NON-VIOLENCE AND ISLAM

~ 53 ~ 3. After the emigration, his antagonists took the unilateral decision to wage war against him. Consequently such bloody encounters as those of Badr and Uhud took place. Then the Prophet made a 10-year peace treaty known in history as Sulh-alHudaybiyya, by accepting all the conditions of his opponents. This has been called a ‘clear victory’ in the Qur’an. It was this peace treaty, paving the way for peaceful constructive activities which ultimately made possible the conquest of Makkah and the whole of Arabia. 4. At the end of the pious caliphate, a bloody encounter had taken place between the Banu Hashim and the Banu Umayyah. This stopped the advance of Islam for a period of ten years. What set this process in motion once again was the voluntary withdrawal of Hasan ibn Ali (d. 50 A.H.) from the battlefield. This was undeniably a practical form of non-violent activism. This peaceful move on the part of Hasan ibn Ali re-opened to Islam the locked doors of progress. “The religion of Muslims has conquered where their arms had failed.”