The conquest of Mecca

In the eighth year after the Hijrah, the Prophet ﷺ marched on Makkah with ten thousand believers. The Quraysh had broken the treaty of Hudaybiyyah by aiding the tribe of Bakr against the tribe of Khuza'ah, allies of the Muslims. The Prophet ﷺ honoured the alliance and moved on the city.

He had been driven out of Makkah twenty-one years earlier. His companions had been tortured in its streets. Sumayyah bint Khabbat RA, the first martyr of Islam, had been killed there. Bilal RA had been laid on the burning sand with a stone on his chest there. Khadijah RA had died in the years of the boycott, weak from hunger in the valley.

Now he was returning. With ten thousand men. To the city of all of it. This is the day Allah chose to teach the world what mercy looks like at the gate.

The march

He kept the operation quiet until the last possible moment. He prayed O Allah, take away their eyes and their ears from us, so we may take them by surprise. He wanted the city taken without a battle if it could be done.

Abu Sufyan, the leader of the Quraysh, came out to negotiate. The Prophet's ﷺ uncle Abbas RA brought him to the Prophet ﷺ. The Prophet ﷺ said has the time not come for you to know that there is no god but Allah? Abu Sufyan said yes. Has the time not come for you to know that I am the Messenger of Allah? Abu Sufyan hesitated. Abbas RA said to him quickly say the shahadah, by Allah, before he cuts off your head. Abu Sufyan said it.

The Prophet ﷺ asked Abbas RA to take Abu Sufyan to a narrow place where he could watch the Muslim army pass. Tribe after tribe went by, banners changing colour, columns disciplined. Abu Sufyan said the kingdom of your brother's son has become very great. Abbas RA said this is not a kingdom. This is prophethood.

Kingdoms gather to take. The Prophet ﷺ was gathering to deliver a mercy.

The Prophet's head was bowed

He entered Makkah on his camel, Al-Qaswa. The narrations preserve the posture. His head was bowed so low it almost touched the saddle. He was reciting Surah Al-Fath. He was not entering as a conqueror. He was entering as a servant who had been brought back to the house of his Lord.

Anas ibn Malik RA said I saw the Messenger of Allah on the day of the conquest of Makkah, on his camel, with his head lowered in humility before Allah, so much so that I could see his beard nearly touching the saddle (Sahih al-Bukhari 4286).

Read that again. Ten thousand men behind him. Every advantage. Every right to a victory parade. He bowed his head until it almost touched the camel's back. He was not the centre of the day. Allah was.

He gave four standing orders before the army entered. No one running away would be pursued. No wounded would be killed. No house entered. A small named list of people whose specific crimes required judgement, and of those, several were forgiven that very day when they accepted Islam.

This is justice. Not blanket revenge. Specific, named accountability for specific named acts. He did not pretend the years of persecution had not happened. He also did not let his army become a mob.

The gate

He arrived at the Kaaba. There were three hundred and sixty idols around it. He pointed at each one with his bow, reciting truth has come and falsehood has perished. Indeed, falsehood is bound to perish (Qur'an 17:81). Every idol he pointed at fell. Bilal RA was sent to the roof to give the adhan. The same Bilal RA who had been laid on the sand of this city with a stone on his chest was now calling the people to prayer from on top of the house of Allah.

The Quraysh of Makkah gathered in the courtyard. The men who had driven him out, killed his companions, laid the placenta of a camel on his back while he prayed at the Kaaba, boycotted his family in the valley. They stood in front of him now, waiting.

He stood in front of them. He asked them a question.

O people of Quraysh, what do you think I am about to do with you?

They said good. A noble brother and the son of a noble brother.

He said:

Go. You are free.

Idhhabu fa antumut tulaqa'. Go. You are the freed ones. He recited the verse Yusuf AS (عَلَيْهِ السَّلَام) had said to his brothers when they were standing in front of him in Egypt after they had thrown him into the well.

No blame upon you today. Allah will forgive you, and He is the most merciful of the merciful. (Qur'an 12:92)

The mercy of Yusuf AS to his brothers, the mercy of the Prophet ﷺ to Makkah, the mercy of Allah to His servants. The same shape. He was quoting a prophet to a city, telling them they were free in the way Yusuf had told his brothers they were free. The shape itself is the mercy thesis at the heart of this site, and this day stands as the brightest scene in the seerah of the Prophet ﷺ as a mercy to the worlds.

A whole city was pardoned by one sentence. Some accepted Islam that day. Many lived out their lives in Makkah as Muslims under a man they had hunted for twenty years.

The justice counterweight

He did not pretend the years had not happened. Wahshi, the man who killed Hamza RA at Uhud, was pardoned when he accepted Islam. Hind, the wife of Abu Sufyan, who ordered Hamza's death and chewed his liver in revenge, was pardoned when she accepted Islam.

This is the harder mercy. He named the crime. He had the right to take. He let it go. This is not a license to ignore wrongs. It is the level a believer reaches only after they have been wronged badly enough to have the right to demand justice and then choose to release that right. The Prophet ﷺ had earned every right to harshness on this day. He spent it on pardon.

What this teaches the reader

Three small things.

One. The posture of victory in Islam is the bowed head. He entered Makkah with his head almost on the saddle. If you are ever given the win in a long conflict, the way to walk into the room is with your head down before Allah, not your chest out. Victory is His gift. The credit is His.

Two. Idhhabu fa antumut tulaqa' is the line for the family member who hurt you and the colleague who undercut you and the friend who walked away. You do not have to keep them in the relationship they damaged. You can release them from the debt of it. Go. You are free. Allah will forgive you and He is the most merciful of the merciful.

Three. Mercy does not erase justice. The Prophet ﷺ named the crimes. He had the right to take. He chose to release. The release was meaningful because the right was real. Cheap pardon, the kind that pretends nothing happened, is not the sunnah. The sunnah is to see clearly and choose mercy anyway.

These are the rabbana verses that close on mercy after victory.