The Prophet Muhammad A simple Guide to his Life
The Prophet of Islam and other Prophets
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of monotheism to the idolaters of Nineveh, an
ancient city of Iraq. After doing
Dawah
work there
for a period of time, he felt that his hearers were not
going to believe in God’s message, and so deserved
divine punishment for their denial of monotheism.
Arriving at this conclusion on his own, he left
Nineveh.
The people of Ninevah remained unaffected, while
the Prophet Yunus was swallowed up by a whale.
He suddenly found himself in the whale’s belly,
and there was no way out of this plight.
What was the reason behind this? The reason was
that a community may be adjudged deniers of
monotheism only when they have had the message
of
dawah
conveyed to them in full. A lack of success
after performing
dawah
work for only a limited
period of time does not warrant the stigmatizing of
a people as deniers of God’s message.
Therefore, when the Prophet Yunus (Jonah) found
himself in the whale’s belly, he gave himself up to
introspection. Then it was revealed to him that he
had abandoned his people before the completion of
his task. The
sunnah
(way) of the prophets is that
