Sirah

The Appointment at Badr

Badr al-Maw'id, the promised second encounter that never came, Sha'ban 4 AH

4 AH / 626 CE

Imagined 360° reconstruction of The Appointment at Badr

Educational historical reconstruction

Where

The wells of Badr, on the caravan road south-west of Madinah

23.7786, 38.7903 · View on OpenStreetMap

Background

After the hard day of Uhud in the third year after the Hijrah, the Quraysh commander Abu Sufyan (before his later acceptance of Islam) is reported in Ibn Ishaq's Sira to have called out as the Makkans withdrew that the two sides would meet again the following year at Badr. The appointment, the maw'id, gave the encounter its names in the sources: Badr al-Maw'id (Badr of the Appointment), Badr al-Akhira (the Later Badr), and Badr al-Thaniya (the Second Badr). In Sha'ban of the fourth year after the Hijrah, corresponding to the early months of 626 CE, the Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) led a force, about fifteen hundred in the most commonly cited figure, out to the wells of Badr to keep the appointment. Badr was also the site of a well-known seasonal Arabian market held in the season of Dhu al-Qa'da, and the Muslims waited there for the appointed days. Abu Sufyan set out from Makkah with a Quraysh force but, according to al-Waqidi's Maghazi and Ibn Sa'd's Tabaqat, turned back before reaching Badr, giving as his reason the severe drought and the lean year, a decision that the Makkans themselves are said to have found shaming. The Muslims, finding no army to face, traded at the market, made a profit, and returned to Madinah without a battle. The episode is traditionally connected by the mufassirun with the Qur'anic praise of those who responded to the call of Allah and His Messenger even after the wound they had suffered (Al 'Imran, Q 3:172-175). Coming the year after Uhud, the unopposed appointment is read in the Sira as a recovery of the moral and strategic initiative by the Madinian community without the cost of fighting. This scene depicts the waiting and the market at the wells of Badr, with the road from Makkah lying empty.

What you see

A broad sandy plain set among low dark hills on the inland caravan road between Madinah and the Red Sea coast, the same watering-place where, two years earlier, the first great encounter between the Quraysh and the Muslims had been fought.

A cluster of stone-rimmed desert wells and watering cisterns is the centre of the scene. Camels and pack-donkeys are led down to drink; the wells, not a battle line, are what the place is organised around.

Rows of low market stalls and goods spread on cloths, hides, dates, woven cloth, leather, a seasonal Arabian trading fair in full operation. This is a market, not a muster: the appointed fight has not happened.

An encampment of goat-hair tents waits at the edge of the market with riding-camels couched in lines. The posture is of a force that has come, made camp, and is waiting out the appointed days rather than deploying for battle.

The road that runs north-west toward Makkah is empty to the horizon, no approaching column, no dust of an advancing army. The absence of an opposing force on that road is the substance of the scene.

The light is the thin, cool sun of the Arabian winter; the encounter is dated to Sha'ban of the fourth year after the Hijrah, in the solar early months of 626 CE, the season when the Badr market was traditionally held.

The scene turns the expected image of Badr, a battlefield, into its opposite: a profitable, peaceful market. The episode is remembered precisely as the appointment that one side kept and the other abandoned.

Primary sources

Ibn Ishaq / Ibn Hisham, Sirat Rasul Allah (compiled 8th-9th c.): Records Abu Sufyan's parting challenge at Uhud to meet again at Badr the following year, and the Muslims' march to keep the appointment. The narrative spine of the episode.

Muhammad ibn 'Umar al-Waqidi, Kitab al-Maghazi (early 9th c.): Gives the fullest detail: the size of the Muslim force, the trading at the Badr market, and Abu Sufyan's turning back on account of the drought year. Used with the customary caution applied to al-Waqidi's elaboration.

Ibn Sa'd, al-Tabaqat al-Kubra (9th c.): Independent confirmation of the dating to Sha'ban 4 AH and of the unopposed outcome.

al-Tabari, Tarikh al-Rusul wa-al-Muluk (early 10th c.): Compiles the earlier accounts and fixes the episode in the sequence after Uhud and before the campaigns of 5 AH.

al-Tabari and Ibn Kathir, tafsir on Al 'Imran 172-175: The standard Sunni connection of the Qur'anic verses on those who answered the call after their wound with this expedition. The connection is interpretive, not a forensic dating, and the mufassirun note it as such.

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