A Critical Exposition of the Popular 'Jihád'/Chapter 3/26

[Sidenote: 26. The first aggressions after the Hegira, if from Mohammad, might fairly be looked upon as retaliation.]

Even taking it for granted that the first aggressions after the Hegira were solely on the part of the Moslems, and that several of the caravans of the Koreish had been waylaid and plundered, and blood had been shed, it would be unfair to condemn Mohammad. Such attacks, had they been made, might fairly be looked upon as a retaliation for the ill-treatment of the Moslems before the flight from Mecca. "Public war is a state of armed hostility between sovereign nations or governments. It is a law and requisite of civilized existence that men live in political continuous societies, forming organized units called states or nations, whose constituents bear, enjoy and suffer, advance and retrograde together, in peace and in war. The citizen or native of hostile country is thus an enemy, as one of the constituents of the hostile state or nation, and as such is subjected to the hardships of war." The almost universal rule of most remote times was, and continues to be with barbarous nations, that the private individual of a hostile country is destined to suffer every privation of liberty and protection, and every description of family ties. But Mohammad protected the inoffensive citizen or private individual of the hostile country. He even protected those who had actually come out of Mecca to fight at Badr, but were reluctant to do so. Mohammad had desired quarters to be given to several persons in the Koreish army at Badr. Abul Bakhtari, Zamaa, Hárith Ibn Amir, Abbás and other Bani Háshim were amongst those named.