The Prophet Muhammad A simple Guide to his Life
The Policy of the Prophet
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avoided unnecessary clashes so that he might
continue his
dawah
mission all the more effectively.
Islam does not call for beheadings; it calls rather for
saving the head. Islam does not teach us to
annihilate life; it teaches us rather to devote our
lives to a good cause.
Islam is a natural religion, with realism as one of its
important teachings. The policy of the Prophet of
Islam may well be termed a form of pragmatism. In
this matter, Islam grants so many concessions that
one can even resort to saying something which is
not in accordance with the facts in order to save
one’s life. Saving one’s life by some untrue
utterance under compulsion is better than showing
undue inflexibility and losing one’s life futilely as a
result of uncalled for fervour for sticking to the
“truth.”
An incident which took place during the Makkan
period is an extreme example. It concerned one
Ammar ibn Yasir, who was at that time a slave of an
idolatrous Makkan chief. During the Makkan
period those believers who were ‘freed people’
(Makkan society being divided into freed people
