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The Age of Peace
of ancient Egypt without his being on the throne. It was this
method that made his story ‘the best story’. God has set this
example through His Prophet so that the later generations may
follow it and achieve success in the same way as the Prophet
Joseph did.
The other story is that of the Prophet Muhammad. He
started his mission in the first half of the seventh century in
Arabia. At that time Arabia was a polytheistic region, and
Makkah was the centre of this culture of idol worship.
When the Prophet Muhammad started his mission of tawhid,
or monotheism, all the tribal leaders opposed him. They created
all kinds of problems for him and his companions. Then in 628
AD at Hudaybiyyah, some ten miles from Makkah, the Prophet
initiated negotiations to establish peace in Arabia. The tribal
leaders were highly opposed to entering into any kind of peace
agreement. The Prophet Muhammad, very wisely, accepted all
the conditions presented by the opposite party and in return
they finalized the Hudaybiyyah Agreement, which was a ten-
year no-war pact.
After this peace agreement was concluded, normalcy was
established in Arabia. Thereafter, the Prophet wasted no time
and with wise planning set about spreading his mission in
Arabia and its adjacent areas. The result was miraculous: in
a few years, the whole of Arabia accepted his ideology. The
Hudaybiyyah Agreement was an expression of the peaceful
method, and by adopting this method the Prophet Muhammad
emerged as the master of the situation in Arabia of that time.
The Prophet Joseph achieved success by accepting the
king’s constitutional authority and in return the king gave
him an opportunity to manage all the affairs of the country in
the political field.
The same method was adopted by the Prophet Muhammad,
although in a different way. He accepted the political authority
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