The historians' history of the world in twenty-five volumes, volume 08 : $b Parthians, Sassanids and Arabs; the Crusades and the Papacy
History
The historians' history of the world in twenty-five volumes, volume 08 : $b Parthians, Sassanids and Arabs; the Crusades and the Papacy
World history
Soon confusion seized the enemy and the battle ended with a complete
defeat of the Koreish. Seventy heads of distinguished houses were slain
during the battle or on the flight. Amongst the fallen were Otba and
Shaiba, and, above all Abu Jahl (called the enemy of God), Mohammed’s
bitterest opponent; amongst the prisoners were his uncle Abbas and
Abul-Aas, the husband of his eldest daughter Zainab. Both were ransomed
and returned to Mecca. Abbas probably henceforth served his nephew as
a spy and Abul-Aas had to send his wife back to her father. Two other
prisoners, Al-Nadr and Okba, who had belonged to Mohammed’s most eager
adversaries in Mecca, were executed. But the prophet, always inclined
to mildness, deplored the rash act when he heard the touching lament of
the former’s daughter, a lament which is still preserved to us. For the
rest, the battle of Bedr was of the greatest importance for the victory
of Islam, and in consequence all the combatants whose names were entered
in the lists henceforth formed the highest nobility of the Moslems. The
spoil and the ransoms were equally divided, but soon after a saying of
the _Koran_ commanded that in future the fifth part of all spoil should
go to the prophet, for himself, his kinsmen, for the poor, orphans, and
wanderers.
BATTLE OF OHOD (MARCH, 625 A.D.)
[Sidenote: [625 A.D.]]
The battle of Bedr was the first step of Islam to dominion. Whilst the
inhabitants of Medina and the Bedouin tribes of the neighbourhood drew
from the prophet’s success a belief in his divine mission and gathered
round him with enthusiasm, in Mecca there was great despair. Abu Lahab,
Mohammed’s uncle and enemy, died seven days later of a disease resembling
smallpox, full of affliction and anger at the success of his nephew; and
Okba’s daughter Hind, the passionate wife of Abu Sufyan, cried day and
night in ungoverned fury for revenge for her fallen kinsmen. Her lord
actually went against Medina with two hundred Koreish; but their belief
in their own cause was shaken, and when Mohammed marched against them
they fled home in such haste that they left their stock of meal behind.
In the months after this “meal-campaign,” certain Jews in Medina, having
made a mock of Mohammed in their verses, were put to death, and their
co-religionists who had refused to go over to Islam, in particular
the Beni Kainoka, the most skilful of the wealthy goldsmiths in the
country, were driven into banishment in Syria. Abu Sufyan now marched
a second time to the fight, on this occasion with a force of three
thousand Koreish, at whose head stood three brave men, Akrama a son of
Abu Jahl, Khalid, and Amru, afterwards the most distinguished heroes of
the faithful. In the rearguard was the terrible Hind, with fifteen other
women and certain poets who roused the spirit of vengeance in the army by
laments over those slain at Bedr.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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