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:  This article repudiates the allegation that Islam is “the religion of the sword”and that Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) was “a man of the sword”.It does   so by  analysing why  and how  the Prophet fought.   The article  concludes that  theProphet’s   biggest   enemies   were   falsehood,   injustice   and   oppression.  As  a   mercy for allcreation, he was disposed to fighting only for self-defence and when freedom and the basichuman rights of people were in grave danger. Still, he fought only occasionally and briefly,after all other alternatives had been exhausted. Fighting was the last resort and could not beundertaken   for   any   of   the vain worldly benefits.   In   the   process,   the   Prophet   created  aremarkable legacy of war ethics, as part of Islamic general ethics. It served as a standard-setter in the fields of conflict  and   warfare,  within which, traditionally,  benevolence andrationality are seldom observed. At the end of the article, “fighting, or war, verses” are alsoexplained.)Washington Irving (1783-1859), an American writer, historian and diplomat, was among thefirst   who   systematically  stereotyped   Islam   as  “the   religion  of   the  sword”   and   ProphetMuhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) as “a man of the sword”. According to him,the Prophet was sent with the sword as “the instrument of Faith”. He taught that those whoengaged   themselves   in   promulgating  his   faith  should   enter   neither   into   “argument   nordiscussion; but slay all who refuse obedience to the law”.  “The sword is the key of heavenand hell”, the Prophet is alleged to have said to his followers. Washington Irving wrote this in his book titled “Mahomet and his Successors”. The book hastwo volumes. The first volume was published in 1849 and the second in 1850.This   book   was   not   an   isolated   case.   It   represented   a   trend   and   the   author   was   itsspokesperson, so to speak. He declares at the beginning of the book’s preface: “Some apologymay seem necessary for presenting a life of Mahomet at the present day, when no new factcan be added to those already known concerning him.” In other words, the notoriously violentreputation of Islam and its Prophet was a well-established reality. The author was simply re-emphasizing the obvious.Demonizing Islam and MuslimsThe book and  the   trend   it represented were  products   of  a long and   concerted   campaignagainst Islam and Muslims. It was a crusade in its own right. The campaign aimed to discreditthe ideological foundations of Islamic civilization and cultures and  thus  pave the  way forphysical colonization, subjugation and exploitation of the Muslim world. At the heart of legitimization of those unholy enterprises lay the demonization of Islam andits adherents.  Orientalism, as a Western scholarly discipline that flourished especially in the18th and 19th centuries, was their soul and driving force. 
It was held that the Prophet – and with him all Muslims – were wrong and needed to be setright. They and whatever they had defiled needed to be purified and rescued. They needed theSaviour and his terrestrial exponents for the purpose. The Prophet was no more than a falseprophet (an impostor) who cunningly deceived multitudes. On   account  of  all   that,  the  colonization   drive was   heavily   saturated  with   the  spirit  ofChristianisation, proselytization and westernization - all at once. It was an extension of theCrusades. Hence, when Field Marshall Allenby captured Jerusalem in 1918 in the name of theAllies, while standing on the steps of the Dome of the Rock, he made a proclamation: “Todaythe Crusades have come to an end.” In the same vein, Peterson Smith, in his book on the lifeof   Jesus,   wrote:   “This   capture   of   Jerusalem   was   indeed   an   eighth   Crusade   in   whichChristianity had finally achieved its purpose” (Haykal).According to  Washington  Irving,  furthermore,  while  in Makkah,

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