Held Back by the One Who Held Back the Elephant

When the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) reached al-Ḥudaybiyah, his camel al-Qaṣwāʾ — the famous camel of the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him), spoken of in an earlier chapter — sat down. And when they told her ḥal ḥal, which is the word they would use to get a camel to stand up and move, the camel refused; the camel refused to stand up. So they said, khalaʾat al-Qaṣwāʾ: al-Qaṣwāʾ has become refractory. It happens with these animals — camels, horses, donkeys, the animals used for transport — that sometimes they become obstinate and suddenly refuse to take orders. So the people were saying: khalaʾat al-Qaṣwāʾ, she has become refractory. The Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) said: al-Qaṣwāʾ has not become refractory, and that is not in her nature; but she has been held back by the One who held back the elephant.

Remember the story of the elephant: Abrahah and his army, when they were attacking Makkah, the elephant refused to proceed. When they turned the elephant around, it would suddenly run off; they would turn it back towards Makkah, and it would refuse to move. So the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) said: the One who held back the elephant is the One who held back the camel. But there is a big difference here. Then it was Abrahah and the kuffār, and now it is the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) and the Companions. So what does this mean?

Ibn Ḥajar comments on this and says that Allah (swt) knew, then and now, that the people of Makkah were going to become Muslim, and therefore He prevented bloodshed then and now: then, by destroying the army of Abrahah and his followers, and now by opening the doors to peace. Had the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) proceeded onwards and war ensued, there would have been a great deal of bloodshed. But Allah (swt) held back the Muslims, and they stopped when al-Qaṣwāʾ refused to move. Eventually she did move. But the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) turned our attention to this event as something done by Allah (swt). This was the explanation given by Ibn Ḥajar. And the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) had announced and made it clear that he intended peace, and that he would accept any offer they made, as long as the sanctities of Allah were honoured.

There was a well at al-Ḥudaybiyah, but when the Companions went to drink from the well, it was empty. So they came to the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) to tell him about it. The Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) gave them an arrow from his quiver and told them to take it and drop it into the well, and they did so, and, subḥān Allāh, water started coming out of this well. There are many miracles of this sort that happened with the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him).

Skirmishes would happen, and prisoners were taken by the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) from the mushrikūn, but no one was killed. One example was narrated by Salamah ibn al-Akwaʿ (may Allah be pleased with him). He said: I was sleeping under a tree, and there were some mushrikūn lying down under an adjacent tree, and they were speaking against the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him). So I went to sleep under a tree at a distance; I did not want to hear the rubbish they were talking. Then I heard the call to arms — something had happened; there was the call of the Muhājirūn. And Salamah said: so I rushed towards these four mushrikūn who were sleeping under this tree. They had their swords hanging on the branches of the tree, so I gathered all of their swords and held them under my arm, with my own sword in my hand, and I told them: if any one of you makes a move, I am going to chop off his head. And I took them as prisoners to the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him), four of them. So there were events of this sort.