Fire Beneath the Ashes

The victory at Badr had put the Muslims on the map. Madinah was no longer a small city-state struggling to defend its own existence; it was now a power to be reckoned with. But it is precisely after great victories that the greatest trials come. The period between Badr and Uhud, roughly a year, is a period that is often skipped over in the Seerah, even though it is crucial for understanding how the Islamic state in Madinah developed and which internal and external forces tested it. It was a period of consolidation, of smouldering tensions, of broken treaties and of assassinations. In short: the fire beneath the ashes.

The Power of Badr

To understand what happened after Badr, one must understand what Badr had changed. Before Badr, the Muslims in Madinah were politically vulnerable. They shared a city with the Ansar, with Jewish tribes and with people whose loyalty was questionable. Badr changed this in a single stroke. The Prophet ﷺ, with 316 men, had defeated the military and economic elite of Makkah. Seventy of their leaders had fallen, seventy had been taken captive. The message was unmistakable.

This had immediate consequences for the relationships within Madinah. Those who had until then dared to voice their hostility toward Islam openly fell silent. Those who had hoped that the Quraysh would quickly make short work of the Prophet ﷺ saw their hope swept away. But they were silent only on the surface. Beneath the surface, things festered.

The Hypocrites Come Forward

After Badr a new phenomenon emerged more clearly: nifaq, hypocrisy. People who were inwardly disbelieving but who now, out of fear, professed Islam in public. They went to the mosque, pronounced the shahadah, took part in communal life, but their hearts were elsewhere. Their leader was Abdullah ibn Ubayy ibn Salul, a man who, before the arrival of the Prophet ﷺ, had been on the verge of being crowned king of Madinah by the Aws and the Khazraj.

Ibn Ubayy had experienced the arrival of the Prophet ﷺ as a personal humiliation. His power had been undone in a single blow. After Badr his position had been weakened still further. He realised that open enmity was dangerous and chose a strategy of apparent obedience and creeping subversion. He sowed doubt, fanned tensions and worked actively with the enemies of the Muslims, while outwardly playing the loyal companion. The hypocrites posed a danger that was harder to combat than an open enemy, because they were within.

Allah ﷻ says about them:

The Breaking of the Covenant: Banu Qaynuqa

Not long after Badr, tensions ran high with one of the three Jewish tribes of Madinah: the Banu Qaynuqa. They were goldsmiths and traders and had their market in the heart of Madinah. Although they had signed the Charter of Madinah, the agreement in which all parties pledged mutual peace and cooperation, after Badr they began to push the limits.

The immediate incident that compelled the Prophet ﷺ to act was the following: an Arab woman had come to the market of the Banu Qaynuqa to buy gold. While she was sitting with a goldsmith, a man of the Banu Qaynuqa fastened her clothing to her back so that, when she stood up, she was exposed. The bystanders laughed. A Muslim saw this and killed the man. The Banu Qaynuqa in turn killed the Muslim.

It was only the trigger, not the cause. The real cause was a pattern of hostility, mockery and active undermining of the Prophet ﷺ and his Companions ﵃. When the Prophet ﷺ confronted them with their behaviour and called on them to honour their agreements, the Banu Qaynuqa replied in a defiant tone:

Banu Qaynuqa: O Muhammad, do not be deceived by your victory over a group of people without knowledge of warfare. We are warriors. If you wage war on us, you will know that we are men.

The Prophet ﷺ besieged their fortress. After fifteen days they surrendered. Their ally Abdullah ibn Ubayy, wishing to display his influence, mediated aggressively on their behalf and demanded their release. The Prophet ﷺ, who took the larger picture into account and did not desire unnecessary bloodshed, agreed on the condition that they leave Madinah. The Banu Qaynuqa departed for Syria. They were the first tribe to break the treaty and the first tribe to bear the consequences.

The Expeditions: A State in Motion

The period between Badr and Uhud was no quiet interlude. The Prophet ﷺ regularly sent out small expeditions. Partly to gather intelligence, partly to disrupt the trade routes of the Quraysh, partly to convince the tribes of the region that the Islamic state was a force to be reckoned with.

