On Islam and Jihad

of emphasis on militarism. The Prophet’s biographies were called ‘maghazi,’ that is ‘The Battles Fought by the Prophet,’ yet the Prophet Muhammad in fact did battle only three times in his entire life, and the period of his involvement in these battles did not total more than one and a half days. He fought, let it be said, in self-defence, when hemmed in by aggressors, where he simply had no option. But historians—flying in the face of fact—have converted his whole life into one of confrontation and war. We must keep it in mind that the Prophet Muhammad was born at a time when an atmosphere of militancy prevailed in the Arab society. But the Prophet always opted for the avoidance of conflict. For instance, in the campaign of Ahzab, the Prophet advised his Companions to dig a trench between them and the enemies, thus preventing a head-on clash. Another well-known instance of the Prophet’s dislike for hostilities is the Hudaybiyyah peace treaty made by accepting, unilaterally, all the conditions of the enemy. In the case of the conquest of Makkah, he avoided a battle altogether by making a rapid entry into the city with ten thousand Muslims—a number large enough to awe his enemies into submission. In this way, on all occasions, the Prophet endeavoured to achieve his objectives by peaceful rather than by war-like means. It is, therefore, unconscionable that in later biographical writing, all the events of his life have been arranged under the heading of ‘battles’ (ghazawat). How he managed to avert the cataclysms of war has not been dealt with in any of the works which purportedly depict his life. Ibn Khaldun, the celebrated 14th century historian, was the first to lay down definite rules for the study and writing of