The Battle of Badr – Part 6

وَبَرَكَاتُهُ اللهِ وَرَحْمَةُ عَلَيْكُمْ السَّلاَمُ

There were a few incidents that took place in the battle that showed the help that the angels provided to the Muslims. One of them was that of an unknown sahabi, who lifted his sword and before he could even bring it down the man whom he was fighting was cut down in front of him. And he knew that he was being aided by the angels.

In another incident, a sahabi was in pursuit of an enemy when all of a sudden he heard the sound of a whip from in front of him. And he heard an invisible rider cry out, ‘Go forth, Hayzum (the name of an animal)!’ And then he saw that the nose of the man who he had been chasing had simply been cut off.

When this sahabi told the prophet of what had happened, he was given the response, ‘You have told the truth. That was a help that Allah had sent down from the third samaa’ (plane of creation). ‘

Returning to before the battle, the prophet had told the army that if they saw two certain people in particular they were to not kill them. And these were his uncle Abbas (RA) and Abul Bukhtari (in another version this leniency extended to the entirety of the Banu Hashim). And the prophet declared that this was because they did not want to be there, and had been forced to fight.

Now Abbas was a big, strong warrior. And when he was brought to the prophet as a prisoner of war, he was brought by a quite small Ansari and Abbas was irritated by this. And so before the Ansari could even say anything, Abbas blurted, ‘This man did not capture me.’ And while the Ansari was protesting this, Abbas began to look around to try to find the person who had actually taken him prisoner. And he said, ‘No, the man who captured me he had parted his hair. And he was the most handsome man I have ever seen on a beautiful horse – black and white. But I don’t see where he is.’

And the Ansari continued to claim that he had captured Abbas, and so the prophet said, ‘Be quiet, for Allah helped you with a noble angel.

And a note to be made about the angels: Zubair ibn Al-Awwam (RA), who was called the helper of the prophet, was on the day of the Battle of Badr wearing a yellow turban. And so in order to honour him, all of the angels that came down to help the Muslims came wearing the same garment as Zubair, including the yellow turban.

Now why did the prophet tell his army that Abul Bukhtari was not to be killed? This was because Abul Bukhtari helped the Banu Hashim during the boycott by sending them food and water, and he was one of the main people who helped end the boycott for good. However despite this, by the will of Allah he did not end up saved in this battle.

When one of the Ansar saw Abul Bukhtari he called out to him, ‘O Abul Bukhtari, we have been forbidden from harming you. So surrender yourself and I will take you back to the camp.’

At this, Abul Bukhtari asked, ‘How about my friend?’

‘We don’t have any laws about him.’

So Abul Bukhtari responded, ‘No, let not the women of Quraish say that I saved myself at the expense of my friend.’ And then he charged, and so the Ansari was forced to defend himself and in this Abul Bukhtari was killed.

Another incident also took place when the prophet first made the announcement that Abbas, Abul Bukhtari and the Banu Hashim were not to be killed. And this involved Abu Hudayfa (RA) – the son of Utbah ibn Rabiah. He had just seen his father, uncle and brother killed in the Mubaraza when the prophet made this announcement, and so when he heard that Abbas and the Banu Hashim were not to be killed out of grief he fell into an error. And he said, ‘So, our fathers and uncles and brothers will be killed, but the uncle of the prophet and the family of the prophet will not be killed?’ And then he swore to kill Abbas (RA).

The news of what had been said by Abu Hudayfa reached the prophet while he was in the presence of Umar (RA), and so the prophet said, ‘O Abu Hafs,’ and this was the first time the prophet referred to Umar as Abu Hafs, ‘will the face of the uncle of the prophet be struck with a sword? How is this possible?’

And so Umar responded, ‘O Rasulallah, he has committed hypocrisy. Let me deal with him.’ But the prophet forbade Umar from doing anything rash, so Umar simply went to Abu Hudayfa and put him in his place.

And from then on out, Abu Hudayfa would say, ‘I shall never feel safe against the consequences of that one sentence unless Allah accepts me as a shaheed.’ And Allah accepted his du’a and he died a martyr in the Battle of Yamama.

We see from this story that even the sahaba, as excellent as they were as humans, still made mistakes as they were only humans. So if we fall into error, remember that people far better than us made mistakes much bigger than us, and use that as motivation to continue trying to be the best Muslims we can.

Another miraculous incident in the battle was that of Ukasha ibn Al-Mihsan (RA). He was in the battle and fighting with his sword, and he hit the armour of one of the pagans and his sword broke. And so he returned to the prophet and told him what had happened, and on hearing this the prophet picked up a twig and gave it to Ukasha. And he said, ‘Go fight with this.’

And Ukasha, without even questioning the prophet, took the twig and went back into the battle. And as soon as he lifted it it became the best sword that he had ever seen. And he kept this sword with him, and he used it in every single battle that he would be in from here on out until he died a martyr, and it is said that this sword was also then buried with him.

One of the most amazing stories of the Battle of Badr was that of the death of Abu Jahal. And this prestigious and proud man, this leader of the Quraish and the greatest enemy of Islam, the Phirown of the Ummah, by the will of Allah was killed by two young teenagers. No more than 16 or 17 years old, Mu'adh ibn Amr ibn Al-Jamuḥ and Mu’awwidh ibn Afra’ (RA) were the two who caused the wounds on the tyrant that led to his death, and this incident was narrated by Abd Ar-Rahman ibn Awf (RA):

‘When we were approaching the army in the Battle of Badr, I wanted to make sure that I was in good company. I wanted to make sure I had strong men on my side. So I turned to my right and I was disappointed to find a young boy. And I turned to my left, and I found someone just like him.

