the Battle of Khaybar was over, the Prophet received his cousin, Jaʿfar ibn Abī Ṭālib, who had just returned from Abyssinia with the last of those Muslims who had travelled there fifteen years earlier. They returned after the Prophet sent a letter to Negus to repatriate them after their mission was over. They brought with them a large delegation of Abyssinian Muslims.
With the neutralization of the major threats, the Prophet could now press ahead with his main task. He was God’s Messenger to all mankind, and it was part of his mission to make the Divine message known to all nations. After the events of Khaybar, he felt he should attend to this task. He chose a number of his Companions who combined the right temperament with courage, wisdom and resourcefulness. He sent them with messages to the heads of neighbouring states, including the Emperors of Persia and Byzantium as well as the rulers of Egypt, Syria, Bahrain and Abyssinia. He called on these leaders to accept Islam and to allow their people to listen to the Divine message. The two most hostile responses were from the governor of Syria, who killed the Prophet’s emissary, and the Persian Emperor, who tore up the Prophet’s letter and sent a warrant for his arrest. The Byzantine Emperor sent a friendly response, and the Egyptian ruler sent a gift with his friendly response. Both recognized that a final message from God was promised, but they feared that they would lose their power if they were to accept Islam. Only the Negus of Abyssinia and the ruler of Bahrain accepted Islam. These letters might have not produced an immediate favourable result, but they certainly made Islam known in vast areas of the old world: across Asia, Europe and Africa, the three continents known at the time. Moreover, these letters were a prelude to what the future would bring. Islam moved into vast areas of all these countries, but this had to wait until the Prophet’s successors started to mount their campaigns.
The seventh year of the Islamic calendar also witnessed a great deal of activity in the advocacy of Islam among the Arabian tribes. The Prophet’s Companions could now move in peace to visit tribes across Arabia. Muslim historians tell us that in the two years that followed the peace agreement of al-Ḥudaybiyah, almost everyone with a clear mind who was approached with the Islamic message gave a positive response. This was manifested in the fact that the number of people who went with the Prophet when he concluded the Ḥudaybiyah peace agreement and then on the Khaybar campaign were only 1400; whereas two years later, an army of 10,000 traversed the desert with him.
Another significant development which started a short while after the Ḥudaybiyah agreement, but had progressive consequences, was the arrival in Madinah of Abū Buṣayr, an ordinary tribesman from the Quraysh. He declared himself a Muslim and wanted to join the Muslim community. However, his clan sent a messenger for his extradition, as the agreement allowed. The Prophet had no option but to honour the agreement. Abū Buṣayr went back with the man (and his servant) who the Quraysh had sent to ask for the extradition. On the way, he managed to get hold of his captor’s sword and kill him. Abū Buṣayr did not harm the servant, but the servant fled to Madinah and reported what happened to the Prophet. As Abū Buṣayr could neither join the Muslim community nor return to Makkah, he fled into the desert, but stayed close to the route of the Quraysh’s trade caravans. He began to raid these caravans and cause them problems. Soon after, he was joined by a number of Muslims who fled Makkah. These formed a brigade that attacked the trade caravans, to the great dismay of the Quraysh. Within a short period, the chiefs of the Quraysh appealed to the Prophet to take them. They thus abandoned the condition in the peace agreement that required the Prophet to hand back any Muslim who came from Makkah to join him.
In the tenth month of that year, the Prophet and his Companions were due to visit Makkah for the mini-pilgrimage, as agreed with the Quraysh in the Ḥudaybiyah peace treaty. The Prophet and his Companions went ahead, taking with them their sacrificial animals. However, they took some armaments as a precaution. According to the agreement, they should have no arms other than their individual swords, however the Prophet feared a situation of treachery. He therefore took other armaments, keeping them at some distance from Makkah with a contingent of 200 of his Companions. These delayed their worship at the Kaʿbah until the others completed their worship and came over to relieve them. When the Prophet entered Makkah with his Companions and began his worship, the people of Makkah were in different minds. The chiefs, who were hardened against Islam, withdrew to some mountain areas in order not to witness what was happening. The majority of the population, however, were keen to see the Muslims. They were profoundly impressed by what they saw. They found that despite their different tribes and clans, the Muslims were a closely-knit unit. Moreover, their love of the Prophet was apparent and highly impressive. Every single Muslim was always ready to do as the Prophet bid and would do this with pleasure. When the Muslims talked to the people of Makkah, they were very friendly. They would tell them about the changes that Islam had brought into their lives. Moreover, many of the Muhājirūn met their families and talked to them, encouraging them to look at Islam in an objective light. The chiefs of Makkah felt that the Muslims’ visit threatened to remove the barriers that they had assiduously tried to maintain in order to keep their people from embracing Islam. Therefore, when the agreed three days of the visit were over, they asked the Prophet to leave with his Companions. He requested them to reconsider, offering to give the people of Makkah a banquet, but they rejected his offer out of hand and asked him to leave. As always, the Prophet did not go back on a promise. Therefore, he ordered his Companions to depart.
That which the chiefs of Makkah feared most thus actually started to happen: many people of all classes of the Makkan society began to have second thoughts about Islam. These people felt that the concept of God, the Creator of the universe who has no partners, was superior to that of their own beliefs. Within a few weeks of the Prophet’s visit, three of the young chiefs of Makkah were on their way to Madinah where they met the Prophet to declare themselves Muslims. These were Khālid ibn al-Walīd, ʿAmr ibn al-ʿĀṣ, and ʿUthmān ibn Ṭalḥah.
When the ruler of Syria, an Arab of the tribe of Ghassān but appointed by the Byzantine Emperor, killed the Prophet’s emissary, his action constituted a huge affront to the Prophet and the Muslim state, and he could not be allowed to get away with it. Therefore, in the fifth month of year eight after the Hijrah, the Prophet sent a force of 3000 of his Companions to fight the ruler of Syria. He appointed three of his closest Companions (two from the Muhājirūn and one from the Anṣār) as commanders, with one to take over from the other should he be killed. The Prophet instructed them not to kill any elderly person, woman, child or monk, and not to cut a tree or kill an animal except for food. The army marched on its mission. When the Ghassānī ruler received intelligence of the approaching army, he raised a large army of 100,000 people. The Emperor further sent him a large number of reinforcements.
When the two forces met close to Mu’tah, a town in southern Jordan, the Muslim army was heavily outnumbered, and there was no way it could score a victory. Indeed, the three commanders were killed, one after the other, as the enemy concentrated its attack on the centre of the army. After the third commander was killed, the Muslims chose a new commander as instructed by the Prophet. Their choice was Khālid ibn al-Walīd who only recently embraced Islam, but was a talented military commander. Khālid realized that should the battle carry on to a decisive end, a large number of Muslims might be killed, and a victory was beyond them. Therefore, he came up with an ingenious plan. During the night after the first day’s fighting, he switched the positions of his units and gave the enemy an impression that the Muslims were reinforced with new units. When the two armies re-engaged, the central units of his army slowly retreated while the other units continued to fight fiercely. He managed to switch the pressure on his units so that they could retreat slowly. The enemy thought that the Muslims were trying to drag them towards the desert where they were not used to fight. Therefore, they decided not to fall for the trick and did not pursue the retreating Muslim army. Thus Khālid was able to save most of his soldiers. The Prophet commended this action.
The Ḥudaybiyah peace treaty allowed any Arabian tribe to be in alliance with either party to the treaty. The tribe of Bakr joined the Quraysh in alliance, while Khuzāʿah allied itself with the Prophet. These two tribes had old feuds dating back to pre-Islamic days and Bakr continued to nurse old wounds
