The Madinan Period, Part 9: The Battle of Uhud, Part One
Section 3 of 13 · The Life of the Prophet Muhammad: The Madinan Period
What the Ghazawāt Achieved
These skirmishes, or small battles and ghazawāt, served a few objectives for the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him). First of all, they were hands-on military training. And this matter of military training is ʿibādah in itself. Allah (swt) says:
وَأَعِدُّوا۟ لَهُم مَّا ٱسْتَطَعْتُم مِّن قُوَّةٍ وَمِن رِّبَاطِ ٱلْخَيْلِ تُرْهِبُونَ بِهِۦ عَدُوَّ ٱللَّهِ وَعَدُوَّكُمْ وَءَاخَرِينَ مِن دُونِهِمْ لَا تَعْلَمُونَهُمُ ٱللَّهُ يَعْلَمُهُمْ ۚ وَمَا تُنفِقُوا۟ مِن شَىْءٍ فِى سَبِيلِ ٱللَّهِ يُوَفَّ إِلَيْكُمْ وَأَنتُمْ لَا تُظْلَمُونَ
“Prepare against them whatever force you can, and the trained horses whereby you frighten Allah’s enemy and your own enemy and others besides them whom you do not know. Allah knows them. Whatever thing you spend in the way of Allah, it will be paid to you in full, and you shall not be wronged.” (8:60)
Prepare whatever strength you can. So any training that could help a Muslim in jihād fī sabīlillāh is ʿibādah — just like praying, fasting and paying zakāh are ʿibādah. And if jihād is farḍ, then the preparation becomes farḍ too. So they were worshipping Allah (swt) through this training, and it was hands-on military training — not in a military school, but actual training in the field.
Second, it is tarbiyah, because the Companions would spend long stretches of time with the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him). So, for example, in the ghazwah just described, they were absent for an entire month, spending this time with the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him), travelling with him, eating with him, walking with him — and one is exposed to aspects of a person's character in travel that one might not be exposed to if the person is residing at home, because the mixing and the mingling when travelling with somebody is greater. So the Companions got to see the character of the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) in front of their eyes, and this is how they learned his Sunnah; they learned about his ʿibādah.
The third benefit of these ghazawāt is that they taught a Muslim how to be a member of a group, a jamāʿah — there is samʿ, there is obedience, there is discipline, there is sacrifice, because one is part of a group and not just an individual doing one's own thing. These are habits the Companions learned by travelling for such long, extended periods with the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him): a tarbiyah in how to be part of the ummah, because Islam is not an individualistic religion, it is a collective religion. Much of the ʿibādah in Islam is done collectively — ṣalāh is done collectively, Ḥajj is done collectively, ʿUmrah is done collectively, jihād most of the time is done collectively. So all of these are acts of worship the Companions learned from the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) in the field.