Islam and Peace
Non-Violence and Islam
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could be cited only if the same state of affairs as
existed at the time of its revelation, were to prevail
once again.
The biographers of the Prophet of Islam have put
the number of
ghazwa
(battle) at more than 80. This
gives the impression that the Prophet of Islam in his
23-year prophetic career waged about four battles in
a year. But this impression is entirely baseless. The
truth is that the Prophet of Islam in his entire
prophetic life, engaged in war only on three
occasions. All the other incidents described as
ghazwa
were in actual fact examples of avoidance of
war and not instances of involvement in battle.
For instance, in the books of seerah, the incident of
Al-Ahzab is called a
ghazwa
(battle), whereas the
truth is that on this occasion the armed tribes of
Arabia, twelve thousand in number, reached the
borders of Medina with all intentions of waging
war, but the Prophet and his companions dug a
deep trench between them, thus successfully
preventing a battle from taking place. The same is
the case with all the other incidents called
ghazwa.
The opponents of the Prophet repeatedly tried to
