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 from the killing a few of their men by the Khuzāʿah. Now they sought to take revenge. A force from Bakr, supported by a number of the Quraysh nobility, launched a night raid against Khuzāʿah and killed twenty of their people. In response, the Khuzāʿah sent a delegation to Madinah, reporting the attack to the Prophet and appealing to him for support. The Prophet considered this attack a flagrant breach of the treaty and pledged his support.
In Makkah, the Quraysh recognized that their action was totally unwarranted and that they needed to take speedy action in order to avoid retaliatory action by the Muslims. Therefore, their leader, Abū Sufyān, travelled to Madinah on a mission of appeasement. However, the Prophet did not accept his apology and the leading Companions of the Prophet told Abū Sufyān frankly that they would only do what the Prophet bid them, and would not take action on their own initiative in such a matter of state. Thus he went back home having totally failed to achieve his purpose.
The Prophet then ordered mobilization, but he ensured that the Quraysh remained unaware of his plans. He sent a request to all tribes that had recently become Muslim to join his army, and they all sent strong contingents. The Muslim army was the largest ever, close to 10,000. This army moved quietly, without being detected, until it reached a place called Marr al-Ẓahrān, which is close to Makkah. The Prophet’s tactic now was to psychologically overwhelm the Quraysh. He therefore ordered that his army light as many fires as possible during the night. As a result, when Abū Sufyān and a couple of the elders of Makkah went out looking for news they saw the fires and were perturbed. Soon they met al-ʿAbbās, the Prophet’s uncle, who had been looking for someone to carry a message to the Quraysh. He wanted them to come over and negotiate peace with the Prophet. Al-ʿAbbās took Abū Sufyān to the Prophet. After a hard discussion, Abū Sufyān declared himself a Muslim. The Prophet offered for the people of Makkah to stay indoors, or in the mosque, or in Abū Sufyān’s home, so that they would not be harmed.
The Prophet separated his army into four divisions as it moved into Makkah, which allowed them to enter the city from four directions. His commanders were under strict orders not to fight anyone unless they were attacked. The Muslim army moved in and Makkah surrendered. There was very little fighting against the division commanded by Khālid ibn al-Walīd. The Prophet, accompanied by many of his Companions, performed the circumambulation (ṭawāf), around the Kaʿbah, which is a form of Islamic worship. He had a stick in his hand. All around the Kaʿbah, the Quraysh had their idols which they worshipped. The Prophet pushed these with his stick. When he pushed an idol in the back, it fell on its face, and when it touched one in the front, it fell on its back. He then had all the idols and all the symbols of idolatry removed from the Kaʿbah, claiming the shrine for Islam forever.
Two days later, he addressed the people of Makkah. He asked them: “What do you think I will do with you?” They said: “All goodness. You are a noble brother and your father was a noble brother” He responded: “You may all go as you please. You are all pardoned.”3 Before entering Makkah, the Prophet had named around twenty people who were to be killed wherever they were found. In the event, those of them who came to him personally, or escorted by a Muslim, to seek pardon were also pardoned. Only four of them were killed. Obviously, these were among the most hardened enemies of Islam.
The people of Makkah began to see Islam and the Muslims in a fresh light. Their pagan beliefs stood no comparison with Islam, and those with Muslim relatives discussed the changes that Islam brought about in their lives and soon felt that the only right course of action was to follow their lead. People came to the Prophet individually or in groups to declare their acceptance of Islam. Although not everyone in Makkah had a complete change of heart, as days went on, the change was taking hold of them and Makkah was fast becoming Muslim.
The fall of Makkah to Islam, however, did not mean that all danger from the pagan Arabs was over. A number of major tribes maintained the worship of idols and were ready to attack the Muslim state. When he was still in Makkah, the Prophet learned that the Hawāzin, a very large Arab tribe, was raising an army to fight him, with the support of the Thaqīf, another major tribe who lived in the city of Taif. As the Prophet had his army intact, he moved to meet the Hawāzin. His army swelled by another 2000 from Makkah, most of whom had converted to Islam only after Makkah had fallen to Islam. Some were still pagans,