Battle of Uhud

The Battle of Uhud (Arabic: غزوة أحد‎ Ġazwat ‘Uḥud) was fought on Saturday, March 19, 625 (3 Shawwal 3 AH in the Islamic calendar) at the valley located in front of Mount Uhud, in what is now northwestern Arabia. It occurred between a force from the Muslim community of Medina led by the Islamic prophet Muhammad, and a force led by Abu Sufyan ibn Harb from Mecca, the town from which many of the Muslims had previously emigrated. The Battle of Uhud was the second military encounter between the Meccans and the Muslims, preceded by the Battle of Badr in 624, where a small Muslim army had defeated a larger Meccan army.

Marching out from Mecca towards Medina on March 11, 625 AD, the Meccans desired to avenge their losses at Badr and strike back at Muhammad and his followers. The Muslims readied for war soon afterwards and the two armies fought on the slopes and plains of Mount Uhud.

Whilst outnumbered, the Muslims gained the early initiative and forced the Meccan lines back, thus leaving much of the Meccan camp unprotected. When the battle looked to be only one step away from a decisive Muslim victory, a serious mistake was committed by a part of the Muslim army, which altered the outcome of the battle. A breach of Muhammad's orders by the Muslim archers, who left their assigned posts to despoil the Meccan camp, allowed a surprise attack from the Meccan cavalry, led by Meccan war veteran Khalid ibn al-Walid, which brought chaos to the Muslim ranks. Many Muslims were killed, and even Muhammad himself was badly injured. The Muslims had to withdraw up the slopes of Uhud. The Meccans did not pursue the Muslims further, but marched back to Mecca declaring victory.

Muhammad

Muḥammad (Arabic: محمد‎; c. 570 CE – 8 June 632 CE), is the central figure of Islam and widely regarded as its founder. He is known to Muslims as the "Holy Prophet", almost all of whom consider him to be the last prophet sent by God to mankind to restore Islam, which they believe to be the unaltered original monotheistic faith of Adam, Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and other prophets. He united Arabia into a single Muslim polity and ensured that his teachings, practices, and the Quran, which Muslims believe was revealed to him by God, formed the basis of Islamic religious belief.

Born approximately in 570 CE in the Arabian city of Mecca, Muhammad was orphaned at an early age; he was raised under the care of his paternal uncle Abu Talib. After his childhood Muhammad primarily worked as a merchant. Occasionally, he would retreat to a cave named Hira in the mountains for several nights of seclusion and prayer; later, at age 40, he reported being visited by Gabriel in the cave and received his first revelation from God. Three years after this event Muhammad started preaching these revelations publicly, proclaiming that "God is One", that complete "surrender" (lit. islām) to him is the only way (dīn) acceptable to God, and that he was a prophet and messenger of God, similar to the other prophets in Islam.

Battle (disambiguation)

Generally, a battle is a combat in warfare between two or more parties.

Battle or battles may also refer to:

Name

Fictional characters

In military

Places

In music

Abu Ammaar Yasir Qadhi

Yasir Qadhi (also spelled Yasir Kazi) is an American Muslim scholar and writer of Pakistani descent, and Dean of Academic Affairs at the Al-Maghrib Institute, an Islamic educational institution. He has written books and has lectured on Islam and contemporary Muslim issues. A 2011 New York Times Magazine essay described Qadhi as "one of the most influential conservative clerics in American Islam". Qadhi is a Salafi.

Early years

Qadhi was born in Houston, Texas, to parents of Pakistani origin. When Qadhi was five, the family moved to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, where he graduated high school two years early as class valedictorian.

After a short stint at Dow Chemical, Qadhi in 1996 enrolled at the Islamic University of Medina in Medina, Saudi Arabia. There he earned a bachelor's degree in Arabic from the university's College of Hadith and Islamic Sciences and a master's degree in Islamic Theology from its College of Dawah. Qadhi returned to the United States in 2005 after nine years in Saudi Arabia.

Battle

Generally, a battle "is a conceptual component in the hierarchy of combat in warfare between two or more armed forces, or combatants. A war sometimes consists of many battles. Battles generally are well defined in duration, area, and force commitment.

Wars and military campaigns are guided by strategy, whereas battles take place on a level of planning and execution known as operational mobility. German strategist Carl von Clausewitz stated that "the employment of battles ... to achieve the object of war" was the essence of strategy.

Etymology

The definition of a battle cannot be arrived at solely through the names of historical battles, many of which are misnomers. The word battle is a loanword in English from the Old French bataille, first attested in 1297, from Late Latin battualia, meaning "exercise of soldiers and gladiators in fighting and fencing", from Late Latin (taken from Germanic) battuere "beat", from which the English word battery is also derived via Middle English batri, and comes from the staged battles in the Colosseum in Rome that may have numbered 10,000 individuals.