Wars And Battles

"They destroyed bridges, they destroyed churches, mosques, colleges, buildings, plants. They destroyed places, houses, palaces. They killed people, and elderly, but they did not push Iraq back into the pre-industrial age."

"Anyone who has ever studied the history of American diplomacy, especially military diplomacy, knows that you might start in a war with certain things on your mind as a purpose of what you are doing, but in the end, you found yourself fighting for entirely different things that you had never thought of before … In other words, war has a momentum of its own and it carries you away from all thoughtful intentions when you get into it. Today, if we went into Iraq, like the president would like us to do, you know where you begin. You never know where you are going to end."

"As a preemptive action today, however well-justified, may come back with unwelcome consequences in the future.... I don't care how precise your bombs and your weapons are when you set them off, innocent people will die."

"“You profess to be a Hindu; but how is that you have kept this mosque standing so long?” said the Bhao “Maharaj! Of late, the Royal fortune of Hindustan has become fickle in her favour like a courtesan; to-night she is in the arms of one man and next in the embrace of another. If I could be sure that I should remain master of these territories all through my life, I would have leveled this mosque down to the earth. But of what use will it be, if I to-day destroy this mosque, and tomorrow the Musalmans come, and demolish the great temples and build four mosques in place of one? As your Excellency has come to these parts the affair is now in your hands.”"

"I saw the Prophet on the Day of (the battle of) Al-Khandaq, carrying earth with us and saying, "By Allah, without Allah we would not have been guided, neither would we have fasted, nor would we have prayed. O Allah! Send down Sakina (calmness) upon us and make our feet firm when we meet (the enemy). The pagans have rebelled against us, but if they want to put us in affliction (i.e., fight us) we refuse (to flee)."

"On the day of the battle of the Trench (i.e. Ghazwat-ul-Khandaq) the Ansar used to say, "We are those who have given the pledge of allegiance to Muhammad for Jihad (i.e. holy fighting) as long as we live." The Prophet, replied to them, "O Allah! There is no life except the life of the Hereafter; so please honor the Ansar and the Emigrants.""

"And after the Third Battle of Panipat (1761), “the unhappy prisoners were paraded in long lines, given a little parched grain and a drink of water, and beheaded… and the women and children who survived were driven off as slaves - twenty-two thousand, many of them of the highest rank in the land, says the Siyar-ut-Mutakhirin.”"

"'Next morning the sun revealed a horrid spectacle on the vast plain south of PAnipat. On the actual field of the combat thirty-one distinct heaps of the slain were counted, the number of bodies in each ranging from 500 upwards to 1000 and in four up to 1500 a rough total of 28,000. In addition to these, the ditch round the Maratha camp was full of dead bodies, partly the victims of disease and famine during the long siege and partly wounded men who had crawled out of the fighting to die there. West and south of PAnipat city, the jungle and the road in the line of MarAtha retreat were littered with the remains of those who had fallen unresisting in the relentless DurrAni pursuit or from hunger and exhaustion. Their number - probably three-fourths non-combatants and one-fourth soldiers - could not have been far short of the vast total of those slain in the battlefield. 'The hundreds who lay down wounded, perished from the severity of the cold.'.... 'After the havoc of combat followed massacre in cold blood. Several hundreds of MarAthas had hidden themselves in the hostile city of PAnipat through folly or helplessness; and these were hunted out next day and put to the sword. According to one plausible account, the sons of Abdus Samad Khan and Mian Qutb received the DurrAni king's permission to avenge their father's death by an indiscriminate massacre of the MarAthas for one day, and in this way nearly nine thousand men perished; these were evidently non-combatants. The eyewitness Kashiraj Pandit thus describes the scene: 'Every Durrani soldier brought away a hundred or two of prisoners and slew them in the outskirts of their camp, crying out, When I started from our country, my mother, father, sister and wife told me to slay so may kafirs for their sake after we had gained the victory in this holy war, so that the religious merit of this act [of infidel slaying] might accrue to them. In this way, thousands of soldiers and other persons were massacred. In the Shah's camp, except the quarters of himself and his nobles, every tent had a heap of severed heads before it. One may say that it was verily doomsday for the MarAtha people.'.... The booty captured within the entrenchment was beyond calculation and the regiments of Khans [i.e. 8000 troopers of AbdAli clansmen] did not, as far as possible, allow other troops like the IrAnis and the TurAnis to share in the plunder; they took possession of everything themselves, but sold to the Indian soldiers handsome Brahman women for one tuman and good horses for two tumans each.' The Deccani prisoners, male and female reduced to slavery by the victorious army numbered 22,000, many of them being the sons and other relatives of the sardArs or middle class men. Among them 'rose-limbed slave girls' are mentioned.' Besides these 22,000 unhappy captives, some four hundred officers and 6000 men fled for refuge to ShujA-ud-daulah's camp, and were sent back to the Deccan with monetary help by that nawab, at the request of his Hindu officers. The total loss of the MarAthas after the battle is put at 50,000 horses, captured either by the AfghAn army or the villagers along the route of flight, two hundred thousand draught cattle, some thousands of camels, five hundred elephants, besides cash and jewellery. 'Every trooper of the Shah brought away ten, and sometimes twenty camels laden with money. The captured horses were beyond count but none of them was of value; they came like droves of sheep in their thousands."

