The Army of Hardship

Significance

The Tabūk campaign was in Rajab of the ninth year of the Hijra, the last of the Prophet's ﷺ campaigns. He set out in intense summer heat with little in the way of mounts and provision, so his army was called "the Army of Hardship." The Prophet ﷺ covered some seven hundred kilometres north of Madīna to the edges of al-Shām, engaged no Roman force, and returned after twenty nights there. Allah revealed regarding it: {Allah has already forgiven the Prophet and the Muhājirūn and Anṣār who followed him in the hour of hardship} [al-Tawba: 117].