By 630 C.E. Muhammad had humbled Mecca and broken the last serious resistance in the Hijaz. The Kaaba was now an Islamic shrine. Quraysh chiefs wore the label “Muslim.” The idols were smashed, and the city that once drove him out now served as his prestige center. But the work of domination was not yet complete.

Power in Arabia did not rest only in Mecca and Medina. Influential tribes still lay outside his control. Wealthy agricultural towns such as Ta’if stood in the hills. Jewish and Christian communities existed to the north. Powerful Bedouin coalitions could still threaten trade. If Muhammad wanted the whole peninsula under his banner, he had to break and absorb these remaining centers.

Chapters 10–17 have shown the progression: from raiding caravans, to expelling and slaughtering Jews, to seizing Mecca under the shadow of 10,000 swords. Chapter 18 shows the final consolidation. Muhammad’s campaigns at Hunayn, Ta’if, and Tabuk are not minor epilogues. They reveal the mature shape of his movement: a system that offers outsiders three options—embrace Islam, submit and pay, or face war.

This chapter traces how Muhammad used the Battle of Hunayn to enslave thousands of women and children, how he hurled stones and fire against Ta’if while burning their vineyards, how he marched to Tabuk in a show of force that achieved no conventional battle yet tightened his grip on Christian Arab tribes, and how the doctrine of jizya and the “Year of Delegations” turned fear into formal submission. The pattern “Islam, war, or tribute” emerges fully formed. It would echo through Islamic history for centuries.

Battle of Hunayn and the Hawazin Women Enslaved

The conquest of Mecca did not calm all Arabia. For some tribes, it was an alarm bell. If Muhammad could topple the guardians of the Kaaba, who was next?

Among those most threatened were the Hawazin, a powerful tribal confederation, and their close allies the Thaqif of Ta’if. They understood how Muhammad’s system worked. He had already surrounded enemies, besieged them, exterminated one Jewish tribe and expelled others, then marched on Mecca at the head of a massive force. If they waited passively, they would likely face the same fate one by one. So they made a decision: strike first.

Under the leadership of Malik ibn ‘Awf, the Hawazin assembled a large force and advanced toward Hunayn, a valley between Mecca and Ta’if. Malik made a fateful choice. He brought along their families and livestock, reasoning that no Arab would flee the battlefield while his wife and children were present. It was a tribal calculation, not a godly one, but it shows how desperate they were.

Muhammad heard of their mobilization and responded with a show of overwhelming numbers. The army that marched out from Mecca toward Hunayn numbered around 12,000 men: the 10,000 who had conquered Mecca plus an additional 2,000 new Meccan converts. This was the largest force he had ever commanded. Confidence surged. Some of his followers boasted, “We will not be defeated today because of small numbers.” They had forgotten that previous victories had been painted as miracles precisely because they were outnumbered. Now they trusted in mass.

As they entered the Hunayn valley in the early morning, the Muslims walked into a well-planned ambush. Hawazin forces, hidden on the slopes, rained arrows and rushed down. The front ranks of Muhammad’s army broke. Panic spread. Those who had recently joined from Mecca fled first; others followed. The vast column that had looked invincible turned into a disorderly retreat.

In that chaos, Muhammad himself remained with a small group of core companions. Traditions describe him on a mule or camel, calling out, “I am the Prophet, this is no lie; I am the son of ‘Abd al-Muttalib!” He ordered his uncle Al-‘Abbas to call the Ansar and Muhajirun by their tribal slogans. Gradually, some rallied, turned, and fought back. Hawazin’s initial success dissolved as their fighters pressed forward in disarray, exposing themselves to counterattack.

The battle swung. Once the Muslims regained composure, their numbers told. Hawazin lines broke. What began as a near-disaster ended as one of Muhammad’s most lucrative victories.

The spoil was enormous. Sources speak of around 24,000 or more camels, tens of thousands of sheep and goats, and approximately 6,000 women and children taken as captives. The very decision of Malik ibn ‘Awf to bring families had played directly into Muhammad’s hands. In one stroke he gained a mountain of wealth and an entire population of enslaved females and minors.

These captives were driven to a place called Ji‘rana, near Mecca, and held there like living property. The men of Hawazin who survived scattered. Many of them now faced a terrible future: their wives and daughters parceled out as sex-slaves, their sons raised in foreign households as servants, their tribal identity shattered.

