Fourteen hundred Muslims are camped at Hudaybiyyah, just outside the sanctuary, in ihram, with sacrificial animals and no intention of war. They came for umrah, not battle. But the Quraysh have sealed the roads, and the negotiations are going nowhere. So the Prophet ﷺ decides to send one more envoy, a man noble enough that even the Quraysh will have to listen.
What happens next is one of the most extraordinary days in the entire seerah: a rumor, a pledge under a tree that the Qur'an itself would immortalize, and then a treaty so lopsided it made the strongest of the companions question everything, ending on a sound none of them could bear, the clinking of chains.
Umar steps back, and Uthman steps forward
The Prophet ﷺ first thought of Umar ibn al-Khattab. He had the strength, the standing, the sheer presence to walk into Makkah and not be pushed around. But Umar gave an answer that tells you everything about him. He did not refuse out of fear. As Dr. Yasir Qadhi insists, the last person on earth you could ever accuse of cowardice is Umar; if this had been about glory, he would have been first in line. What Umar said was: my enmity with the Quraysh is too well known, they remember exactly what I did at Badr and who I killed, and I have no clan left in Makkah to protect me. Send someone they genuinely respect, someone without my baggage, and he named the man himself: Uthman ibn Affan.
It was the opposite of ego. Umar set his own spotlight aside so the mission would actually succeed, and pointed to a man with the lineage to be safe and the dignity to be heard. Uthman was of the Banu Umayyah, close kin to the Quraysh leadership, with powerful relatives still alive to shield him. He was the right choice, and Umar knew it well enough to take himself out of the running.
Into the city, under a cousin's protection
Uthman radiyallahu anhu rode toward Makkah and was stopped at the edge of the city. The men guarding that road mocked him and told him to turn back: there would be no negotiation, no hope of entering. He was about to return when his own cousin, Aban ibn Said, recognized him. Whether his heart softened at how Uthman was being treated or whether old respect surfaced, Aban climbed down from his horse, put Uthman on his own saddle, and declared him under his protection. In the Arabia of that day, this was the visa: you entered a city under the aman, the guarantee, of a man who would vouch for you. So Uthman entered Makkah on his cousin's mount, an honor in itself, and was taken to meet the leaders.
He met Abu Sufyan and the chiefs of Quraysh, and every one of them refused the same thing in the same words: the Muslims would not enter this year, for the Arabs must never be able to say that Muhammad ﷺ forced his way in over them. The Prophet ﷺ had also charged Uthman with a second errand: to find the believers still trapped in Makkah, the ones who had accepted Islam but had no means to escape persecution, and tell them that Allah was aware of their suffering and would soon make a way out. Uthman found them, some still in chains, and carried the message.
The rumor that changed everything
The meetings dragged. What should have taken an hour or two stretched across most of a day, leader after leader, and from the camp at Hudaybiyyah it looked like a black box: Uthman had walked in, and no word came out. Hours passed. And as Sheikh Yasir describes it, this is simply how human beings work. Someone wondered aloud, what if they killed him. Someone else hardened it to surely they killed him. The small thing gathered weight, rolling and growing, until the whole camp had quietly accepted it as fact: their envoy was dead.
When that dread reached the Prophet ﷺ, and it seemed the Muslims had made up their minds, he did not let it pass. He said they would not leave until they had taken their stand: you do not send an honored envoy and have him killed and simply walk away. A crier went out that Jibril had come down, and the Prophet ﷺ was calling the people to give him their pledge.
