Battle of Badr
Muhammad’s force defeats the Quraysh army at Badr
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Original prompt & settings (JSON) ↗The caravan Muhammad set out to capture never reached the battlefield — it slipped away along a seldom-used coastal road.
The target that got away
The battle at Badr is traditionally dated to 17 Ramadan 2 AH, conventionally converted to 13 March 624. Muhammad’s expedition had set out from Medina to intercept Abu Sufyan’s lightly guarded Quraysh caravan; Abu Sufyan diverted it onto a coastal route and summoned help from Mecca.
The caravan escaped. Muhammad’s roughly 300 followers — traditional reports give 305 men physically present, with 70 camels and two horses between them, so riders shared mounts — instead met a separate Quraysh army of about 1,000 at Badr, some 160 km southwest of Medina.
The wells, then the fighting
In the traditional account Muhammad reached the wells first, kept the nearest one and had the others filled with sand on Hubab ibn al-Mundhir’s advice — then allowed the Meccans to draw from the one left open.
Single combats involving Hamza, Ali and Ubayda ibn al-Harith preceded the general fighting, which ended by late afternoon in a Muslim victory. Abu Jahl was among the Quraysh leaders killed; traditional counts give 14 Muslims dead, 70 Quraysh dead and 70 captured.
What the sources can carry
The Quraysh survivors withdrew toward Mecca while Muhammad’s force held the field, buried the dead and took prisoners and booty.
Seventeenth Ramadan is only the best-known of the traditional dates: the TDV encyclopedia also records traditions naming 19, 21 or 27 Ramadan.
Modern source criticism finds the broad outline stronger than many of the picturesque details, particularly those covering the approach and the night before the battle.
Sources
Researched 23 Aug 2026 5 sources 2 audit passes, 1 issue open Traditional date
How this was checked
Researched from the web into a fact sheet, rewritten from that sheet, then audited against it by a different model. How the pipeline works →
Traditional date. This date is the conventional one, not one fixed by a contemporary record.
What the sources leave uncertain
- Seventeenth Ramadan 2 AH, conventionally converted here to 13 March 624, is the best-known traditional date. TDV also records traditions naming 19, 21 or 27 Ramadan.
- Detailed battle narratives were transmitted through later sira and hadith literature. Modern source criticism finds the broad outline stronger than many picturesque details, particularly those covering the approach and night before the battle.
- Counts such as 305 and 313 reflect different conventions: some lists include people excused from physical participation but awarded shares as participants.