One of the most discussed expeditions was the Sawiq expedition (ghazwat al-Sawiq), which arose directly from the pent-up rage of Abu Sufyan ibn Harb after Badr. Abu Sufyan had sworn that he would not wash himself until he had attacked the Muslims. With two hundred horsemen he set out by night toward the outskirts of Madinah. He reached the house of an Ansari near the city, killed him and his neighbour, and burned a few palm trees. Then he fled swiftly back. When the Prophet ﷺ and his men set off in pursuit, the men of Abu Sufyan abandoned their stores of sawiq (roasted meal) so that they could flee faster. Hence the expedition came to be known as the Sawiq expedition.

Abu Sufyan had fulfilled his oath, but his standing had been weakened rather than strengthened. In Makkah, however, serious planning began for a large-scale retaliation.

Ka’b ibn al-Ashraf: The Poet as Weapon

Not everyone fought with sword and spear. Ka’b ibn al-Ashraf, a man of Jewish descent with an Arab mother, was one of the wealthiest and most influential men in the region of Madinah. He was a poet of great talent, and he used that talent to harm the Muslims in a way that was more dangerous than many a sword.

After Badr, Ka’b ibn al-Ashraf travelled to Makkah. There he composed elegies for the fallen leaders of the Quraysh, panegyrics that urged the Makkans to avenge their losses. Back in Madinah he wrote verses that slandered Muslim women. His poems travelled faster than horsemen, and his words fanned the flame of vengeance among the Quraysh.

The Prophet ﷺ asked his Companions ﵃:

Prophet ﷺ: Who will rid me of Ka’b ibn al-Ashraf? He has insulted Allah and His Messenger.

Muhammad ibn Maslamah ﵁ volunteered and took a small group with him. By a stratagem they managed to lure him outside at night and killed him. His death put an end to one of the most dangerous forms of hostility the young state had known: psychological warfare.

Makkah Forges Its Vengeance

While all this was unfolding in and around Madinah, Makkah was anything but quiet. The losses at Badr had cut deep wounds. More than seventy families mourned a father, a son, a brother. Abu Sufyan ibn Harb, who after the death of Abu Jahl had become the de facto leader of the Quraysh, coordinated the preparations for a great expedition. He forbade the families of the fallen to mourn or weep openly. All energy was to go into preparation, not into grief.

The Quraysh decided, moreover, to reserve the entire profit of the trade caravan that, under Abu Sufyan’s command, had escaped the Muslims before Badr, for war funding. Three thousand men were equipped. Three thousand camels, two hundred horses, seven hundred men in chainmail. Women were brought along to spur the warriors on and to prevent them from fleeing. Abu Sufyan took command. Their destination: Madinah.

The State Is Tested

Meanwhile the internal stability of Madinah was a constant concern. The hypocrites under Abdullah ibn Ubayy were actively cooperating with the Quraysh and with the Jewish tribes that had broken the treaty. Intelligence leaked. Public mood was deliberately poisoned. At the moments when unity was most needed, Ibn Ubayy sowed division.

The Prophet ﷺ navigated all of this with extraordinary political sense. He rarely confronted the hypocrites openly in a manner that would split the community, yet at the same time he never let them have their way unchecked. His approach was patient, calculated, and entirely focused on the larger goal: the protection and growth of the Islamic community.

The Companions ﵃ who had lived through Badr carried an extra burden. Badr had shaped them. It had strengthened their iman, but it had also made them feel the weight of their responsibility. They knew better than anyone that the enemy had not been defeated, only pushed back. And they knew that what was to come would be greater than anything they had yet experienced.

Allah ﷻ does not prepare His servants only through victories. Sometimes He prepares them by letting them wait, by letting them find, in the silence, the patience and steadfastness they will need when the storm breaks.

On the Threshold of Uhud

When the third year after the Hijra began, everyone in Madinah knew that the Quraysh were on their way. The scale of the preparations in Makkah had not gone unnoticed. Travellers brought reports. Tribes in the region were pressured to choose a side.

The Prophet ﷺ also received reports from his uncle Al-Abbas ﵁, who still resided in Makkah and secretly shared his sympathies with the Muslims, about the approaching army. The time of diplomatic manoeuvring, of small expeditions and of consolidating internal order was nearing its end. What was now to come would put the entire community to the test: not only the warriors, but also the believers who would remain at home, the hypocrites who would have to make a choice, and the Prophet ﷺ himself, who would see how some of his most beloved Companions would disobey him at the most critical moment.