THE SOJOURN AT BADR AND THE RETURN TO AL-MADINAH
The Prophet remained three days on the field of battle to bury the dead and gather together the booty which he left to be guarded by the family of the Najjar. He then got ready to go back to Al-Madinah.
Two couriers, Zayd, his adopted son, and Ibn-i-Ruhah, sent on to carry the glad tidings, reached there before him. They arrived at the moment when the situation of the Believers in the city was becoming critical. Gravediggers had not finished cleansing their hands from the earth with which they had just covered the last resting-place of Roghaid, Mohammad's daughter, married to Usman. She had been carried off by painful illness. "Hypocrites" and Jews put the most alarming rumours in circulation concerning the Prophet's fate and they were getting ready to attack his supporters....
The good news spread all over the town with lightning-like rapidity; causing confusion in the haunts of "Hypocrites" and Jews; reassuring the Faithful and causing great enthusiasm in their ranks. All of them—a vast crowd of men, women and children—went forth to acclaim the conqueror, the procession marching to the cadence of drums. They sang in chorus the chant with which he had been welcomed when he first arrived: "The full moon hath risen above our head—Emerging from the Sanniyat-ul-Wida;—Numerous are the thanksgivings we must offer up to Allah—With the purest fervour of our supplications.—O thou His Messenger among us—The orders thou dost bring us shall be piously executed!"
Ever since this battle, for ever memorable, which by its results eventually changed the whole face of the world, although only fought out by a small number of men, the Wadi of Badr is visited yearly by thousands of pilgrims.
It is written by the traveller Abul Hosain ibn Zubair. "A small market-town, surrounded by ramparts, stands now upon its site ... What was once the well where the Unbelievers were buried, is now a clump of palm-trees, and a little farther off are the tombs of the martyrs.
"To the left of the road leading from Safra, is the Mountain of Mercy—Ar Rahman—by which the Angels descended from Heaven.
"The "arish," the shelter where Mohammad stood, is said to have been erected on the slope of a sandhill, called Jabl-ul-Tabl, the Mountain of the Drum, because the roll of supernatural drums is frequently heard there by pilgrims; this mysterious martial music celebrating the remembrance of the first victory of Islam."
There were as many prisoners as dead: three score and ten, mostly belonging to the best families among the idolaters.
Two of them, Aqbah and An Nazir, whose insults to the Prophet were beyond all measure, suffered the death penalty after condemnation.