The Scale of the Ghazawāt

What follows moves into the ghazawāt of the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him), the battles. But before that, a word, or a few issues, on the subject of jihād fī sabīlillāh in general. It is important to comment on this issue specifically because, during the ten years in Madīnah, the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) participated himself in nineteen battles, and he sent out, in addition to that, over fifty-five expeditions in which he was not part of. So adding all of these together comes to over seventy battles within a span of ten years — an average of some seven a year. Such a thing that took so much time from the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) and the Companions calls for comment. And it should be kept in mind that one battle takes some time to prepare: it takes a few months to finance and mobilise and organise the army, and then to send it out, and the time spent travelling, and the time spent coming back. So this was a huge burden on the Islamic state, the newly formed Islamic state.

Such a thing, that took so much time from the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) and was devoted so much energy — the question is, why? How come? A second reason is that this issue has become so controversial today, and there are all these different opinions thrown back and forth on what jihād really means, what is intended by it, what its objectives are, and what the wisdom behind it is. Since the ghazawāt of the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) will be discussed for quite a while, since it dominates the books of sīrah, especially in the Madinan era, some comments on this issue are needed first: what does it mean, and what is the wisdom behind it?