The peaceful return to Mecca

Two years earlier, the Muslims and Quraysh had agreed a ten-year truce at Hudaybiyyah. That peace did not hold. When the truce was broken, the Prophet ﷺلى prepared to march on Mecca, the city he had been born in and forced to leave. He set out from Medina with a large body of Muslims in the eighth year after the migration, around the year 630. The city that had once driven him and his followers out now lay open before him.

What is most remembered about this return is how little blood was shed. The leaders of Quraysh, who had fought the Muslims for years at Badr, Uhud, and the Trench, saw the size of what was coming and mostly chose not to resist. The Prophet ﷺلى entered Mecca with little fighting. For the early Muslims, many of whom had been mocked, boycotted, and made to flee their homes, this was the day they came home in peace rather than in revenge.

The deepest part of the story is what the Prophet ﷺلى did once the city was his. He declared a general amnesty for its people, including many who had been his bitter enemies. There was no settling of old scores. Then he turned to the Kaaba, the ancient house built for the worship of the one God, and cleared it of the idols that had been placed inside and around it, restoring it to its first purpose.

This moment is why the chapter is often called a conquest, yet it is gentler than that word suggests. It marked the end of years of struggle and the turning of Mecca back toward the faith of Ibrahim. The Qur'an records the spirit of these days in a short chapter, Surah an-Nasr, which speaks of God's help arriving, of victory, and of people entering the faith in crowds. It was a victory measured less in arms than in mercy.