The Wells of Badr

When the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) chose the location of the army, al-Ḥubāb ibn al-Mundhir, one of the Anṣār (may Allah be pleased with him), went to the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) and said, "O Messenger of Allah, is this the place about which Allah revealed to you that we should not advance beyond or fall short of, or is this a question of opinion, of war and tactics?" — and note how he put the question: if this was a decree from Allah, and they were not supposed to advance beyond it or stay short of it, then he was happy with it, but if it was a question of tactics, he had something to say. The Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) told him, "It is one of opinion, of war and tactics — this is a choice based on my own opinion of where we should be."

Al-Ḥubāb said, "Well, O Messenger of Allah, this is not a place to stop. We should go ahead until we get to the well nearest to their position and stop there; we should then stop up the wells behind it and build a cistern and fill it with water, so that we can fight them and have water to drink while they have none." Since there were these wells in Badr, his advice was to take over all of the wells first and not allow them any access, so that the Muslims would be able to drink while they wanted. The Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) said, "You have given a good idea," and they advanced forward and had all of these wells behind their backs, and then they built a cistern, a pool, and filled it with water so that they could drink from it.