Muhammad: The Warrior Prophet

Although Muhammad began his struggle for a new order with a small guerrilla cadre capable of undertaking only limited hit-and-run raids, by the time he was ready to attack Mecca a decade later that small guerrilla force had grown into a large conventional army with integrated cavalry and infantry units capable of conducting large-scale combat operations. It was the first truly national military force in Arab history, and it was this conventional military instrument that Muhammad’s successors used to forge a great empire.

Muhammad’s rise to power was a textbook example of a successful insurgency, in all likelihood the first such example in antiquity. The West has been accustomed to thinking of the Arab conquests that followed Muhammad in purely conventional military terms. But the armies that achieved those conquests did not exist in Arabia before Muhammad. It was Muhammad’s successful unconventional guerrilla operations, his successful insurgency, that brought those armies into existence. The later Arab conquests, as regards both strategic concept and the new armies as instruments of military method, were the consequences of Muhammad’s prior military success as the leader of an insurgency.

This aspect of Muhammad’s military life as a guerrilla insurgent is likely to strike the reader as curious. But if the means and methods used by modern military analysts to characterize insurgency warfare are employed as categories of analysis, it is clear that Muhammad’s campaign to spread Islam throughout Arabia fulfilled all of the criteria. One requirement for an insurgency is a determined leader whose followers regard him as special in some way and worthy of their following him. In Muhammad’s case his own charismatic personality was enhanced by his deeply held belief that he was God’s Messenger, and that to follow Muhammad was to obey the dictates of God himself.

Insurgencies also require a messianic ideology, one that espouses a coherent creed or plan to replace the existing social, political, and economic order with a new order that is better, more just, or ordained by history or even by God himself. Muhammad used the new religious creed of Islam to challenge basic traditional Arab social institutions and values as oppressive and unholy and worthy of replacement. To this end he created the ummah, or community of believers, God’s community on earth, to serve as a messianic replacement for the clans and tribes that were the basis of traditional Arab society. One of Muhammad’s most important achievements was the establishment of new social institutions that greatly altered and in some cases completely replaced those of the old Arab social order.

Successful insurgencies also require a disciplined cadre of true believers to do the work of organizing and recruiting new members. Muhammad’s revolutionary cadre consisted of the small group of original converts he attracted in Mecca and took with him to Medina. These were the muhajirun, or emigrants. The first converts among the clans of Medina, the ansar, or helpers, also filled the ranks of the cadre. Within this revolutionary cadre was an inner circle of talented men, some of them later converts. Some, like Abdullah Ibn Ubay and Khalid al-Walid, were experienced field commanders and provided a much-needed source of military expertise. Muhammad’s inner circle advised him and saw to it that his directives were carried out. These advisers held key positions during the Prophet’s lifetime and fought among themselves for power after his death.

Once Muhammad had created his cadre of revolutionaries, he established a base from which to conduct military operations against his adversaries. These operations initially took the form of ambushes and raids aimed at isolating Mecca, the enemy’s main city, and other trading towns that opposed him. Only one in six Arabs lived in a city or town at this time; the others resided in the desert, living as pastoral nomads. Muhammad chose Medina as his base of operations because of its strategic location. Medina was close to the main caravan route from Mecca to Syria that constituted the economic lifeline of Mecca and other oases and towns dependent upon the caravan trade for their economic survival. Medina was also sufficiently distant from Mecca to permit Muhammad a relatively free hand in his efforts to convert the bedouin clans living along the caravan route. Muhammad understood that conversions and political alliances with the bedouins, not military engagements with the Meccans, were the keys to success.

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12 Comments to “Muhammad: The Warrior Prophet”
1-Muhammad himself was under siege by 10,000 arabian soldiers in his Madina and he had onlyt 3,000 soldiers!
2-Muhammad in the 1st 6 years in Madina was attacked 3 times each time by a massive force more than his army at least 3 time and he won!
“Deffensive wares”
3-All the dead soldiers from both sides in Muhaammad’s camaign was 270 soldiers and no 1 single Civilian !
4-”offence” Muhammad orderd an attack and Assasination of only 2 leadders later after being attacked to stop the danger comming from the arbian and Jewsh tribes after the 6th year in Madina and after bieng attacked from these tribes for a continious 6 years and by massive forces.

