Review of orientalists' view on the battles of the prophet of Islam

The orientalists have paid huge attention to the objectives of the prophet's battles and expeditions and produced many works on the subject. Most of the orientalists are of the view that he used to pursue materialistic ends from his battles being in line with the primitive wars and raids that were waged to exercise political and economic domination. The present paper after reporting the classified orientalists' views studies their opinion from perspective of the Quran as a road map of the prophet. The writer offers three main arguments to prove that the Holy war [Jihad] in Islam is defensive and substantiate that there lies contradiction between the orientalists' opinion with that of the Quranic teachings. Those three arguments are as following: strengthening of the military force and facilities are limited to defend Islam and the Muslim territories only, second, the order of waging holy war is confined to battles with the hostile and arrogant non-believers. Finally, the Muslim are to have peaceful coexistence with the people of the book and pagans if they
remain non-violent.