TOWARDS GLOBAL PEACE

Makkah but Muslims visiting Makkah would not be allowed to return; • that tribes were at liberty to join any of the two contracting parties. According to this treaty, the Prophet and his Companions left Hudaibiya for Madinah. The following year they came again and performed Umrah as stipulated by the treaty of Hudaibiya. This incident of Hudaibiya embodies a special Sunnah of the Prophet, that is, not clashing with others unnecessarily; refraining scrupulously from turning any difficult situation into a prestige issue; rather, taking the problem as it is and keeping oneself free from any complexes which could distort matters; attempting to understand matters by rising above sentiments and emotions, and solving problems wisely by giving concessions to the other party. When the individual refrains from making a controversial matter into one of prestige, this gives rise to serious thinking. This nonemotional thinking helps him to understand that if he were to walk away from the point of controversy, he would find all other paths open to him. The same was the case in Hudaibiya. The Prophet of Islam wanted to enter Makkah, but the Quraysh did not allow him to do so. Yet the Prophet did not let the obstructiveness of the Quraysh become a matter of prestige. His own positive approach enabled him to lead Muslims away from the field of war to the field of dawah (the propagation of Islam), a far vaster arena for their struggle in the cause of Islam. By unilaterally accepting all the conditions of the opponents of Islam, the Prophet of Islam made a no-war pact called the Hudaibiya Peace Treaty. On account of his unconditional acceptance of the opponents’ terms, some Muslims held it to be a humiliating pact (Seerah ibn Hisham,36). But after this treaty was finalized, the chapter in the Quran, called ‘Victory’ (Al-Fath) was revealed, in which this peace treaty was hailed as ‘a clear victory.’ (48: 1) The reason for this difference in assessment was that human beings looked at it from the angle of the present, while God looked at it from Hudaibiya Peace Treaty embodies a special Sunnah of the Prophet, that is, not clashing with others unnecessarily; refraining scrupulously from turning any difficult situation into a prestige issue.