Dating the Emergence of the Warrior-Prophet in Maghāzī Literature

Abstract

1.1 “Prepare to Fight with All Your Might!” These words, spoken in the first person, and emphasising the narrative tension before battle, were used by Muḥammad to galvanise the Muslims as they prepared to face the Quraysh in Badr (2/624), according to the account in the Kitāb al-maghāzī by al-Wāqidī (d. 207/823).1 In maghāzī texts, the famous battles, such as Badr, Uḥud (3/625), al-Khandaq (5/627),2 and al-Fātḥ (8/629–30)3 are the highlights of the Prophet’s mission. He is represented as a valiant warrior, whose role as intercessor between earth and heaven is decisive in bringing the Believers (muʾminīn) to victory. The earliest sources we have on the life of Muḥammad are the maghāzī, but they are far from being a consistent literary genre because they encompass a mix of different types of texts: lists of martyrs, poetry, Qurʾānic explanations, anecdotes resembling those found in the Bible, and of course accounts of military expeditions. The principal characteristic of this literature is the omnipresence of subjects related to war: its rules, the eagerness in combat against the infidels, the distribution of spoils, stereotypes about the peoples who were conquered (mainly the People of the Book). Maghāzī literature began to take shape at the end of the Umayyad era, in the first decades of the second/eighth century: the conquests were receding into memory and the need to write down the key features of historic Islamic military successes arose. The end of the conquests had opened up space for a reflexive discourse on the past and origins of Islam, within the close relationship between Umayyad power and the first scholars to shape its memory.4