Lessons of al-Hudaybiyyah: Theology

Shaykh Yasir Qadhi explains:

Drawing largely on Ibn al-Qayyim's analysis in Zād al-Maʿād, Dr. Qadhi lists the theological lessons of al-Ḥudaybiyyah.

❧Standing guard, and good omens

The Companions standing armed around the Prophet ﷺ before Quraysh's emissaries, though he never kept a bodyguard, shows it is permissible to display such protocol for a benefit (maṣlaḥah), here to show Quraysh the Muslims honored their leader more than Quraysh honored theirs. And Suhayl's arrival, from which the Prophet ﷺ drew "your matter has been made easy" (from the root of Suhayl's name), teaches the good omen (al-fa'l): a positive reading, on two conditions, that it be positive (there is no valid ill omen) and tied to Allah.

❧Ascribe blessings only to Allah

A heavy rain fell during the camp, and someone slipped into the old Jāhilī habit of crediting a star, "muṭirnā bi-nawʾi kadhā." The next dawn the Prophet ﷺ related that Allah had said some of His servants woke as believers in Him and some as believers in the stars: whoever said "it rained by the grace and mercy of Allah" believed in Him, and whoever credited the star disbelieved and believed in it. Said without conviction it is minor shirk; with conviction, major shirk. So one never ascribes a blessing to a cause alone, not "the doctor cured me" but "Allah cured me through the doctor", affirming causality while giving the blessing to Allah.

❧Tabarruk with the Prophet's ﷺ relics

Suhayl's own report of how the Companions caught the water of the Prophet's ﷺ wuḍūʾ shows that seeking blessing (tabarruk) from his body, sweat, hair, and relics is permissible, but for him alone, no one else. And when he saw them do it and asked why, and they said they sought Allah's blessing, he pointed to something better: "whoever wishes that Allah and His Messenger love him, let him be truthful in speech, faithful with what is entrusted to him, and a good neighbor", a greater path to blessing than the relics, though the relics were permitted.

❧Qadar

Sometimes what looks like nothing but harm and humiliation is, in Allah's knowledge, pure good: "wa ʿasā an takrahū shay'an wa huwa khayrun lakum" (وَعَسَىٰ أَنْ تَكْرَهُوا شَيْئًا وَهُوَ خَيْرٌ لَكُمْ). Neither the Companions nor, at the time, the Prophet ﷺ himself knew how it would turn out, only "Allah will help me", yet it proved the greatest victory of all.

❧Never assume you know better than the Qurʾān and Sunnah

Both ʿUmar and Sahl ibn Ḥunayf said "ittahimū al-ra'y ʿalā al-dīn", hold your own opinion suspect before the religion. ʿUmar admitted he had nearly rejected the command, and that he would never have accepted such terms from anyone but the Prophet ﷺ. Where a text is explicit, "samiʿnā wa aṭaʿnā" (we hear and obey).

❧A cautionary tale on takfīr

Dr. Qadhi adds a fourth-century episode: in Andalusia the great Mālikī scholar Abū al-Walīd al-Bājī argued, from the Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī report of the treaty, where the Prophet ﷺ "who did not write well" (لَا يُحْسِنُ الْكِتَابَةَ) is said to have written "Muḥammad ibn ʿAbdillāh" after ʿAlī refused to erase "Rasūl Allah", that the Prophet ﷺ learned to read and write after prophethood. Other scholars declared anyone saying so a disbeliever, since the Qurʾān calls him "al-nabiyy al-ummī" (the unlettered Prophet). Al-Bājī was tried before the Sultan and answered every proof, and the case was dismissed, yet his remained a minority view. Dr. Qadhi notes the mainstream, safer position that the Prophet ﷺ did not read or write (the Bukhārī wording being read as "he commanded it written," as one says "the governor built the road"), and draws the real lesson: strange scholarly opinions do not make a person a disbeliever, and declaring takfīr is the domain of qualified scholars, never the masses.