Lessons of al-Hudaybiyyah: Fiqh

Shaykh Yasir Qadhi explains:

The fiqh lessons of al-Ḥudaybiyyah:

❧Peace treaties with even the worst enemy

Quraysh were the worst enemy the Ummah will ever face, for they alone opposed the Prophet ﷺ in person, tried to kill and expelled him, yet he made peace with them, proving a treaty is permissible even with the most corrupt foe. On its maximum length, al-Shāfiʿī read the treaty's ten years as a cap (renewable in ten-year terms), while Abū Ḥanīfah and a report from Aḥmad held ten was merely what the Prophet ﷺ did, with no fixed limit, the stronger view, that duration follows the circumstances of the age. Modern jurists such as Wahbah al-Zuḥaylī and al-Qaraḍāwī have gone further, holding that in today's world a lasting peace can be legitimate.

❧A narrow exception on coarse speech

That the normally gentle, refined Abū Bakr uttered a vile curse in anger at one who had insulted Islam and the Prophet ﷺ, uncorrected by the Prophet ﷺ, shows there are rare, specific exceptions to the prohibition on vulgarity.

❧Being blocked from the pilgrimage (iḥṣār)

One prevented from completing Ḥajj or ʿUmrah stops where he is, sacrifices, shaves or trims, and exits iḥrām, making it up later, the ruling the Muslims applied for the first time here. Related: one may break an iḥrām restriction for a legitimate need and pay a fidyah, as when Kaʿb ibn ʿUjrah, infested with lice, was told to shave and expiate (fast, feed six, or sacrifice); the elderly may likewise wear protective clothing for a medical need and pay the fidyah.

❧Trusting a non-Muslim against other enemies

Ibn al-Qayyim derived from the scout Busr ibn Sufyān, whom he took to be a polytheist, that one may rely on a trusted non-Muslim against fellow non-Muslims; others hold Busr was in fact a secret convert. Either way, the Sīrah (the Hijrah, Uḥud, and more) affirms the permissibility of seeking a trustworthy non-Muslim's help.

❧The letter of a treaty over its spirit

Because the treaty said "no man" (rajul), women emigrants fell outside it though its spirit meant any person, one may hold strictly to a treaty's letter so long as one does not breach it. And since the treaty never charged the Prophet ﷺ with enforcing it, he did not police Madinah or hand fugitives over unbidden; when Abū Baṣīr returned, he only hinted him away rather than seize him.

❧Prayer in hardship, and the missed Fajr

When heavy rain fell at al-Ḥudaybiyyah the muʾadhdhin called "ṣallū fī riḥālikum" (صَلُّوا فِي رِحَالِكُمْ, "pray in your tents") in place of "come to prayer," and the congregation was excused, the basis for altering the adhān and praying at home in a storm or danger. And the once-or-twice oversleeping of Fajr on the journey teaches that even the most devout may, rarely and unintentionally, miss it, one then prays it as soon as he wakes.