Muhammad (17 page)

This in itself was an important achievement. At last Muhammad had compelled the Quraysh to take him seriously, and there was a real possibility of a peaceful solution. Muhammad sat with Suhayl for a long time but the terms that were agreed filled many of his companions with dismay. First he promised to return to Medina without visiting the Haram, though Suhayl promised that the following year the Muslims could return and perform the traditional rites of the hajj within the city limits. There would be a truce between Mecca and Medina for ten years; Muhammad promised to return any member of the Quraysh who converted to Islam and made the hijrah to Medina without the consent of his guardians, but agreed that the Quraysh would not have to return a Muslim who defected to Mecca. The Bedouin tribes were released from their former treaty obligations and could choose to form an alliance with either Medina or Mecca.

The Qur’an had long stipulated that in the interests of peace, Muslims must agree to any conditions that the enemy proposed, even if they seemed disadvantageous.
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But many of the pilgrims found these terms dishonorable. The truce meant that Muslims could no longer raid the Meccan caravans; why was Muhammad abandoning the economic blockade that was really starting to bite? Why had he consented to return new converts to Mecca, when the Quraysh did not have to reciprocate? During the last five years, many Muslims had died for their religion; others had risked everything and given up family and friends. Yet now Muhammad had calmly handed the advantage back to the Quraysh, and the pilgrims must agree to go home meekly, without even forcing the pilgrimage issue. The treaty assaulted every single jahili instinct. “The apostle’s companions had gone out without any doubt of occupying Mecca, because of the vision the apostle had seen,” explained Ibn Ishaq. “When they saw the negotiations for peace and a withdrawal going on and what the apostle had taken on himself, they felt depressed, almost to the point of death.”
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Mutiny was in the air. The fragile solidarity that had united the pilgrims throughout this dangerous expedition was shattered and the deep rifts that had always existed within the ummah became suddenly apparent. ‘Umar leapt to his feet and strode over to Abu Bakr. “Are we not Muslims and they polytheists?” he demanded. “Why should we agree to what is demeaning to our religion?”
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Abu Bakr was also disturbed, but managed to reply that, in spite of everything, he still had faith in the Prophet. Later ‘Umar said that if he could have found a hundred companions to follow him, he would have defected. At this point, he could not share Muhammad’s vision.
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Like many of the Medinese Muslims and those Emigrants who came from the more peripheral, disadvantaged Qurayshan clans, he did not want merely to reform the social order of Mecca but to overthrow it and replace it with a purely Qur’anic regime. ‘Umar was courageous, unselfish, and passionately committed to the ideals of justice and equity, which had been so lacking in the Meccan polity. But he was not a man of hilm and was still fired by the fierce impetuosity of jahiliyyah. He did not understand that the values of gentleness and nonviolence were also central to the Islamic ideal. He was a man of action, prone to reach, jahili-like, for his sword without thinking matters through.
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Faced with Muhammad’s apparent about-face at Hudaybiyyah, he was bewildered and confused.

After defeating the Quraysh at the Battle of the Trench, the obvious plan would have been to press on and destroy them unilaterally. But this had never been Muhammad’s intention. The downfall of Mecca would be an inconceivable catastrophe for Arabia, a backward region that sorely needed the commercial genius of the Quraysh, who would never see the point of Islam while the war continued to fuel destructive anger and hatred on both sides. By abandoning the economic blockade, Muhammad hoped to win them over. He could see further than anybody else at Hudaybiyyah. Far from caving in weakly, he knew exactly what he was doing. He was moving toward an unprecedented political and religious solution for the Arabs, and that meant that he could never do the expected thing, because that would bind him to the unhappy status quo.

