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3.The Battle of Badar by Keith O. Edwards [Email]

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Uploaded: Oct 06, 2005 - 07:15:03 AM
Last Updated: Jul 15, 2006 - 10:15:45 PM
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Keywords:
Jehad (2), Battle (29), Mohammed (3), Islam (6), Angel (26), Iraq (37), Iran (3)
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III. THE BATTLE OF BADAR

The spoils of war belong to Allah and His Messenger.
-- Sura VIII, THE SPOILS OF WAR

After being chased from Mecca in the year 622, Mohammed and his followers took up residence in the town of Yathrib. (Yathrib, about 200 miles north of Mecca, was later renamed Medina -- short for Madinat al-Nabi, or City of the Prophet.) The event is known as the hejira, which marks the birth of an independent Islamic community, and the year 622 became the year 1 of the Islamic calendar.

During this period, Mohammed and his followers had taken to robbing and looting caravans. This was their means of survival, and Islamic scholars point out that many of these caravans carried weapons of destruction that would be used against Mohammed and his followers, so it was necessary for them to attack the caravans first. In March, 624, word of a particularly wealthy caravan returning to Mecca from Syria reached Mohammed, he lured the caravan into an ambush near the village of Badr by filling the wells along the caravan's route with sand. (Source: New Encyclopædia Britannica, 15th Edition) The Prophet (praise be unto him) prayed for divine intervention with a gentle reminder to Allah: "God, I ask Thee to humiliate them tomorrow. God, if this Muslim band will perish today, Thou shall not be worshipped!"

The leader of the caravan, Abu Sufyan, knew that something was up, and he sent a rider on a fast camel to race to Mecca for help. There, a force of a thousand was organized to either save the caravan or to punish Mohammed in case they got there too late. But despite the superior numbers of the Meccans, Mohammed and his followers fought them and won the battle. The caravan was successfully hijacked, and many merchants were murdered.

The triumph of the battle was recorded in the Koran as a divine sanction. "It was not you who slew them, it was Allah!" (8:17) The Battle of Badar was Mohammed's first great military victory. It added to his prestige, and the plunder ended his economic hardship. It should also be noted that in addition to slaying many of the merchants, the Muslims released some captives if they could afford to pay a ransom; others were freed if they taught Muslims to read.

My music begins in the moments before dawn in the desert near Yathrib. At sunrise, there is the call to prayer to ask Allah for victory in the day's enterprise. At the prayer's end, the caravan can be heard in the distance, slowly approaching.

Be sure to listen for the moment of Divine intervention in the battle. According to some traditions, Allah, who had promised victory to the Muslims following the prayers of the Prophet Mohammed (PBUH), sent down from heaven first one thousand, then three thousand, and then five thousand angels to help the loyal Muslim mujahadin. These angelic warriors had a sword in one hand and a whip in the other, and whoever was struck by the whip was instantly killed. (Source: www.ziaraat.com ) Surely an inspiring scene for vivid music!

What meter (time) do you suppose this movement to be in? (Count your beats!) The Divine intervention in the battle is represented by the leitmotif of alternating (fluctuating) B-major and B-minor, which was introduced earlier in the prayer sequence. This juxtaposition symbolizes that Allah is unknowable.

The sheet music for this piece is available for a nominal fee at
my page at SibeliusMusic where you can also watch the music go by as the tune plays.

Hardware:
G4

Software:
Sibelius 3
Audion 3
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Cool! &mdash 10/06/05 - 10:16:40 AM
Though you "prefer the Quikctime General MIDI", I think this would
sound awesome with some real orchestra sounds - particularly strings
and brass in unison on the "exciting" stuff and some aud accents.
(Sounds a little too "video game" in this form, I think.)
Keep it up the epic stuff!
Thanks

[ Reply to This ]
Cool! &mdash 10/06/05 - 08:24:59 PM
I cordially invite anyone who is dissatisfied with QuickTime's General MIDI sounds to download the MIDI files of my music from
http://www.classicalarchives.com/aspire/e.html
or
http://www.newdepartures.org/cindex.html
and improve on them. As I specified in the Creative Commons License, you are free to tinkertoy with the music.

I have no doubt that the sounds could be more natural or otherwise improved, but doing so presents egregious problems. For one thing, if you're gonna be working with 16 different orchestral sounds (which this score calls for) in full reverb, I'd like to know what model computer you're using. It must be far advanced from my Dual-1.25MHz "Mirrored Drive-Door" G4, because it won't cut it. You can't use GarageBand, because it won't follow the tempo changes.

I've listened in amazement to the demo files of the Vienna Symphonic Library
http://www.vsl.co.at/en-us/67/90.vsl
and they are, in many cases, better than any recording of mere humans. It must take months of work to get the balance and every little nuance just right. Curiously, however, the original compositions offered there are, to my taste, about as exciting as listening to paint dry. Great sounds, but not much happening musically.

I guess I've opted for the opposite approach -- just elementary sounds, but good melody and a lot of variety in harmony and rhythm. I guess it all depends on what you want from music. But if you've got the computer and the software to do it, make all the improvements you like.

[ Reply to This ]
A Comment &mdash 10/07/05 - 09:44:22 PM
The end bit is the most interesting; I like energetic, bombastic classical. But it seems that all great composers give you just a little bit of that spliced with a lot of subdued, gentle stuff. 'Tis good, nevertheless.

[ Reply to This ]
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