 وصلاة والسلام على أنبياء الله جميعا وعلى سيتهم وخاتمهم حبيب الله العالمين أب القاسم المصطفى محمد لا أهبيته الطيبين الطاهرين المعصومين قال تعالى في كتابه الكريم أعوذ بالله من الشيطان الرجيم بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم ولقد نصاكم الله ببدرين وأنتم أذلة فاتقوا الله لعلكم تشكرون صلاة الله العليه العظيم اليوم is the 17th of the month of Ramallah a day that witnessed exactly 1436 years ago this day the 17th of Ramallah witnessed the first defensive battle in Islam very first one where the Prophet peace be upon him defended the integrity of his community in the battle called Badr وقعة بدر or وقعة بدر or غزوة بدر or معركة بدر all these names are similar it means the battle of badr tonight we learn few things about the life and the legacy and the tradition of our beloved Prophet Muhammad صلى الله عليه وسلم we learn few things about his life through this battle the preparation for it and the battle itself and the aftermath of this battle this battle has been mentioned in the Quran in a few chapters in chapter 3 Surah Al Imran the family of Imran which is the family of Mary and in chapter 8 Surah Al Anfal the war spoils also speaks about the battle of badr this battle took place in the second year of the hijrah now what year is it now one was 1438 so it took place in the year 2 as I said 1436 years ago it was the very first major battle that took place defending the city of Medina and the newly established Muslim community in the city of Medina against the aggression of Oresh and the arrogance of their enemies Oresh Oresh is the tribe of the Prophet himself who did not accept his invitation out of arrogance because Prophet Muhammad was not the richest he was not wealthy they thought that the messenger of God whoever God sends to the humanity should be millionaire he should be wealthy if he does not have money then he doesn't have influence then we are not going to listen to him so out of prejudice out of bigotry and arrogance they rejected the invitation of the Prophet and they turned against him they turned against him when the Prophet was in Mecca preaching the word of God inviting them to the right path they persecuted him they chased him they tortured him and his followers they confiscated whoever would turn to the side of the Prophet and join him his property his land would be confiscated his money will be taken away so many of those Muslims were driven out of their land out of their homes they were persecuted by Oresh some of them however remained in Mecca they could not travel to Medina because of family ties they had families they could not leave them and for other reasons they could not move from Mecca to Medina but many Muslims they moved with the Prophet when he moved to Medina they moved with him to this new city that welcomed the Prophet you know Oresh they had two trips two business trips two major business trips one in the summertime they take their goods to Syria to seldom in Syria to the north the other one was in the winter time where they take their goods to the south to Yemen and they sell their goods they purchase new goods and they come back to Mecca two trips two business trips winter trip and summer trip the trip the journey of the winter and the summer in this winter trip Oresh invested all their money in this caravan and the caravan was headed by Sakhar ibn Har Sakhar ibn Har is the real name of Abu Sufyan Abu Sufyan is real name is Sakhar Sakhar is stone and Har is war so the stone of the war this is the translation of his meaning as his name so they put all their money in that they invested all their money in that caravan that would go from Mecca to Syria every single person in Mecca who had money they would invest that money in this caravan and he took it to Syria on the way back on the way back he has to pass it through Medina because Medina is in the middle between Mecca and Syria Medina is in the middle so the Prophet realized that this caravan is coming back and the entire economy and the entire wealth of Oresh is in this caravan so the Prophet wanted to send a warning a strong message to Oresh that if you keep persecuting the Muslims and if you keep harassing us and torturing the Muslims then your economy will be in danger your caravan would not be safe your wealth is going to be confiscated and you will be under embargo and you know any country when you put any country under embargo economic embargo that country will kneel down so the Prophet sent a message to Oresh and he said to his community let's go outside Medina and intercept this caravan if we get it we will get it and put our hand on that caravan and we will confiscate it from Oresh because they already confiscated the Oresh had confiscated their wealth the properties of the new Muslims in Mecca and if we don't we send at least a powerful message to the arrogant Meccans because those people in Mecca Oresh their arrogance was based on their wealth on their money once you take the money away from them they crumble down like some countries today in the Middle East take the oil away from them in Mecca nobody can survive the same story happened 1400 years ago same people so the people the community of Medina who were with the Prophet many of them were poor some of them were interested in