When he looked at the stunned, miserable faces of the pilgrims, Muhammad had to tell them that they must accept the terms of the treaty because Allah had dictated them. This did not satisfy the rank and file, who had expected some kind of miracle, and it was intensely disappointing to the Hypocrites, who had joined the ummah simply for worldly gain. The atmosphere became even more strained when the Muslims heard the wording of the treaty. Muhammad summoned ‘Ali to write to his dictation, and when he began with the usual Muslim formula—“In the name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful”—Suhayl objected. The Quraysh had always found these attributes of Allah somewhat feeble, so he insisted that Muhammad begin with the more conventional formula: “In thy name, O Allah.” To the horror of the Muslims, Muhammad agreed without demur. Worse was to follow. Muhammad continued: “This is the treaty that Muhammad, the Messenger of Allah, has agreed with Suhayl ibn ‘Amr.” Again Suhayl interrupted. If he had believed that Muhammad was God’s prophet, he argued, reasonably enough, he would not have fought him all these years. He asked that Muhammad simply use his own name and that of his father in the usual way. ‘Ali had already written down the words “the Messenger of God” and told Muhammad that he simply could not bring himself to excise them, so the Prophet held out his hand for the pen, asked ‘Ali to point to the words on the parchment, and crossed them out himself. He continued: “This is what Muhammad ibn ‘Abdullah has agreed with Suhayl ibn ‘Amr.”
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At this extremely difficult juncture, just as the treaty was being signed, Suhayl’s son, Abu Jandal, burst onto the scene. He had converted to Islam, but Suhayl had locked him up in the family home in order to prevent him making the hijrah to Medina. Now, however, he had managed to escape and arrived triumphantly to join the Muslims at Hudaybiyyah, dragging his fetters behind him. Suhayl smashed his fist into his son’s face, grabbed his chains, and turned to Muhammad. Would he keep his word and return this renegade to his lawful guardian? Muhammad did not falter, even though Abu Jandal screamed in anguish as Suhayl dragged him back to Mecca: “Am I to be returned to the polytheists that they may entice me from my religion, O Muslims?” With classic understatement, Ibn Ishaq remarks: “That increased the people’s dejection.”
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This was the last straw for ‘Umar. Yet again, he jumped to his feet and yelled at the man he had followed so loyally for twelve years. Was he not God’s messenger? Were not the Muslims right and their enemies wrong? Had not Muhammad assured them that they would pray again at the Kabah? This was all true, Muhammad replied mildly, but had he promised that they would return to the Haram this year? ‘Umar remained grimly silent, so Muhammad continued firmly: “I
am
God’s messenger. I will not go against his commandments and he will not make me the loser.”
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Even though he was bitterly perplexed, ‘Umar subsided and reluctantly put his hand to the treaty. But the pilgrims were still furious and there was a dangerous moment when they seemed about to rebel. Muhammad announced that, even though they had not reached the Kabah, they would complete the pilgrimage right there at Hudaybiyyah: the Muslims must shave their heads and sacrifice their camels, just as they would if they were in the heart of Mecca. There was absolute silence, and the pilgrims stared grimly back at Muhammad, tacitly refusing to obey. In despair, the Prophet retreated to his tent. What on earth could he do? he asked Umm Salamah. She judged the situation perfectly. Muhammad should go out and, without uttering another word, sacrifice the camel that he had consecrated to Allah. It was exactly the right decision. The spectacular bloodletting broke through the torpor of depression, and immediately the men fell over themselves to sacrifice their own camels and shaved each other’s heads with such zeal that Umm Salamah said later that she thought they would inflict mortal wounds in their pious frenzy.

The pilgrims started home in a lighter mood, but some anger remained and the Prophet himself seemed distant and preoccupied. ‘Umar was afraid that his defiance had irreparably damaged their friendship, and his heart sank when he was summoned to join Muhammad at the head of the party. But to his intense relief, he found him looking radiant, as though a great weight had fallen from his shoulders. “A surah has descended upon me, which is dearer to me than anything under the sun,” he told ‘Umar.
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This was
Al-Fatah,
the Surah of Victory. It laid bare the deeper meaning of the events of Hudaybiyyah and began with a luminous assurance that Muhammad had not suffered a diplomatic defeat there but that God had given him “a manifest victory.” He had sent down his
sakinah,
the spirit of peace and tranquillity, which had entered the hearts of the Muslims; they had made a courageous act of faith when they had agreed to accompany Muhammad on this perilous expedition—showing a commitment that had been beyond the Bedouin. They had shown their faith and trust again when they had sworn the Oath of Good Pleasure. Finally, the treaty that Muhammad had made with Mecca was a “sign,” an ayah
,
which revealed God’s presence.