At Ji‘rana, Muhammad delayed distributing the captives, sensing political advantage. He did, however, begin dividing the livestock and other goods, and he did something that shocked some of the older Muslims. He gave lavish gifts—hundreds of camels, large herds—to recently converted Meccan chiefs: Abu Sufyan, his sons, and others. These men had been his enemies for years. Now they received disproportionate shares.

When some of the Ansar grumbled, Muhammad explained that he wanted to “win their hearts,” a phrase that would later become a technical category in Islamic law: those whose hearts are to be reconciled. In practice, this meant buying loyalty with war plunder. Former enemies became enthusiastic Muslims when they realized that following Muhammad meant not only survival but also getting rich.

As for the Hawazin women and children, a development followed that Muslim sources present as noble but which in fact underlines the horror. A delegation from Hawazin, having regrouped and by now formally professing Islam, came to Muhammad pleading for their families. They admitted defeat and declared their submission. They asked him to choose between returning their fortune and restoring their loved ones. He claimed that he could not give up both; they chose their families.

Even then, the captives were not automatically freed. Muhammad told them that whatever he personally held was theirs, and whatever was held by his clan would be released. But the rest belonged to the wider Muslim army. He staged a public appeal, asking the fighters to return captives voluntarily. Many did, influenced by the Prophet’s request and the hope of heavenly reward. Others refused until compensated with other goods. Some captives had already been taken into households and violated. A portion were never returned at all.

The key point is this: at Hunayn, mass enslavement was not an accident. It was the logical outcome of Muhammad’s war doctrine. Women and children were recognized as spoils of war. Their bodies were part of the prize. Their freedom depended on whether their men converted and whether their owners were willing to release them.

Jehovah’s standard could not be more different. The God of the Bible condemns man-stealing and demands protection for widows and orphans. He never commands His people to take captive women as sexual rewards. In Christ, the congregation is called to see all believers—male and female, slave and free—as one body, and to treat all outsiders with dignity, calling them to repentance, not turning their families into chattel. The enslavement of the Hawazin women and children at Hunayn exposes the true heart of Muhammad’s system: conquest wrapped in pious slogans, with human beings reduced to merchandise.

Siege of Ta’if: Catapults and Burned Vineyards

The Hawazin defeat did not end resistance. The Thaqif of Ta’if, closely allied with Hawazin, retreated into their fortified city high in the mountains. Ta’if was wealthy, with vineyards, orchards, and strong walls. Its people were proud and deeply attached to their god, al-Lat, whose shrine stood in and around the city.

Fresh from victory at Hunayn and laden with spoils, Muhammad marched to Ta’if. He demanded submission; they refused. So he laid siege.

This siege shows Muhammad using techniques that go beyond raids and small battles. His forces encircled the city and tried various assaults. They employed a “dababa,” a mobile shelter under which men could approach the walls, and, according to Islamic sources, they used manjaniq—catapults—to hurl stones into the city. Whether these were simple torsion engines or more primitive devices, the point remains: Muhammad escalated to siege engines.

The defenders responded with arrows and stones, injuring and killing attackers. The Muslims who tried to approach under the wooden shelter found it burned by flaming projectiles. After several failed assaults and mounting casualties, it became clear that Ta’if would not fall quickly.

At that point Muhammad changed tactics. If direct assault could not break Thaqif, economic devastation might. He ordered the cutting and burning of their vineyards and orchards. The very groves that sustained Ta’if’s wealth and life were put to the torch. Smoke rose around the city as vines and trees that had taken years to grow were destroyed in days.

For Arabs, such devastation was shocking. Though raiding and killing were common, there were still unwritten rules. Destroying fruit-bearing trees was often considered excessive, an attack not just on the current generation but on future sustenance. Muhammad’s own followers were unsettled. Some reports say that Thaqif cried out, “You came claiming to reform, yet you destroy our means of livelihood!” Even some Muslims pleaded on their behalf, saying that the trees belonged to people who might yet accept Islam.

Muhammad, according to these accounts, paused and then partially reversed the order, allowing some trees to remain. But the damage was done. The message was clear: resist me and I will not only fight you; I will destroy your food sources.

The contrast with Jehovah’s revealed Law is striking. In Deuteronomy, when Israel besieged a city, they were explicitly forbidden to cut down fruit trees for siege works. They were allowed to use non-fruit trees but commanded to spare those that provided food. Jehovah tied His people’s warfare to respect for His creation and for long-term human welfare. Muhammad did the opposite. He weaponized agricultural destruction to break a city’s will.

