Contradictions in claims of angelic help at the Battles of Badr and Uhud

The first Quranic claim of the Battle of Badr: Initially, one Muslim was claimed to be equivalent to TEN disbelievers, but later, after the companions' protest, becomes equivalent to TWO disbelievers?

At the time of the Battle of Badr it was estimated that the Meccan army outnumbered the Muslims. So Muhammad claimed, in God’s name, to encourage the Companions by saying that one Muslim is equivalent to ten disbelievers. But when the Companions heard this they were terrified, because they were being asked to face an army ten times their size and feared dying without battle. When the Companions protested, Muhammad was forced to placate them. He claimed the abrogation (نسخ) of the previous Quranic Verse and a Quranic concession was revealed saying that one Muslim is worth two disbelievers.

Quran [8:65]: O Prophet, exhort the believers to fight; if among you there are twenty patient ones, they will overcome two hundred; and if among you there are a hundred, they will overcome a thousand. 

Here the ratio is 1 Muslim : 10 enemies.

But after the protest from companions, Muhammad had to claim the revelation of this new verse:

Quran [8:66]: 
ٱلۡءَـٰنَ خَفَّفَ ٱللَّهُ عَنكُمۡ وَعَلِمَ أَنَّ فِیكُمۡ ضَعۡفࣰاۚ فَإِن یَكُن مِّنكُم مِّا۟ئَةࣱ صَابِرَةࣱ یَغۡلِبُوا۟ مِا۟ئَتَیۡنِۚ وَإِن یَكُن مِّنكُمۡ أَلۡفࣱ یَغۡلِبُوۤا۟ أَلۡفَیۡنِ بِإِذۡنِ ٱللَّهِۗ وَٱللَّهُ مَعَ ٱلصَّـٰبِرِینَ   

Now Allah has lightened (the burden) from you, and He has come to know that in you (there is) weakness. So if there are from you a hundred steadfast (ones), they will overcome two hundred. And if there are from you a thousand, they will overcome two thousand, 

Now the ratio drops to 1 Muslim : 2 enemies.

In Tafsir Qurtubi (commentary) on these two verses it is written (link):

Abu Dawud has narrated a tradition from Ibn Abbas, who said: This verse, "If there are twenty of you who are patient and persevering, they will overcome two hundred," was revealed, and this command was difficult and burdensome for the Muslims. At that time, Allah the Almighty had made it obligatory upon them that one of them should not flee from facing ten. Then, the command for alleviation was revealed (i.e. one of them will overcome 2 disbelievers).

What kind of God is this who does not know by Himself how many opponents one believer can face? And how are these Companions who do not trust God’s initial statement and protest in fear? Then Allah is forced to so drastically lighten the command that it falls from ten down to two.

Another major issue with Qur’an 8:66 arises from the phrase "وَعَلِمَ أَنَّ فِيكُمْ ضَعْفًا", “and He has come to know that in you there is weakness.”

The problem centers on the word ‘alima’ (عَلِمَ), which literally means “to come to know.” This implies acquiring knowledge of something previously unknown. It suggests that Allah learned something new about the believers’ weakness, which is a notion that contradicts the traditional Islamic understanding of God as all-knowing.

According to Islamic theology, the Creator is the Knower of the Unseen. From the very first moment of creation, He knew all events of the future, including every detail. His knowledge is complete and unchanging; it does not increase or develop over time because, by definition, He already knows everything from the beginning.

Therefore, the idea of Him "coming to know" something is in conflict with His attribute of being All-Knowing. This happened while there is no Allah present in the heavens, and Muhammad was himself writing the verse. Since he was only a human, thus committed a huge human mistake here. 

Note: Modern Muslim translators do complete distortion (Tehrif) in translation of this verse. They changed the translation with words like:

• He knew that in you there is weakness.
• He knows that in you there is weakness.
• He has knows there is weakness in you. 

All of them are wrong translations grammatically. 

Second claim about Badr: The promise of help by a thousand angels

The problem was that the number of the disbelievers turned out to be more than double. The Muslims numbered 313 while the Meccans numbered about a thousand (roughly three times more).

Previously Muhammad had said that one Muslim was only comparable to two disbelievers.