The victory at Hudaybiyyah had distinguished the Muslims from the Quraysh, who had shown throughout the day that they were still in thrall to the overbearing haughtiness and intransigence of the jahiliyyah, a stubborn resistance to anything that might injure their sense of honor or their traditional way of life. They had even been ready to massacre the innocent unarmed pilgrims rather than accept the “humiliation” of admitting them to the Haram.

When in the hearts of those who persist in unbelief arose the characteristic arrogance, the arrogance of jahiliyyah
,
then God sent down his peace of soul (sakinah) upon His Messenger and upon the believers, and imposed upon them the formula of self-restraint (hilm), for that was most befitting to them and they were most suited for that.
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Muslims were not supposed to be men of war; they were characterized by the spirit of hilm, a peace and forbearance that allied them with the Jews and Christians, the People of the Book. Instead of posturing aggressively as the Quraysh had done at Hudaybiyyah, the true followers of Allah prostrated themselves humbly before God in prayer:

Thou seest them bowing, prostrating, seeking bounty from God and good pleasure. Their mark is on their faces, the trace of prostration. That is their likeness in the Torah, and their likeness in the Gospel.

It was not violence and self-assertion, but the spirit of mercy, courtesy and tranquillity that would cause the ummah to grow, “as a seed that puts forth its shoot and strengthens it and it grows stout and raises straight upon its stalk, pleasing the owners.”
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The war was over; it was now time for a holy peace.

In fact the struggle would continue, but the sources agree that Hudaybiyyah was a watershed. “No previous victory (fatah) was greater than this,” Ibn Ishaq believed. The root meaning of
FTH
was “opening;” the truce had looked unpromising at first, but it opened new doors for Islam. Hitherto nobody had been able to sit down and discuss the new religion in a rational manner, because of the constant fighting and escalating hatred. But now “when there was an armistice and men met in safety and consulted together, none talked about Islam intelligently without entering it.” Indeed, between 628 and 630, “double as many or more than double as many entered Islam as ever before.”
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The short lyrical surah
An-Nasr
(“Help”) may have been composed at this time:

When the help of God arrived
    and the opening (fatah)

and you saw people joining the religion of God in waves

Recite the praise of your Lord
    and say God forgive

He is the always forgiving.
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There was to be no triumphalism, no cry for vengeance. The new era must be characterized by gratitude, forgiveness, and an acknowledgement of the Muslims’ own culpability.

Hudaybiyyah may have improved the position of Islam in the peninsula as a whole, but, like other recent advances, it did little for Muhammad’s standing in Medina. Many of the pilgrims— Helpers and Emigrants alike—continued to feel cheated and resentful. How, the Emigrants asked, were they supposed to earn a living if they could no longer attack the Meccan caravans? Muhammad knew that he could not allow this discontent to fester; somehow he had to find a way of compensating them without damaging the truce, so after Hudaybiyyah, he directed the Muslims’ attention to the north, away from Mecca. Khaybar—the new home of the exiled Jewish tribe of Nadir—was still a danger. The leaders of the settlement continued to stir up hostility to Muhammad among the northern tribes, so shortly after his return from Hudaybiyyah, he set off to besiege the city with an army of six hundred men. When the Quraysh heard the news, they were jubilant, certain that the Muslims would be defeated. Surrounded, like Medina, with plains of volcanic rock and defended by seven large fortresses, Khaybar was thought to be impregnable. But the Muslims were able to benefit from the internal strife that signalled the decline of the tribal spirit in Khaybar, as it had in Medina. Each of the tribes of Khaybar was autonomous, and they found it impossible to cooperate effectively during the siege. To add to their troubles, the tribes of Ghatafan, whose support they had been expecting, failed to show up, so after a month the Jewish elders asked for peace and became vassals of Medina. To seal the agreement, Muhammad took the daughter of his old enemy Huyay, chief of Nadir, as his wife. The beautiful seventeen-year-old Safiyyah was happy to enter Islam, and Muhammad gave stern orders that there were to be no unkind remarks about her father, who had died during the siege. He told Safiyyah that if any of his other wives taunted her about her Jewish ancestry, she should reply: “My father is Aaron and my uncle is Moses.”
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The marriage expressed the attitude of reconciliation and forgiveness that he was trying to promote; it was time to lay aside the hatred and bloodshed of the past.