"To make the long and painful story short, it may just be mentioned that after the Third Battle of Panipat (1761), “the plunder of the (Maratha) camp was prodigious, and women and children who survived were driven off as slaves - twenty-two thousand (women), of the highest rank in the land, says the Siyar-ul-Mutakhkhirin.”"

"Two pearls have been dissolved, 27 gold coins have been lost and of the silver and copper the total cannot be cast up."

"Whither would you run, friends, your country is far from here."

"What, have I come from the south relying on your strength? I will do what I like. You may stay here or go back to your own place. After overthrowing the Abdali, I shall come to reckoning with you."

"Though, after all, the will of God will be done, it behoves us not the less to help destiny to be beneficent by our own best endeavours. Think carefully, consult Her Highness, your mother: I am not fond of trouble, and should not have come all this distance to see your Excellency were I not deeply interested."

"The cup is full to the brim, and cannot hold another drop. If anything can be done, do it. If not, let me know plainly and at once; for afterwards there will be no time for writing, or for speech"

"…All control of power is with the Hindus because they are the only people who are industrious and adaptable. Riches and prosperity are theirs, while Muslims have nothing but poverty and misery. At this juncture you are the only person, who has the initiative, the foresight, the power and capability to defeat the enemy and free the Muslims from the clutches of the infidels. God forbid if their domination continues, Muslims will even forget Islam and become undistinguishable from the non-Muslims"

"…We have already brought Lahore, Multan, Kashmir and other subahs on this side of Attock under our rule for the most part, and places which have not come under our rule we shall soon bring under us. Ahmad Khan Abdali's son Taimur Sultan and Jahan Khan have been pursued by our troops, and their troops completely looted. Both of them have now reached Peshawar with a few broken troops...we have decided to extend our rule up to Kandahar."

"The dead lay strewn shoulder to shoulder from the plain of Panipat to Delhi. About ninety thousand persons, male and female, were taken prisoners, and obtained eternal happiness by embracing the Muhammadan faith. Indeed, never was such splendid victory achieved from the time of Amir Mahmud Subuktigin."