Again the Companions were terrified as now the ratio was three disbelievers per Muslim. To comfort them Muhammad again invoked new revelation, and this time in God’s name promised that a thousand angels had been sent to help the Muslims at Badr.

Quran [8:9–12]: (Remember) when you cried to your Lord for help, He answered you and said: I will send a thousand successive angels to aid you ... and (remember) when your Lord sent the command to the angels: “I am with you, so steady the hearts of the believers; I will cast terror into the hearts of the disbelievers—strike their necks and strike them over their fingertips.”

The background and reasons for the Meccans’ defeat at Badr were:

• Muhammad started raiding caravans after coming to Medina; he sent bandits who attacked Meccan trade caravans.
• When Abu Sufyan was returning with a large Meccan caravan, the Meccans hurried to Medina to protect the caravan and had no time to coordinate with allies. Because of that haste they did not call many of their tribal allies.
• The Meccans did not come intending total war; their main purpose was caravan protection. They disliked Muhammad and his Meccan opponents but did not want a full-scale battle with the people of Medina.
• When the Meccans reached near Badr they got a message that Abu Sufyan’s caravan was safe, so many left and returned to Mecca. Thus it is unclear how many of the original thousand actually participated in the battle.
• Seeing the Muslims’ resolve, Meccan morale collapsed, as they realized they could not win without heavy losses.
• For the Muslims it was a life-or-death fight, so they were highly motivated.
• At the start three horsemen from each side fought, and the three Muslims killed the three Meccan horsemen, further demoralizing the Meccans.
• When the full Muslim attack began, the Meccan force, which was already demoralized and divided, broke and many fled.
• History records many cases where smaller but motivated armies beat larger, disunited forces.

The people of the Jahiliyyah (pre-Islamic period) were superstitious and also fond of fantasy tales.

Thus a Companion fabricated a story that he saw a mounted angel striking the Meccans with a whip.

Sahih Muslim 1763:

...  Ibn `Abbas who said: While on that day a Muslim was chasing a disbeliever who was going ahead of him, he heard over him the swishing of the whip and the voice of the rider saying: Go ahead, Haizum! He glanced at the polytheist who had (now) fallen down on his back. When he looked at him (carefully he found that) there was a scar on his nose and his face was torn as if it had been lashed with a whip, and had turned green with its poison. An Ansari came to the Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) and related this (event) to him. He said: You have told the truth. This was the help from the third heaven.

When Muhammad heard this mythic story he was pleased because it confirmed him and added sanctity to him among the Muslims. He happily declared that yes, the angel had come from the third heaven.

Think about these questions rationally:

1. Why would an army of a thousand angels be needed to face the remaining Meccan force which was far smaller than a thousand? Would not a single angel be powerful enough to destroy an entire army?
2. If a thousand angels were indeed charging the Meccans on horseback with whips, why would the Muslims need to fight at all?
3. Why did only one angel appear to that one Ansari, while the other 999 angels were not seen? Why did 99% of Muslims not see any angel? Why did the entire Meccan army not see those thousand angels?
4. Is it not strange that a thousand angels on horseback are fighting the Meccans and God Himself is said to cast terror into the disbelievers’ hearts, yet still the Meccans managed to kill 13 Muslims in the battle? How could 1,000 angels, their horses, and God’s direct intervention fail to prevent 13 Muslims from being killed? 

The claim of angelic help again at the Battle of Uhud, but with opposite results

After the apparent success of the angel stories at Badr, Muhammad repeated a similar strategy at the Battle of Uhud, obtaining a Quranic verse promising 3,000 angels to aid the Muslims.

This time, the Meccan army numbered 3,000, while the Muslim army had only 1,000 soldiers. Things worsened when 300 Muslims abandoned the battlefield and returned to Medina, leaving just 700 to face 3,000 Meccans.

To boost the morale of the remaining Muslims, Muhammad once again relied on revelation. The original Quranic promise of 3,000 angels was abrogated and immediately increased to 5,000 angels.

If Allah had already promised divine assistance, and the power of a single angel would have been more than sufficient to defeat the enemy, why then was the promised number of angels increased? The adjustment appears to be a direct reaction to a human event i.e. the disheartened state of the soldiers. This suggests that the revelation functioned as a real-time response to a practical problemc, the army’s low morale, rather than as part of a fixed, pre-existing divine plan.

