The Personality of the Prophet of Islam

worshippers of idols placed in the House of God. Similarly, when the Prophet of Islam reached Madinah, he found Jews also settled there. But he did not first have bilateral exchanges with the Jews and then reach an agreement that the Muslims (living in Madinah) would not force the Jews to adopt their ideology but would permit them to enjoy freedom of religion. Instead, after assessing the situation prevailing in Madinah, the Prophet himself set an acceptable limit for his own missionary work in order not to come into unnecessary clash and confrontation with the Jews. Therefore, these words were enshrined in the well-known charter of Madinah. For the Jews, the religion of the Jews, for the Muslims, the religion of the Muslims. (Seerah ibn Hisham, Vol. 1, p. 503) The essence of the Hudaybiya spirit is to completely refrain from entering into any controversy with the other party and to concentrate all one’s efforts on achieving one’s goal in noncontroversial fields. This policy can be followed only when the dayee is willing to give concessions to the other party unilaterally - the concession, which the other party at that point in time considers its right. The Hudaybiya policy cannot be followed without such unilateral concession-making. A study of the seerah shows that the Prophet always followed the same policy. That is the reason why it became possible for him to minimize his losses and maximize his benefits. Al-Furqan is a chapter of the Quran, which was revealed in Makkah at a time when the Prophet was commanded to perform dawah alone, and he used to engage himself day and night in discharging the duty assigned to him. At this stage the Prophet was enjoined in the Quran not to “so do not yield to those who deny the truth, but strive with the utmost strenuousness by means of this [Quran, to convey its message to them].” (The Quran, 25:52). The Quran does not consist of bombs and bullets. Therefore, it is clear that these verses do not speak of armed struggle but of peaceful ideological struggle. This means that dawah work is to be performed with the help of the teachings of Islam. We must make the Quran understandable to people by exploiting all kinds of peaceful means. People’s hearts and minds have to be conquered by the veracity of the Quran. This verse evidently indicates the superiority of dawah as compared to armed jihad. According to it there are two kinds of jihad-minor jihad and major jihad, armed struggle being the minor jihad and peaceful struggle being the major jihad. Hudaybiyah provides a great example of this great jihad in the history of Islam: After migration the Muslims faced an armed on-slaught from their opponents. Several armed dashes between the believers and non-believers took place. But these produced no decisive results, for, at that time, the real target was for Makkah to be brought once again, into the fold of monotheism: this target could not be realized by all these wars. Ultimately, in the 6th year of hijrah, the Prophet of Islam finalized the Hudaybiya peace treaty between the believers and unbelievers. This treaty sought to change the arena of struggle from one of violence, to one of peace. Here the Hudaybiya method proved very effective. Within two years of this treaty, Makkah was conquered, and the