The Prophet of Islam actually returned from Hudaybiya without achieving his objective. So when the chapter ‘Victory’ was revealed on his way from Hudaybiya to Medina, one of the companions remarked, “This is no victory. We were even stopped from entering the House of God.” The Prophet replied, “It is indeed the greatest victory.” All of these accounts make it clear that the secret of great success achieved by the Prophet and his companions lay in the Hudaybiya Peace Treaty. The ’Hudaybiya Method’ is the only way for Muslims to attain supreme success or a great victory.
Before the Hudaybiyah Agreement, opponents had waged wars with the Prophet. A state of war had prevailed. This closed all dawah opportunities. Dawah work could not happen at all. The Prophet travelled to Hudaybiyah from Madinah. He began negotiations that lasted up to three weeks. The Prophet advocated an end to war and the establishment of peace. This was his only demand. The other side said they would put an end to war on their conditions. The Prophet unilaterally accepted all their conditions. While the agreement was being written down, it said: 'This agreement is between Muhammad the Prophet of God and Quraysh.'
The Quraysh leader Suhayl ibn Amr said we refuse to accept you as a prophet. We let it be written it down on the agreement. They asked the Prophet to refer to himself as Muhammad ibn Abdullah. The Prophet was actually the Messenger of God. If Manmohan Singh goes to another country for an agreement, it would be written in the agreement that Dr. Manmohan Singh is the Prime Minister of India. If they ask him to erase the words Prime Minister,
how will the agreement ever happen?
The Prime Minister will return saying that his position is that of the Prime Minister. If you do not accept this, there can be no agreement. Nobody in the world can make this huge sacrifice. The Prophet's identity was that he was a messenger of God. He agreed to remove this identity on paper. The Prophet asked Hazrat Ali to accept what the other side was saying. (Sahih al-Bukhari 2731)
Hazarat Ali said he wouldn’t be able to remove the words himself.
The Prophet then erased it himself. (Mirqatul Mafatih, v. 6, p. 2615)
The Prophet didn’t know how to read or write. He was unlettered. Hazarat Ali told him where the words were written and the Prophet removed it himself. Then the peace agreement was made possible. Peace means opportunity. Peace opened the door to dawah, or conveying God's message. Then a channel was opened up. People began coming and going. The Quran was discussed. To avail dawah opportunities, the Prophet erased the words Messenger of God and accepted all their conditions. One of their conditions was if a person accepted Islam and went to Madinah, he would have to be returned to Makkah. If they got hold of a Muslim, they would not return him to Madinah. They would imprison him in Makkah. The Makkans had imprisoned some Muslims and refused to return them. There were many such unilateral conditions. The Prophet accepted all these conditions.
Hazarat Umar called this a humiliating agreement. (Sahih al-Bukhari 2731)
The Prophet didn’t look at matters from the perspective of honour or humiliation. Honour or dishonour were relative matters for him. The only importance for the Prophet was the presence of dawah opportunity.
