Al-Barâ' (may Allah be pleased with him) gives the count of Badr: seventy of Quraysh killed, seventy taken captive.
Abû Sufyân had brought his caravan home safe. Many men of Quraysh had goods in it.
The biographers tell it: men who had lost fathers, sons and brothers at Badr went to him and to those owners.
They said: Muhammad has killed your best men. Help us with this wealth to fight him. And they did.
Those who disbelieve spend their wealth to turn people away from the way of Allah.
They will spend it. Then it will be a regret for them. Then they will be overcome.
Many commentators tie this verse to that money: the caravan's wealth, spent to march on Medina.
Quraysh gathered for war with its allies: the Ahâbîsh, clans of Kinâna, and the people of Tihâma.
Abû 'Azza, a poor poet with a family to feed, had been freed at Badr by the Prophet ﷺ, as a favour.
Safwân ibn Umayya asked for his poet's tongue. He said: Muhammad was generous to me. I will not side against him.
Safwân promised to make him rich, or to raise his daughters with his own. Abû 'Azza went out to rouse the tribes.
Jubayr ibn Mut'im told his slave Wahshî: kill Hamza for my uncle, and you are free. The book “Hamza” tells it.
Abû Sufyân led them out: three thousand men, with two hundred horses led beside them.
They took their women in litters, to keep the anger alive and so that no man would run.
They halted at 'Aynayn, a hill at the edge of the valley, facing Medina. A valley lay between it and Uhud.
It was the month of Shawwâl, in the third year after the Hijra.
A dream, before the day. Abû Mûsâ (may Allah be pleased with him): he ﷺ saw himself shake a sword, and its blade broke.
“That was what befell the believers at Uhud. I shook it again and it came back better: the opening Allah brought.”
“And I saw cows: they were the believers on the day of Uhud.” He ﷺ told the dream with its meaning.
A third image: his hand in a strong coat of mail, which he ﷺ read as Medina.
Quraysh was at the gates. In Medina, one question remained: stay inside, or go out to meet them?
At Badr, Quraysh lost seventy dead and seventy captives. A year later, it came back for its revenge.
This book tells Uhud from its causes to its lessons. It begins in Makkah, with the money of a caravan.
A year of money and anger became three thousand men camped facing Medina. The verse had already told the end.
Tonight, name one grudge you still feed with your time or your money, and give it nothing more.