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Asalam~O~ALykum
The 17th of Ramadaan and the Battle of Badr
a translated lecture of Amr Khalid
Tonight is the night of the 17th Ramadan, or the 17th of ramadan, depending on which country you are in. It is the night of the battle of Badr. Let’s talk about this battle and learn from this battle how it happened, and take out the essential meanings from it and how it can be repeated.
It’s the first battle in islam, the first victory in islam, 2nd year hijriya, on the 17th of Ramadan. By the way it was the same year as the first year to fast. What can we learn from that? That after the fasted 17 days, they were victorious, so they must have really fasted strongly.
Have you not noticed that the victorious battles happened in Ramadan? Because fasting really truly prepares the omma. Truly fast so that the nation becomes victorious. That’s the first meaning from the history of the battle.
God called it the day of Furqan, why? It divided between truth and evil, between believing and non-believers, between faith and weakness and humiliation. Mankind were moved to a new history. It’s not a normal day, we should be really happy today, and want to really worship God today and please Him.
The battle of badr, God talked about it in the whole of surit Al Anfal. Every year I talk about badr, and the events are the same, but this time I want to talk about a new thing: muslims had a thought and planned strategically in the name of islam and the victory of islam, so a miracle happened. Then muslims planned more and another victory happened. It also shows us that two laws must happen for victory. The first is that victory will come from God so we must truly worship God. The second has to be planning and so you have to be a successful in everything you do and the nation will succeed through extensive planning.
What’s more strange, is that surit Al Anfal tells the same story. In the battle of badr, the same two things happened. We’re saying this to a nation who think that we can victorious just from du3aa, or just from managerial skills. [There’s no help except from God] {anfal). You have to do both things.
People are 2 types, ones who think victory will only come from the sky and so they pray and pray, for the people in Palestine they pray, but they are just praying, waiting for a miracle to happen.
The second type are the ones who are thinking and calculating the economic strength and needs of the nations and giving up when seeing that they are outweighed.
Surit Al Anfal is teaching us that we must do both in order to succeed.
The first 2/4 of the sura is saying that victory will come from God. God is the one who succeed you. He sent down the angels. When you rely on God then He will succeed you. [Just as thy Lord ordered thee out of thy house in truth], [when thou threwest (a handful of dust) it was not thy act but god’s], [Remember thy Lord inspired the angels with the message “I am with you, give firmness to the believers”] Everything in this first half is saying that God is doing all of this. Then it tells you to ask for God’s assistance and He will help you [remember ye implored the assistance of your Lord, and he answered you “I will assist you with a thousand of the angels, ranks on ranks]. If you ask God he will answer.
The next half says that you have to rely on planning and strategic thinking and financial thinking [Against them make ready your strength to the utmost of your power. What if they want to betray you? [but if they have treacherous designs against thee (oh Apostle!) they have already been in treason against God]
As if God is saying to us, read al anfal and learn from this.
This sura is very important, you have to do both. You youths have to succeed in education, you have to think about how you will help people, and everything you do.
Sheik mohamad el gazal may God rest his soul said that if muslims needed 100 things in order to be victorious eg. they have to use media to motivate people and they need certain skills etc in order to be victorious and they only achieved 99, then they wouldn’t succeed. So there has to be success in university, and women have to raise children well, and you have to learn computer skills, everything, then you can succeed. That’s it.
Now let’s talk to you about the story. Sayinda mohamad heard that Quraysh took 1000 camels, with all the money from the muslims – you know when the muslims emigrated from Mecca, they took the money from the muslims, and left nothing for the muslims, and they took it and went out to fight them with it.
The prophet pbuh told his people that this was Quraysh was doing, how did he know? Because there was planning and looking out for what was happening around them, not just muslims sitting in mosques. He said the army was going out and he was going out with it, to get their dues and stand for their rights, and whoever wanted to go with him could.
They were going out with 70, which were only to use to carry their things, and they were 313. Each person was walking 100 km and riding for 50 km. The prophet was 55 years old and this was the first time he fought in battle! With him was Ali bin abi talib who was 22 years old and Marthad bin Abi Al marthad who was 21 years old. Ali and Marthad decided that they would walk and the prophet would ride. So they went to the prophet and offered this to him but he grew angry and his face went red and refused for they were not more able to walk than him, and they were not more deserving of gaining God’s blessings from this.
Look at the strength of the prophet when there are youths who can not walk to the mosque to pray there.
Look what happened next - if you want to succeed God, He will succeed you. So what happened? There was a woman called Atika bint Abdil motalib, the prophet’s aunt, who couldn’t emigrate from mecca to go to medina. She saw a vision that there was someone leaving mecca calling “oh you traitors” ie oh you people of mecca you traitors, “your defeat will come after 3 days” So she told Al Abbas, the prophet’s uncle, who was still a non-believer but loved the prophet and he told her not to tell anyone for they will be happy for their downfall. So he told Al waleed bin otba about the vision, asking him not to tell anyone. Al waleed then told someone else, also telling them not to tell anyone so that within a few hours the whole Mecca knew the secret. Then al abbas was circling around the ka’aba where Abu jahl was sitting. He asked Al Abbas about the vision and said that if he didn’t see proof of this vision then he would put a plaque up on the
kaaba saying that the son Abd el motalib made liars of the arabs. So could God allow this to be true? No!
