Dear questioner, thank you very much for your very important question. Indeed, Ramadan is the month of blessings, change and victory over one’s own desires and also over the falsehood and its people. The fasting Muslims have been able to perfectly repress their own desires during fasting, which is the greatest type of Jihad as mentioned in the hadith. So, it have been easier to them to gain triumph upon their enemies in the lesser type of Jihad. Brother Z A Rahman touched on some of these victories in the following lines:

 The battle of Badr:

Allah, the All-Merciful and Gracious, granted Muslims victory against the odds that would never be forgotten where 313 men, 2 horses and 70 camels defeated an army of 1000 men, 100 horses and 700 camels. Such was the measure of this victory that the cries of “Allahu Akbar” and “Ahad, Ahad” (God is One) reverberate right to this very day and the ripple effects of the victory continue to shake the ground from beneath us. The timeless reminder of this victory is preserved for us in the Glorious Qur’an when Allah, the Almighty, states:

And indeed Allah assisted you at Badr when you were weak, so be observant to your duty to Allah so that you may be of the thankful ones. When you said to the believers ‘Does it not suffice you that your Lord should assist you with three thousand angels sent down’. (Aal `Imran 3:123-124)

The Opening of Makkah

We should know that it was in this blessed month of reward, on the 20th of Ramadan, in the 8th year AH that the Prophet (peace be upon him) returned to Makkah not as the ruled, but as the ruler in the opening of Makkah (Fat-h Makkah), when he took it under the authority of Islam for the first time in the history of Islam. Makkah was conquered without a battle. He entered Makkah and treated the people justly. He personally went to the Ka`bah, pointed to the idols with his stick and recited the verse:

“The Truth has come and the falsehood has passed away; verily falsehood is sure to pass away.” (Al-Israa’ 17:81)

After that, all the idols which the Quraysh used to worship collapsed on their backs, one after the other, and then they were burnt, broken up and disposed of. Thus, Makkah was completely liberated and the age of worshipping idols such as Al-`Uzza, Suwa’ and Mannat therein were over forever.

Al-Qadisiyyah

In the year 636CE corresponding to 15AH in the month of Ramadan, the Muslim army led by Sa`d ibn Abu Waqqas (may Allah be pleased with him) consisting of 30,000 among which there were more than 700 companions and more than 70 veterans of Badr, set out to meet the Persian army in Qadisiyyah after the Muslims had made great strides into the Persian kingdom. This battle was set to pave the way for the demise of the Persian Empire. The Persian army was very imposing, numbering around 100,000 and had within its ranks, huge elephants wearing coats of mail with their tusks wrapped in silk and velvet. The Muslim army looked less impressive but what they lacked in resources, they made up for in their faith and unshakable conviction and thus, the ground was set for the spectacle of battle between two formidable armies.

After an early setback, a great companion, Qa`qaa` (may Allah be pleased with him) entered the fray having previously been posted in Syria. He joined the battle with a rousing cry of “Allahu Akbar” which immediately uplifted the Muslims for they knew Qa`qaa` was a man as good as an army and a man about whom Abu Bakr (may Allah be pleased with him) stated “No army can be defeated if in its ranks is the likes of this man”. Qa`qaa` brought down the great elephants and following this, the great Persian commander, Rustum was erased from the pages of history.

The Crusades

A divided Islamic world offered feeble resistance to the Crusaders who had invaded and consolidated their hold on the lands surrounding Al-Quds containing Islam’s third holiest site, Al-Masjid Al-Aqsa. The warring Muslim parties did not take the Crusader invasion seriously at this stage. After almost 100 years of occupation, in the words of Imam Ad-Din Al-Khatib: “Allah renewed Islam after it had declined and strengthened it after it had grown weak” through Nur Ad-Din and then by the man of the hour, perhaps the most celebrated of Muslim soldiers in the history of Islam, Salah Ad-Din Ayyubi, who threw down the gauntlet to the invading Crusaders.

After a number of battles, the decisive battle once again, as many times previously, took place in the blessed month of Ramadan in the year 582AH at the battle of Hattin. Leading up to this battle, one of the crusader kings, Renaud treacherously attacked a Muslim caravan during a period of truce. He seized these people, put them to torture, threw them into pits and imprisoned some in dungeons. When the prisoners objected and pointed out that there was a truce between the two peoples, he remonstrated: “Ask your Muhammad to deliver you”. The battle of Hattin which then followed, is considered by many to be the key to all the Muslim conquests against the crusaders and represented the period that the crusader tide began to recede which eventually resulted in the liberation of Al-Quds on the 27th of Rajab, which was said to have coincided with the Night Journey of the Prophet (peace be upon him).

The very first Friday Sermon delivered in Jerusalem following its liberation has been preserved for us until this very day began with a verse which was indeed apt for the magnanimous occasion:

So the people that committed wrong were eliminated. And all the praises and thanks be to Allah, the Lord of the worlds. (Al-Am`am 6:18)

The Mongols

Fierce mounted warriors swept out of Mongolia, laying waste to every city that refused to surrender. In 656AH, they unleashed their fury against Baghdad and breached its walls. They murdered and pillaged for a week – some estimates say that as many as 1,800,000 were killed. The whole Islamic world trembled in fear of the Mongols. This was such a decisive blow that for the first time since the very early stages of the faith at the time of Badr, there was a real fear that Islam and Muslims could be wiped off the face of the earth.

Amongst all this doom and gloom and when Muslims were in a real position of weakness, fear and apprehension, Allah raised for the Ummah His servant, Saif Ad-Din Qutuz who was a Mamluk (Mamluks had served as soldier-slaves for the Ayyubid sultans of Cairo). He united the Muslims, prepared them to fight, raised the necessary money and the army was mobilized to engage in the battle to defend Islam, its followers and lands, and to fight the usurping aggressor. Amongst the many renowned scholars who had encouraged the Muslims to unify behind Qutuz and prepare for the battle was the great scholar, Al-`Izz ibn `Abdus-Salam.

Lying between Qutuz and the Mongols, however, was another enemy of the Muslims—the crusader forces that had come to Palestine to reclaim the “Holy Land” for Christendom. From them, Qutuz sought safe passage and the right to buy supplies in order to engage the Mongols in war in Palestine. The crusaders consented. Qutuz, after all, was the only hope the crusaders had of ridding the area of the Mongols, who were as much of a worry to them as they were to the Muslims. As a result, the stage was set for a decisive clash between the Muslims and the Mongols. In the month of Ramadan, on Friday the 25th in 658 A.H was the infamous battle of `Ain Jalut.

Qutuz told his army to wait until they finished the Friday Salah, “Do not fight them until the sun passes the middle of the sky, the shadows appear and the winds stir, and the preachers and people start to implore Allah for us in their prayers,” and thereafter, the fighting began. Among the army of Qutuz was his General, Beybars, who would in time carve his own name into the honorary roll of warriors. By the Grace of Allah, they achieved their victory. The invaders were defeated and the whole of the world sighed in relief and stood in awe at the remarkable achievement of these noble sons of Islam. This was the first Mongol defeat since they had launched their westward thrust out of Mongolia 43 years earlier. Never again could they return with such thrust as they had done and in time, their descendants converted to Islam and began another glorious chapter in the history of Islam.

May Allah make this Ramadan a turning point in the Islamic history and make it join the months of victory! Amin!

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Source: Taken with modifications from www.islam21c.com