Moreover, as mentioned in the Introduction, all who fought under the banner of jihad—from many of Muhammad’s first Arab recruits, to the Bedouins who were always eager to join the jihadi caravan, to the Berber masses that first entered Europe—were always motivated by the promise of plunder. Such motives never clashed with Islam, the deity of which incites his followers to war on the promise of booty, both animate and inanimate—so much so that an entire sura, or chapter of the Koran, “al-Anfal,” is named after and dedicated to the spoils of war.
