down hard on others or constrain. “Pacify”, he said, “and do not disincline”. When it happened that he  arrived at the battlefield by night, he would never invade the enemy till it was morning. He utterly  forbade burning (i.e. torturing people) in fire, killing children and women or even beating them. He  also  forbade theft and robbery and proceeded so far as to say gains acquired through plundering are not  less forbidden than the flesh of a corpse. Corruption of tillage and race and cutting down of trees were  all forbidden unless they were badly needed and there was no other substitute:
“Do not kill a wounded person nor run after a fleeing one or kill a captive.”
He decreed that envoys cannot be killed. He also stressed on not killing those who made covenants.
He  even said:
“He whoever kills one who is under pledge to a covenant shall not smell Paradise, though its  smell could be experienced at a forty-year distance from it.”
There were some other noble rules which purified wars from their Al-Jahiliyah (pre-Islamic) filthiness  and turned them into sacred wars.