Quran 3:124–126:

Remember when you said to the believers, “Is it not enough for you that your Lord will send down three thousand angels to support you?” Indeed, if you are patient and mindful of God, your Lord will aid you with not three thousand but five thousand marked angels... This is revealed so that you may be glad and your hearts may be reassured; victory is from God who is mighty and wise, to cut off the arm of those who follow disbelief or to give them such humiliating defeat that they retreat in failure. (Translation by Maulana Maududi paraphrase)

Maududi in Tafhim al-Quran explains under verse 3:124 (link):

At the Battle of Uhud, when the Muslims saw that the enemy numbered three thousand, while about three hundred of them (out of thousand) had deserted, their hearts sank. Then the Prophet told them words promising help (initially three thousand angels, then five thousand) to console them.

But this time everything went contrary to Muhammad’s earlier promises:

• It was not the disbelievers who were humiliated; rather it was the Muslims who suffered humiliation (contrary to the Quranic PROMISE in the verse 3:126). Around seventy Muslims were killed and many fled in different directions.

Thus the prophetic predictions in God’s name clearly failed.

The usual Muslim excuse is that the prophecy of the disbelievers’ destruction applied only while the Muslims remained at their positions and did not flee for booty. But any rational person cannot accept this weak excuse, because if God truly has knowledge of the future then He must also have known that the Muslims would rush for spoils. Therefore predicting that the disbelievers would be destroyed shows ignorance of the future.

The Islamist claim: Verses 124–126 of Sura 3 were revealed about Badr, not Uhud

Islamist apologists point to verse 3:123:

And indeed Allah helped you at Badr when you were weak. So fear Allah that you may be grateful.

Our Response:

The ordering of Quranic verses was not arranged strictly by revelation chronology; later Muslims compiled them into different suras. Among Muslim scholars there is disagreement whether verses 124–126 are linked to verse 123; many understand those verses as referring to the Battle of Uhud rather than Badr. See Tafhim al-Quran for an explanation, as at Badr the promise was increased to three thousand, while at Uhud the promise was increased from three thousand to five thousand.

Islamist argument: The angels at Uhud were sent ONLY to reassure hearts, not to Fight

Some modern Islamist apologists have distorted the translation of Quran 3:126 to claim that the angels sent to support Muslims at Uhud were merely symbolic, intended only to reassure hearts rather than participate in combat. They render 3:126 as:

And Allah made it ONLY as glad tidings for you and so that your hearts might be reassured thereby. Victory is only from Allah, the Almighty, the Wise. (translation by Tahir ul-Qadri)

This translation misrepresents the Arabic. The key word إِلَّا (illā) literally means “but” or “except”, not strictly “only.” A more accurate rendering is (link):

• Yousuf Ali: “Allah made it BUT a message of hope for you, and an assurance to your hearts.”

• Sahih International: “And Allah made it not EXCEPT as [a sign of] good tidings for you and to reassure your hearts thereby.”

In other words, the verse emphasizes encouragement, but it does not rule out actual combat involvement. The Quran never says the angels were “only” for reassurance. That “only” is a fabrication of modern translators trying to save face.

And history exposes the lie. Early Islamic sources are full of claims that angels literally fought in battles. At Badr, Sahih Muslim 1763 records a companion witnessing an angel striking an enemy with a whip. This was not metaphorical. It was presented as a physical, visible event.

So why the apologetic rebranding? Because the idea of heavenly beings fighting with whips and swords sounds absurd in the modern age. It clashes with science, logic, and even basic credibility. That’s why today’s preachers want to reduce the angels to nothing more than “moral support”, which is an attempt to make the Quran less ridiculous to a 21st-century audience.

But the text itself, and the historical accounts, refuse to comply. The angels were not just symbolic. They were claimed to be actual warriors in the battlefield.

Thus, the Islamist argument that angels at Uhud were sent “only for reassurance” is nothing but distortion. It is a modern cover-up of an ancient claim that has aged poorly. The Quran’s own wording and the earliest Islamic traditions clearly show the angels were imagined as both a source of encouragement and literal participants in war.