Military career of Muhammad

The military career of Muhammad (c. 570 – 8 June 632), the Islamic prophet, encompasses several expeditions and battles throughout the Hejaz region in the western Arabian Peninsula which took place in the final ten years of his life, from 622 to 632. His primary campaign was against his own tribe in Mecca, the Quraysh. Muhammad proclaimed prophethood around 610 and later migrated to Medina after being persecuted by the Quraysh in 622. After several battles against the Quraysh, Muhammad conquered Mecca in 629, ending his campaign against the tribe.

Alongside his campaign against the Quraysh, Muhammad led campaigns against several other tribes of Arabia, most notably the three Arabian Jewish tribes of Medina and the Jewish fortress at Khaybar. He expelled the Banu Qaynuqa tribe for violating the Constitution of Medina in 624, followed by the Banu Nadir who were expelled in May 625 after being accused of plotting to assassinate him. Finally, in 628, he besieged and invaded the Jewish fortress of Khaybar, which hosted more than 10,000 Jews, which Muslim sources say was retaliation for planning to ally themselves with the local Arab pagan tribes.During the final years of his life, Muhammad sent several armies against the Byzantine Empire and the Ghassanids in northern Arabia and the Levant, before conquering Mecca in 630 and leading a campaign against some Arab pagan tribes close to Mecca, most notably in Ta'if. The last army led by Muhammad before his death was in the Battle of Tabuk in October 630. By the time he died in 632, Muhammad had managed to unite most of the Arabian Peninsula, laying the foundation for the subsequent Islamic expansion under the caliphates and defining Islamic military jurisprudence.

Background

Muhammad's role in The Islamic Ghazwat

In his prophetic biography (Arabic: السيرة النبوية, romanized: as-Seerat un-Nabawiyyah) titled The Sealed Nectar (Arabic: الرحيق المختوم, romanized: ar-Rahiq al-Makhtum), Safiur Rahman Mubarakpuri cites Ibn Hisham in saying that Muhammad took part in the Ghazwat Wars, which took place between an alliance of the Quraysh and the Kinanah and the Qais 'Ailan, when he was 15, saying that "his efforts were confined to picking up the arrows of the enemy as they fell, and handing them over to his uncles."

Expeditions

The following tables list all military expeditions of Muhammad, divided between ghazawāt (Arabic: غزوات; expeditions Muhammad led personally) and sarāyā (Arabic: سرايا; expeditions dispatched under another commander).