Lessons From the Affair

So, some lessons from this sariyyah.

Number one: the enemies of Allah, the Mighty and Majestic, are going to pick on the actions of the Muslims, and they are going to try to blow them out of proportion. They might try to twist the truth, and they will try to present the Muslims in the worst form they are capable of presenting them in. So the Muslim needs to be aware of that, and needs to study the reality of the situation and put things in perspective, just as these āyāt of Allah, the Mighty and Majestic, put things in perspective. So if Muslims are ever accused of being terrorists, or that Islam is promoting violence, let whoever is saying that remember that hundreds of thousands of people were killed in Iraq, that Palestinians have been suffering for over fifty years, that Muslims in Kashmir and Chechnya and the Philippines — and one can go on and on and on — have been suffering for a very long time. Bring these things up, and it will become clear that even if the Muslims do something that is not justified, that cannot fall under justifiable resistance, it can never reach the level of violence and evil that is committed against the Muslims by the disbelievers. It can never reach that level. More than a million have been killed by the sanctions that were laid upon Iraq — more than a million. So things need to be put in the right perspective. One should not be gullible and naive and just fall into what the media is saying, because the media is not on your side, and the enemies of Allah, the Mighty and Majestic, are never going to be on your side. So the Muslim needs to be aware of the reality of the situation, and not just take things as they are heard on the radio or television, but look deep into what is happening, and the evil that is caused by the enemies of Allah, the Mighty and Majestic, will be seen. Look how, subḥān Allāh, what Quraysh did to Muḥammad (peace be upon him), the enemies of Allah are doing to the Muslims today. The preachers who are preaching the true Islam are being thrown in jail, or killed, or subjected to threats; if Muslims try to present the truth as it is, they are fought against and they are restricted. Muslim lands are taken as booty and as milking cows for the enemies of Allah, the Mighty and Majestic. Muslim blood has become very cheap — in fact, it has not only become cheap, it has become worthless.

Number two: the care that Muslims should have for one another. The Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) refused to give up the two prisoners of war until ʿUtbah ibn Ghazwān and Saʿd ibn Mālik came back.

And then a few lessons regarding the issue of sarāyā in general. This sariyyah was to establish the military presence of the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) and the Muslims. So the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) was sending these sarāyā north, south, west and east, to let the people know that the Muslims had force and were capable of using it, that this was a strong state, so be careful, do not attack it. In the tribal system of old Arabia, if one tribe feels that another tribe is weak, they take advantage of that. So the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) was sending out these sarāyā as a deterrent to others, to the Bedouins surrounding Madīnah who still had the respect of Quraysh in their hearts, because Quraysh was seen as the centre of Arabia, of the noble men, the people who were the custodians of the Kaʿbah, so they were held in high esteem by the rest of Arabia. The Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) was trying to break that, and to let the people know that there was now a rival power in the area.

Number two, the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) was winning over tribes and establishing alliances, and this was still the stage where the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) could establish alliances with polytheists. As already noted regarding the stages of fighting in the path of Allah, in the final stage the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) was instructed to fight all of the mushrikīn, but here he was still in the stage where he could establish alliances with these tribes, and he did, with some of the Bedouin tribes surrounding Madīnah. This was done through these sarāyā — sarāyā can be translated as expeditions.

Number three, these sarāyā were mostly for economic reasons: they were to raid caravans, mostly the caravans of Quraysh. That is because in Islamic fikr, if the Muslim state is in a state of war with another, that makes the lives and the wealth of the enemy state lawful. So the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) was attacking the economic network of Quraysh, and this was a serious threat to Quraysh, and this is what led to the Battle of Badr, because it started out, as will be seen, as an attempt to take over the biggest caravan of Quraysh, which was led by Abū Sufyān.

Number four, these sarāyā were training for the Muslims. The Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) was not fighting a tribal warfare; this was an army with a new identity. So these were a great chance for the Companions to experience and to learn. He would send out groups of thirty, groups of sixty; through these sarāyā they would learn reconnaissance methods, they would learn how to ambush, they would learn the area, they would get to know the tribes around them. So they were benefiting greatly from these sarāyā, and overall they were quite successful. In this war that carried on for a few years between the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) and Quraysh, Quraysh did not have a similar tactic of sending out sarāyā against the Muslims. This was pretty much an Islamic thing, and it was very successful, and a serious threat to the people of Quraysh.