<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><u>Tactical Hudna and Islamist Intolerance</u> by Denis MacEoin Middle East Quarterly Summer 2008, pp. 39-48 Print Send RSS The use by Westerners of the word hudna highlights an anomaly. Whenever journalists, diplomats, or commentators covering the Middle East use a non-English word, it will almost always be Arabic or perhaps Persian; seldom do they use any Hebrew words. Never has a U.S. or British newspaper, for example, used the Hebrew word for cease-fire (hafsakat esh). This is odd as Israel is the other side to these cease-fires. The majority of Arabic terms reproduced in Western language newspapers are concerned with either military topics (jihad, mujahideen, fida'iyin, shahid)[1] or religious affairs (fatwa, mulla, ulema, ayatollah, Shari‘a, Allahu akbar).[2] There is nothing wrong with borrowing Arabic words. However, doing so without understanding the word's nuance and historical development will render deficient any understanding of that word's true meaning. Here, it might be possible to consider hudna somewhat of an exception—it can be translated accurately as truce or cease-fire. Its contemporary usage — at least in English and other European languages — is exclusive to the conflict between Israel and its adversaries, whether Islamist terror groups in Gaza, the West Bank, or southern Lebanon, or states such as Syria. In Iran, it is used alongside the Persian term aramesh.[3] Still, hudna retains a historical context that colors its meaning, if not in Western papers, then in Arabs' understanding. The concept of hudna deserves a close look: It is not a Qur'anic term, nor is it the only Arabic word for a cease-fire or truce; others include: muhadana, muwada'a, muhla, musalaha, musalama, mutaraka, and sulh. But hudna is the most prominent. It is the first word used in Muslim history to mean cease-fire, specifically in the context of the seventh century Truce or Treaty of al-Hudaybiyya, often termed the Sulh al-Hudaybiyya (peace of al-Hudaybiyya). Named after a village outside Mecca, the truce came six years after Muhammad and his followers abandoned Mecca for Yathrib, today's Medina. This move, known as the hijra (emigration) is of enormous significance for the classical understanding of jihad, inasmuch as it sets a pattern of retreat followed by regrouping and rearming, which permits an attack on the territory previously left behind.[4] In March 628 C.E., Muhammad and his followers sought to return to Mecca to perform a pilgrimage. At Hudaybiyya, Muhammad "marched till he reached al-Hudaybiyya which lies at the limit of the Haram [sacred territory of Mecca] area at a distance of nine miles from Mecca."[5] Muhammad and the rulers of Mecca, most of whom had yet to convert to Islam, negotiated a truce, the essence of which was to permit the Muslims to return unarmed on pilgrimage each year for the next decade. It came to an end two years later, however, following an infraction by a tribe allied to the Meccans. In 630, Muhammad entered Mecca with a small, armed force and took the city peacefully. Hudna, in other words, amounted to a temporary truce. ....</div> http://www.meforum.org/article/1925