the caravan they are poor and if they can seize this caravan and take the wealth away definitely they are going to be better off but God says to His prophet وَإِذْ يَعَدُكُمُ اللَّهُ إِحْدَطْطَعِفَتَينِ عَنَّهَا لَكُمْ the details of this battle is mentioned in chapter 8 Surat Al-Anfar beautiful chapter the details of this war before the war during the war and after the war is mentioned in chapter 8 وَإِذْ يَعَدِكُمُ اللَّهِ hence your Lord promised you اِحْدَطْطَعِفَتَينِ two things what if a means things or a group either you are going to get the caravan you are going to seize it for you which is a success or you defeat forayish militarily again this is another success احد الله if it either this seizure of the caravan either you break down economically or you defeat them militarily these two God promised you if you don't get the first one definitely you are going to get the second one وَإِذْ يَعَدَكُمُ اللَّهِ وَإِحْدَطْطَعِفَتَينِ اَنَّهَا لَكُمْ it's going to be of yours what they were doing but God knows about their hearts those who were around the Prophet they wanted money free money they didn't want to fight وَتَوَدُونَ عَنَّ غَيْرَ ذَا تِشَّوْكَ تِتَكُونُ لَكُمْ وَيُرِيدُ اللهَ وَانْيُحِبْقَ الْحَقَّ بِكَلِمَاتِهِ وَيَطْبَ عَدَابِرًا كَافِرِ God knows about your hearts you want to get the spoil of the war you want to get the booties you want to get the money without getting involved in any fighting but God determines to establish the truth and defeats falsehood so they went with the Prophet it was on the eighth day of Ramadan day number eight and remember this is the very first Ramadan Muslims are fasting because fasting was prescribed in the second year of kitchen in Mecca they did not fast when they were in Mecca there were no fasting neither there were formal prayers in Mecca there were no formal prayers, five daily prayers when they came to Medina prayers was established after 17 months prayers was established and in the second year of Hijra the fasting was prescribed upon them so they have just started fasting and after eight years of the beginning of their fast the Prophet eight days the Prophet is asking them to go with him to the battlefield which is about 100 kilometers 100 km south of Medina in a valley called Badr this is why the battle is called Badr which is named after the valley where the battle took place 150 km south of Medina and it is north of Mecca somewhere not exactly in between Mecca and Medina it is closer to Medina than Mecca and the distance between Mecca and Medina is about 400 km so the people who went with the Prophet they were only 313 313 soldiers but they were poorly equipped those 313 soldiers they did not have swords many of them were very poor so they would carry pieces of sticks or the trunks of the palm trees to fight with it they say the number of the swords were very small so the army was not really qualified army trained army prepared army well equipped army they were volunteers who were very poor at that time and even they did not have means of transportation at that time means of transportation were horses and camels so these 313 people they had only 8 horses only 8 horses and 70 camels so they had to take a turn some of them would ride the camel the others would walk and then they switch I believe they lost a lot of weight in this trip good exercise but they did not fast because when you travel you don't fast when the Prophet left Medina on the 8th day he broke his fast because this is the ruling in the Quran when you travel او على سفر people who are sick people who are traveling they are not required to fast so they were not fasting they were food or weapon with them so Abu Sufyan when he realized صخر of نحر when he realized that the Prophet brought his community to intercept his caravan he sent a distressed message to the camel he hired someone he told him to ride the horse and rush to Mecca and tell the camel your caravan is gone you lost all your money and that's a big disaster for the camel to tell them that you lost your money you know some people tell them you lost your life he doesn't worry but tell him you lost your money he worries a lot money for some people is more important than life believe me we see this in every community at every time so this guy came to Mecca and he started yelling he stood at the mountain Safa mountain there where they make the announcements so if someone stands on this mountain people gather to see what he says or she says so he started saying oh Meccans Muhammad confiscated your caravan all your money is gone so they all gathered they were mobilized and they decided every person in Mecca every single person every single mail to carry the weapon and go and fight even women decided women the wife of Abu Sufyan who was in Mecca at that time her name is Hint Hint Ben Otba her father is Otba and I am going to tell you what happened to her father soon he would enjoy what happened to her father Hint also said I am not carrying weapon but I am a good cheerleader have you seen these cheerleaders who jump up and down she wasn't that young but she was in her probably 50's but still she was able to dance she says I dedicate myself and my women with me my sisters my group as cheerleaders to entertain the army the army