The Plan of Hudaybiyyah
The Prophet and the Companions of the Prophet left Makkah in the 13th year of prophethood and adopted Madinah as the center of their action. But the Makkan chieftains did not approve of this. They wanted to attack Madinah and put an end to the mission of the Prophet. As a result, a few battles took place, for instance, the battle of Badr, the battle of Uhud, etc. Because of these attacks, the Prophet of Islam was not able to find an opportunity to continue his mission in peaceful circumstances.
But then later, the Prophet devised a new plan. In the 8th Year of Hijra, he announced that he would go to Makkah for the performance of Umrah. About 1400 companions joined him in this journey. The Makkan chieftains learned of this when this caravan reached Hudaybiyyah, which is situated between Makkah and Madinah. They sent some of their men to stop Muhammad and his Companions from advancing further to enter Makkah. Subsequently at Hudaybiyyah, both the parties entered into negotiation which continued for about two weeks. This agreement settled between the two parties is known as the Hudaybiyyah agreement. Under this agreement both the parties accepted the condition of no fighting for a period of ten years between the two. In this way, this agreement was a ten year no war pact. As a result of this agreement, the Prophet of Islam found an opportunity to plan his mission in peaceful circumstances, which finally resulted in clear victory. The Quran puts it thus: “Truly, We have granted you a clear victory.” (The Quran, 48:1)
The agreement of Hudaybiyyah was certainly a clear victory but how did this peace treaty become a reality? It became a reality when the Prophet of Islam unilaterally accepted all the conditions of the other party.
The ultimate factor in accepting the conditions of the other party unilaterally was that when the peace treaty began to be written with the wording “This agreement is between the Prophet, the messenger of God”, the representatives of the other party (Quraysh) objected to this, saying that since they did not accept him as a Prophet, they should therefore rather write Muhammad bin Abdullah, that is, Muhammad son of Abdullah. The Prophet accepted this without any argument, and asked Ali, who was writing this agreement on paper, to delete those words, saying, “O Ali write, this is an agreement: between Muhammad bin Abdullah…” (Musnad Ahmad, Hadith No.3187)
After the Hudaybiyyah treaty, the circumstances changed to the extent that Makkah was conquered within a period of two years. The Hudaybiyyah agreement attests to the fact that if we want victory, we must first of all accept our defeat; if we want to advance, we must first be willing to go back or retreat. If we want the title of the messenger of God to be written on the pages of the world, we should at times be willing to delete it from the paper.
Practical wisdom is a wise principle which can be called the strategy of buying time. In the Hudaybiyyah agreement, accepting all the conditions of the other party unilaterally for peace was like employing this very strategy. This strategy worked wonders and subsequently in a very short time Arabia witnessed a bloodless revolution. This event was also one of re-planning in reality.
In ancient times the no-war agreement was achieved temporarily after a great sacrifice. In present times, this state of affairs has already been established in the world as the universal norm. The UNO was established in 1945 to encompass all the nations of the world who accepted, through a unanimous agreement, that everyone would enjoy total freedom for peaceful actions, that no nation would attack another nation and that no one would have the right to resort to coercion. Now violence in principle has become a criminal act provided man goes about his work fully observing the principle of peace.
