aggressive attack. The last of his expeditions was that of Tabūk, in which he led an army of thirty thousand against the Roman Empire, but when he found, on reaching the frontier, after a very long and tedious journey, that the Romans did not contemplate an offensive, he returned without attacking them. His action on this occasion also throws light on the fact that the permission to fight against the Christians contained in 9:29 was also subject to the condition laid down in 2:190 that the Muslims not be aggressive in war.
The opinion now held among the more enlightened European critics of Islām is, that though the Holy Prophet did not make use of force in the propagation of Islām, and that though he did not lead an aggressive attack against an enemy, in the whole of his life, yet this position was adopted by his immediate successors, and was therefore a natural development of his teaching. This opinion is also due to a misconception of the historical facts which led to the wars of the early Caliphate with the Persian and Roman empires. After the death of the Holy Prophet, when Arabia rose in insurrection and Abū Bakr, the first Caliph, was engaged in suppressing the revolt, both Persia and Rome openly helped the insurgents with men and money. It is difficult to go into details of history in a book which does not deal with the historical aspect of the question,3 but it would not be inappropriate to quote a modern writer who is in no way friendly to Islām:
“Chaldaea and southern Syria belong properly to Arabia. The tribes inhabiting this region, partly heathen but chiefly (at least in name) Christian, formed an integral part of the Arab race and as such fell within the immediate scope of the new Dispensation. When, however, these came into collision with the Muslim columns on the frontier, they were supported by their respective sovereigns,4 — the western by the Kaiser, and the eastern by the Chosroes. Thus the struggle widened.”5
There is actual historical evidence that Persia landed her forces in Bahrain to help the insurgents of that Arabian province, and a Christian woman, Sajāh, marched at the head of Christian tribes, from her home on the frontier of Persia, against Madīnah, the capital of Islām, and traversed the country right up to the central part.
3 I have dealt with this subject fully in my book The Early Caliphate.
4 Italics are mine.
5 Sir W. Muir, The Caliphate, p. 46.