Muhammad: Seal of the Prophets — Page 359
MUHAMMAD : SEAL OF THE PROPHETS 359 be delivered up who might desert his standard. Above all, it was a great and manifest success that free permission was conceded to visit Mecca in the ‘following year, and for three days occupy the city undisturbed. A short while after some Muslim women managed to escape from Mecca and arrived in Medina. The first of these was Um Kulthum, daughter of a pagan chief, Uqbah bin Abi Mueet, who had perished at Badr. On her mother’s side she was closely related to Uthman bi n Affan. She had the courage and endurance to travel from Mecca to Medina on foot, and on arrival at Medina she presented herself before the Holy Prophet and announced her acceptance of Islam. She was soon followed by her two brothers who claimed that she be handed over to them. They urged that though the words of the treaty specifically mentioned that every male ( rajul ) from among Quraish who might go over to the Holy Prophet must be returned to them, the purport of the treaty was general and applied to both men and women. In opposition to them Um Kulthum relied both on the language of the treaty and on the consideration that women were weak and occupied a subordinate position to men and that therefore returning a woman who had embraced Islam to Quraish would amount to imposing spiritual death upon her. She therefore urged that the exemption of women from the operation o f the treaty was not only in accord with its language, but was reasonable, just and necessary. The Holy Prophet pronounced in favour of Um Kulthum and rejected the claim of her brothers. In this context, it must be remembered that Suhail bin Amr, envoy of Quraish at Hudaibiyya, had minutely scrutinized every word of the treaty