Author: Muhammad Hamidullah
Publisher: Kitab Bhavan
Year: 2007
Language: English
Pages: 158
ISBN/UPC (if available): 8171511538
Description
This book presents a military history of the Prophet Muhammad. To make it more comprehensive, maps, illustrations and sketches about the war have been added in the text.
In the course of the present century, methods and principles of warfare have changed, due to the phenomenal development of science, to such an extent that ancient campaigns, however epoch-making in their own time, now look like child's play. Armament has so greatly been transformed that the top secret deadly engines of our own younger days are more useful in museums than on the field of actual battle. The layman might therefore be thinking that the description of the wars of yore, however important or captivating to an historian has no practical military value in the changed circumstances. But no.
In the study of military history the object should be to derive from the records of the past campaigns lessons applicable to the present. To read with a view to acquiring merely knowledge of historical events if of little value. The size of modern armies and their approved armaments and means of communication render many lessons of the past inapplicable to the present. But human nature and the underlying principles of war do not change, and it is for this reason that valuable lessons can be learned from even the most ancient campaigns.
It is obvious that full use of the study of ancient campaigns can be made only when it is carefully scrutinized and when we find out how the commanders applied the principles and what were the results. The battles fought by Muhammad, the Prophet of Islam, are characteristic of the man, conspicuous, head and shoulder above many others, past or present. He had fought the enemy, often three times, and on some occasions even twelve and more times the number he could himself deploy, and he was practically always victorious.
Contents
Forewards
CHAPTER I
Preliminary Remarks
CHAPTER II
Badr-one of the "IFS" of History
CHAPTER III
Uhud
CHAPTER IV
The Battle of the Ditch
CHAPTER V
The Conquest of Mecca
CHAPTER VI
The Battles of Hunain and Ta'if
CHAPTER VII
Wars with the Jews
CHAPTER VIII
Military Intelligence in the time of the Prophet Muhammad
CHAPTER IX
Military Department of the Muslim State in the time of the Prophet
Index