The advice at Hudaybiyyah

The Muslims had travelled to Makkah to perform the pilgrimage. They were stopped outside it, and after long negotiation a treaty was agreed whose terms looked, to most of the people standing there, like a defeat. Among them: they would go home without entering, and come back the following year.

The Prophet ﷺ then told them to slaughter their animals and shave their heads, which is how the pilgrimage state is brought to an end.

Nobody moved.

He said it again. Still nobody moved. This is one of the very few moments in the whole period where a direct instruction meets something like a wall — not refusal exactly, but grief and disbelief thick enough that people simply did not act.

He went into the tent and told Umm Salamah what had happened.

Her advice was procedural and it was exactly right. Do not repeat the order. Go out, say nothing at all to anyone, slaughter your own animal, and call your barber and be shaved.

He did that. And when the people saw it done, they got up and did it too — the reports describe them almost falling over each other in the rush.

What makes this worth studying is that she did not argue with anyone or persuade anyone of anything. She read the room correctly: this was not a crowd that needed a better argument, it was a crowd that needed to see the thing happen. The report is in Sahih al-Bukhari.