The second battle of Badr was a bloodless victory, and took place in the month Ẕū ʾl-Qaʿdah, A.H. 4 (April, A.D. 626).
BAḤĪRĀ (بحيرا). A Nestorian monk whom Muḥammad met when he was journeying back from Syria to Makkah, and who is said to have perceived by various signs that he was a prophet. His Christian name is supposed to have been Sergius (or Georgius).
Sprenger thinks that Baḥīrā remained with Muḥammad, and it has been suggested that there is an allusion to this monk in the Qurʾān, [Sūrah xvi. 105]: “We know that they say, ‘It is only a man who teacheth him.’ ” Ḥusain the commentator says on this passage that the Prophet was in the habit of going every evening to a Christian to hear the Taurāt and Injīl. (Tafsīr-i-Ḥusainī; Sale, p. 228; Muir’s Life of Mahomet, p. 72.)
BAḤĪRAH (بحيرة). (1.) A she-camel, she-goat or ewe, which had given birth to a tenth young one. (2.) A she-camel, the mother of which had brought forth ten females consecutively before her.
In these and similar cases, the pagan Arabs observed certain religious ceremonies, such as slitting the animal’s ear, &c., all of which are forbidden in the Qurʾān: “God hath not ordained any Baḥīrah.” ([Sūrah v. 102].)
BAIʿ (بيع, pl. بيوع buyūʿ). A sale; commercial dealing; barter. Baiʿ, or “sale,” in the language of the law, signifies an exchange of property for property with the mutual consent of parties. For the rules concerning sales and barter, see Hamilton’s Hidāyah, vol. ii. 360; Baillie’s Muḥammadan Law of Sale; The Fatāwā ʿĀlamgīrī.
Sale, in its ordinary acceptation, is a transfer of property in consideration of a price in money. The word has a more comprehensive meaning in the Muḥammadan law, and is applied to every exchange of property for property with mutual consent. It, therefore, includes barter as well as sale, and also loan, when the articles lent are intended to be consumed, and replaced to the lender by a similar quantity of the same kind. This transaction, which is truly an exchange of property for property, is termed qarz̤ in the Muḥammadan law.
Between barter and sale there is no essential distinction in most systems of law, and the joint subject may in general be considerably simplified by being treated of solely as a sale. A course has been adopted in the Muḥammadan law, which obliges the reader to fix his attention on both sides of the contract. This may at first appear to him to be an unnecessary complication of the subject, but when he becomes acquainted with the definition of price, and the rules for the prohibition of excess in the exchange of a large class of commodities, which apply to every form of the contract, he will probably be of opinion that to treat of the subject in any other way would be attended with at least equal difficulties.
The first point which seems to require his attention is the meaning of the word “property” as it occurs in the definition of sale. The original term (māl), which has been thus translated, is defined by Muḥammadan lawyers to be “that which can be taken possession of and secured.” This definition seems to imply that it is tangible or corporeal, and things or substances are accordingly the proper subjects of sale. Mere rights are not māl, and cannot therefore be lawfully sold apart from the corporeal things with which they may happen to be connected. Of such rights one of the most important is the right of a creditor to exact payment of a debt, which is not a proper subject of sale. In other words, debts cannot, by the Muḥammadan law, any more than by the common laws of England and Scotland, be lawfully sold.
Things are commonly divided into moveable and immoveable, the latter comprehending land and things permanently attached to it. But the distinction is not of much importance in the Muḥammadan law, as the transfer of land is in nowise distinguished from that of other kinds of property.