"In 1926 there arose a controversy as to who really won the third battle of Panipat, fought in 1761. It was contended for the Muslims that it was a great victory for them because Ahmad Shah Abdali had 1 lakh of soldiers while the Mahrattas had 4 to 6 lakhs. The Hindus replied that it was a victory to them—a victory to [the] vanquished—because it stemmed the tide of Muslim invasions. The Muslims were not prepared to admit defeat at the hands of Hindus, and claimed that they will always prove superior to the Hindus. To prove the eternal superiority of Muslims over Hindus, it was proposed by one Maulana Akbar Shah Khan of Najibabad in all seriousness, that the Hindus and Muslims should fight, under test conditions, [a] fourth battle on the same fateful plain of Panipat. The Maulana accordingly issued/17/ a challenge to Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviya in the following terms: "If you Malaviyaji, are making efforts to falsify the result at Panipat, I shall show you an easy and an excellent way (of testing it). Use your well-known influence and induce the British Government to permit the fourth battle of Panipat to be fought without hindrance from the authorities. I am ready to provide. . . .a comparative test of the valour and fighting spirit of the Hindus and the Musalmans. . . .As there are seven crores of Musalmans in India, I shall arrive on a fixed date on the plain of Panipat with 700 Musalmans representing the seven crores of Muslims in India and as there are 22 crores of Hindus I allow you to come with 2,200 Hindus. The proper thing is not to use cannon, machine guns or bombs: only swords and javelins and spears, bows and arrows and daggers should be used. If you cannot accept the post of generalissimo of the Hindu host, you may give it to any descendant of Sadashivrao/18/ or Vishwasrao so that their scions may have an opportunity to avenge the defeat of their ancestors in 1761. But any way do come as a spectator; for on seeing the result of this battle you will have to change your views, and I hope there will be then an end of the present discord and fighting in the country. . . .In conclusion I beg to add that among the 700 men that I shall bring there will be no Pathans or Afghans as you are mortally afraid of them. So I shall bring with me only Indian Musalmans of good family who are staunch adherents of Shariat.""

"Грузинам здесь уже не жить, в Абхазии они могут только умирать."

"In reality, the Khojali tragedy is one of the greatest human atrocities of the 20th century. Every effort must be made to seek the world community's unbiased and resolute position regarding this genocide."

"January events of 1990 in Baku and events in Khojalu were the handwork of the same people."

"The tragedy was realized by the authorities of Azerbaijan, and concretely – somebody of those high standing."

"I am well aware of who had the Khojaly tragedy on their conscience. And it was not the Armenian side."

"The city and its inhabitants were deliberately sacrificed to the political goal – to prevent the People Front of Azerbaijan from coming to power."

"The event in Khojaly was organized by the political opponents to force my resignation. I found it doubtful that the Armenians would have allowed the Azerbaijanis to collect the bodies had the allegations of a massacre been true."

"Before Khojali, the Azerbaijanis thought that they were joking with us, they thought that the Armenians were people who could not raise their hand against the civilian population. We were able to break that stereotype."

"At about 11:00 p.m. the night before, some 2,000 Armenian fighters had advanced through the high grass on three sides of Khojalu, forcing the residents out through the open side to the east. By the morning of February 26, the refugees had made it to the eastern cusp of Mountainous Karabagh and had begun working their way downhill, toward safety in the Azeri city of Agdam, about six miles away. There, in the hillocks and within sight of safety, Mountainous Karabagh soldiers had chased them down. "They just shot and shot and shot, " a refugee woman, Raisha Aslanova, testified to a Human Rights Watch investigator. The Arabo fighters had then unsheathed the knives they had carried on their hips for so long, and began stabbing."

"About 1,000 of Khojaly`s 10,000 people were massacred by the Armenian Army in Tuesdays attack. Azerbaijani television showed truckloads of corpses being evacuated from the Khocaly area."

"Two groups, apparently families, had fallen together, the children cradled in the women’s arms. Several of them, including one small girl, had terrible head injuries: only her face was left. Survivors have told how they saw Armenians shooting them point blank as they lay on the ground."