In the end, Ta’if did not fall during that siege. After several weeks, Muhammad lifted the siege and withdrew. Some of his men were disappointed, having expected another quick victory with more spoils. Yet time and fear did what direct attack could not. Months later, seeing the tide of Arabian politics turning, Thaqif sent a delegation to Medina to negotiate their submission. They bargained hard over issues like abolishing their idol al-Lat and being excused from destroying their own shrine, but ultimately they capitulated and embraced Islam.

Thus, even a “failed” siege served Muhammad’s larger ambition. He demonstrated his willingness to use siege weapons and economic devastation; he made clear that Ta’if could not stand alone indefinitely; and he ensured that when the city finally submitted, it did so as a defeated party, not as an equal partner. The terror of catapults and burned vineyards did its work over time.

Again, this is worlds away from the way Christ extends His kingdom. The Lord Jesus never surrounded a town and starved it into compliance. He sent His disciples to preach and, if rejected, to shake the dust off their feet and move on. He warned of Jehovah’s future judgment but did not personally organize sieges. Muhammad, by contrast, built his movement on the visible instruments of worldly conquest, including techniques that Jehovah had explicitly restrained in Israel’s law.

Tabuk: The Last Jihad That Never Happened

After Hunayn and Ta’if, Muhammad turned his gaze northward. Rumors spread that the Byzantine Empire, alarmed by his growing power, was gathering forces near the borderlands. Whether these reports were accurate or exaggerated, they provided a new opportunity: a foreign threat that could unite the tribes under his command.

In 630–631 C.E., he called for a major expedition toward Tabuk, an oasis near the northern edge of Arabia. This campaign is often called the last of his major “jihad” journeys. The Qur’an devotes significant portions of Surah 9 to this episode, rebuking those who lagged behind and praising those who contributed their wealth and lives.

The conditions were harsh. It was the hot season. Fruit in Medina’s orchards was ripening. The journey was long—hundreds of kilometers across difficult terrain. Supplies were limited. Some men needed to share camels; some lacked proper weapons. Wealthy companions like ‘Uthman ibn ‘Affan were prodded to give generously to outfit the army.

Muhammad framed participation as a spiritual duty. Those who hesitated were labeled hypocrites. Excuses were mocked. Men with weak faith preferred the shade of their palm trees; men devoted to Allah and His messenger, he said, marched into the heat.

When the army finally reached Tabuk, however, there was no Byzantine army waiting. No major battle took place. The Romans, if they had ever planned a move, were nowhere in sight. Muhammad and his forces camped, waited, and found only scattered local tribes.

From a military viewpoint, the expedition was anticlimactic. But Muhammad turned it into a different kind of victory.

He summoned local Christian Arab tribes—such as the people of Ayla (Eilat), Jarba, and Adhruh—and offered them the standard triad: accept Islam, submit and pay, or face war. These communities chose submission. They agreed to pay jizya, a per-head tax, in exchange for being allowed to retain their faith under Muslim dominance. Treaties were written specifying annual tribute in gold dinars or equivalent goods.

In this way, Muhammad extended his influence beyond the Hijaz into the borderlands. He did not need a pitched battle with the Byzantines. The mere prospect of his army moving north, combined with his reputation after Mecca, Hunayn, and Ta’if, was enough to make provincial rulers negotiate. Tabuk became the “jihad that never happened” militarily but that delivered political and financial subordination of Christian Arabs.

He also used the campaign to purge internal opposition. Surah 9’s biting language against those who stayed behind or built a “mosque of harm” near Medina is rooted in this period. Men who pleaded legitimate hardship were lumped together with those who simply preferred comfort. The expedition, though bloodless externally, served as an instrument of internal control. If you had not marched with Muhammad, you were suspect.

From Jehovah’s perspective, this kind of manipulation is not righteous leadership. The Lord Jesus warned about hypocrites, but He did not threaten to strip their civil rights or livelihood. The apostles urged believers to give generously for the work of the Gospel, but they did not turn refusal to march with them into grounds for political suspicion. Muhammad’s use of Tabuk shows again that every campaign, even one without an enemy on the field, could be spun as proof of loyalty—and leveraged to wring money and submission from others.