Suddenly one of them poked me, and he leaned over and whispered in my ear so that the other one could not hear, “O uncle, have you seen Abu Jahal before?”

“Yes, what do you want with him?”

“I have heard that he has disrespected the prophet, and I have given an oath to Allah that if I see him, my shadow will overlap with his shadow until one of the two of us is dead.”

“If I see him I’ll tell you, don’t worry.”

Barely had I got back to my position when the other one poked me, and asked the exact same question. And I told him the exact same answer.’ From this we can see that the two youths had a competition to see who could kill Abu Jahal first, by as Allah had it both of them would be the ones to land a mortal blow on the enemy of Islam. And Abd Ar-Rahman continues: ‘When I heard this I felt comforted that the two of them had spirit. And so when we were fighting I saw in the distance Abu Jahal. And I said out loud to the both of them, “This is your companion, the one that you asked me about.” As soon as I said this the both of them darted into the army to get to him.’

Now Mu’adh’s father was one of the leaders of the Banu Salama, and he himself was one of the youngest people to take the second oath of Aqabah. And he darted forward through the army and reached Abu Jahal first. Abu Jahal was the leader of the pagan army, and so he remained in a grove of trees surrounded by his guards and most importantly his young, strong son Ikrimah ibn Abi Jahal (RA). And so Mu’adh, afraid that he would not be able to reach Abu Jahal, leaped forward at the very end to reach him. But he wasn’t able to reach the upper portion of Abu Jahal, and his sword came smashing down onto the left leg of the man and completely severed it. And it is narrated that the leg flew off ‘like a date seed flying away from the grinder when the dates are grinded.’

And while Mu’adh severed Abu Jahal’s leg, Ikramah came to defend his father and brought his sword down onto the shoulder of Mu’adh, cutting through his arm and leaving it attached by nothing more than a tendon. And here we get a story of extreme bravery, imaan and strength, later narrated by Mu’adh, ‘My arm hung to my body by a thin thread. And it finally got in my way in Badr, so I bent down, put my foot on that hand and then stood up and ripped it off.’ And this was a teenage youth, yanking his own arm off so that he could continue fighting in the battle for the sake of Allah. And Mu’adh lived one armed for the rest of his life, and he continued to fight with his left hand.

The other youth was Mu’awwidh ibn Afra’, and we remember him as the one who first stood up alongside his brother to partake in the Mubaraza when it was initially challenged by Utbah ibn Rabiah. Now Afra’ is actually the name of his mother not his father, however she was so righteous and pious and famous that all of her children were actually named after her and not their father. And she had three sons, and two of them became martyrs in the Battle of Badr – Mu’awwidh and Awf (RA), who also stood up for the Mubaraza.

And Mu’awwidh also struck a blow on Abu Jahal, but we don’t know exactly where. And he and Mu’adh came rushing back to the prophet claiming that they had killed Abu Jahal, and when they got to him they began to argue with one another. And so the prophet asked, ‘Show me your swords.’ And they showed him their swords, and the prophet declared, ‘The both of you have killed him.’ And so the honour of killing him went to both of them, however the armour of Abu Jahal went to Mu’adh since Mu’awwidth became a shaheed.

After the battle had finished, the prophet told his sahaba, ‘Go and find the body of Abu Jahal.’ So a few sahaba set out to try to find his body, and it ended up being Abdullah ibn Masud (RA) who found him. And remember, ibn Masud was the sixth convert to Islam, and as he was a slave he had been humiliated many times by Abu Jahal and others. And he found Abu Jahal and the very end of his breath, bleeding out and about to die. And Abdullah placed his foot on the chest of Abu Jahal and asked, ‘Do you finally admit that Allah has disgraced you?’

But to the very end Abu Jahal remained stubborn, and he said, ‘How have I been disgraced? A person killed by his own people.’ So he still did not admit his wrongs, and tried to throw the fault onto the Muslims despite him being the one who wanted to kill the prophet the most. And then he asked,’ Tell me, what is the result of the battle? Who has won today?’

‘Allah and His messenger have won.’

It was then the delirious Abu Jahal noticed the foot on his chest, ‘You have stepped on a high place, O son of a shepherd.’ And this was the last thing that he said, brimming with arrogance, before ibn Masud tried to finish him off. But ibn Masud’s sword had been made dull by a whole day of fighting and so could not kill him, and so instead he hit the hand of Abu Jahal causing his own, fresh, unused sword to fall out of his grip. And ibn Masud picked up Abu Jahal’s own sword, kicked off the helmet of the dying man, and gave him the final blow. Now Abu Jahal would have died anyway, so although ibn Masud gets an honour for this he is not credited with being the one to actually have killed him.

And ibn Masud returned to the prophet and told him that he had found the body of Abu Jahal, to which the prophet made him swear three times. And then the prophet followed him to the corpse, and it was here that he finally said, ‘This was the Phirown of this Ummah.’

                                                                                                                                       

Dr.Yasir Qadhi’s Seerah of The Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) 039

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EOF_quR7hKc