of Quraish we come as entertainers so they took off from Mecca with 1000 1000 soldiers Quraish's army was 1000 soldiers and the only person who stayed behind was the uncle of the prophet Abu Lahab Abu Lahab said listen my life is more important than anything else let my money go to hell I don't care I'm staying in Mecca they said to him but you must defend the caravan he said okay I will pay for someone to go so he paid someone he hired him to fight on his behalf so Abu Lahab stayed in Mecca so the prophet realized that the caravan now is gone Abu Sofyan was smart he made a detour he took a different route and he went to there there is a route on the Red Sea another path on the Red Sea which is close to the sea he took another route and he escaped he avoided Medina because he realized that the Muslim army are going to to seize his caravan so he managed to escape but then when he sent this stress message to the Mackens the Mackens came though they realized that the caravan now is safe but out of arrogance they said we are going to teach Muhammad Al-Lessar Muhammad who was a barefoot who was going to eat and he was persecuted by us and he managed to escape from Mecca to Medina now he is mobilizing an army to defy us we will teach him Al-Lessar though the caravan is safe but we will go ahead with the war so they decided to go all the way all the way to Medina to fight against Muhammad and the new established community of the Muslims in Medina here the Prophet used to consult his community always the Prophet was not a dictator although we believe in Islam the Prophet is inspired by God and he is commanded by God he receives commands from God but yet the Prophet used to consult to teach us a very important principle and that principle is called the principle of I spoke about it a few days ago sure consultation sure or shall we learn from God God says to the Prophet consult with them in these matters so the Prophet consulted his community would you like to go to the war or not the community was divided some of them did not like to go some of them were frightened if you read the book of Seerah Seerah ibn Hisham the book of Al-Maghazi and many other books that narrates the life of the Prophet you will find that there were two groups some of them were supportive they wanted to go to war to defend themselves others were afraid others were not in favor of war neither in favor of defense one of the people who was not in favor of war he said يا رسول الله إنها قرش ما ذلت منذ عزت وما آمنت منذ كفر those people are arrogant this is قرش is undefeatable nobody can defeat this superpower in the region it is a superpower and we cannot meet with them we are not equal with them so it is better to retreat it is better not to go to war it is better to stay so the Prophet said let me listen to others others came came up one of the companions he said يا رسول الله we follow your instructions if you tell us to to go through this sea we will do so ولو خفت البحر لخفناه معك wherever you tell us to go we will come with you we are not going to be like the community of moses when he asked them to come with him to palestine they said to him اذهب انت وربك فقاتلا إنها هنا قاعدون moses you go and fight alongside your lord let your lord help you we are enjoying our time in the Sinai Peninsula اهنا قاعدون but we will say to you يا رسول الله اذهب انت وربك فقاتلا إنها معكم مقاتلون we will come with you يا رسول الله we will come we will listen to you the same thing happened by another reader سعاد بن معاه the leader of the Ansar the Ansar are the inhabitants of Medina those who received the Prophet when he moved from Mecca to Medina and they helped him they are called Ansar helpers سعاد بن معاه said يا رسول الله we are with you we will fight courage and we will crush them those people are arrogant and if you don't stand up to arrogance you will be always abused and God does not want you to be abused God wants you to defend yourself self defense is important a good believer is the believer that when he or she is abused they have to defend themselves not just ask Allah Allah help me Allah these guys abusing me hurting me insulting me do something about it God says I will do but after you do after you defend yourself I will come to your aid you have to maintain your dignity and your honor and your value so you have to defend yourself so the Prophet when he heard these encouraging statements from some of his companions he said to them أبشرو I am giving you three tidings فإن الله تعالى وعدني أحدة طايفة my Lord has just promised me that we are going to score one of these two victories either we are going to seize their caravan or we are going to defeat them in the battle وَاَيْدِ يَعَيدُكُمُ اللَّهُ إِحْتَطْطَا إِفْتَيْدِ now some still some of them still were reluctant and this is mentioned in the Quran if you want to know the details of this of this military excursion read the Quran please and I said many times in the month of Ramadan we are asked to read the Quran but not just reading with no understanding it has no value no merits you have to read and understand the translation and understand the background why this verse has been revealed for what reason and what does it mean once you understand the reason you understand the recitation