Jizya and the Humiliation of Christians and Jews

The agreements at Tabuk brought a new concept into clear view: jizya. While Jews had already experienced expulsion and massacre under Muhammad, and some communities had been forced into tribute-like arrangements, it was in the late Medinan period that jizya was openly codified as a tool of control over “People of the Book.”

The Qur’an’s directive is blunt. In Surah 9, the same chapter shaped by Tabuk and its aftermath, Muhammad proclaims that Muslims must fight those who do not believe in Allah or His messenger and who do not follow the religion of truth—specifically naming Jews and Christians—“until they pay the jizya by hand, in acknowledgment of subordination.” The phrase “and they are humbled” or “while they are humbled” (wa hum saghirun) states the purpose clearly: jizya is not merely revenue; it is a sign of crushing.

In practice, jizya functioned as a per-head tax on adult non-Muslim males living under Islamic rule. It was distinct from zakat, the alms tax levied on Muslims. Refusal to pay could be treated as rebellion; payment bought a degree of protection but cemented second-class status. Over time, jurists and rulers developed an array of humiliating rituals around its collection. In some places and periods, dhimmis (subjugated Jews and Christians) were required to present themselves in person, bowing or standing while an official struck them lightly on the neck or face as they handed over the coins—a small echo of the sword that could fall if they failed to comply.

Tabuk’s treaties with Christian towns exemplify this. The people of Ayla, for example, agreed to pay a specified number of dinars annually and to host Muslim travelers. In return, they were promised security for their persons, boats, and caravans. The agreement made them tributaries. Their continued existence as Christian communities depended on regular payments and political submission to Muhammad.

The theology underlying jizya is simple: Islam claims to be the final revelation; Jews and Christians who do not accept it are in error but may be tolerated in a conquered society if they acknowledge their inferiority and fund the Islamic state. Their continued open confession of Christ or adherence to the Hebrew Scriptures is treated as a tolerated mistake, not as a path to salvation. Their money and humiliation are a constant reminder that they lost.

In the New Testament, there is nothing like this. The apostles tell Christians to pay taxes to secular authorities, even unjust ones, as part of submission to Jehovah’s permitted order. But they never direct believers to conquer lands and impose a special tax on non-Christians. The church’s “weapons” are the preaching of the Word, prayer, and holy conduct, not the sword and the tax collector’s ledger. Where Christians have acted otherwise in history, they have departed from their Lord’s instructions.

Jizya, by contrast, is baked into Muhammad’s system from its founding period. After his death, Muslim rulers would extend it across the Middle East, North Africa, parts of Europe, and Asia. Jews and Christians would live for centuries as dhimmis, their social position permanently marked by the logic first seen at Tabuk: fight them until they submit and pay, humbled in their own lands.

Delegation Season: Tribes Buying Survival

With Mecca subdued, Hunayn plundered, Ta’if pressured into eventual submission, and northern Christian oases brought under jizya, Muhammad entered what Islamic tradition calls “the Year of Delegations.” Tribes from across Arabia sent envoys to Medina to meet him, declare their stance, and negotiate terms.

Muslim storytellers portray this as a spontaneous spiritual awakening. They claim that tribes, impressed by Muhammad’s character and the truth of Islam, traveled eagerly to embrace the new faith. In reality, most delegates came for the same reason diplomats have always traveled: self-preservation.

By this point, the pattern was obvious. Tribes that resisted Muhammad could expect raids, sieges, expulsion, or massacre. Those that submitted and accepted Islam gained a share in booty, security from attack by Muslims, and prestige. Those that wanted to keep their own religion, if they were Jews or Christians, could attempt to negotiate dhimmi status at the price of jizya. Polytheist tribes were offered fewer options; they were expected to abandon their gods and adopt Islam outright.

Delegations came from Najran’s Christians, from Yemeni chiefs, from tribal groups in central and eastern Arabia. Some came defiantly and left humbled. Others arrived already resigned, asking only for clarity on what Muhammad required: how many prayers, what share of zakat, what limits on their customs. In several cases, tribal leaders accepted Islam publicly, while their people complied out of social pressure rather than conviction.

The Najran Christians provide a telling example. They met Muhammad, debated theology, and refused to accept his denial of Christ’s deity and the cross. He threatened them with a mutual invocation of curse (mubahala) and with Jehovah’s judgment. In the end, rather than convert, they negotiated a treaty: they would pay jizya, be left with their churches and clergy, and live under his political authority. They came not to seek truth but to avoid war.

