Editing Muhammad (section)

==Medinan period==
The life of Muhammad in the Medinan period can be reconstructed with much more certainty. In addition to a wealth of biographical data in the Qurʿan, we have extensive reports of ''maghāzī'' (military expeditions) that Muhammad led or organized and sent out. After the Qurʿan and some of the poetry preserved in the ''sirah'', modern historians regard the ''maghāzī'' works as the oldest sources on the life of Muhammad and the foundation of the Medinan portions of the ''sirah'', which are fuller and more trustworthy than the Meccan portions. Also, the Qurʿan and the ''sirah'' frequently corroborate each other for the Medinan period.

===Narrative form of the Medinan sirah===
For the period after the ''hijrah'', Ibn Isḥaq includes a detailed “chronological frame narrative” that gives the dates for Muhammad 's military expeditions and for the time he spent in Medina.

===Confronting the Meccans===
Soon after his arrival in Medina, Muhammad, following the Arabian custom at that time, began to send out ''raziʿahs'' or raiding parties against Meccan caravans. A wronged party was expected to take goods by force from an oppressor tribe. Muhammad and his followers believed that the Meccans had forced them out of their homes and businesses and thus owed them redress. When a group of Muhammad 's men captured a Meccan caravan at Nakhlah in late 623 or early 624 CE, this gave warning to the Meccans. Thus on their next trip north, in the spring of 624 CE, the Meccans stayed together in Syria until everyone was ready to return home in one great caravan led by Abu Sufyan, a wealthy and powerful leader of Mecca. Muhammad led about three hundred men to intercept this caravan, and the Meccans sent a force three times as large to protect it. Abu Sufyan evaded Muhammad and arrived safely back in Mecca, while Muhammad 's men and the Meccan force encountered each other by chance at Badr, where caravans stopped for water. The two forces engaged in battle and Muhammad 's men defeated the much larger polytheist army, killing about seventy Meccans. The Muslim victory at Badr (mentioned by name in ''surah''3:123) was taken by many as a sign that God was on Muhammad 's side, and this led to a large number of converts.

A year later, in the spring of 625 CE, Abu Sufyan led another Meccan army north to Medina for revenge. The two forces met on the hill of Uhud, just north of the Medinan settlement, and Muhammad and his men suffered a near disaster. After a fatal mistake by a detachment of his archers, Muhammad was injured but able to rally his forces. Abu Sufyan, seeing that about seventy Muslims and their allies had been killed, declared a victory and returned to Mecca (''surah''3:121–179 addresses the battle of Uhud). Two years later, in the spring of 627 CE, the Meccans, again under the command of Abu Sufyan, made their last attempt to stop Muhammad by force. This time the Muslims dug a trench across exposed areas into the settlement; this was sufficient to deter the Meccans and their allies, who withdrew after about two weeks (33:9–25). By this time Muhammad was in complete control of Medina, and Bedouin tribes in the surrounding area were making alliances with him and becoming Muslims.

===Confronting the Jews===
After each of the three battles mentioned above, one of the main Jewish clans was expelled from Medina. The primary reason was their failure to support Muhammad, marked by their collaboration with his enemies in Medina and their conspiracy with the Meccans. After the battle of Badr, the clan of Qaynuqaʿ was forced to leave Medina, and some of the emigrants (''muhajirun''), Muhammad 's followers from Mecca who had made the ''hijrah'', took over their marketplaces and soon controlled trade within the settlement. The clan of al-Naḍir was expelled after the battle of Uhud; they owned rich groves of palm trees that were distributed among Muhammad 's poor emigrant followers and others (''surah''59:2–10). The treatment of the third and last Jewish clan, the Qurayẓah, was much harsher because of evidence of a conspiracy during the battle of the trench in which they made plans to attack Muhammad 's forces from the rear. If this fifth-column plot had been carried out, it could have ended his career. After a siege of their strongholds, they surrendered and Muhammad put them on trial, appointing a judge from an Arab tribe that was allied to them. The verdict was that all the men of the clan were to be executed and the women and children were to be sold as slaves (''surah''33:26–27). In this one action of his career, Muhammad followed the customs and expectations of his day rather than his usual magnanimous treatment of his foes after battles and intrigues.

===Muhammad 's last years and his death===
In the spring of 628 CE, guided by a vision, Muhammad led a huge group of Muslims on the 270-mile journey from Medina to Mecca to perform the pilgrimage ceremonies. They camped at al-Hudaybiyah on the edge of the ''haram'', the sacred territory that surrounds Mecca. There Muhammad negotiated a treaty in which he agreed not to press his claim to complete the pilgrimage ceremonies that season, while the Meccan leaders promised to open the city to the Muslims the following year. They also agreed to a ten-year truce during which neither side would attack the other. In the spring of 629 CE, Muhammad led the first Muslim pilgrimage, an ''ʿumrah'' or “lesser pilgrimage” to Mecca. Later that year, a clan allied to the Meccans attacked a clan allied to Muhammad, thus breaking the treaty. Abu Sufyan and other Meccan leaders rushed to Medina to dissuade Muhammad from attacking their city, and they apparently agreed to surrender Mecca to him peacefully. Late in 629 CE Muhammad and his forces set out for Mecca, and early in 630 CE his native city was surrendered to him without a fight.

Just weeks after the surrender of Mecca, with Muhammad now in command of all of west-central Arabia, a large confederation of tribes from south and east of Mecca made one last attempt to stop him by force. Muhammad 's 12,000 men fought an army twice that size at Hunayn (mentioned by name in the Qurʿan, 9:25), and once again the Muslims and their allies defeated a much larger force of polytheists. After dividing up the spoils, Muhammad and his followers from Medina returned home, where he consolidated his position.

In late 630 CE, he undertook his largest and last military expedition, with a force said to number 30,000 men, to TAbuk, near the Gulf of Aqaba. Muhammad encountered no army, but this show of force demonstrated his intention to challenge the Byzantines for control of the northern part of the caravan route from Mecca to Syria. Ibn Ishaq and al-Waqidi record twenty-seven expeditions, including pilgrimages to Mecca and the expulsions of the three Jewish clans, that Muhammad led himself, but they say he actually fought in only nine. In addition to these, he organized and sent out more than fifty other expeditions. (For a complete list of these expeditions, see Watt, 1956, pp. 339–343.)

The following year, 631 CE, is called the “Year of Deputations.” Envoys from tribes all over Arabia traveled to Muhammad 's headquarters in Medina and surrendered to him. Some tribes may have seen these treaties as normal Arabian tribal alliances, but Muhammad regarded them as acceptance of Islam. The year 632 CE began on a sad note for Muhammad with the death of his young son Ibrahim. Later that spring the Prophet led to Mecca the largest number of Muslim pilgrims ever assembled during his lifetime on what came to be called his “Farewell Pilgrimage.” On the return trip to Medina, Muhammad contracted a fatal illness and knew his days were numbered.