The life of the Prophet Muhammad (6/11): the emigration (Hegira)

By Michel Abdallah Grimbert · May 28, 2022 · 6 min read

Contents

The emigration (Hegira)

From the year 615 onwards, the ranks of the converts were growing and swelling, which worried the Meccans and led them to decide on reprisals, going so far as to imprison some of them or, like Bilal, to torture them. The Prophet of God then gathered his faithful and urged them, if they could, to scatter and go into exile, in particular to Abyssinia, a country then ruled by Najashi (the Negus), a pious and tolerant Christian king. At the end of a perilous journey, pursued by the Qurayshites, the converts landed in Abyssinia and were well received by the king’s subjects. They numbered eleven men and four women, alone or accompanied by their children. Among these first emigrants were ’Uthman ibn ’Affan, accompanied by his wife Ruqayya, the second daughter of the Prophet and Khadija; as well as the Prophet’s future ambassador to Medina, to the first converts of al-’Aqaba, ’Abdallah ibn Mas’ud, who would be charged with teaching them the Qur’an and the Prophet’s Sunna, so as to spread God’s Message; thus preparing the way for the welcome of the Prophet of God through the conversion of many ‘helpers’, the Ansar: (IX, 100) ‘As for those who came first among the emigrants and the helpers of the Prophet, and those who followed them in goodness: God is pleased with them and they are pleased with Him’.

The pact of allegiance (bay’ah)

At the same time, in keeping with the believers’ heartfelt wish, the notion of the ‘pact’ (bay’ah) was taking shape: an oath of allegiance or fidelity, which was constituted very early in Islam out of the bond of spiritual authority that God’s Messenger established with Him vis-a-vis those newly entering Islam: (XLVIII, 10) ‘Those who swear allegiance to thee swear allegiance only to God (yubayi’una’Llah); the hand of God rests upon their hands (yadu’Llahi fawqa aydihim)’. For the believers, this is the fulfilment of the second part of the Shahada. In this respect the Qur’an contains two founding elements that establish this ancestral institution.

Indeed, this institution, situated within the framework of a reminder of the immutable Truth, rests on a reality present in each of us at our birth. For God, from the pre-existence of humanity, warned men against themselves. He made them solemnly attest (mithaq) their attachment to Him: (VII, 172) ’When thy Lord drew forth a progeny from the loins of the sons of Adam, He made them testify against themselves (ashhadahum ‘ala anfusihim): Am I not your Lord? They said: Yes, we so testify (shahidna)! And that lest you should say on the day of resurrection (yawm al-qiyama): We were taken unawares’. And it is precisely this first attestation, inscribed in each of us, that enables men to perceive the need to renew the initial pact with him who, in their time, is sent to them by God.

The pacts of al-’Aqaba

And first, as regards that renewal, there is what is called the first pact of ’Aqaba, so named after the place, situated on the flank of a mountain: al-’Aqaba. This pact in fact unfolded in three stages and under two forms. First, in June 620, when six men of the Khazraj tribe from the town of Yathrib, the future Medina, accepted the Message of God transmitted by His Prophet. Then the following year, in 621, at the same place, they returned with seven other men, including two members of the Aws tribe, to confirm the same oath. Such was the first form of the pact, which in fact amounted to a simple acknowledgement. Whereupon one of the Prophet’s companions, Mus’ab¹, returned with them to Yathrib to teach them Islam and the Qur’an. Finally, on the occasion of the pilgrimage of the following year, 622, came what is called the second pact of al-’Aqaba, at which the men this time pledged to fight and defend the Prophet of God. They were seventy-three from the two tribes, among them two women who, for their part, pronounced the simple oath of acknowledgement of the previous year, without its new dimension of commitment and physical sacrifice. Thus was established the first pact, called the pact of al-’Aqaba, which, much later, was definitively sealed at the pact of allegiance known as that of the Felicity (bay’at ar-ridwan), at Hudaybiyya, recalled by the verse at XLVIII, 18: ‘God was pleased with the believers when they swore allegiance to thee beneath the tree. He knew the content of their hearts. He sent down upon them the sakina. He rewarded them with a prompt victory’.

The flight to Medina

This heralded the Prophet of God’s decision to undertake his own emigration to Yathrib, henceforth called Madinat an-Nabi: Medina.

Indeed, while many of the Muslims had already emigrated, Muhammad stayed on at Mecca for a time with his friend Abu Bakr, who betrothed him to his daughter ’A’isha. Now one September evening in the year 622, while his enemies were plotting to assassinate him, the Prophet was warned by the angel Gabriel of what was being hatched against him; and leaving his cousin ’Ali in his bed as a decoy, he managed to flee in Abu Bakr’s company, resolving to lie low for three days in a cavern near Mecca.

Ibn Sa’d recounts: ‘A spider wove its web right across the entrance of the cavern. By God’s grace, a shrub grew in front of the mouth of the cave and two wild doves nested peacefully on its flowering branches’.

The Qurayshites, seeing the spider’s web intact and the two doves at the mouth of the cave, turned back, thinking the lair was certainly uninhabited. Our two companions thus escaped death and resolved to leave the place, weary and racked with hunger. On their way to Medina, off the frequented roads, they met an old Bedouin woman, Umm Ma’bad, who owned a famished goat which the Prophet of God, with the old woman’s permission, proceeded to milk. The goat then stretched out its legs and presented udders overflowing with abundant milk. The Prophet then served his hosts, beginning with Umm Ma’bad, then Abu Bakr and finally himself. That evening the Bedouin woman’s husband came back to the encampment, and she told him of the miraculous episode of the man who had managed to draw abundant milk from their goat. When he asked her to describe the man physically, she said to him:

‘He has a luminous face, pleasant and comely, expressing joy and happiness. He is good, gentle and not at all greedy. He is neither tall nor short. His build is medium but robust; his neck is long. His voice is musical but not high-pitched. He has large dark eyes, thick eyebrows and black hair. His beard and hair are abundant. His speech is very expressive, very soft and as beautiful as a necklace of pearls. He is very calm and inspires respect in his companions, who obey his commands’.

To which the man replied: ‘That is certainly the man the Qurayshites are looking for. By Allah! Had I met him, I would have followed him, and I shall do so if the occasion arises’.

By Michel Abdallah Grimbert, disciple of the tariqa Qadiriya Boutchichiya.