"The Arabic Muslim literature on Muhammad's maghazi is bountiful. Since this book focuses on Muhammad's maghazi, a survey of this literature is important not only to establish the centrality of the topic in Islamic thought but also to relay the uniqueness and contribution of this book. To that end, in this chapter, I will first explore that which classical Muslim narrators wrote on Muhammad's maghazi and the ways they used the accounts to reflect Allah's support for Muhammad and the believers. In the second section, I will examine discussions by modern and contemporary Muslims, relaying how they interpret the accounts of the maghazi. In particular, I will discuss their articulation of the motivations and results of Muhammad's military campaigns. The first two sections of this chapter will thus establish the centrality of the maghazi, as a literary genre, as well as its importance among Muslims, past and present. In the third section, I take the discussion to non-Muslim scholarship. I explore briefly early views on Muhammad and his career by non-Muslims, before I focus on works and arguments of key Western scholars from the nineteenth century until our present day"--

His campaigns, military thought, and insurgent strategy There are many biographies of the Prophet, and they tend to fall into three categories: pious works that emphasize the virtues of the early Islamic community, general works for non-Muslim or non-specialist readers, and source-critical works that grapple with historiographical problems inherent in early Islamic history. In The Generalship of Muhammad, Russ Rodgers charts a new path by merging original sources with the latest in military theory to examine Muhammad's military strengths and weaknesses. Incorporating military, political, and economic analyses, Rodgers focuses on Muhammad’s use of insurgency warfare in seventh-century Arabia to gain control of key cities such as Medina. Seeking to understand the operational aspects of these world-changing battles, he provides battlefield maps and explores the supply and logistic problems that would have plagued any military leader at the time. Rodgers explains how Muhammad organized his forces and gradually built his movement against sporadic resistance from his foes. He draws from the hadith literature to shed new light on the nature of the campaigns. He examines the Prophet's intelligence network and the employment of what would today be called special operations forces. And he considers the possibility that Muhammad received outside support to build and maintain his movement as a means to interdict trade routes between the Byzantine Empire and the Sasanid Persians.

"Gabriel analyzes the social, economic, and cultural environment in which Muhammad lived and the religion he inspired as they relate to his military achievements. Gabriel explains how Muhammad changed the social composition of Arab armies by replacing the traditional way of fighting - as individuals and clans - with a new command structure. He also relates Muhammad's masterful use of nonmilitary methods - bribery, alliance building, and political assassination - to strengthen his long-term position, even at the expense of short-term military considerations."--BOOK JACKET.

This book presents the Prophet as a military leader and shows how successfully he led his men through the hardship of war and adversity and won complete victory against all his enemies and established peace, goodness and justice for the first time in history in the Arabian peninsula in less than a decade. His achievements in the military field are a living tribute to his greatness as a military leader. Even when he was surrounded by enemies from all sides, he faced them with courage and skill and finally defeated them all but showed real magnanimity in victory and forgave them all.