to wipe you out then they break the truce.Hudna (هدنة) is an Arabic term meaning "truce" or "armistice" as well as "calm" or "quiet", coming from a verbal root meaning "calm". It is sometimes translated as "cease-fire". In the Lisan al-Arab (Ibn al-Manzur`s definitive dictionary of classical Arabic, dating to the 14th century) it is defined as follows:
"hadana: he grew quiet. hadina: he quieted (transitive or intransitive). haadana: he made peace with. The noun from each of these is hudna." A particularly famous early hudna was the Treaty of Hudaybiyyah between Muhammad and the Quraysh tribe, ending with Muhammad marching on Mecca along with 10000 men, two years after the hudna was signed, and taking over the Quraysh.
According to Umdat as-Salik, a medieval summary of Shafi`i jurisprudence, hudnas with a non-Muslim enemy should be limited to 10 years: "if Muslims are weak, a truce may be made for ten years if necessary, for the Prophet made a truce with the Quraysh for that long, as is related by Abu Dawud" (`Umdat as-Salik, o9.16). |
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