THE STRAIGHT PATH FOR SOCIAL LIVING — Peace and Harmony in Society

One example of this from the life of Prophet Muhammad was the Battle of Uhud. In this battle, Abu Sufyan, was the leader of the Quraish against the Prophet and his companions. After their victory in the Battle of Uhud, Abu Sufyan proclaimed that, ‘today was the day of revenge for the defeat at Badr.’ The Prophet was sent with the mission to convey God’s creation plan to mankind and to invite man towards God. The culture of tribal warfare was a huge obstacle in his path. Consequently, we see that immediately after this battle the Prophet changed his policy. In the following 'battle' of Ahzab, the Prophet setup a trench to act as a buffer between themselves and their opponents because of which the need for violence itself was nullified. In a similar manner, the Prophet after unilaterally accepting all the conditions of his opponents made the peace agreement known as the Treaty of Hudaibiya. This peace agreement is referred to in the Quran as the ‘…straight path.’ (THE QURAN 48: 2). This accord in reality was the ‘straight path’ of social living. The method of deliverance and relief from war as given by the Quran is to unilaterally accede and put an end to all violence. In social life there will always be different points of view and disagreements between opposing parties. In these situations, success cannot be achieved on a bilateral basis. It is mandatory that one party wins and the other loses and it is always the case that the losing party refuses to accept defeat. This is the same situation on the battlefield as well. The vanquished refuse to concede victory and instead begin to plan for revenge. That is why conflict, discord and wars can only be resolved or terminated unilaterally. In order to achieve one's purpose, the Prophet of Islam was the first person to introduce this approach to the Arab people. The entire world was unaware of such a strategy in the matter of resolving conflicts. The Arabs of those times thought that war could only be put to an end by war. For the first time in history, the Prophet of Islam demonstrated that a unilateral accord was the only successful method to conclude a war and usher in peace and harmony amongst the people.