The Four Stages of Jihad and the Goals of the Early Expeditions

Dr. Yasir Qadhi explains the theological and strategic framework behind the early Muslim military expeditions. He emphasizes this is descriptive history of the Seerah, not prescriptive for the present, and gives a necessary disclaimer about the difference between historical Jihad and modern terrorism.

❧Why No Military Action in Mecca?

For all 13 years of the Meccan period, the Prophet ﷺ never ordered a single military response, despite Companions like Bilāl ibn Abī Rabāḥ being tortured in the streets, and Yāsir and Sumayyah (raḍiyallāhu ʿanhumā) being martyred. The Prophet ﷺ could theoretically have directed a Companion to quietly eliminate a persecutor, but he understood the repercussions: one killing would bring retaliation the Ummah could not survive. The principle is maṣāliḥ and mafāsid, weighing collective benefit against collective harm. The suffering of one had to be accepted to prevent the destruction of many.

Allāh confirmed this in the Quran: أَلَمْ تَرَ إِلَى الَّذِينَ قِيلَ لَهُمْ كُفُّوا أَيْدِيَكُمْ وَأَقِيمُوا الصَّلَاةَ وَآتُوا الزَّكَاةَ, "Do you not see those who were told: Lower your hands [don't fight], establish the prayer, and give charity?" The Quran criticizes some young Companions who were eager to fight, and then, when permission finally came, became hesitant. The speaker notes the universal pattern: those who talk the loudest often do the least.

❧The First Verse Permitting Jihad: Sūrat al-Ḥajj 22:39–41

Sūrat al-Ḥajj is a Meccan sūrah (or revealed right at the Hijra's beginning). It contains the first concession for military Jihad:

> أُذِنَ لِلَّذِينَ يُقَاتَلُونَ بِأَنَّهُمْ ظُلِمُوا ۚ وَإِنَّ اللَّهَ عَلَىٰ نَصْرِهِمْ لَقَدِيرٌ

> "Permission is given to those who are fought against because they have been wronged, and indeed Allāh is capable of giving them victory."

The word udhina (permission is given) is critical, Jihad is not the most important thing in Islam; it is a permission, not a first resort.

> الَّذِينَ أُخْرِجُوا مِن دِيَارِهِمْ بِغَيْرِ حَقٍّ إِلَّا أَن يَقُولُوا رَبُّنَا اللَّهُ

> "Those who were expelled from their homes for no reason except that they said: 'Our Lord is Allāh.'"

The justification is explicit: the people being given permission to fight are those who were persecuted, expelled, and had their property stolen solely for their belief. The verse continues:

> وَلَوْلَا دَفْعُ اللَّهِ النَّاسَ بَعْضَهُم بِبَعْضٍ لَّفَسَدَتِ الْأَرْضُ

> "Were it not for Allāh allowing people to repel one another, the earth would be filled with corruption."

The speaker draws the parallel: every society recognizes that oppressed people have the right to resist their oppressors. Even pacifists recognize that if people had not militarily opposed Hitler, the world would now be under fascism. The Islamic Just War Theory: fighting is permitted to repel ẓulm (oppression) and fasād (corruption).

❧Abū Bakr's Foresight

Abū Bakr (raḍiyallāhu ʿanhu) said when he heard Sūrat al-Ḥajj: "As soon as I heard it, I knew there would be war." He recognized that udhina, permission given, meant that war was now on the horizon.

❧The Four Stages of Jihad

1. No military Jihad, all 13 years in Makkah. Jihad of the nafs (soul): patience, forgiveness, trust in Allāh.

2. Permission given, not obligatory, immediately after the Hijra. The Prophet ﷺ called for volunteers; participation was not yet mandatory.

3. Jihad made wājib against the Quraish only, the bulk of the Prophetic Seerah. Other Arab tribes were not targeted unless they attacked first.

4. Jihad made wājib against all Arab polytheists, near the end of the Prophet's ﷺ life: أُمِرْتُ أَن أُقَاتِلَ النَّاسَ حَتَّى يَشْهَدُوا أَن لَا إِلَهَ إِلَّا اللَّهُ, "I have been commanded to fight the people [the Arabs of his time] until they testify that there is no god but Allāh."

The scholars differ on whether Stage 4 is a permanent commandment. The speaker notes that for the bulk of Islamic history, from the Abbasid period onward, Muslim rulers did not interpret Jihad as perpetual all-out war with all peoples. The geography of Islam today is essentially the geography of the first 100–150 years of the Islamic conquests; after that, no major expansion occurred, because there was no need that justified it.

❧Goals of the Early Military Expeditions

Three primary strategic goals shaped the early expeditions:

1. Demonstrate independent power: Show the Quraish, and the entire Arabian Peninsula, that the Muslims did not flee Makkah as weak refugees. They are an independent political and military force willing to fight for what was taken from them.

2. Cut off the Quraish's economic lifeline: The Quraish's entire wealth and prestige depended on riḥlat al-shitāʾi wa al-ṣayf, the winter caravan (to Yemen) and the summer caravan (to Syria). Madīnah sits directly on the northward road from Makkah to Syria. The Prophet ﷺ planned to interdict both routes: north to Syria (Bozrah/Buṣrā, the last trading post of the Byzantine empire, whose ancient ruins survive to this day), and south toward Yemen.

3. Expand the Islamic state through alliances: As expeditions ventured outward, neighboring tribes were invited to join non-aggression pacts. Even without conversion to Islam, a tribe that signed a treaty of alliance became part of the growing Muslim political sphere. This was how Madīnah's effective territory expanded, tribe by tribe, treaty by treaty.

❧Ghazwa and Sariyyah: Terminology

- Ghazwa (pl. ghazawāt): A military expedition the Prophet ﷺ himself accompanied. He always commanded. 19 total (by the ḥadīth of Zayd ibn Arqam in Bukhārī/Muslim), with actual fighting in only 8. The 8 most commonly cited: Badr, Uḥud, Aḥzāb (Khandaq), al-Muraysīʿ (or Banū al-Muṣṭaliq), al-Qadīd, Khaybar, Fatḥ al-Makkah, and Ḥunayn (with some lists adding Ṭāʾif separately).

- Sariyyah (pl. sarāyā): An expedition the Prophet ﷺ ordered but did not join. Numbered from 24 (one scholar) to 56 (Ibn al-Jawzī), depending on what constitutes a sariyyah, some were as small as three men on reconnaissance.

A notable pattern: every single early expedition, both ghazawāt and sarāyā, was composed exclusively of *Muhājirūn. Not one *Anṣārī participated in any expedition up to and including the pre-Badr period. The wisdom behind this arrangement will be explained when discussing Badr itself.