In general, the word maghāzī means raiding expeditions, primarily for the sake of plunder. But as a literary technicality, it is specifically applied to the accounts of the early Muslim military expeditions in which the Prophet took part; those at which he was not personally present are termed sarāyā or bu'ūth. At the same time, the early books of maghāzī include accounts of events which are not military expeditions, such as the treaty-making at Hudaybiyah, the Prophet's last pilgrimage (Hajjat al-wadā), etc. Obviously, this maghāzī literature forms a sub-category within the Sirah literature (see chap. 17), and the two words are used by later commentators in juxtaposition, as in phrases such as “compilers of maghāzī and siyar” there is, indeed, a hint that maghāzī is the dominant identifying term, for Ibn Ishāq is more often referred to as a compiler of maghāzī than of sīrah. The dichotomy between the two is, in fact, an artificial one and the phrase sīrah–maghāzī would probably reflect more accurately the essential homogeneity of the material. But this chapter deals with the maghāzī material insofar as it is possible to consider it separately.

In terms of form as well as theme, maghāzī literature is superficially reminiscent of the pre-Islamic accounts of tribal battles (ayyām al-'Arab): both deal with battles and are a melange of prose and verse. But though maghāzī literature is thus heir to an ancient tradition, it is more than a record of individual skirmishes, and the role of verse in it is a secondary one.