First Muslim : The Story of Muhammad (9781101602003) by Hazleton Lesley

Author:Hazleton, Lesley [Hazleton, Lesley]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Penguin USA
Published: 2012-12-11T05:00:00+00:00

Fourteen

The Battle of Badr was fought on March 17, 624, and if it was not quite what Muhammad had sought, it would turn out to be exactly what he needed. It would be recorded in the early Islamic histories as the first great victory of Islam: a decisive armed encounter that would redound to the honor and reputation of Medina, especially among the surrounding Beduin tribes, who would begin to support Muhammad once he had shown that he could challenge the Meccan monopoly on power and wealth. Yet it appears that it happened as much by miscalculation as by intent.

Badr, between Medina and the Red Sea, was where a large wadi opened out into the coastal flatland. Several wells had been dug into its sides, and cisterns had been hollowed out to hold the residue of winter flash floods. The place was thus a major watering spot, and never more so than when Mecca’s big spring caravan stopped there on its way back from Damascus.

To even conceive of a raid on this caravan was a daring proposition. Until now, Muhammad had sent out raiding parties of no more than twenty or thirty men, and the only successful one, at Nakhla, had been highly controversial. Most Medinans, particularly those with family and business ties to the merchant city to the south, had no desire to aggravate the situation further. Nakhla had been bad enough. To follow that up with a challenge of this magnitude risked provoking Mecca into open war. Yet this was a risk Muhammad seemed willing and even eager to take. Minor raids like that at Nakhla had made him merely a thorn in Mecca’s side; a major one at Badr would establish him not as a disgruntled exile but as an enemy to be reckoned with. Plus it would bolster his support inside Medina itself, since while their elders advocated caution, younger Medinans were energized by the prospect of challenging the big city, especially when the potential gains were so large.

This would not be a matter of a few loads of leather and raisins. Under the command of the head of Mecca’s Umayyad clan, abu-Sufyan, there would be more than two thousand camels returning from Damascus, loaded with luxury goods. And they’d be an easy target: Muhammad’s scouts had reported the presence of only seventy armed guards.

Given the size and value of the caravan, seventy guards was a surprisingly low number. The Quraysh leadership seemed to have either failed to register Muhammad’s new determination, or were still misled by their disdain for “the provinces.” The Nakhla raid had been small fry, after all; an attack on the big annual caravan would be something else altogether, and from their position of power and entitlement, it must have seemed inconceivable. How would anyone dare? But if they underestimated Muhammad, he also seems to have underestimated them.

• • •

By the time he led his followers out of Medina for the two-day ride to Badr, they were no longer a mere raiding party but a solid force of over three hundred men.

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