The pledge of Ridwan, under the tree
لَّقَدْ رَضِيَ اللَّهُ عَنِ الْمُؤْمِنِينَ إِذْ يُبَايِعُونَكَ تَحْتَ الشَّجَرَةِ فَعَلِمَ مَا فِي قُلُوبِهِمْ فَأَنزَلَ السَّكِينَةَ عَلَيْهِمْ وَأَثَابَهُمْ فَتْحًا قَرِيبًا
“Certainly was Allah pleased with the believers when they pledged allegiance to you, [O Muhammad], under the tree, and He knew what was in their hearts, so He sent down tranquility upon them and rewarded them with an imminent conquest”
Surah al-Fath 48:18 Read 48:18 with tafsir
Sit with the circumstance for a moment. Fourteen hundred men, tired from the road, low on water, their animals worn out, with weapons fit for a peaceful journey and nothing close to the gear of war. The Quraysh were at least triple their number, fresh, armed, fed, sitting in their own city. To pledge to fight now was to pledge to almost certain death. And so, one by one, the companions came to the Prophet ﷺ as he sat beneath a tree and gave their hands on an oath: they would not flee, they would not turn their backs, they would fight until the end if it came to that. Allah names that very tree in the Qur'an. This is the pledge history calls Bay'at ar-Ridwan, the pledge of Allah's pleasure, because of the verse the Sheikh draws our eyes to: Allah was pleased with the believers when they pledged under the tree, and He knew what was in their hearts.
Read that last line slowly. He knew what was in their hearts. This is Allah Himself testifying that not one of them was hiding cowardice, that every heart there was ready. Only one man held back, a hypocrite who crouched behind his camel so no one would see, and Allah exposed him. Everyone else gave their hand. And here is the detail that should stop you: Uthman was not there. He was still inside Makkah, presumed dead. So the Prophet ﷺ took his own left hand, said this is for Uthman, placed it in his right, and gave the pledge on Uthman's behalf. The hand of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ standing in for the hand of an absent man.
Whose hand was over their hands
إِنَّ الَّذِينَ يُبَايِعُونَكَ إِنَّمَا يُبَايِعُونَ اللَّهَ يَدُ اللَّهِ فَوْقَ أَيْدِيهِمْ ۚ فَمَن نَّكَثَ فَإِنَّمَا يَنكُثُ عَلَىٰ نَفْسِهِ ۖ وَمَنْ أَوْفَىٰ بِمَا عَاهَدَ عَلَيْهُ اللَّهَ فَسَيُؤْتِيهِ أَجْرًا عَظِيمًا
“Indeed, those who pledge allegiance to you, [O Muhammad] - they are actually pledging allegiance to Allah. The hand of Allah is over their hands. So he who breaks his word only breaks it to the detriment of himself. And he who fulfills that which he has promised Allah - He will give him a great reward.”
Surah al-Fath 48:10 Read 48:10 with tafsir
What did these companions earn for it? The Prophet ﷺ told them that day: you are the best people on the earth right now, none better than you. And later, in a hadith in Sahih Muslim, that no one who gave the pledge under the tree would ever touch the Fire. As a group, the people of the tree stand second only to the people of Badr in all the ranks the Prophet ﷺ ever praised. And the Qur'an honors the moment in a way that should make your skin prickle: it was not merely that their hands rested in his, but that, as the Sheikh reads this ayah, Allah declares His own hand was above theirs, in a manner that befits His majesty. They thought they were pledging to a man under a tree. Allah says they were pledging to Him.
This is why, in our tradition, the people of Hudaybiyyah are untouchable. And Uthman in particular: the Prophet ﷺ took the pledge for him with his own body. There is a beautiful narration the Sheikh relates, in al-Bukhari, of a Khariji who came to Abdullah ibn Umar trying to find fault with Uthman: did he not flee at Uhud, was he not absent at Badr, was he not missing at the pledge of Ridwan. Ibn Umar answered each by Allah: yes he withdrew at Uhud, but Allah forgave them; yes he missed Badr, but the Prophet ﷺ had ordered him to stay back with his sick wife and still gave him a share, so he counts as a man of Badr; and as for Ridwan, the whole pledge only happened because of Uthman, and the Prophet's ﷺ own hand stood in for his. Go back to your people, Ibn Umar said, and tell them that.
