What Is a Hudna? Is It A Truce?

HUDNA

According to Islamic law, a hudna can only be agreed to in order to allow the Muslim forces to gather strength.

http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/004085.php


For the traditional Islamic understanding of a hudna, which Sheikh Hassan almost certainly had in mind, doesn’t consider a truce a foundation for peaceful coexistence, but a temporary measure to allow Muslim forces to gain strength. The Shafi’i school of Islamic jurisprudence stipulates that there must be “some interest served in making a truce other than mere preservation of the status quo.” The only “interests that justify making a truce are such things as Muslim weakness because of lack of numbers or materiel” — which the time of the truce would allow the Muslim forces to remedy — “or the hope of an enemy becoming Muslim” (‘Umdat al-Salik, o9.16).

http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/004189.php

...[Arafat] likened the Oslo accords, once again, to the 10-year truce made by the prophet Muhammad in A.D. 628 with the Arabian tribe of Quraysh. The Islamic forces used the peace to become stronger over a couple of years, then defeated the Quraysh tribe. The parallel re-emphasizes that Arafat sees Oslo not as a pledge to work for a permanent reconciliation between Arabs and Israelis but as a temporary and tactical maneuver. Why else have thousands paraded in Gaza with signs saying "We worship Allah by killing Jews"?

Source: http://www.qchillel.org/news/122198.htm
Mortimer Zuckerman, Editor-in-Chief, US News Editorial 12/21/98



The media and some political leaders portray a hudna as a truce or a cease-fire designed to bring peace. Though the term hudna does refer to a temporary cession of hostilities, it has historically been used as a tactic aimed at allowing the party declaring the hudna to regroup while tricking an enemy into lowering its guard. When the hudna expires, the party that declared it is stronger and the enemy weaker. The term comes from the story of the Muslim conquest of Mecca. Instead of a rapid victory, Muhammad made a ten-year treaty with the Kuraysh tribe. In 628 AD, after only two years of the ten-year treaty, Muhammad and his forces concluded that the Kuraysh were too weak to resist. The Muslims broke the treaty and took over all of Mecca without opposition.30

A modern-day hudna is not a form of compromise, rather it is a tactical tool to gain a military advantage. Hamas has used it no fewer than 10 times in 10 years.31

The hudna declared by Islamic terrorist organizations in 2003 was no different. The Hamas charter openly rejects the notion of a peaceful solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict, and the group did not change its views. On the contrary, Hamas spokesmen said they would not give up their weapons, that they would continue to resist “illegal occupation,” and that they believed the “violent awakenening from a few weeks or months of quiet” will “reaffirm Palestinians' belief in the intifada as the only option for them.”32 Even the hudna declaration asserted “the legitimate right to resist the occupation as a strategic option until the end of the Zionist occupation of our homeland and until we achieve all our national rights.” Hamas contends that all of Israel is occupied territory.33 This is why Secretary of State Colin Powell called Hamas an “enemy of peace” just before the hudna was declared, and said “the entire international community must speak out strongly against the activities of Hamas.”34
Jewish Virtual Library


See also:
Beware of Hudna --(in relation to HUDNA and Hamas) at Powerline Blog :
Christians beaten to Death by Muslims over cartoons a terrific analysis over at Euphoric Reality.Net


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