Year of Delegations, then, is better described as “year of submission.” Tribes were buying survival. Some converted sincerely to Islam as they understood it. Many more accepted an outward shahada as the price of joining the winning side. The alternative they faced was not a neutral religious marketplace but the memory of Banu Qurayza’s trench, Khaybar’s forced tribute, and Hunayn’s captives.

Jehovah does indeed draw people to Himself across nations, but He does so through the Gospel, not through the shadow of a conquering army. The book of Acts shows Gentiles streaming into the congregation by hearing about Christ crucified and risen, not by sending delegations to bargain with an armed prophet. Where people accepted the message, they did so knowing it could cost them social standing and even life, not because it guaranteed them a share of plunder.

“Offer Islam, War, or Tribute” – The Eternal Triad

By the end of Muhammad’s life, the core foreign policy of Islam was clear and had been implemented repeatedly. When dealing with non-Muslim peoples and rulers, the options were threefold.

First, they could embrace Islam. This was always presented as the best choice in Muhammad’s rhetoric. Those who submitted fully were promised forgiveness of past sins, equality (within the male Muslim community), and a share in the spoils of future campaigns. Many tribes and individuals chose this path for pragmatic reasons, hoping to secure safety and benefit under the new order.

Second, if they were “People of the Book” (primarily Jews and Christians), they could refuse conversion but accept political subjugation and pay jizya. This is what happened at Tabuk and with groups like the Christians of Najran. In later Muslim practice, this option would be extended and refined: dhimmis kept their places of worship but were restricted in building new ones, limited in public religious expression, and held at a clear legal disadvantage. They were allowed to exist as religious minorities so long as they acknowledged Islamic supremacy with coin and posture.

Third, they could refuse both Islam and subjugation. In that case, war followed. The early campaigns against Jewish tribes, the battlefields of Badr, Uhud, Hunayn, the siege of Ta’if, and the punitive measures against defiantly pagan or apostate tribes after Muhammad’s death all illustrate this third path. Resistance meant being labeled enemies of “Allah and His messenger,” a category that carried not just military consequences but eternal ones in Muhammad’s preaching.

This triad—Islam, war, or tribute—was not a later invention. It flowed directly out of Muhammad’s own letters and actions. Letters attributed to him and preserved in Islamic tradition show him writing to rulers such as the Byzantine emperor, the Persian king, and regional chiefs, inviting them to accept Islam with the formula, “Submit and you will be safe; if you turn away, the sin of your people is on you.” When these invitations were ignored or rejected, later Muslim armies would treat those regions as legitimate targets, just as Muhammad had treated resisting tribes around Medina.

From a Christian standpoint, this triad reveals a fundamental incompatibility between Islam and the Gospel of Christ. The Lord Jesus sent His followers into all nations with a different kind of ultimatum: repent and believe, or remain under Jehovah’s wrath. But He did not add, “and we will kill you or tax you into humiliation if you refuse.” The congregation’s weapons are spiritual. Those who reject the message are left in God’s hands; they are not coerced with armies and fiscal pressure.

Muhammad’s final campaigns show that he built something else—a religious empire that sacralized expansion, opened the way for plunder, and gave future rulers a clear script: approach the city gate and say, “Accept Islam, or accept our rule and pay, or face war.” From the Ridda Wars under Abu Bakr to the Umayyad and Abbasid expansions, and down to many modern jihadist slogans, this script has been repeated.

Hunayn, Ta’if, and Tabuk are therefore not mere footnotes. They are the finishing strokes in the portrait of Muhammad’s project. Mecca’s fall gave him the shrine. Hunayn filled his ranks with spoils and slaves. Ta’if taught Arabia that even strong hill cities could be starved and burned into compliance. Tabuk extended his reach into Christian lands and formalized the doctrine of fighting People of the Book until they pay and feel themselves subdued. The year of delegations then wrapped it all in a veneer of diplomacy.

The God who spoke through Moses and the prophets, and who revealed Himself fully in Jesus Christ, does not operate through such a machine. His kingdom advances by truth, righteousness, and the proclamation of a crucified and risen Savior, not by catapults, enslaved women, and tax-collectors backed by swords. The fact that Muhammad’s system from the beginning was built on this triad is yet another decisive reason to reject his claim to speak for Jehovah and to hold instead to the Gospel that offers life freely, not at the tip of a blade.

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