"Um Ar-Rubai'bint Al-Bara', the mother of Hartha bin Suraqa came to the Prophet and said, "O Allah's Prophet! Will you tell me about Hartha?" Hartha has been killed (i.e. martyred) on the day of Badr with an arrow thrown by an unidentified person. She added, "If he is in Paradise, I will be patient; otherwise, I will weep bitterly for him." He said, "O mother of Hartha! There are Gardens in Paradise and your son got the Firdausal-ala (i.e. the best place in Paradise).""

"Aba Talha reported: When it was the Day of Badr and Allah's Apostle (may peace be upon him) had gained victory over them (the Meccans), he commanded more than twenty persons, and in another hadith these are counted as twenty-four persons, from the non-believers of the Quraish to be thrown into the well of Badr. The rest of the hadith is the same."

"Certainly, it can come as a jolt to discover that, with a single exception, we have no extant descriptions of the Battle of Badr that date from before the ninth century AD.... What if the entire account of the victory at Badr were nothing but a fiction, a dramatic just-so story, fashioned to explain allusions within the Qur’an that would otherwise have remained beyond explanation? A battle on a valley’s edge won against terrifying odds; angels swooping down to strike at infidel necks; plunder seized from routed caravans: the holy text certainly alludes to all these things. Yet, aside from a single name-check, Badr itself is never mentioned.52 There is certainly no confirmation that a great battle—such as the one described by Ibn Hisham—was ever fought there. Whatever else it may be, the Qur’an is no work of history."

"Among the prisoners taken at Badr were two men named 'Oqba b. Abi Mo'ayt and on-Nadr b. ol-Hareth. … It was Nadr who had said at Mecca, "We have already heard (such things). If we wished, we could say (things) like this. They are only fables of the ancients" (sura 8, verse 31). Death was the penalty which Nadr finally paid for that utterance. … At the next halt, 'Oqba was brought before the Prophet, and 'Asem b. Thabet was ordered to put him to death. 'Oqba cried out, "What is to happen to my children?" The Prophet answered, "Hellfire.""

"I asked Ibn 'Abbas regarding Surat-al-Anfal. He said, "It was revealed in connection with the Battle of Badr.""

"Once the Prophet was offering the prayer in the shade of the Ka'ba. Abu Jahl and some Quraishi men sent somebody to bring the abdominal contents of a shecamel which had been slaughtered somewhere in Mecca, and when he brought them, they put them over the Prophet Then Fatima (i.e. the Prophet's daughter) came and threw them away from him, and he said, "O Allah! Destroy (the pagans of) Quraish; O Allah! Destroy Quraish; O Allah Destroy Quraish," naming especially Abu Jahl bin Hisham, 'Utba bin Rabi'a, Shaiba bin Rabi'a, Al Walid bin 'Utba, Ubai bin Khalaf and 'Uqba bin Abi Mitt. (The narrator, 'Abdullah added, "I saw them all killed and thrown in the Badr well)."

"Az-Zubair said, "I met Ubaida bin Said bin Al-As on the day (of the battle) of Badr and he was covered with armor; so much that only his eyes were visible. He was surnamed Abu Dhat-al-Karish. He said (proudly), 'I am Abu-al-Karish.' I attacked him with the spear and pierced his eye and he died. I put my foot over his body to pull (that spear) out, but even then I had to use a great force to take it out as its both ends were bent." 'Urwa said, "Later on Allah's Apostle asked Az-Zubair for the spear and he gave it to him. When Allah's Apostle died, Az-Zubair took it back. After that Abu Bakr demanded it and he gave it to him, and when Abu Bakr died, Az-Zubair took it back. 'Umar then demanded it from him and he gave it to him. When 'Umar died, Az-Zubair took it back, and then 'Uthman demanded it from him and he gave it to him. When 'Uthman was martyred, the spear remained with Ali's offspring. Then 'Abdullah bin Az-Zubair demanded it back, and it remained with him till he was martyred."

