Conquest of Makkah, Hunayn & Tabuk (8–9 AH)

Hudaybiyyah’s clause — “tribes may join either side” — wrote Quraysh’s doom. Khuzaah joined Madinah; Banu Bakr joined Makkah. In Shaban 8 AH, Bakr raided Khuzaah at Al-Watir by night — with Quraysh weapons, Quraysh men (Ikrimah ibn Abi Jahl, Safwan, Suhayl’s son among the moonlit killers), chasing the survivors into the Haram itself and slaughtering twenty there. Amr ibn Salim al-Khuzai galloped to Madinah, stood in the mosque, and cried his rajaz before the Prophet ﷺ: “O Lord — Muhammad! Our pact, our father’s pact! Quraysh broke Your covenant…” The Prophet ﷺ answered: “You shall be aided, Amr.” Abu Sufyan rushed to renew the treaty — and met a wall of silence: the Prophet ﷺ would not receive him; Abu Bakr and Umar refused intercession; Ali advised only the desperate theater of granting protection himself (worthless); even his own daughter Umm Habibah (the Prophet’s ﷺ wife) folded the Prophet’s ﷺ mat from under him — “the Messenger’s mat shall not bear a pagan.” He returned to Makkah empty, muttering he had played a hollow farce. War was decided — and Quraysh would learn it from torches.

Ramadan 8 AH: ten thousand fasting men marched — Muhajirun, Ansar, Aslam, Ghifar, Mazinah, Juhaynah — the largest force Arabia had seen under one banner, the Prophet ﷺ breaking fast at Kadid (“you meet the enemy tomorrow — breaking fast strengthens you”). Secrecy was total: Allah “took news from Quraysh” — even Aisha did not know the destination; Hatib ibn Abi Baltaa’s smuggled letter (family in Makkah to protect) was intercepted via revelation, and forgiven on the spot for Badr’s sake (“what tells you Allah looked upon Badr’s men and said: do as you will — I forgive you”). At Marr az-Zahran the ten thousand lit the night with cooking-fires; Abbas — emigrated just before — brought the captive Abu Sufyan through the camp past Umar’s demand for his head, showed him rank on rank at dawn prayer, and exacted the testimony: “none worthy but Allah… Muhammad is His Messenger” — half terror, half conviction (his Islam, like Hind’s and Ikrimah’s, ripened sincerely after). Then the entry-plan: four columns (Zubayr, Sad, Khalid, Abu Ubaydah), strict orders — no blood but against resistors; the Prophet ﷺ himself entered on Qaswa, head bowed till his chin touched the saddle, reciting Surah Al-Fath, while the city that had set a hundred-camel price on that head watched in trembling silence.

The cleansing was swift and symbolic: circling the Kaaba, the Prophet ﷺ toppled each of the 360 idols with his staff — “Truth has come and falsehood has vanished; falsehood is ever vanishing” (17:81) — Hubal last and largest, crashing from the roof. Paintings effaced, except (by some accounts) Maryam and Isa veiled by his hands. Then Bilal climbed the Kaaba and cried the adhan over Makkah — the Abyssinian slave’s voice where chiefs once tortured him; some new Muslims muttered, and revelation or rebuke answered every whisper. Ali was handed the Kaaba’s key after its keeper Uthman ibn Talhah briefly withheld it — the Prophet ﷺ returned it with the charter: “Take it, Banu Talhah — eternally, none shall take it from you but a tyrant.” Sanctuary settled, the assembly was summoned to the reckoning all dreaded — the chiefs who had partitioned boycotts, ordered assassinations, mutilated Hamza, starved children. “O Quraysh — what do you say I shall do with you?” A whisper: “A noble brother, son of a noble brother — only good we expect.” The sentence that outshines every conquest in history: “Idhhabu — go, you are free (Tulaqa). La tathriba alaykum al-yawm — no blame upon you today; may Allah forgive you” — Yusuf’s words to his brothers (12:92), spoken by Muhammad ﷺ to his tormentors. Only a handful of specific murderers and blasphemers were excepted — and almost all, given any opening, were pardoned: Ikrimah (fetched from Yemen’s ships by his Muslim wife), Wahshi (who would later slay the false prophet Musaylimah in expiation), Hind (veiled at the Baiat, cracking “was any man dearer to me to humiliate than you? Now none dearer to honour” — and laughter all round). Within days Makkah prayed behind him — including Abu Sufyan’s household, Muawiyah among the scribes.

But conquest bred conceit. At Hunayn (Shawwal 8 AH) 12,000 marched against Hawazin-Thaqif’s 20,000 under the youthful Malik ibn Awf — and some voice said what Badr’s 313 never said: “We shall not be beaten today for fewness.” Dawn in the valley: arrows “like locusts” from masked ridges, the vanguard dissolving, camels stampeding rider over rider — till round the Prophet ﷺ (who spurred toward the enemy crying “I am the Prophet, no lie — I am the son of Abdul Muttalib!”) stood barely a hundred: Abbas holding the bridle, Abu Sufyan (now Muslim) clinging to the stirrup, Ali, Zubayr, Talha, the Ansar’s core. Then Abbas’s far-carrying voice — “O companions of the Tree! O Surah Baqarah’s men!” — rallied them back in waves; the Prophet’s ﷺ fistful of dust (“May faces be deformed!”) blinded the enemy like Badr’s pebbles; Hawazin broke, leaving the greatest spoils in Arab history (24,000 camels, 40,000 sheep, silver beyond count, 6,000 captives at Jiranah). Taif — the city of stones — was besieged with testudo and catapult counsel from Salman, then lifted after weeks; the Prophet ﷺ prayed instead: “O Allah, guide Thaqif and bring them” — and within the year its delegation came (the Lat demolished by its own chief’s son). Hunayn’s spoils tested hearts: the Prophet ﷺ favoured new Makkan chiefs to bind them, the Ansar murmured — till his tearful address (“Are you not pleased that men take sheep and camels, while you take Allah’s Messenger to your homes? … O Allah, bless the Ansar, their children, their grandchildren!”) left them weeping “we are pleased!” — the finest hour of the Ansar, and of leadership.

One campaign remained: Tabuk, Rajab 9 AH — the Year of Delegations’ stern twin. Rumours of Heraclius massing at the frontier (after Mu’tah’s score unsettled) coincided with drought, harvest-time, and furnace heat: the Army of Hardship (Jaysh al-Usrah) — 30,000 answering despite hypocrites’ excuses (“do not march in the heat!” — “Hell’s fire is hotter,” 9:81), Uthman equipping a third of it (1000 dinars poured in the Prophet’s ﷺ lap — “nothing harms Uthman after today”), Abu Bakr giving all, Umar half, the weeping poor (Bakakaun) sent home for lack of mounts. Ali, left as deputy over Madinah, silenced mockers with the Prophet’s ﷺ words: “Are you not pleased to be to me as Harun was to Musa — except no prophet after me?” (Bukhari, Muslim). Twenty nights at Tabuk: no Romans engaged, but the north submitted — John of Aylah’s tribute-pact (the dhimma precedent), Dumat al-Jandal’s Ukaydir ransomed, the frontier tribes bound. The hypocrites’ mosque of harm (Masjid Dirar) was ordered razed on return (9:107–108); the three sincere defaulters (Kab ibn Malik, Murarah, Hilal) were boycotted fifty days then forgiven from heaven (9:118) — the surah of Baraah’s audit closing the mission’s military chapter. Arabia, from Yemen to the Syrian marches, now looked to Madinah.