The Road to the Wells
War with Makkah had become open: the emigrants' homes and goods had been seized, and the Qur'an had now given the wronged permission to fight back — “Permission is given to those who are fought, because they have been wronged.”1 In Ramadan of the second year, the Prophet ﷺ marched to intercept the great Quraysh caravan returning from Syria under Abū Sufyān — the wealth of the city that had expelled them. Abū Sufyān slipped down the coast and got the caravan away; but a relief army of about a thousand men, with Abū Jahl at its head, came on from Makkah to make a demonstration of force.23
The Muslims — three hundred and thirteen men, seventy camels, two horses — had marched for a caravan and now faced an army three times their number. The Prophet ﷺ took counsel. Al-Miqdād spoke for the Emigrants: “We will not say as the people of Mūsā said, ‘Go, you and your Lord, and fight — we sit here.’” Then Saʿd ibn Muʿādh spoke for the Anṣār, whose pledge had bound them only to defend the city: “Go where you will and we are with you; by God, if you led us into this sea, we would plunge into it.” The Prophet's ﷺ face lit, and he said: “March, and good tidings — for God has promised me one of the two parties.”24
The Day of the Criterion
At the wells of Badr, on the counsel of al-Ḥubāb ibn al-Mundhir — “Is this a place God has revealed to you, or is it opinion and stratagem?” “Opinion and stratagem.” — the Muslims advanced to control the water. Rain fell in the night, firming the sand under the believers and miring the enemy's slope. The Prophet ﷺ spent the night in prayer, and in the morning pleaded with outstretched hands until his cloak fell from his shoulders: “O God, fulfil what You have promised me! O God, if this band perishes, You will not be worshipped on earth!” Abū Bakr gathered his cloak: “Enough, O Messenger of God; He will fulfil His promise to you.”42
It began, in the old Arab manner, with champions: Ḥamzah, ʿAlī, and ʿUbaydah ibn al-Ḥārith stepped out to meet ʿUtbah, Shaybah, and al-Walīd ibn ʿUtbah — and struck all three down. Then the lines closed. The Qur'an speaks of a thousand angels, rank on rank; by midday the army of Quraysh had broken. Some seventy of them were dead — among them Abū Jahl, the “Pharaoh of this ummah,” and Umayyah ibn Khalaf, recognised on the field by the slave he had once tortured, Bilāl. Fourteen Muslims were martyred. The Qur'an named the day Yawm al-Furqān — the Day of the Criterion — “the day the two hosts met.”523
The Prisoners
Seventy prisoners were taken, and the treatment ordained for them startled the age: “They give food, despite their love of it, to the needy, the orphan, and the captive.”6 Captives rode while captors walked; several were freed without ransom; and the poor among the literate were offered their freedom for teaching ten children of Madīnah to read and write — perhaps the first time in history a state set the price of a man at literacy. Among the captives was the Prophet's ﷺ own son-in-law Abū'l-ʿĀṣ, ransomed with a necklace that had been Khadījah's; at the sight of it the Prophet ﷺ was shaken, and asked the Muslims' leave to return it to his daughter Zaynab.72
Badr transformed everything. The powerless preacher of Makkah had met the lords of Quraysh in open field and destroyed their leadership in a morning. For the believers, the day became the standard of precedence — “he was present at Badr” remained the highest credential in Islam for a century — and the proof, written into the Qur'an, that “how often a small company has overcome a numerous company, by God's permission; and God is with the steadfast.”8