"Hisham narrated on the authority of his father that it was mentioned to 'A'isha that Ibn 'Umar had narrated as marfu' hadith from the Apostle of Allah (may peace be upon him) that the dead would be punished in the grave because of the lamentation of his family for him. Upon this she said: He (Ibn 'Umar) missed (the point). The Messenger of Allah (may peace be upon him) had (in fact) said: He (the dead) is punished for his faults or for his sins, and the members of his family are wailing for him now. (This misunderstanding of Ibn 'Umar is similar to his saying:) The Messenger of Allah (may peace be upon him) stood by the well in which were lying the dead bodies of those polytheists who had been killed on the Day of Badr, and he said to them what he had to say, i. e.: They hear what I say. But he (Ibn 'Umar) misunderstood. The Holy Prophet (may peace be upon him) had only said: They (the dead) understand that what I used to say to them was truth. She then recited:" Certainly, thou canst not make the dead hear the call" (xxvii. 80), nor can you make those hear who are in the graves, nor can you inform them when they have taken their seats in Hell."

"The Prophet stood at the well of Badr (which contained the corpses of the pagans) and said, "Have you found true what your lord promised you?" Then he further said, "They now hear what I say." This was mentioned before 'Aisha and she said, "But the Prophet said, 'Now they know very well that what I used to tell them was the truth.' Then she recited (the Holy Verse):-- "You cannot make the dead hear... ...till the end of Verse)." (30.52)"

"On the day of Badr, the Prophet ordered that the corpses of twenty four leaders of Quraish should be thrown into one of the dirty dry wells of Badr. (It was a habit of the Prophet that whenever he conquered some people, he used to stay at the battle-field for three nights. So, on the third day of the battle of Badr, he ordered that his she-camel be saddled, then he set out, and his companions followed him saying among themselves." "Definitely he (i.e. the Prophet) is proceeding for some great purpose." When he halted at the edge of the well, he addressed the corpses of the Quraish infidels by their names and their fathers' names, "O so-and-so, son of so-and-so and O so-and-so, son of so-and-so! Would it have pleased you if you had obeyed Allah and His Apostle? We have found true what our Lord promised us. Have you too found true what your Lord promised you? "'Umar said, "O Allah's Apostle! You are speaking to bodies that have no souls!" Allah's Apostle said, "By Him in Whose Hand Muhammad's soul is, you do not hear, what I say better than they do." (Qatada said, "Allah brought them to life (again) to let them hear him, to reprimand them and slight them and take revenge over them and caused them to feel remorseful and regretful.")"

"Muhammad looked at the people of the well (the well in which the bodies of the pagans killed in the Battle of Badr were thrown) and said, "Have you found true what your Lord promised you?" Somebody said to him, "You are addressing dead people." He replied, "You do not hear better than they but they cannot reply.""

"(who was one of the Badr warriors) Gabriel came to the Prophet and said, "How do you look upon the warriors of Badr among yourselves?" The Prophet said, "As the best of the Muslims." or said a similar statement. On that, Gabriel said, "And so are the Angels who participated in the Badr (battle).""

"Narrated Said bin Al-Musaiyab: When the first civil strife (in Islam) took place because of the murder of 'Uthman, it left none of the Badr warriors alive. When the second civil strife, that is the battle of Al-Harra, took place, it left none of the Hudaibiya treaty companions alive. Then the third civil strife took place and it did not subside till it had exhausted all the strength of the people."

"The believers who failed to join the Ghazwa of Badr and those who took part in it are not equal (in reward)."

"The Badr warriors were given five thousand (Dirhams) each, yearly. 'Umar said, "I will surely give them more than what I will give to others.""

"On the day of Badr, (Quraishi) Emigrants received 100 shares of the war booty.""

"When it was the day (of the battle) of Badr, prisoners of war were brought including Al-Abbas who was undressed. [Muhammad] looked for a shirt for him. It was found that the shirt of 'Abdullah bin Ubai would do, so the Prophet let him wear it. That was the reason why the Prophet took off and gave his own shirt to 'Abdullah. (The narrator adds, "He had done the Prophet some favor for which the Prophet liked to reward him.")"

