AL-AHZAB (the Confederates) INVASION
Once again, peace and security enveloped the Arabian Peninsula and this turbulent area began to  experience a period of lull after a whole year warJews, however, whose treachery, intrigues and . The  disloyalty made them taste all types of humiliation and disgrace, were not admonished. After they had  been exiled to Khaibar, they remained waiting anxiously for the results of the skirmishes going on  between the Muslims and the idolaterstheir hopes, the events of the war were in favour of the
Muslims,
. Contrary to therefore they started a new stage of conspiracy and prepared themselves to deal a  deadly blow against the Muslims, but were too cowardly to manoeuvre directly against them, so they  laid a dreadful plan in order to achieve their objectivesof the Jews with some celebrities of Bani Nadir  went to Makkah to . Twenty chiefs negotiate an unholy alliance with Quraishgoad the people there to  attack the Messenger of . They began to Allupon him) promising them full support and backing. People  of Quraish, who had been âh (Peace be languid and proved too weak to challenge the Muslims at
Badr,  seized this opportunity to redeem their stained honour and blemished reputationdelegation set out for
Ghatfan, called them to do the . The same same, and they responded positively. The Jewish  delegation  then started a fresh effort and toured some parts of Arabia and managed to incite the confederates of  disbelief against the Prophet (Peace be upon him), his Message and the believers in AllKinanah and  other allies from Tihama, in the south; rallied, âh. Quraish, ranked and recruited four thousand men  under the leadership of Abu Sufyan. From the east there came tribes of Banu Saleem, Ghatfan, Bani
Murrah, etc. They all headed for Madinah and gathered in its vicinity at a time already agreed  upongreat army of ten thousand fighters. They in fact outnumbered all the Muslims in . It was a
Madinah, women, lads and elders includedtell the truth, if they had launched a surprise attack against
.
To Madinah, they could have exterminated all the Muslimsthe leadership inside the city was on the .
However, alert and the intelligence personnel managed to reconnoitre the area of the enemies, and  reported their movement to the people in charge in Madinah. The Messenger of Allâh (Peace be upon  him) summoned a high advisory board and conducted a careful discussion of a plan to defend
Madinah.
After a lengthy talk between military leaders and people possessed of sound advice, it was agreed, on  the proposal of an honourable Companion, Salman Al-Farisi, to dig trenches as defensive lines. The
Muslims, with the Prophet (encouraging, helping and reminding them of the reward in the Hereafter,
Peace be upon him) at their head, most actively and diligently started to build a trench around
Madinah. Severe hunger, bordering on starvation, could not dissuade or discourage them from  achieving their desperately sought objective. Salman said: O Messenger of Allâh! When siege was to  laid to us in Persia, we used to dig trenches to defend ourselves. It was really an unprecedented wise  plan. The Messenger of Allâh (Peace be upon him) hurriedly gave orders to implement the planeach  group of ten to dig. Sahl bin Sa‘d said: We were in . Forty yards was allocated to the company of the
Messenger of Allâh (Peace be upon him), the men used to dig and we evacuate the earth on our  backs.
Some preternatural Prophetic signs appeared in the process of trenching. Jabir bin ‘Abdullah, seeing  the
Prophet (Peace be upon him) starving, slaughtered a sheep, cooked some barley and requested the
Prophet (Peace be upon him) and some Companions to accept his invitation, but the Prophet (Peace  be  upon him) gathered all the thousand people engaged in digging the trench and they started to eat  until  they were all completely full and yet the shoulder of mutton and dough that was being baked  remained  as they were undiminished. A certain woman brought a handful of dates and passed by the Prophet
(Peace be upon him), who took the dates, threw them over his cloak and invited his followers to eat.
The dates began to increase in number until they dropped over the trim of his robe. Another illustrious  preternatural example went to the effect that an obstinate rock stood out as an immune obstacle in  the  ditch. The Prophet (Peace be upon him) took the spade and struck, and the rock immediately turned  into a loose sand dune. In another version, Al-Bara‘ said: On Al-Khandaq (the trench) Day there stood  out a rock too immune for our spades to break up. We therefore went to see the Messenger of Allâh
(Peace be upon him) for advice. He took the spade, and struck the rock uttering “in the Name of Allâh,