the recitation is going to be very capturing very interesting but if you don't understand the meaning you are wasting your time and I said you don't have some people say you have to finish the whole Quran yes people who understand Arabic they can finish the whole Quran people whose Arabic is well excellent they can understand the Quran and they can finish let's say one cycle two cycles three cycles but those who do not understand Arabic you don't have to finish the whole Quran Allah knows about your ability Allah knows your mother tongue is not Arabic you need to translate you need to understand you need to take your time so you don't have to finish the whole Quran without understanding even if you read one section one juzo with understanding that would be more beneficial than reading the whole Quran without understanding and I say this all the time read the Quran read one page read three lines but try to understand the whole Quran but try to understand it don't bypass it without knowing what does this this is a treasure believe me one verse it might take 3-4 hours of your time to reflect on it this is a book of reflection a book of meditation so we should we should respect the book and give it the value that it deserves by just reading it without understanding the meaning what do you understand what do you enjoy let us go enjoying it so here Allah says to the Prophet in Surah Al-Anfan Chapter 8 verse 5 and 6 read these verses whenever you make time كما أخرجك ربك من بيتك بالحق وإن فريقا من المؤمنين للكاريه God took you off of your house or Muhammad from Medina to go on combat orage why a group of the believers with you were a verse to this they were reluctant to come with you لكاريهون you know the meaning of لكاريهون how many of you know the meaning of كاريهون raise your hand كاريهون from Quran when you don't like something Allah is saying that the group of believers with you they were a verse they were reluctant to come with you they didn't want to come with you I want you to understand the community of the Prophet sometimes we believe all of them were angels but this is not the case the Quran tells us the facts some of them the Prophet is asking them come with me come to help defend your community your family they say no leave me alone لكاريهون you jadiloonak not only they don't like and they reluctant but they are disputing with you you jadiloon from جدال you jadiloonak في الحق بعد ما تبين they dispute with you regarding the truth when the truth is very obvious to them they know what is right and what is wrong despite that they dispute with you despite knowing what is right and what is wrong they keep like some children sometimes you know children they know what is good and what is bad but still they argue with their parents argue you jadiloonak في الحق بعد ما تبين كأنما يساقون إلى الموت وهم ينبون they were so afraid to go with the Prophet as if they've been driven to a slaughterhouse someone wanted to slaughter them they were too afraid this is the wording of the Quran صورة الانفار ريب the Quran I reflect on the book the Prophet himself he didn't want to fight he was not a war monger he did not want to shed the blood of people but that is his last resort last resort with the enemy who does not understand logic with the enemy who keeps persecuting you and threatening you and taking everything away from you and leaving you with no choice then you must stand up to that enemy you must defend yourself so the Prophet had to go out of necessity to defend his community and his people so they arrived make a short they arrived to the battlefield and here in the morning of the 17th of Ramadan like today the two armies they confronted each other one army 1,000 soldiers the other army 313 soldiers the Prophet raised his hand to his Lord he said oh my Lord I am doing everything I can I am defending my community my men though they are poor and needy and they have no weapon but we are standing to defeat those barbaric people those aggressors but my Lord if those people are going to die today the 313 no one is going to worship you on earth that is the end of monotheism the end of worshiping God because those people are idle worshipers and aggressors and they are going to wreak havoc in the land so if this group 313 are going to perish فلن تقبد في الارض no one is going to recognize you and worship you so I leave the case to you this is my last result and this is what we should do when we have a problem when we face something important you do what you can you do everything you can and leave the rest to God and leave the case to Him tell Him the case now is in your court I did whatever I was able to do and here the 2 armies they confront each other 3 arrogant men from this side they come out carrying their swords and they said Mohammed bring us our counterparts اكفاءنا من قومنا bring us we are heroes so we need to see the heroes from your side they were saying that's sarcastic so we teach them a lesson those 3 were 2 brothers اتبى ابن شيبة اتبى sorry اتبى ابن ربيعة اتبى ابن ربيعة اتبى ابن ربيعة is the father of Hind Hind the cheerleaders the mother of Muawiya اتبى ابن ربيعة so the uncle شيبة الى ربيعة 2 brothers اتبى and شيبة those were the leaders of pagans the most arrogant in N directional the most arrogant and the son of عتبى الوليد ابن اتبى who is the uncle of The brother of Hind and the uncle of who Muawiya Bin Abi- healthier so the 3 LEADERS اتبى 그리고 شيبة والوليد لذلك يتذكرون الوطب وشيبة ووليب. يأتي الوطب يسأل ثلاثة هيروز. اول هيرو علي يبن عبي طالب عليه الصلاة والسلام. 