Budayl ibn Warqa's Mission as Neutral Mediator

Shaykh Yasir Qadhi explains:

The first attempt to bridge the gap between the Muslims and Quraysh came not from either side directly, but from Budayl ibn Warqā', a chieftain of Banū Khuzāʿah, a major tribe near Makkah generally sympathetic to the Prophet ﷺ though not yet Muslim. Acting on his own initiative as a neutral party with no stake in either camp, Budayl warned the Prophet ﷺ that the descendants of Kaʿb and ʿĀmir, invoking the ancient Qurashī ancestors as a way of referring to Quraysh collectively, had gathered an armed force on the other side of al-Ḥudaybiyyah's water source, ready to bar his entry to the sanctuary.

The Prophet ﷺ answered with the message he would repeat, nearly word for word, to every emissary who followed: he had come only to honor the House of Allah, not to fight; war had exhausted both sides for too long; if Quraysh wished, he would give them time to vacate Makkah so the Muslims could perform ʿUmrah and depart in peace; but if they insisted on war, he would fight until his own death rather than abandon his purpose.

Budayl carried this message back to Quraysh. When he asked permission to relay it, the more foolish among them dismissed him outright, insisting they already knew why the Prophet ﷺ had come and had nothing new to learn, while the wiser among them insisted he be heard. Dr. Qadhi highlights this split as a recurring pattern throughout the negotiations: closed-minded arrogance refusing even to listen, against a more reasonable faction willing to consider the other side. Once given the floor, Budayl not only relayed the Prophet's ﷺ words but added his own rebuke, accusing Quraysh of acting with reckless haste against a man who had come only in peace. Quraysh, however, held firm to their central position, one they would maintain to the very end of the negotiations: they would never let it be said among the Arabs that the Prophet ﷺ had entered Makkah despite their opposition, since to do so would be an unbearable blow to their communal pride and standing. Budayl's mission closed without any agreement, but it opened the door to the extended sequence of negotiations that followed. He himself would go on to embrace Islam in the years afterward.