Suhayl comes, and Allah makes it easy
News of the pledge reached Makkah, and the Quraysh, who according to one report trembled when they heard a small, tired band of believers had bound themselves to fight to the death, sent Uthman back unharmed and moved to negotiate in earnest. After a first envoy the Prophet ﷺ judged unworkable, a senior delegation finally appeared in the distance, and at its head was Suhayl ibn Amr, one of the great orators and statesmen of Quraysh, a member of their inner council. When the Prophet ﷺ saw him, he drew a good omen from his very name: Suhayl comes from the root that means ease, and he said now your matter has been made easy for you.
The Sheikh pauses here to teach us what a good omen actually is in Islam. The Prophet ﷺ rejected superstition outright: no black cats, no broken glass, no bad luck in objects, and to believe such things harm you is a kind of shirk. But he loved al-faal, optimism: a good word or sign that lifts the heart, on two conditions, that it is positive, and that it is tied back to Allah. To make du'a on a grey day, then look up and see the sun break through and take heart that your hardship will lift like the clouds, that is faal, and it is good. The Prophet ﷺ heard Suhayl's name and read ease into it, and ease is exactly what came.
The treaty, word by word
The Prophet ﷺ called for Ali ibn Abi Talib to write. Notice, the Sheikh says, that the Prophet ﷺ negotiated as a leader, not a meek one: he dictated first, he set the terms. He began, write: in the name of Allah, ar-Rahman, ar-Rahim. Suhayl objected: I do not know this Rahman; write as we are used to, in Your name, O Allah. The Prophet ﷺ conceded it. Then he dictated: this is what Muhammad, the Messenger of Allah, has agreed. Suhayl objected again: if we accepted you were the Messenger of Allah, we would never have fought you; write your name and your father's, Muhammad ibn Abdullah. Ali had already written the words Messenger of Allah, and could not bring himself to erase them. So the Prophet ﷺ took the document himself and, with his own hand, scraped the words away, and told Ali, gently, to write Muhammad ibn Abdullah.
Look at what just happened, the Sheikh says. Ali honored the Prophet ﷺ precisely by refusing to scratch out the title with his own hand, and the Prophet ﷺ did not force him. He understood. None of these were concessions of faith; they were concessions of pride, and the Prophet ﷺ had already told his companions, openly, that the Quraysh would not ask him for any condition honoring the sacred ties of Allah except that he would grant it, as long as bloodshed in the sacred months and the sacred precinct was avoided. He was giving up the appearance of victory to keep the substance of peace.
The condition, and the chains
وَمَغَانِمَ كَثِيرَةً يَأْخُذُونَهَا ۗ وَكَانَ اللَّهُ عَزِيزًا حَكِيمًا
“And much war booty which they will take. And ever is Allah Exalted in Might and Wise.”
Surah al-Fath 48:19 Read 48:19 with tafsir
Then came the term that cut. The Muslims would not enter this year; they would return for umrah the next. And Suhayl added a condition that was personal as much as political: if any man from Quraysh defected to Muhammad ﷺ, even one who had become Muslim, he must be sent back, while anyone who left the Muslims for Quraysh would not be returned. The companions erupted. How could they hand back a believer who had run to them, who had chosen them and chosen faith? Ali's pen stopped; the commotion swelled. This was a test, and Allah willed that it would come with a face attached.
Suhayl had two sons who had broken his heart over Islam. One, Abdullah, had slipped away to the Muslims at Badr. The other, Abu Jandal, Suhayl had locked away and tortured for years, chained in a dungeon, refusing to let him reach Madinah. And at that very moment, as the ink was still wet on this condition, Abu Jandal had finally escaped his chains and dragged himself, fetters still on his ankles, toward the camp, crying out to the Muslims, not knowing his own father sat there, not knowing the clause being written was about him. They heard the clanking of his chains before they saw him. And Suhayl turned to the Prophet ﷺ and said: this is the first one you will hand back to me. There the day ends, on the cruelest possible note, and the harder verses are still to come.
And yet, woven through all of it, is the promise that this very year would later be called by Allah a clear victory, with much war booty the believers would take, the spoils of Khaybar just over the horizon. The companions could not see it yet. They only heard the chains.