Mention of the first military expeditions: the campaign of al-Abwāʾ—also called the campaign of Waddān—
and of the first detachments, namely the force led by Ḥamzah ibn ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib, or by ʿUbaydah ibn al-Ḥārith, as will be detailed later in the section on Expeditions.

Al-Bukhārī states (1) in the Book of Expeditions that Ibn Isḥāq said: “The first place the Messenger of God ﷺ campaigned was al-Abwāʾ, then Buwāṭ, then al-ʿUshayrah.”

He also transmitted (2) from Zayd ibn Arqam that he was asked, “How many expeditions did the Messenger of God ﷺ undertake?” He replied, “Nineteen. He personally took part in seventeen; the first of them was al-ʿUsayrah—or al-ʿUshayrah.” The ḥadīth with its chain and full wording, together with commentary, will appear under the Expedition of al-ʿUshayrah, God willing, in whom trust is placed (3).

In Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī (4) it is narrated from Buraydah that he said, “I accompanied the Messenger of God ﷺ on sixteen expeditions.”

Muslim likewise transmits from him (6) that he went on sixteen expeditions with the Messenger of God ﷺ.

In another report in Muslim (7) Buraydah says that the Messenger of God ﷺ mounted nineteen expeditions and fought in eight of them.

Al-Ḥusayn ibn Wāqid (8), reporting from Ibn Buraydah on the authority of his father, states that the Messenger of God ﷺ undertook seventeen expeditions and fought in eight: Badr, Uḥud, the Confederates, al-Muraysīʿ, Qudayd, Khaybar, the Conquest of Mecca, and Ḥunayn; and that he dispatched twenty-four detachments.

Yaʿqūb ibn Sufyān (9) said: Muḥammad ibn ʿUthmān al-Dimashqī al-Tanūkhī related to us—al-Haytham ibn Ḥumayd told us, al-Nuʿmān informed me, from Makḥūl—that the Messenger of God ﷺ waged eighteen expeditions, fighting in eight of them: the first was Badr, then Uḥud, then the Confederates, then Qurayẓah, then Biʾr Maʿūnah, then the expedition against Banū al-Muṣṭaliq of Khuzaʿah, then Khaybar, then the Conquest of Mecca, and finally Ḥunayn and al-Ṭāʾif.