Boycott and Sanctions
They boycotted him and his family and his clan members from Bani Hashim. And they imposed economic and social sanctions against them for a devastating and most cruel period of three years.
“No one should contract a marriage or make a sale or purchase of any kind from anyone belonging to the Bani Hashim clan of Muhammad,” said an agreement jointly drawn up by the leading members of the tribe of Qur’aish in Makkah and hung on the wall of Ka’abah for all to see and comply with.
And they pelted him with rocks and dragged his followers, bound hand and foot, on the burning sands and rocks of the Arabian Desert.
Unleashing Propaganda
And they concocted and launched the worst and most baseless kind of propaganda against Muhammad, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam, and his message.
They called him a liar, even though only till yesterday he was their golden standard of truth and honesty.
They called him a sorcerer and a magician. And they called him insane.
And they said Muhammad, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam, received his instructions and briefings from some secret foreign source.
A Great Conspiracy and Assassination Plot
But then when nothing seemed to work, and the message and the following of Muhammad, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam, grew from strength to strength, the leaders of Quraish launched a great big conspiracy to assassinate him in a joint action by representatives of all leading clans.
That way, they argued, no one single clan will bear the responsibility for the death of Muhammad, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam, and his own clan will be forced to settle for Blood Money for the death of Muhammad, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam, rather than wage a totally unequal and unwinnable war to extract revenge, as was the custom among the people of Arabia in those days.
Allah, of course, extracted Muhammad, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam, miraculously from the midst of the would-be assassins who had surrounded his house during the night and took him in perfect safety to Madinah to launch a New World Order of social and economic justice and liberation for the world.
Evidence on All Sides
So, I keep asking myself, why this war at this far off place at the plains of Badr? What led up to it and what was the rationale behind it?
And what was so special or different about this war, as compared to all the other wars and conflicts in the annals of human history?
Why didn’t people back off when there was still time? Why wasn’t there a compromise of some kind?
Why didn’t God find a way to help ease the situation and separate the forces and prevent bloodshed?
The Qur’an provides the answer. And that answer is contained in one single word: Bayyinah – meaning “Evidence.”
In fact, the Qur’an provides some very detailed answers. Among those answers is the following noble passage, Aayat Karimah, of the Qur’an:
Li-Yahlika Man Halaka ‘An Bayyinatin, wa Yahyaa Man Hayya An Bayyinah (8:42).
Paraphrase:
This whole event was meticulously choreographed, the Qur’an seems to suggest, for one simple reason: Those who choose to perish shall do so based on clear evidence, whereas those who choose to live shall do so also based on clear evidence.
And who did all this deliberate orchestration and choreographing of this event, this war at Badr? None other than God Almighty himself!
Why? Why did God orchestrate a war between two groups of people? So that God may “accomplish a matter already enacted,” says Yusuf Ali in his translation of this passage of the Qur’an.
So, this was a set-up. Not by Prophet Muhammad, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam, and his Muslim, Believer followers, but by God Almighty himself.
Sequence of Events – in the Qur’an
There is nothing unusual about human beings killing each other. That was their history on earth from Day One – just as the angels had predicted about them when their creation was first announced by God – when one of Adam’s two sons killed the other (5: 27-30) and did so most unfairly and unjustly.
But this war at Badr was going to be a different war. It was going to be a war based on a reason. And that reason was going to be nothing less than Human Freedom: whether or not human beings have the right to choose their own destiny in this world.
God, Prophet Muhammad, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam, and his Believer Followers, the Muslims, all said, they did. They all said human beings – all human beings – had a most fundamental and inalienable right to choose their own destiny in this world. They all had the right to choose their own Belief System – based on logic and on evidence: what the Qur’an calls Bayyinah.
The Non-Believers of Makkah, on the other hand, argued they did not: Human beings did not have that right – the right to choose their own destiny and their own Belief System – and they should follow, instead, what the Non-Believer Leaders of Makkah required and mandated them to do.
So, the critical matter was one of fundamental human choice and evidence and rationality that inform and guide that choice. That is what the Battle of Badr was all about.
And God wished to make it plain to all and till the end of time that Freedom was everyone’s most fundamental Human Right and everyone had the right to their own Belief System – based on Clear Evidence: Bayyinah.
Proof of God
I know people look for “Proof of God” all the time. And I know that people are looking for a direct, clear message from God all the time. There seems to be some kind of a basic human urge to do so.
To them all I say: This is it. This is as close to “Proof of God” as you are ever likely to get and it does not get more self-evident or more powerful than this.
Mark the word “Evidence” in the paraphrase. And then transition to the original Arabic word “Bayyniah” in the Aayat. And then ask yourself this – just as the Qur’an says you should – following Yusuf Ali’s translation:
“I do admonish you on one point: that ye do stand up before God – (It may be) in pairs, or (it may be) singly, – and reflect (within yourself) …” (34:46).
So, reflect and ask yourself: What on earth is the word Bayyinah – “Evidence” – doing in discourse that everyone agrees came out of the mouth of an illiterate individual in the barren Arabian Desert at the inception of the Seventh Century – 1400 years before our time?
Ask yourself: What in the world is this word doing there? And who put it there?
Clearly, it was God and only God who could have done that. For, Muhammad, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam, on his own, was totally and completely incapable of doing so. For, the man was a simple child of the desert.
He was a man who could not read or write. And he pleaded most pathetically with the angel when the angel commanded him to read that he could not read. Not knowing it was the angel he was talking to, he kept saying: I cannot read; I do not know how to read!
“Evidence” is what we, the most learned and the most sophisticated of the 21st Century, in the most advanced and developed parts of the world, do in our law rooms and in our science laboratories. What business does this expression – this word “Evidence” – have showing up in Arabia, over a thousand years ago, and that too coming out of the mouth of a man who, the whole world acknowledges, did not even know how to read or write?
Is that enough “Proof of God” for the skeptics?