What happened was that when the army of quraysh went out to battle and remembered this vision, they were demotivated, and this was what this vision was for.
Abu sufyan hears about the prophet coming out with his army so he changes the direction of his own army and tells someone called damdam to go and make a media performance. So he goes to Mecca and injures his camel so that it is bleeding and starts shouting to people that the prophet had gone out with all their money, so 950 of the strongest people of Quraysh came out, with 200 horses, not a single one walking. Can you imagine, 313 of the muslims on foot with 2 horses, against all of these 950 people with 200 horses, and the rest all on horses with weapons.
So then Gabriel comes telling the prophet that they must start the battle earlier even though they had planned for it to be later. [Just as thy Lord ordered thee out of thy house in truth, even though a party amongst the believers disliked it. Disputing with thee concerning the truth after it was made manifest, as if they were being driven to death and they (actually) saw it]. But it is God who chooses when they must fight. [behold God promised you that one of the two parties, that it should be yours: ye wished that the one unarmed should be yours, but God willed to justify the truth according to His words, and to cut off the roots of the unbelievers; that he might justify truth and prove falsehood false, distasteful though it be to those in guilt]
When the prophet hears this order, he calls for the companions and asks them what they think they should do, instead of just telling them what to do, Abu bakr says first of all to go for it. The the prophet asked again, so omar got up and said “go on sign for we are with you”. So the prophet asked again and this time al miqyad bin amr who was 23 years old – you youth who have moved away from God, look at how manly this youth is. He says, “we will not say what the people of israel said to moussa, ‘go you and your God fight, we will stay here’, but we will say ‘go you and your God fight, for we are with you fighters’. The companions were wishing they had said that! Still, the prophet asked again, let me know what you think we should do. Why again? Because the people who had spoken were of the emigrants, but he was waiting for the ansar to talk and give their opinion. Because the agreement was that the prophet would be
protected by the ansar within medina and badr was outside medina so he must get their opinion on this matter. Sa3d bin al mo3ath, at the age of 33, ‘oh prophet of God, sign, and take from our money what you want, and leave what you want’
Then the muslim lookouts go out every which way – don’t think that worshipping alone will succeed islam, you have to plan and work! So some came back with a man they have captured and question him. The prophet asks him, how many people are there in the army of Quraysh, he said he didn’t know but a lot. So he asked him how many cattle do they slaughter every day? He said then they must be between 900 and 1000 because every 10 can eat one of the cattle.
After they did all this planning, look what God did to them that when the muslims saw the non-believers, they saw them as a smaller number than they actually were, and when the others looked at them, they thought they were more than they were.
So they are planning well? Then that must mean that there was some victory from God. So God sent down drowsiness unto them so the whole of the army fell asleep which meant they got their rest. And as soon as they woke up, God sent down rain to wash them with so they are clean.
Remember our program until they change what is within themselves? This verse comes here in this sura, in the middle of it, in between the 2 halves of the sura.
Then the prophet got them to all stand in one straight line and ordered them not to begin to attack at all until he ordered them to. When they attack we will concentrate on fighting them using slingshots, until they weaken. He also organized it so that when they came to attack, the sun would be in their eyes. So with this planning, something from God has to come down and the rain came down. Which led to the muslims movement becoming even more flexible but the same rain which came down on the non-believers, made the ground for them muddy making their movements heavier.
Then the prophet called to them to motivate them and said to them to get up to a heaven the width of the skies and the earth so sayidna haritha said “How great, I wish I could be there”. So the prophet says “you will be there!”. Then a lost arrow comes and strikes haritha in the neck so he becomes a martyr at the age of 18, the youngest fighter there. His mother cries to the prophet and asks him whether her son will be a martyr if he died even before the battle and the prophet says “yes! And he will be in the garden of firdaws!
Then the 2 armies start to collide, this is when the angels came in, and only then. The battle strengthened until the master of quraysh is killed, abuh jahl. He was killed by 2 boys aged 14 and 15 years! Mo’ath and mo’waith, who both wanted to kill the man who had said ill of the prophet! They plotted that one of them would use their sword to injure his horse, and the other would kill him when he fell. They ran racing each other until they killed him!
Until the opposing armies strength began to decrease and the muslims were victorious and 70 of the non-believers were taken prisoner.
God twt said [Thus have we made of you an ummat justly balanced, that ye might be witnesses over the nations] (Bakarah) All of the nations will stand up and we will be witnesses for all of these. But in order to give an account to a judge, we will need the knowledge. I am worried that our generation and our nation will not be able to stand up to be witnesses but the hope is in the coming generations.
Let’s promise that tonight we will all read surit Al Anfal, and also, we will do something for islam. Tonight we will write down whether we have helped someone, or have succeeded in our studies.
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