A new Qiblah

A new Qiblah  (60)

On Sha’ban, 2 A.H., the Qiblah (direction Muslims pray
toward) was changed from Bait Al-Maqdis  in Jerusalem to the Ka’bah in Makkah. The change was announced by Allah in a verse in the Qur’an. The Prophet ﷺ and the sincere Muslims rejoiced over this change. The Hypocrites who had pretended to be Muslims, however, protested the change, and many of them reverted to either Judaism or paganism, thereby purifying the ranks of Muslims.

The Battle of Badr

The military raids undertaken by the Muslims were minor
until this point. They had been more exploratory than anything else, but they had served to initiate Muslims into the conduct of warfare. It was the Battle of Badr, however, that was a milestone for Islam as the first decisive battle between the Muslims and the Quraysh.

The Prophet ﷺ rode to Dhul Ashirah attempting to then
intercept a trade caravan from Makkah to Syria. The caravan, however, managed to flee to Syria. The Prophet ﷺ
dispatched two men to Hawraa in Syria to await the caravan’s return. When the scouts spotted the caravan approaching, they hurried back to Madinah to inform the Prophet ﷺ . Once the Prophet ﷺ heard that the caravan was returning, he mustered between 313 and 317 men, two horses and seventy camels. He then headed to Badr, about 155 km southwest of Madinah.

The Prophet ﷺ awarded the white standard to Mus’ab bin
Umayr . The Muhajireen were given a separate standard which was carried by Ali ibn Talib, while the standard of the Ansar was borne by Sa’d bin Mu’adh .
Badr, ringed by high mountains, was accessible through three routes. One, called Al-Udwat Al-Qaswa, lay in the south; the second, called Al-Udwat Al-Duniya, approached from the north, and the third approached from the east and was used by the people of Madinah as the main thoroughfare to the settlement of Badr.

There were some houses, wells and orchards in Badr, and for this reason Makkan caravans heading for Syria travelled along it and generally broke their journey there, staying anywhere from a few hours to a few days. It would have been simple for the Prophet ﷺ and his men
to seize the caravan by blocking all three escape routes. Success depended on the element of surprise, however, and the Muslims would have to appear only after the caravan pulled into Badr and seal off all three routes before the Quraysh could react.

Accordingly, the Prophet ﷺ and his men left Madinah heading in the opposite direction from Badr. Once the Prophet ﷺ was at a safe distance away from Madinah, he changed routes and headed directly for Badr.

So what happened next ?
That what we will know next time

Do not forget to share the life of our prophet SAW to get the reward
and read the first parts from here.

Read from first part https://islamicreminder.org/the-history-life-of-prophet-muhammad-pbuh/

TO BE CONTINUED IN SHA ALLAH…