The Hijrah

Muhammad ﷺ was known in Makkah as al-Amin, the trustworthy. As he neared forty he began to spend days alone in the cave of Hira, high on a mountain above the city, reflecting and worshipping.

One night in Ramadan the angel Jibril came to him and said, 'Read!' He answered that he could not read. Three times the angel pressed him, and then recited the first verses of Surah al-'Alaq: 'Read in the name of your Lord who created' (96:1–5). Shaken, he hurried home and asked Khadijah RA to wrap him in a cloak. She comforted him, reminding him of his kindness to his relatives and to the weak, and took him to her cousin Waraqah ibn Nawfal, who recognised the same message that had come to Musa. Khadijah RA was the first to believe in him.

For three years the call was made quietly, then openly. The Quraysh, guardians of the idols around the Ka'bah, mocked and then persecuted the believers, above all those with no clan to protect them, such as Bilal RA, who was tortured under the desert sun.

In about 615 the Prophet ﷺ advised a group of Muslims to cross the Red Sea to Aksum, whose Christian king, the Negus (al-Najashi), was known for his justice. Among them were 'Uthman ibn 'Affan RA and his wife Ruqayyah, the Prophet's daughter, and Mus'ab ibn 'Umayr RA. When Quraysh sent envoys with gifts to bring the emigrants back, Ja'far ibn Abi Talib RA spoke for them before the king and recited from Surah Maryam. The Negus wept and refused to hand them over.

Quraysh then declared a boycott of the Prophet's clan, Banu Hashim, who spent some three years confined to a valley outside Makkah, often hungry. Soon after it ended, in 619, Khadijah RA, his wife of twenty-five years, and his uncle Abu Talib, who had protected him though he never accepted Islam, died within a short time of each other. The year is remembered as the Year of Sorrow.

Without Abu Talib's protection, the Prophet ﷺ walked to al-Ta'if to ask the tribe of Thaqif for support. They rejected him and set boys to stone him until his feet bled. Resting in a garden outside the town, he turned to Allah in a prayer of deep humility, and a Christian servant named 'Addas brought him grapes and believed in him.

At each pilgrimage season the Prophet ﷺ spoke to the tribes who came to Makkah. In 620 six men of the Khazraj from Yathrib listened and believed. Their city was worn out by feuding between its two tribes, the Aws and the Khazraj, and they hoped he could bring them together.

The next year twelve came and made the First Pledge of 'Aqabah at a pass near Mina, promising to worship Allah alone and to keep from theft, adultery and the killing of their children. The Prophet ﷺ sent Mus'ab ibn 'Umayr RA back with them as a teacher, and Islam spread from house to house in Yathrib. In 622 more than seventy returned and swore the Second Pledge: to protect him as they protected their own families.

The Muslims of Makkah left for Yathrib in small groups. The leaders of Quraysh resolved to kill the Prophet ﷺ, with a young man from every clan striking at once, so that no one clan could be blamed. That night 'Ali RA lay in his bed, and the Prophet ﷺ slipped away with Abu Bakr RA.

They hid for three nights in the cave of Thawr, south of Makkah, while searchers passed close by. When Abu Bakr feared they would be found, the Prophet ﷺ told him, 'Do not grieve; Allah is with us' (9:40). With a hired guide they took the coastal route north to Quba' and then to Yathrib, where the people came out to welcome them. The city became al-Madinah, the City of the Prophet, where the first mosque was built and the emigrants and helpers were joined as brothers. Watch the lights travel north.

In Madinah the Muslims built a community, but the conflict with Quraysh went on. In Ramadan of 2 AH a Qurayshi caravan returning from Syria under Abu Sufyan slipped past the Muslims, and an army of about a thousand marched out from Makkah to meet them.

About 313 Muslims, with few horses and camels, faced them at the wells of Badr. The Prophet ﷺ spent the night before in prayer. The Muslims won a decisive victory, and leading men of Quraysh, among them Abu Jahl, were killed. The Quran calls it the Day of the Criterion (8:41) and tells of the angels sent in support (8:9). Badr gave the young community confidence, and those who fought there were honoured ever after.

A year later Quraysh returned with about three thousand men to avenge Badr, camping before Mount Uhud, north of Madinah. The Prophet ﷺ placed fifty archers on a small hill and ordered them not to leave it, whatever happened.

The battle began well for the Muslims, but when the enemy seemed to flee, most of the archers left their post to gather the spoils. Khalid ibn al-Walid, then fighting for Quraysh, led his horsemen around the hill and fell on the Muslims from behind. About seventy were killed, among them the Prophet's uncle Hamzah RA and Mus'ab ibn 'Umayr RA, who carried the banner, and the Prophet ﷺ himself was wounded. Surah Al 'Imran reflects on the day, teaching patience and obedience in the face of loss (3:152).

In 6 AH the Prophet ﷺ set out for Makkah with about 1,400 Companions, dressed for 'umrah and bringing animals for sacrifice. Quraysh barred the way, and the Muslims camped at al-Hudaybiyyah. When a rumour spread that 'Uthman RA, sent ahead as an envoy, had been killed, the Companions pledged beneath a tree to stand by the Prophet ﷺ: the Pledge of Ridwan (48:18).

The treaty that followed seemed hard. The Muslims would turn back without 'umrah that year, and its terms favoured Quraysh. Many Companions were dismayed. Yet on the way home the Quran called it 'a clear victory' (48:1). In the ten-year truce people could meet freely, and in the next two years more entered Islam than in all the years before.

In 8 AH allies of Quraysh attacked a tribe allied to the Muslims, breaking the truce. The Prophet ﷺ marched on Makkah with about ten thousand men. Abu Sufyan, now the leader of Quraysh, came out to meet him and embraced Islam, and the Prophet ﷺ announced that whoever stayed in his own house, in Abu Sufyan's house or in the Sacred Mosque would be safe.

The city was entered with almost no fighting. The Prophet ﷺ went around the Ka'bah and broke its idols, reciting, 'Truth has come and falsehood has vanished' (17:81). He then stood before the Quraysh who had persecuted him for twenty years, and pardoned them. Bilal RA climbed onto the Ka'bah to give the call to prayer.

In 10 AH the Prophet ﷺ performed his only Hajj with a great multitude of Muslims. On the day of 'Arafah he addressed them: their lives, property and honour were sacred to one another; the blood feuds and usury of the age of ignorance were abolished; they were to treat women well; and he was leaving among them the Book of Allah. Then the verse came: 'This day I have perfected your religion for you' (5:3).

A few months later, in Rabi' al-Awwal of 11 AH, he fell ill and passed away in Madinah, in the room of 'A'ishah RA, where he was buried. As the people grieved, Abu Bakr RA reminded them that whoever worshipped Muhammad, Muhammad had died, but whoever worshipped Allah, Allah is ever-living, and he recited 3:144. The Companions chose Abu Bakr RA as the first caliph.