Murder in the Name of Allah — Page 30
Murder in the Name of Allah. Badr's mill ground out the blood of its people. . At events like Badr you should weep and cry. . The best people were killed round their cisterns. . Don't think it strange that princes were left lying. How many noble, handsome men,. The refuge of the homeless, were slain,. Liberal when the stars gave no rain. ³³ 2 The vendetta, as we have observed earlier, was one of the pillars of preIslamic Arab society. So, whenever a pagan combatant was killed by a. Muslim in armed conflict, his heirs took an oath to avenge his death and the whole tribe accused Islam of his death. The fact that conflicts were initiated by pagans themselves was conveniently forgotten. 3 The Holy Prophet'ssa mission was restricted to a small area of Arabia because of the general hostility to him. Missionaries could not take the message of Islam to the whole of the peninsula. 4 Many Arabs had accepted Islam, but fear of war made them afraid to declare their new faith. 5 Conversion to a new religion requires commitment and courage, even when honour and life itself are not at risk. Here, acceptance of Islam demanded more than the joining of a religious society: it meant taking up arms in its defence. Since Muslims at this time were unarmed and weak, it was suicide to join them. 6 Self-defence kept the Muslims so busy that very little time was left for spreading the faith. . If our premise is correct, the ending of hostilities should have immediately boosted the spread of Islam. As we shall see, this is exactly what happened. Mecca was conquered in January 630. That, according to the orientalists and enemies of Islam, was the turning-point in Islamic history. If that were true, one could indeed say that the sword had played a role in the spread of Islam. But history tells a rather different story. . Hostilities between the Muslims and the pagan Arabs ended with the truce of Al-Hudaybiah 34 (March 628). The terms of the truce appeared to be so degrading that 'Umar could not contain himself, and asked the. Prophet: 'Why yield we in such lowly wise against the honour of our 30