Muhammad ibn Abdullah: Difference between revisions

[[Image:Muhammad and kaaba.jpg|thumb|160px|right|An illustration of Muhammad at the Ka'aba, by Nakkaş Osman (1595)<BR>([[Standing Mosques#Kaaba flooded in 1941|more pictures of the Ka'aba]])]]

In March of 624, Muhammad led some three hundred Jihadists in a raid on a Meccan merchant caravan. The Meccans successfully defended the caravan, but then decided to retaliate and marched against Medina.  On March 15, 624 near a place called [[Islam Undressed: The Battle of Badr|Badr]], the Meccans and the Muslims clashed. Though outnumbered more than three times (one thousand to three hundred - majority of Muslim historians put the exact total at 313) in the battle, the Muslims met with success, killing at least seventy Meccans and taking seventy prisoners<ref>"''....On the day (of the battle) of Badr, the Prophet and his companions had caused the 'Pagans to lose 140 men, seventy of whom were captured and seventy were killed.....''" - {{Bukhari|4|52|276}}</ref> for ransom; only fourteen Muslims died.<ref>Glubb (2002), pp.179-186.</ref> This marked the real beginning of Muslim military battles. Among the prisoners was Al Nadir, a storyteller and poet who had mocked him. He was not allowed to be ransomed by their clans and was executed on Muhammad's orders.<ref>Jake Neuman - [http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=emyBulRLVjMC&pg=PT226&dq=By+God,+Muhammad+cannot+tell+a+better+story+than+I,+and+his+talk+is+only#v=onepage&q=By%20God%2C%20Muhammad%20cannot%20tell%20a%20better%20story%20than%20I%2C%20and%20his%20talk%20is%20only&f=false God of Moral Perfection; A Stark Message from God for All Mankind] - (2008) Blackwell, p. 211</ref> Muhammad also ordered twenty-four Meccans to be thrown into the well of Badr,<ref>"''....he [Muhammad] commanded more than twenty persons, and in another hadith these are counted as twenty-four persons, from the non-believers of the Quraish to be thrown into the well of Badr.....''" - {{Muslim|40|6870}}</ref> and mocked the dead.<ref>"''Narrated Ibn 'Umar: The Prophet looked at the people of the well (the well in which the bodies of the pagans killed in the Battle of Badr were thrown) and said, "Have you found true what your Lord promised you?" Somebody said to him, "You are addressing dead people.''" He replied, "You do not hear better than they but they cannot reply." - {{Bukhari|2|23|452}}</ref>

A further four years of continuous war between Muslim and Meccan forces followed, culminating later in a Muslim victory and the conquest of Mecca. The Muslims subsequently removed and destroyed everything they considered idolatrous from the [[Ka'aba]], while Muhammad recited verses from the Qur'an. The townspeople either accepted Islam or were expelled. In March 632,<ref name="EoI-Muhammad">Alford Welch, ''Muhammad'', Encyclopedia of Islam</ref> Muhammad led the pilgrimage known as the ''[[Hajj]]'' (حج).