Quraysh's Failed Surprise Attack at al-Tan'im

Shaykh Yasir Qadhi explains:

At an unrecorded point during the standoff at al-Ḥudaybiyyah, Quraysh attempted a surprise attack on the Muslim camp, recorded in Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim: eighty armed men descended from the direction of al-Tanʿīm, an area near modern-day Makkah, timing their assault for early morning, likely around the time of prayer, hoping to catch the Muslims unprepared. The Muslims, however, had scouts posted and saw them coming; rather than being ambushed, the Muslims surrounded the entire party and forced their surrender without a single casualty on either side.

Brought before the Prophet ﷺ, all eighty men were forgiven and sent back to Makkah unharmed. Dr. Qadhi highlights the significance of this restraint: under any legal framework, having been the target of an armed surprise attack, the Prophet ﷺ would have been fully justified in executing the captured attackers, and had the eighty simply been killed in the initial confrontation, no one could have faulted the Muslims for it. Yet not one was harmed.

Allah references this episode directly in Sūrat al-Fatḥ 48:24: "And it is He who restrained their hands from you and your hands from them within [the area of] Makkah after He had given you dominance over them" (وَهُوَ الَّذِي كَفَّ أَيْدِيَهُمْ عَنْكُمْ وَأَيْدِيَكُمْ عَنْهُمْ بِبَطْنِ مَكَّةَ مِنْ بَعْدِ أَنْ أَظْفَرَكُمْ عَلَيْهِمْ). Dr. Qadhi draws out both halves of this verse, Allah restraining Quraysh's hands from inflicting what could have been devastating casualties among the 1,400 Muslims, and restraining the Muslims' hands from retaliating against the captured attackers, since any bloodshed at that moment would have permanently foreclosed the negotiations that followed. Al-Ḥudaybiyyah, which this restraint made possible, is described in the Sīrah tradition as the greatest victory Allah granted the Muslims after the Conquest of Makkah itself, a victory this single act of forgiveness protected from being lost before it could unfold.