At the end of the battle of Badr, Abu Sufyan had challenged the Muslims to a rematch a year later. This rematch was known as the Second Battle of Badr, and after seeing how much stronger the Muslims had gotten the Meccans were demoralized and decided to march back to Mecca. And so no battle never actually took place.
Around this time period many of the Prophet's multiple marriages took place. Reasons for those marriages included:
- Protecting vulnerable Muslim women
- Establishing peaceful ties with hostile tribes
- Teaching men to free their slave girls and marry them
- Promote the spirit of interfaith
- Demonstrating how to deal with marital conflict
- Testing the believers to see if they would believe the prophet or his wives
Lecture notes available at http://www.why-quran.org/?p=532.
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