By muslim on Jul 25, 2008 at 8:39 am
Great. Very informative my friend. The muslims had such a huge empire. No other religion had such an empire. The muslims defeated all the greeks, romans and the mongols when they were asians. Then the muslims took over the mongol empire, from Arghun Khans childern.

By Sikh on Aug 17, 2008 at 6:27 am
Most people do not know though. But 15 000 muslims fought 600 000 Romans. ZafarKhan, who was a very blessed general of the delhi sultan reign, he was truly blessed by the Great Allah. He defeated both Kublai Khan, and Chingiizz Khan again and again. Google mongol conquests of india. The mongols ran from the muslims so many times. THIS WAS BEFORE THE MONGOLS CONVERTED TO ISLAM. The muslims conquered more then anyone else had ever had. The ottomans, and the mongols. Great respect to MY MUSLIM BROTHERS. MAD RESPECT!!!

By Sikh on Aug 17, 2008 at 6:28 am
sikh is full of it

By CREEK on Aug 28, 2008 at 9:17 am
Creek is right.

By McHugh on Aug 29, 2008 at 6:39 pm
mohammadism is a Satantically inspired belief, and mohammad was nothing but a bandit who was chosen by Satan to conduct the last attack on the True Faith of Christ. All of his success is due to the support of Satan. And now the muhamadins kill each other over the importance of the man’s brother-in-law! Get a grip.

By Stewart Moneymaker on Sep 12, 2008 at 12:26 pm
Hello friends,
Glad to address myself to knowledgeable ones.
Could you gear me toward a source on the above quotes Jewish tribes in arabia who fought against the Prophet?
And something about the ”Khans”.I believe they left footprints in the Levant: do you think they intermarried with Mohammed’s family?

By Chantal-E. on Sep 21, 2008 at 5:40 pm
anyone with a sane mind will immediately know that the great messenger of ALLAH never killed or attacked any kind of people except by rightous causes …. he accepted peace and offered it …. but the real problem is in the other side the west … you curse the messenger of GOD and you through charges as you like all because he defended whats right and banished what is wrong … you fight a man only because he says i worship ALLAH the all mighty god where there is no god but him … THE GOD of every thing … you accuse Mohamed of being satanic … if braying to god giving charity to the poor and protecting the weak from the strong .. ordering people to do whats right and leave whats wrong is satanic then you are crazy hard minded people with great envy on this region and its followers … notice that every single technology the Christians ever made was because their separation of science and Christianity which they missed up badly … and every single failure of Muslims made was because leaving the Islamic way of live …. and you are the last people to talk about the bandits because you annihilated complete civilizations with your ignorance and Christianity and stealing complete continents … and you never noticed that until you abandoned your sick satanic remodeling of the true Christianity given to you by GOD who has no partners ….

By karim on Sep 26, 2008 at 1:05 am
. . . karim, you prove my point better than I ever could. Your ignorance and thinly veiled hatred of everything you can’t understand, and mindless denial of the truth is what makes mohammadans like yourself a plague to mankind.

By Stewart on Oct 1, 2008 at 12:15 pm
Jesus never ordered the killing of anyone. People, having free will, have killed in His name, but He spoke of love, peace and respecting everyone. Including women. He never married either.
Mohammad had eleven wives - one nine years old! He ordered people killed if they did not convert to Islam. Very respectful.

By Jan Willard on Oct 14, 2008 at 8:19 am
The crusades were an eye opener to the muslims. A rag tag army from europa crushed muslim resistance each and every step of the way and conquered the ancient world’s biggest prize, Jerusalem. Amazing! It was just a prelude to the global dominance of the western world that was to come. Segno della croce invictus!

By The Realist on Nov 23, 2008 at 11:59 pm
to me prophet mohammad is indeed a bandit,adulterer and a murderer.he killed and rapped many people.it is a undeniable history truth.if he was really a prophet he should had shown love but not sexual addictions.he indeed inherited satanic characteristics.but the doloress lord jesus died for us to go to heaven.this is what we call a messiah or the son of god.he did not order people killing nor raping.BLESS THE LORD GOD.IN JESUS NAME I PRAY.

By jesussservant7 on Nov 29, 2008 at 12:20 pm

Muhammad: The Warrior Prophet

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