The Military Activities between Badr and Uhud


The battle of Badr was the first armed encounter between the Muslims and Quraish. It was in fact a decisive battle that gained the Muslims a historic victory acknowledged by all the Arabs, and dealt a heavy blow to the religious and economic interests of the polytheists.

 There were also the Jews who also used to regard each Islamic victory as a heavy blow to their religioeconomic entity. Both parties were burning with rage and fury since the Muslims had achieved that great victory:

• "Verily, you will find the strongest among men in enmity to the believers (Muslims) the Jews and Al-Mushrikûn (polytheists, pagans, idolators and disbelievers, etc.)." [5:82]

Both resentful parties had their much more indignant suite in the form of hypocrites who faked Islam just to save their faces; at the head of whom came ‘Abdullah bin Ubai and his retinue. The desert bedouins living in tents pitched in the vicinity of Madinah, who depended on plundering and looting as a means of living, were totally indifferent to this axial question of belief and disbelief. Their worry derived from fear of losing their perverted avenues of subsistence in case a powerful nascent Muslim state should rise up and put an end to such ill-practices, hence the grudge they nursed against Islam and the Muslims, in general, and the person of Muhammad PBUH, in particular.

The whole cause of Faith was thus at stake with four furious parties laying ambushes against the new religion, each in its style: Pretension to Islam embedded with conspiracy plots and provocative deeds within Madinah, explicitly uncovered animosity pregnant with indignation and fire of rage on the part of the Jews, and there in Makkah open and persistent calls for vengeance coupled with open intentions to mobilize all potential resources available to silence the voice of Islam once and for all. This was later translated into military action, Uhud Invasion, which left a very bad impression on the good name and esteem that the Muslims were painstakingly working to merit and preserve.

The Muslims were always obliged to be on the lookout for any hostile movements, and it was imperative on them to launch pre-emptive strikes in all directions in order to enjoy a reasonable degree of security in this great instability-provoking ocean of unrest. The following is a list of military activities conducted in the post-Badr era: