the Trench,
Muslims would hurl stones and arrows.
 Muslims had to remain vigilant throughout and could not even assemble
for prayer. Meanwhile, Banu Qurayza, a Jewish tribe residing in medina
violated the covenant of Medina and decided to attack from inside
Medina.
 The Prophet sent a detachment to watch and this threat was successfully
eliminated.
 The siege of Quraish lasted for a month after which a terrible storm came
which blew away their camps and they were forced to flee.
 Thus Muslims gained victory.

Conquest of Makkah:
 Two years after the treaty of Hudaybia, trouble arose. Banu Bakr, which
was an ally of the Quraish, attacked Banu Khuza, an ally of Muslims.
 Quraish provided Banu Bakr with weapons and some Quraish also took part
in fighting.
 As this was against the terms of treaty of hudaybia, so the leader of Banu
Khuza went to the Prophet to seek justice.
 On hearing this, the prophet laid down 3 alternatives before the Quraish:
1. Pay blood money to Banu Khuza
2. Break alliance with Banu Bakr
3. Dissolve treaty of Hudaybia

 The Quraish chose the 3rd option and thus the treaty was dissolved.
 However, later they realized that they had made the wrong decision so
their leader went to medina for negotiations.
 He guaranteed peace to the Prophet but the Prophet rejected his offer.
 In 630 A.D, the prophet with an army of 10,000 men marched towards
Makkah; he kept his plans a secret so that news wouldn’t reach Makkah.
 On reaching Makkah, he told his men to light their torches to show the
Quraish their strength.
 The Quraish were horrified to see such a large number of Muslims and Abu
Sufyan, immediately came to the Muslim camp and embraced Islam.
 The prophet divided his army into 4 squadrons and told them to conquer
different areas.
 He gave them special instructions to not shed innocent blood and not be
the first one to fight.
 He also said that anybody who took refuge in his own home or Abu
Sufyan’s home or Ka’abah was safe.
 Thus all the squadrons peacefully captured their areas although there was
some trouble in the south where Khalid Bin Waleed’s squadron was
attacked by the people of Banu Bakr. After this the Prophet entered the
Kabah and purified it by breaking the idols.
 Hazrat Bilal then said the Azaan and the prophet performed tawaaf.
 The prophet then gathered all the people on the mount of safa and
declared a general pardon for all except the 4 fiercest enemies of Islam,
seeing the magnanimity of the prophet many pagans accepted Islam.
 The prophet stayed in Makkah for 20 days and after making administrative
arrangements he went back to medina.