The Best of Creation part 8

The second year after the Migration

The direction for prayer (Qiblah) was changed to the Sacred House [Kaaba], 95 and that was in mid-Sha’bān.

The fasting of Ramadan, the post-Ramadan charity (zakāh al- fiṭr), and the zakāh of one’s wealth were all made mandatory, and the Eid [prayer] was also legislated.

In Safar, there was his ﷺ first military expedition [ghazwah]: the Expedition of Waddān – also known as the Expedition of al- Abwa-which is a mountain situated between Mecca and Medina. He ﷺ, himself, left [Medina] to intercept a Qurayshi caravan; he remained absent for fifteen days without encountering a confrontation.
He ﷺ agreed to a truce with Bani Damrah.In Rabi’ al-Awwal, with a group of two hundred warriors, his  ﷺ Expedition (Ghazwah) of Buwāṭ took place. Buwāț is a mountain in the territory of Juhaynah [in Yanbu’] on the side of Raḍwā, approximately fifty-six miles from Medina. There he ﷺ intercepted a caravan in which there was Umayyah ibn Khalaf, though he returned without any confrontation.

In Jumādā al-Akhirah, he ﷺ went on a military expedition among one hundred and fifty men to Dhāt al-‘Ushayrah, which is a place inhabited by Bani Mudlij towards Yanbu², 97 in order to intercept a Qurayshi caravan; he, however, missed it by a number of days. He ﷺ agreed to a truce with Banī Mudlij, and returned without any confrontation. After his return from the Expedition of Dhat al-‘Ushayra, he ﷺ embarked on another expedition in pursuit of Kurz ibn Jābir al-Fihrī, because of his [Kurz’s] raid on the livestock of Medina, until he reached Safwān, which is next to Badr; he, however, did not catch him. This expedition is called the First Badr.

In Rajab, there was the expedition of ‘Abd-Allāh ibn Jaḥsh, albia among twelve Migrants, to Nakhlah which is a distance of  night from Mecca to lay in ambush for Quraysh’s caravan. The caravan, which was carrying raisins and animal hides from al- Ta’if, passed by them; in the caravan was ‘Amr ibn al-Ḥaḍrami. The Muslims consulted one another and said, ‘We are in the last day of Rajab, so if we were to fight them, we will be violating the sanctity of the month; and if we let them get away tonight, they shall enter the Sacred Precinct of Mecca’; therefore, they agreed to kill them. They killed ‘Amr and captured two prisoners, and the rest fled and drove the caravan away. And so it was the first spoil of war in Islam. Thereafter, Ibn Jaḥsh distributed it [spoils] and set aside a fifth of it – before it was made mandatory – and it is narrated that they brought all the spoils [i.e. to Allah’s Messenger ﷺ], whereupon the Prophet ﷺ said, ‘I did not order you to fight in the sacred month.’ So he ﷺ deferred the matter of the two prisoners and the spoils until he returned from Badr and then  in Medina
distributed it together with the spoils [from Badr].

Quraysh started to say that Muhammad ﷺ had spilled blood and plundered in the sacred month, whereupon Allah Most High revealed,

‘They ask you [the Prophet ﷺ] about fighting in the sacred month. Say, “Fighting in it is an enormity, but to bar people from Allah’s path, to disbelieve in Him and to prevent people from access to the Sacred Mosque is a greater enormity in Allah’s sight; and persecution is worse than killing.” They will not stop fighting you until they make you revoke your religion if they can, and whoever amongst you revokes his religion, dying a disbeliever, then his deeds are of no avail to him in this world and the next, and those are the inhabitants of the fire; therein, they shall abide forever’ [Qur’an 2: 217].

Then in mid-Sha’bān, he ﷺ towards Juhaynah [a tribe]. embarked on a military expedition.