In answer to the video "Islamicize Me Day 11: Muhammad's Path to Financial Success!"
Muslims were given the right to capture as war booty all things brought to the battelfield by their aggressors, including the fighters themselves whose enslavement had a three fold objective. It was first a means by which Muslims could ransom their own captives, or ransom these prisonners in exchange of other material benefits. It is to be noted here that this ransoming did not apply to dead bodies. At the Battle of the Trench, Nawfal ibn Abd Allah ibn al-Mughirah died when he attempted to jump the trench with his horse. When the Meccans offered payment for receiving the body of Nawfal, the Prophet gave them the body and refused their offer.
Besides their weapons and other military equipement, waring Arab tribes would often go as far as bringing their women, children and slaves to the battlefield in order to galvanize themselves and do their utmost not to retreat or lose a battle, for their defeat would make them lose their possessions and even worse yet their own people.
This is not a license for the Muslims to plunder their enemies and kill their innocent family members as the Israelites have done supposedly through Divine sanction Deut3:6-7,21:1-18, and neither is it the divinely sanctioned misuse of the spoils aquired from the desert dwellers as stated elsewhere in the HB Jer49:28. The Quranic command is to seize whatever is left behind by the aggressor on the battlefield.
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