2. THE CAUSES OF BADR
As to the causes that made Badr inevitable, they are not difficult to seek. Badr was the logical culmination of the Islamic daʿwah and movement, initiated by the Prophet (peace be upon him) some fourteen hundred years ago in Makkah. Every event and development in the struggle that ensued between the Muslims and the Quraysh, because of the inception of Islam, was building in the direction of Badr: the challenge and provocation posed by the new Islamic world-view to the vested interests of the Quraysh, and to their vantage position in pre-Islamic Arabia; the conflict that ensued between the two parties; the eviction of the Muslims from Makkah; together with the appropriation of their wealth and homes; the hijrah to Madīnah; and last but not least, the Qur’ānic permission for the Muslims to fight back, revealed immediately after the hijrah to Madīnah; all these events were building up towards Badr. Before the granting of permission, the Muslims could not engage their adversaries in the battlefield. The permission to fight back was immediately followed by other Qur’ānic verses, exhorting Muslims to fight back in self defence and instituting jihād as a permanent major strategy of the Muslims’ struggle against evil and unbelief. These other Qur’ānic revelation verses made it clear, that evil and unbelief were not passing features of reality, but a permanent one. Moreover, the encounter with evil is inevitable, because evil forces are, by their very nature, aggressive, uncompromising and provocative. They seek to eradicate goodness and godliness from life by every possible means in their possession. The efforts to avoid a showdown with evil forces are futile, because they sooner or later will enforce such a showdown, unless the forces of righteousness surrender to them; God forbid.
The Prophet’s expeditions and sarāyā, which are discussed in the first chapter, perfectly prepared the ground for Badr. The trade routes of the Quraysh were effectively blocked or interrupted. With the Quraysh commerce disrupted, many Bedouin tribes, especially the powerful Khuzā‘ah, though still unbelievers, were won over to the side of the Prophet (peace be upon him), as allies against the Quraysh. Meanwhile, the Muslims’ exodus from Makkah was successfully completed and their nascent state in Madīnah was secured, not merely as a set of rules or laws, or even as a set of formal institutions and policies, but firmly established in the hearts and minds of the vast majority of the inhabitants of the city, notwithstanding the enmity of the Madīnan Jews and Hypocrites.
However, the immediate cause of the Battle of Badr was the Muslims’ pursuit of a Quraysh commercial caravan, coming from Syria, and led by none other than Abū Sufyān himself. Abū Sufyān, the head of the Quraysh opposition to Islam, managed to dodge his Muslim pursuers and arrived safely, with the caravan intact, in Makkah.
When he arrived in Makkah, Abū Sufyān found the Makkans fully alerted, and mobilized for war against the Muslims, having received news about the Muslim offensive against their caravan. He was there in time to join the army, in fact to assume its command.
3. HOW DID THE BATTLE TAKE PLACE?
The original pledge the Madīnans gave to the Prophet (peace be upon him) was just to defend him against any attack. The situation had changed. So, the Prophet (peace be upon him) called a Shūrā Council. He asked: ‘O People! Give me your counsel.’ One by one, the leaders of Muhājirīn spoke supporting the Prophet (peace be upon him), and assuring him of their ability to fight the Quraysh and defeat them. Abū Bakr, ʿUmar and al-Miqdād ibn ʿAmr, all of them spoke very enthusiastically in support of the proposal that they should engage their Quraysh adversaries. But the Prophet (peace be upon him) again repeated: ‘Give me your counsel, O people!’
Saʿd ibn Muʿādh, the celebrated Anṣār leader, sprang to his feet and said: ‘Perhaps we are the men you mean, O Messenger of God.’ ‘Yes,’ said the Prophet (peace be upon him). ‘We have faith in you, and we believe what you have told us is the truth, and we have testified to that; and we have given our firm pledge to hear and obey!’ So do what you will, and we will be with you. For by Him Who has sent you with the truth, if you were to plunge into that sea, we would do the same, not a single man amongst us would stay behind,” said Saʿd ibn Muʿādh.
The Prophet (peace be upon him) was indeed very pleased to hear the speech of Saʿd ibn Muʿādh, the foremost chief of the Aws, and the most gallant amongst them.
The holding of this council, amidst the unusual atmosphere of the impending threat of war, is both a tribute to the Prophet’s resoluteness and keenness of purpose, and also a hallmark of that unmistakable prophetic genius and acumen in leadership and statesmanship. By this act of shūrā (consultation), the Prophet (peace be upon him) had both underwritten and strongly emphasized the principle of mutual consultation and shūrā and at the same time consolidated his home front vis-à-vis the advancing enemy from Makkah. By eliciting the Anṣār’s support for his military strategy of taking the offensive against the Quraysh, the Prophet (peace be upon him) managed to supersede the merely defensive pledge to which the Anṣārs had agreed in signing the Second ‘Aqabah Pledge’.
Thus, having consolidated the home front, the Prophet (peace be upon him) managed to achieve, from the outset, a tremendous tactical advantage over his enemy, which was divided and in discord, due to the heterogeneous nature of its supreme military command, vacillating between the hawkishness of Abū Jahl and dovishness of ʿUtbah ibn Rabīʿah and Abū Sufyān ibn Ḥarb’. The Prophet’s leadership, in peace and war, was profoundly mindful of the need of the leader to accommodate and incorporate the best of his followers’ opinions, thoughts and aspirations. The mode of the Prophet’s leadership was decisively collective and pluralistic. The heterogeneous ideas and opinions of the community of the faithful were thus woven and integrated in the final outcome of a general shūrā or consultation.
3.1 Al-Ḥubāb’s Objection to the Stationing of the Troops
As soon as the Prophet (peace be upon him) moved forward, and stationed his troops in the valley of Badr, another occasion presented itself for more extended and more intensive practice of the shūrā. This time, the exchange of opinions was initiated, not by the Prophet (peace be upon him) as leader and commander-in-chief of the Muslim army, but by an ordinary soldier, by the name of Al-Ḥubāb ibn al-Mundhir: Al-Ḥubāb disapproved of the way the Prophet (peace be upon him) had stationed the Muslims’ army in the valley of Badr.
‘Is this a position which God has commanded you to take, or is it merely of your opinion and of the tactics and ruses of war?’ asked ibn al-Mundhir.
‘It is merely of my opinion and of the tactics and ruses of war.’ replied the Prophet (peace be upon him).
‘Then, this is not a good stationing of the troops! A better stationing will be further down the valley, around the nearest well to the enemy. We shall destroy all the wells behind us and station our troops around the nearest well to the enemy. This way, we drink while we deprive the enemy of any source of water,’ advised al-Ḥubāb ibn al-Mundhir.
The Prophet (peace be upon him) immediately saw the soundness of al-Ḥubāb’s expert opinion and acted upon it. It proved a tremendous success. This incident validated the necessity of the shūrā, as a safeguard against the fallibility of human judgment albeit Muḥammad’s judgment, in his capacity as a human being.
Moreover, shūrā is also envisaged, within the Islamic scheme of policy and ideology, as a check against the tyranny and despotic tendencies of leaders and commanders. Shūrā is also commended because, in a community where it is practised, men come together as equals and brothers, and thus become united in mind and heart. The leaders behave with humility, and the rank and file become active participants in the whole affairs of the community. In this way everybody becomes part of the decision-making process of the community.
3.2 Shūrā and Equality
In one aspect of it, shūrā is a derivative rule that can be subsumed, under the more comprehensive Islamic principle of equality, of the faithful in the sight of God. The only legitimate criterion of discrimination is that of taqwā (piety). Prima facie all believers are equal in their right to voice