151first covenant of al-Aqabah. They set out and, at me first halt, the Prophet
himself consecrated the camels that were to be sacrificed during the pil-
grimage. As fo r the Meccans, they very soon heard that a convoy of
;\Iuslims was heading for Mecca, intending to visit the Kaba. Visiting the
sancruary had, for decades, been the Peninsula tribes' most legitimate right,
but with the l>,'luslims, the Q uraysh were faced with an irresolvable dilem-
ma: they did not sec how they conld cither justify barring thcm from enter-
ing (and how could they compel them to comply in the sacred month of
Dhu al-Qidah, during which war was prohibited) o r, on the other hand,
allow their enemy into the city, which would endow the M uslims with unac-
ceptable prestige. Quraysh decided to send Khalid ibn al-Walid with two
hund red men to StOP the pilgrims from getting ncar Mecca. The Muslims'
scout cam e to info rm them of tbe fact, and they decid ed to change their
route in order to avoid a situation that would inevitably lead to a dash. The
Prophet re lied on a Companion's knowledge of the area, and they took a
route through which they arri\'ed 50 mh of Mecca, on the edge of the sacred
territo ry, in the plain of al-H udaybiyyah. At that point, t h e Prophet's camel,
Qaswa, hahed and refused to go on. As had been the case when he had
arrin :d in ?ofe<lina seven years before, the Prophet sa w this as a sign. H e had
to stop and nego tiate the pilgrims' entry into Mecca with the Q uraysh.
The Quraysh were once m o re totally taken aback by the Prophet's atti-
tude, which did not fit with any of th eir religious, cultural, or warfare tra-
ditions. At the height o f his new power, he was coming [0 :Mecca unarmed,
and thus in effect vulnerable, even th o ugh circumstances could have
enabled him to attain even g reater supremacy over his e nemies. Moreover,
he called people [0 a new religion but did no t hesitate to rely on res pec t
of the rules of Arab traditio ns to p rotect himself from their attacks, and
in doi'1g so he put the Quraysh into a dilemma, since they had to choose
between their honor (respec ting the rules) and the loss of their prestige
(allowing the .Muslim s to enter M ecca). Muhammad's tactical choices
proved rewarding.
Negotiati o n s
The Quraysh werc determined not to allow the Muslims to perform the
pilgrimage, because of the cr ucial symboljc stakes invo lved b ut also, o f