During the Age of Ignorance, the Arabs regarded war as a chance to massacre the weak, plunder their goods, destroy their villages and cattle, and rape their women. Islam, however, changed the concept of war. War became a way to rescue the oppressed and punish the oppressors. The ultimate aim of fighting battles (Ghazawat) was to save people from the worship of idols and false gods to bring them to Islam, the worship of Allah.

Furthermore, before the advent of Islam, war was a way of life for the desert Arabs. The war between the tribes of Bakr and Taghlab lasted over forty years and resulted in the deaths of seventy thousand men. Similarly, the war between the Aus and Khazraj tribes lasted more than one hundred years, with neither side willing to surrender. It was the nature of the Arabs to prolong wars rather than bow to their enemies, even when the wars were fought over trifles.

When the Prophet brought Islam to the Arabs, they responded in the way instinctive to them; they fought him. Nevertheless, the Prophet first set out to conquer their hearts before resorting to the sword. In all the battles that the Prophet fought, the total number of people who died, Muslims, pagans, Jews and Christians combined, was about one thousand. Moreover, these battles spanned no more than eight years. In this short span, with so little bloodshed, the Prophet brought almost the entire Arabian Peninsula under his sway.

Many historians inaccurately attribute the Prophet’s success to mere military prowess. When we consider how fond the Arabs were of fighting, and how willing they were to sacrifice thousands of their men no matter how insignificant the cause, we realise that the Prophet had weapons greater than the sword.