The Message of Islam — Page 38
38 training of his people in the beneficent values of Islam which pervade every aspect of human life. In the sixth year after his Emigration from Makkah to Madinah, a truce was arranged with Quraish at Hudaibiyyah, for a period of ten years, the terms of which, even in the eyes of the Muslims, were utterly unequal and were even humiliating for them. But the Holy Prophet saw knew better and it soon became clear that the truce had opened wide avenues for the spread and progress of Islam. Within less than two years, Quraish commit- ted a glaring breach of the terms of the truce, by a party of them attacking and ravaging a tribe in alliance with the Muslims. On the entreaty of the oppressed tribe, the Holy Prophet saw marched against Makkah at the head of ten thousand devoted Muslims. Quraish realized that no way of deliverance was left to them. They threw themselves upon the mercy of the Holy Prophet saw. All the scorn and ridicule poured on him by the Meccans in his early years; their implacable hatred and enmity; the long years of bitter, cruel, and sustained persecution; all the fight- ing, the hardship and suffering; the loss of dear and devoted Companions ra—all, all was in the moment of triumph laid aside, banished from the mind and forgiven in the name of the Lord on High, the Gracious, the Merciful, the Creator and Master of all. The gates of love and mercy were opened wide. Bitter enemies of the morning became warm friends by midday. Some hearts were still sullen; the humiliation, though softened by magnanimity, was hard to endure, but even these could not long withstand the heal- ing effect of the balm so generously and so beneficently applied