Chief of the Prophets — Page 215
Chapter Nine 215 On the Day of Ḥunain, when your great numbers made you proud, but they availed you naught; and the earth, with all its vastness, became straitened for you. The second reason was that the army included the new Muslims of Makkah as well as idolaters who were still devoid of the real strength of the true faith. Therefore, when they were attacked with a barrage of arrows from the front, they could not withstand it and ran away bewildered. The Battle of Tabūk, Rajab, 9 A. H. It had not been long since Muḥammad sa returned to Madīnah, when he was informed that the Christian Ghassānid king was raising a grand army to avenge the Battle of Mutah. Muḥammad sa also learned that Heraclius of the Byzantine Empire had sent an army of 40,000 in support of the Ghassānid king, and the combined forces wanted to attack Madīnah to challenge the rising power of the Muslims. People were still being drawn in great numbers from all sides to accept Islam, and no satisfactory arrangements for the peace and security of the territory and for the education and training of the new Muslims were in place. Therefore, under these conditions, if the Christian forces were not stopped at the Syrian border, their sudden entrance into Arabia would have certainly led to great disorder. Therefore, Muḥammad sa informed all the tribes to urgently reach Madīnah to combat the combined army of Heraclius and Ghassānid. To provide the Muslim army the necessities for the journey, a large sum of money was needed. Therefore, Muḥammad sa made a general but emphatic appeal to collect funds. ‘Uthmān ra donated all of the trading capital that he had gathered for his upcoming trip to Syria. Other Companions also participated to the best of their abilities, but the contributions of Abū Bakr ra and ‘Umar bin al-Khaṭṭāb ra are most notable.