if they incline to peace, incline thou also to it and trust in Allāh; surely He is the Hearer, the Knower. And if they intend to deceive thee, then surely Allāh is sufficient for thee” (8:61, 62). It should be noted that peace is here recommended even though the enemy’s sincerity may be doubtful. And there were reasons to doubt the good intentions of the enemy, for the Arab tribes did not attach much value to their treaty agreements:“ Those with whom thou makest an agreement, then they break their agreement every time and they keep not their duty” (8:56). None could carry those precepts into practice better than the Holy Prophet, and he was so prone to make peace whenever the enemy showed the least desire towards it, that on the occasion of the Ḥudaibiyah truce he did not hesitate to accept the position of the defeated party, though he had never been defeated on the field of battle, and his Companions had sworn to lay down their lives one and all if the worst had come to the worst. Yet he made peace and accepted terms which his own followers looked upon as humiliating for Islām. He accepted the condition that he would go back without performing a pilgrimage and also that if a resident of Makkah embraced Islām and came to him for protection, he would not give him protection. Thus the injunction contained in the Holy Qur’ān to make peace with the idolaters if they desired peace, combined with the practice of the Holy Prophet in concluding peace on any terms, is a clear proof that the theory of preaching Islām by the sword is a pure myth so far as the Holy Qur’ān is concerned.

To sum up, neither in the earlier revelations nor in the later is there the slightest indication of any injunction to propagate Islām by the sword. On the other hand, war was clearly allowed as a defensive measure up to the last. It was to be continued only so long as religious persecution lasted, and when that ceased, war was to cease ipso facto. And there was the additional condition that if a tribe, against whom the Muslims were fighting because of its aggressive and repeated violation of treaties, embraced Islām, it then and there became a part of the Muslim body politic, and its subjugation by arms was therefore foregone, and war with it came to an end. Such remained the practice of the Holy Prophet during his lifetime. And there is not a single instance in history in which he offered the alternative of the sword or Islām to any tribe or individual, nor did he ever lead an