First: Regarding his statement, “He fled several times during his campaigns,” he should be told: These words show that their speaker is among the most ignorant of the Messenger of Allah’s campaigns and life, may Allah bless him and grant him peace. Such ignorance is hardly surprising among the Rāfidah, for they are among the most ignorant of the Messenger’s life and the most ready to believe false accounts of it and reject true ones.

The battle of Badr was the first campaign involving combat. Before it, neither the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, nor Abū Bakr had fought any campaign against the unbelievers whatsoever. The campaigns in which the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, fought were nine: Badr, Uhud, the Trench, Banū al-Mustaliq, Dhū Qarad, Khaybar, the conquest of Mecca, Hunayn, and al-Tā’if. As for the campaigns in which he did not fight, there were some thirteen to nineteen. As for expeditions by military detachments, some involved fighting and others did not.

In any event, everyone agrees that Badr was the first (1) campaign involving combat. This is known to everyone acquainted with the Messenger’s life among scholars of Quranic exegesis, hadith, military campaigns, biography, jurisprudence, history, and historical reports. They know that Badr was the first campaign in which the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, fought, and that no earlier campaign or expedition by a military detachment involved fighting, except the incident involving Ibn al-Hadramī (2), in which Abū Bakr did not take part.