24 سنوات علي يبن عبي طالب. ثم يأتي الوطب الحمزة عبد المطلب عليه السلام. سيد الشوهب. ثم يأتي another companion by the name of عبيده ابن الحالث. وانتما يتذكرون الوطب في مقبوله. سببا علي يبن عبي طالب. فردت تجربة أسرع. يجب أن تجربة أسرع في السماء. مع فرد علي علي يبن عبي طالب. علي يبن عبي طالب إلى عبي طالب. هو عبي حمزة عبد المطلب. يبن عبي طالب إلى شيبة. ولكن عطب. عطب was able to strike on عبيده ابن الحالث. The Muslim companion. He wanted him. But then Imam Ali and Hamza Tubna Abdul-Mattalib came to his aid and they were able to put down عطب. So three of them were killed. The casualties are three from this side and a wounded companion of the prophet who later on died because of his bleeding. And then the two armies they clashed with each other. For a few hours the result was 70 people were murdered from Quraish. Another 70 were taken as captives and the rest of the army run away from the battlefield. The army of Ushraqeen. Run away and flee from the battle. With the help of God. How was the help of God? Here God when Muslims were outnumbered by the polyathists, the pagans God interfered here. How did he interfere? Look at what the book says. The book says If you recall him الله في منامك قليلا ولو أراكهم كثيرا لفشلتهم ولا تنازعتهم في الأر. ولكن الله سلم إنه عليم لذات الصدور وإذ يريكهموا إذ التقيتهم في أعيونكم قليلا ويقللكم في أعيونهم ليقضي الله أمرًا كان مفقول. What happened? الله says in the Quran that we made the Muslims see the non-Muslim army as a few. So when they are a few you will have more courage to go and defeat them. But if you see them as a huge army then you will be afraid. It will be a big army for you. So you will be reluctant to go. So God made Oresh army look few in the eyes of the Muslim army. So the Muslims will be more encouraged. They will look at them as an easy target. When you look at an enemy as an easy target you will have more encouragement to go and confront your enemy. At the same time God made the Muslims also look very few and small in the eyes of the Pagan army. Why? Not for the same reason for another reason. So they can be arrogant and they will say Hey, I don't prepare for them. This few number needs no preparation. So they will go to the war relaxed and prepared and lazy. And this is what happened. But this is in the beginning of the clashing. Later on in chapter 3 Allah says when they came because if they had seen the Muslim army as a huge army they would have gone. So Allah made them to see the Muslim army only in the beginning as a small army so they will go for confrontation they will go for confrontation with them as soon as the war started Allah made the Muslim army looks twice as much in the eyes of Boreish. So they could not continue the fighting. Do you follow me on this or not? This is all mentioned in the Quran. Where does it say that when they started the fight God made the Muslim army as it was as twice as twice as much Where is it? In Surah Al-Imran يرونهم مثليهم رطي العين يرونهم مثليهم رطي العين Chapter 3 verse 13 So they were exhausted they were fighting them all of a sudden this army that looked a few minutes ago it looked very small now it looks very huge we cannot defeat them so they were very exhausted and tired they could not continue fighting and this is why they run away they were defeated and Allah says another reason for Boreish defeat we cast fear in their hearts this is the work of God سأولطي God says سأولطي I will cast fear سأولطي في قلوب الذين كفروا الورق سأولطي في قلوب الذين I will cast fear in the heart This is when God interferes See God does not send you an airplane or a tank or a rifle God has his own ways his own psychological and spiritual ways of either defeating a wicked army or giving victory to another army He has his ways So they were defeated because of their fear though they had a bigger number well equipped and they knew they were good fighters they were trained but they broke down because God said I will cast in their hearts in their spirits سأولطي سأولطي في قلوب الذين كفروا الورق لكن دعني نهاية when the war ended unfortunately some of the Muslims were fighting with each other over what over the booties over the war spoils some of them were saying these are for us because we were fighting the others said no it is for us because we were protecting the prophet the third one said no this was for us because we are the old generation the fourth one said we are the young generation we work harder and you can find this in the beginning the very beginning of chapter سورة الانفال يسألونك عن الانفال الانفال means the war spoils قول الانفال لله ومسور فتقوا الله واصلحوا ذات بينكم وصدقوا الله وصدقوا جيدا ونقلوا تلك الانفال يتبقوا أحدهم يتبقوا الانفال ولكن the prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم كان يقول اتبع هذا السؤال لأيضا لأن الله كان يسألهم وضعوا الله ورسوله في كل مقمين يتبعوا ما the prophet says لأن ما he says لا one is going to be abused everyone is going to take his or her share صلى الله عليه وسلم على سيدنا محمد وأهل بيتها طيبين الطاهرين