Battle of Badr/ badar

The Battle of Badr (Arabic: غزوة بدر‎), fought March 17, 624 AD (17 Ramadan 2 AH in the Islamic calendar) Hejaz region of western Arabia (present-day Saudi Arabia), was a key battle in the early days of Islam and a turning point in Muhammad's struggle with his opponents among the Quraish^[1] in Mecca. The battle has been passed down in Islamic history as a decisive victory attributable to divine intervention, or by secular sources to the genius of Muhammad. Although it is one of the few battles specifically mentioned in the Muslim holy book, the Qur'ān, virtually all contemporary knowledge of the battle at Badr comes from traditional Islamic accounts, both hadiths and biographies of Muhammad, written decades after the battle.

Prior to the battle, the Muslims and Meccans had fought several smaller skirmishes in late 623 and early 624, as the Muslim ghazawāt had become more frequent. Badr, however was the first large-scale engagement between the two forces. Advancing to a strong defensive position, Muhammad's well-disciplined men managed to shatter the Meccan lines, killing several important Quraishi leaders including Muhammad's chief antagonist, 'Amr ibn Hishām.

For the early Muslims, the battle was extremely significant because it was the first sign that they might eventually defeat their enemies in Mecca. Mecca at that time was one of the richest and most powerful pagan cities in Arabia, which fielded an army three times larger than that of the Muslims. The Muslim victory also signalled other tribes that a new power had arisen in Arabia and strengthened Muhammad’s authority as leader of the often fractious community in Medina. Local Arab tribes began to convert to Islam and ally themselves with the Muslims of Medina; thus, the expansion of Islam began.