"I got an agreement written between me and Umaiya bin Khalaf that Umaiya would look after my property (or family) in Mecca and I would look after his in Medina. When I mentioned the word 'Ar-Rahman' in the documents, Umaiya said, "I do not know 'Ar-Rahman.' Write down to me your name, (with which you called yourself) in the Pre-lslamic Period of Ignorance." So, I wrote my name ' 'Abdu 'Amr'. On the day (of the battle) of Badr, when all the people went to sleep, I went up the hill to protect him. Bilal(1) saw him (i.e. Umaiya) and went to a gathering of Ansar and said, "(Here is) Umaiya bin Khalaf! Woe to me if he escapes!" So, a group of Ansar went out with Bilal to follow us ('Abdur-Rahman and Umaiya). Being afraid that they would catch us, I left Umaiya's son for them to keep them busy but the Ansar killed the son and insisted on following us. Umaiya was a fat man, and when they approached us, I told him to kneel down, and he knelt, and I laid myself on him to protect him, but the Ansar killed him by passing their swords underneath me, and one of them injured my foot with his sword. (The sub narrator said, " 'Abdur-Rahman used to show us the trace of the wound on the back of his foot.")"

"The Prophet (peace_be_upon_him) fixed the ransom of the people of pre-Islamic Arabia at four hundred dirhams per head on the day of the battle of Badr."

"I heard the Prophet reciting Surat-at-Tur in Maghrib prayer, and that was at a time when belief was first planted in my heart. The Prophet while speaking about the war prisoners of Badr, said, "Were Al-Mutim bin Adi alive and interceded with me for these filthy people, I would definitely forgive them for his sake.""

"Abu Zumail said that the hadith was narrated to him by Ibn 'Abbas who said: While on that day a Muslim was chasing a disbeliever who was going ahead of him, he heard over him' the swishing of the whip and the voice of the rider saying: Go ahead, Haizi'm! He glanced at the polytheist who had (now) fallen down on his back. When he looked at him (carefully he found that) there was a scar on his nose and his face was torn as if it had been lashed with a whip, and had turned green with its poison. An Ansari came to the Messenger of Allah (may peace be upon him) and related this (event) to him. He said: You have told the truth. This was the help from the third heaven. The Muslims that day (i. e. the day of the Battle of Badr) killed seventy persons and captured seventy. The Messenger of Allah (may peace be upon him) said to Abu Bakr and 'Umar (Allah be pleased with them): What is your opinion about these captives? Abu Bakr said: They are our kith and kin. I think you should release them after getting from them a ransom. This will be a source of strength to us against the infidels. It is quite possible that Allah may guide them to Islam. Then the Messenger of Allah (may peace be upon him) said: What is your opinion. Ibn Khattab? He said: Messenger of Allah. I do not hold the same opinion as Abu Bakr. I am of the opinion that you should hand them over to us so that we may cut off their heads. Hand over 'Aqil to 'Ali that he may cut off his head, and hand over such and such relative to me that I may but off his head. They are leaders of the disbelievers and veterans among them. The Messenger of Allah (may peace be upon him) approved the opinion of Abu Bakr and did not approve what I said The next day when I came to the Messenger of Allah (may peace be upon him), I found that both he and Abu Bakr were sitting shedding tears. I said: Messenger of Allah, why are you and your Companion shedding tears? Tell me the reason. For I will weep ate, if not, I will at least pretend to weep in sympathy with you. The Messenger of Allah (may peace be upon him) said: I weep for what has happened to your companions for taking ransom (from the prisoners). I was shown the torture to which they were subjected. It was brought to me as close as this tree. (He pointed to a tree close to him.) Then God revealed the verse:" It is not befitting for a prophet that he should take prisoners until the force of the disbelievers has been crushed..." to the end of the verse:" so eat ye the spoils of war, (it is) lawful and pure. So Allah made booty lawful for them.""