Marife Turkish Journal of Religious Studies

Abstract

Hunting and battle were inseparable part of daily lives of people in the Muslim World of the Middle Age. This study deals with the relationship between these two practices that are hunting and war. In the first glance, one may considers that there is no connection between these two terms, but when we examine them in detail we see that there is a strong relationship between the practice of hunting and war. Hunting was a field of trial of a soldier in the way of war. As it is known, most of the victories were won by the strategies of war rather than the number of the soldiers or the strength of armies in the past. Most of these war strategies in the past were gained mostly through the practices of hunting. Thus, these war strategies based on the art of hunting contributed to victories more than religious and political motivations for the Arab Muslims. The article concludes that those battles were not won by the aim of booty or epical saying but through courage, dash, alacrity, and knighthood based on the art of hunting that was accepted as a part of life by the people of that time.