The Great Migration
INTRODUCTION
The Prophet migrated from Makkah to Yathrib (later named Madina) after years of persecution in Makkah. Migration has played a vital role in the lives of nearly all the prophets, who migrated to avoid being destroyed along with those who refused to believe in their message. However, the Prophet Muhammad’s migration was different. His migration was not about destruction, but about salvation. For after the Hijra, this prophet and a small group of men and women were able to establish a faith that would bring meaning to the lives of people at a time in which a pall of ignorance covered the face of the earth. The wisdom of the Prophet’s migration and the tremendous significance it embodied remain a major inspiration for Muslims of all times and circumstances. On the following page is a brief account of that great migration known as the Hijrah.
THE HIJRA
The idolaters of Quraysh had tried everything in their power to squash the Prophet’s message. They hit, cursed, and boycotted him. In public, they stalked him wherever he went. They called him names: liar, sorcerer, poet, madman. They mocked him like children. They threw stones until he bled. Then they offered him money, herds of camels, and property if only he would stop. But he wouldn’t. He told them that it would be easier to grab a shard of the blazing sun than to silence him.
So they met again for a “final” solution. Several possibilities were discussed, like imprisonment and exile to some far off land. But everyone knew where the discussion was leading to. Abu Jahl finally said it: “I say that we take a young, powerful, well-born warrior from each of our families. Give each a sharp sword. Then together they shall ambush Muhammad and each one of them shall stab him until he dies. This way you will be relieved of him once in for all.” Because each of the clans of Makkah would be involved in the murder, no one clan would dare to take revenge.
The men gathered outside the home of the Prophet , who learned, however, of the assassination plot from Angel Gabriel and was thus given permission from their Lord to migrate to Madinah. The Prophet asked for two favors from his young cousin ‘Ali. One was to return the possessions that the people of Makkah had given to the Prophet for safekeeping. Even with a death sentence issued against him, the Prophet was careful to fulfill his trust, even to people who wanted to see him killed. Second, he asked ‘Ali to take his place in his bed, assuring him that no harm will come to him.
But there still was the question of how the Prophet would be able to leave his house without his would-be assassins noticing him. The Prophet’s house was small and the streets of Makkah uncomplicated. But the Plan of God is superior to the logic and schemes of men. The Prophet walked out right before the men, as Allah (God Almighty) placed a veil between their eyes and the Prophet , who walked past them leaving on their heads sand he scooped from the earth. The Prophet then went to the home of Abu Bakr. And the two began their journey. Meanwhile, the men of Quraysh, unaware of what had just happened before their veiled eyes, finally barged into the Prophet’s home and uncovered the bundled body on his bed. To their utter shock, they saw the boy, ‘Ali. Embarrassed and confused, the men, shaking the sand from their heads, rushed to announce that Muhammad was gone.
The Prophet and his closest disciple moved quietly to the south of the city, heading toward a mountain called Thawr and entered a cave, where they stayed for a while.
The elite of Quraysh cursed the warriors for allowing the Prophet to escape, but they would not be so easily deterred. But Allah would allow them to pursue the Prophet and again show them their folly and how the Prophet was indeed Allah’s protected Messenger. The Quraysh hired a skilled tracker, the best in the region. In short time, the tracker led the posse south, to Mt. Thawr itself.
Inside the cave, the two men heard the threatening voices of the Quraysh warriors. Abu Bakr told the Prophet that they were doomed. “There must be twenty of them,” Abu Bakr whispered. “And we are only two.” The Prophet calmed his friend and told him that they were not two at all. “God is with us. We are three.”
Then, oddly, two white doves started to build a nest at the mouth of the cave. At the same time, a spider began to frantically spin an elaborate web across the entrance. A staunch Quraysh warrior came right up to the opening of the cave with his sword drawn. The doves flew out of his way. In the dark of the cave, the Prophet and his friend saw the man and his sword. Only a few yards, a flimsy web, and a hastily built nest separated them. The warrior looked toward the opening of cave and saw the web and the nest. Doves never nest near men. And it would be impossible for anyone to enter a cave with a web stretched across its opening. The warrior, his sword, and his logic moved on.
By Allah’s grace, fragile strands of a spider’s art and the magnificent work of doves turned the swordsman away. In time, the posse gave up and took its search elsewhere. After a day or two, the Prophet and his Companion curled north near the coast of the Red Sea.
The outline of two men on their beasts sailed across the night sky. The scene looked common enough: camels walking through the desert and men spurring them on. But people would remember this migration the way they remember Prophet Abraham when he fled his land after his people tried to burn him alive; Moses when he led the Children of Israel out of Pharaoh’s bondage; and Jesus when he fled from the authorities who were in pursuit of this sorcerer who healed the leper, restored sight to the blind, and raised the dead. Now six centuries after Jesus, another teacher was on the move and being chased.
The Prophet’s companions in Yathrib learned what they had been hoping to hear for weeks. Their beloved was on his way to Yathrib. And so they waited. Days passed without news. Each morning, scouts braved the desert to look for human forms in the bending distance. And each afternoon, the soaring heat chased the scouts back to the city with nothing to announce.
The Prophet’s followers grew anxious. Terrible thoughts inched into their minds, especially when they learned that the Quraysh announced a one-hundred camel reward for anyone who finds and captures the Prophet . Such a booty was a lifelong fortune for any lucky soul who would bring back the Prophet dead or alive. More days passed. People began to speak less in Yathrib. And when they did, it was brief. It was a worrisome task to even ask the scouts whether or not they had seen anything. Then one afternoon, a little past midday, there was a loud shout. “He comes! He comes!” The shouts spread. The Prophet’s companions dropped their business and ran past the orchards of date-palm trees and into the desert. In the long distance they saw the bobbing of men on beasts. They shaded their eyes against the blinding sunlight to see more clearly. They raced further into the desert, stumbling, laughing, shouting for joy. They broke into a song when they at last saw the familiar form of their Prophet .
As they sang and ran, a new era was born in the world. Here came a man who twelve years ago, at the age of forty, received a special calling atop a small mountain near Makkah and started to teach a simple but clear message, a religion called Islam. There in Yathrib, the Prophet was at last free to teach his message and guide his followers on a spiritual path. This community of believers swiftly formed a nation in Yathrib that would eventually blossom into one of the world’s greatest civilizations and world-religions. But this flower could not have bloomed had it not been for the terribly difficult move of one man and a group of people committed to find their freedom.
It was year 622 of the Christian calendar when the Prophet first entered Yathrib, but year one for Muslims, for this was a deciding moment in one of the greatest chapters in religious history.