Al Fijar War

the fifteen year old muhammad witnessed “al fijar “war and defended makkah with his tribe against the tribe of “hawazin” in this war that lasted four years.

this war started when an nu’man bin al munthir was looking for a person to lead a trading caravan from heera to ukadh. both al kittani and urwa al hawazini were ready to lead this caravan, an nu’man chose al hawazini. quraish knew that the tribe of “hawazin” would take revenge for their killed man.

the war started between both tribes in the sacred month. this caused quraish to stop fighting, but the tribe of “hawazin” promised quraish to resume this war the coming year.  this war lasted for 4 years at the time when “ukadh” market was held.

this war ended with an agreement held between the two tribes that quraish pay for those killed from hawazin’s side more tan the killed from quraish’s side; and they were twenty.

the prophet (pbuh) said that he was collecting the arrows that were shot on his tribe and in another statement he said (pbuh) that he shared his tribe in fighting and shooting with arrows, and continued saying that he wished not to do.

the scholars here interpreted the two different sayings and asked:” was muhammad collecting the arrows or shooting?” but it seems to be that he did both. this war lasted for 4 years; muhammad was 15 when it started and so he was only collecting arrows in this young age, but at the end of the war when he was near 20 he was able to shoot, defending his tribe.