Fight in the Way of God 83Though small and sporadic at first, Muhammad’s raids not only
provided the Ummah with desperately needed income, they also
effectively disrupted the trade flowing in and out of Mecca. It wasn’t
long before caravans entering the sacred city began complaining to
the Quraysh that they no longer felt safe traveling through the region.
A few caravans even chose to detour to Yathrib instead to take advan-
tage of the security Muhammad and his men were assuring. Trade
began to dwindle in Mecca, profits were lost, and Muhammad finally
got the attention he was seeking.
In 624, a full year before the disastrous defeat at Uhud, Muham-
mad received news that a large caravan was making its way to Mecca
from Palestine, the sheer size of which made it too tempting to ignore.
Summoning a band of three hundred volunteers—mostly Emigrants—
he set out to raid it. But as his group arrived outside the city of Badr,
they were suddenly confronted by a thousand Qurayshi warriors. Mu-
hammad’s plans had been leaked to Mecca, and now the Quraysh were
ready to give his small band of insurgents a lesson they would not forget.
For days the two armies surveyed each other from opposite sides
of a sizable valley: the Quraysh arrayed in white tunics, straddling
ornately painted horses and tall, brawny camels; the Ummah, dressed
in rags and prepared for a raid, not a war. In truth, neither side seemed
eager for a fight. The Quraysh probably assumed their overwhelming
numbers would elicit immediate surrender or, at the very least, contri-
tion. And Muhammad, who must have known that fighting the
Quraysh under these circumstances would result not only in his own
death, but in the end of the Ummah, was anxiously awaiting instruc-
tions from God.
“O God,” he kept praying, “if this band of people perishes, you
will no longer be worshipped.”
There was something more to Muhammad’s reluctance at Badr
than fear of annihilation. Although he had known for some time that
his message could not expand outside Arabia without the capitulation
of the Quraysh, and while he must have recognized that such capitula-
tion would not come without a fight, Muhammad understood that just
as the Revelation had forever transformed the socioeconomic land-
scape of pre-Islamic Arabia, so must it alter the methods and morals of
pre-Islamic warfare.