The Order to Depart

With the Second Pledge of Aqaba, the path to Madinah had been opened. The Ansar had pledged their blood and their honor to the protection of the Prophet ﷺ. Now the question remained: how would the migration unfold, and at what cost?

The migration to Madinah did not happen all at once; it was preceded by a long period of preparations. There were two kinds of preparations: one aimed at readying those who would migrate to Madinah, and the other focused on preparations in Madinah itself.

Preparing the Muhajiroon

Years of spiritual training preceded this, encompassing most of what we have covered so far. Migrating to Madinah was no easy journey. Migrating to Madinah meant leaving everything behind permanently: one’s homeland, family, wealth, and all cherished memories of the land of origin. The migration to Madinah was therefore a great sacrifice. The situation in Makkah was no longer sustainable; they could no longer live peacefully alongside the Quraysh. The Quranic verses revealed in Makkah had already prepared the Companions for an eventual migration. Allah says:

After this ayah was revealed to the Prophet ﷺ, Surah Al-Kahf was revealed. This surah contains the story of a group of young men who believed in their Lord and migrated from their homeland to a cave. Thereafter, other verses were revealed that explicitly speak about migration:

And toward the end of the same surah:

Preparations in Yathrib

As dire as the situation in Makkah appeared, that is how hopeful the situation in Madinah was. The Prophet ﷺ did not migrate immediately; it would take more than two years before he finally left Makkah! He waited until he ﷺ had broad support in Madinah, and that was also why he sent Mus’ab ﵁ to Madinah. He ﷺ waited until he saw signs of their readiness and willingness for the Prophet ﷺ to migrate to them. And as we discussed earlier, they had made their readiness abundantly clear during the Second Pledge of Aqaba. The Prophet ﷺ was not only invited to come live with them in Madinah; they were prepared to fight the Quraysh right there, in Mina. The only thing they were waiting for was the Prophet’s ﷺ permission; had he given it, they would have begun fighting immediately. But as he ﷺ told them: the command had not yet been given. In short: the Ansar were not only willing to welcome the Prophet ﷺ and the Muslims from Makkah, they were also ready to bear the responsibilities that came with it.

The First Group of Muhajiroon

The leaders of the Quraysh became furious when they heard about the Second Pledge of Aqaba. This was only logical, given the potential consequences of the pledge. And they expressed their anger by intensifying the persecution of the Companions ﵃. The fear the Quraysh felt was real: once the Muslims had a safe base of operations in Madinah, they would become a force that could no longer be ignored. Aisha ﵂ describes how the Prophet ﷺ prepared his Companions ﵃ step by step for departure:

When the seventy from Madinah left the Prophet ﷺ, he ﷺ was overjoyed, for Allah ﷻ had provided him ﷺ with the protection of a people of war and the willingness to fight for the Prophet ﷺ, to defend him, and courage. The polytheists attacked the Muslims even more fiercely when they learned of their impending departure from Makkah. They oppressed the Companions ﵃ severely and mistreated them unreasonably. They did this in ways they had never done before, in terms of how they insulted them and caused them pain.

The increasing persecution drove the Companions ﵃ to a turning point. Many of them could no longer bear the situation and turned to the Prophet ﷺ with an urgent request.

The Companions ﵃ of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ complained to him about this and asked his permission to migrate. He ﷺ said: A place has been shown to me where you will migrate. I saw a sabkhah (salty land with little vegetation), full of date palms between labitain (two areas full of volcanic rocks). And if al-saraat were a land of date palms and sibkaah (plural of sabkhah), then I would say that would be the land where you would migrate to. He ﷺ stayed where he was for a number of days, after which he went to his Companions ﵃. He ﷺ said: I have been informed of the place where you will migrate; it is Yathrib. Whoever wants to leave Makkah, let him go.

With these words, the signal was given. What followed was a quiet, coordinated exodus, not an open march, but a series of secret departures under cover of night.

The people began to leave; they coordinated their departure, supported each other, and left. They kept their departure strictly secret. The first Companion to arrive in Madinah was Abu Salama ibn Abdul-Asad ﵁; then came Aamir ibn Fuhaira ﵁, and with him his wife Layla bint Abi Hatma ﵂. Then one group after another arrived; they stayed in the houses of the Ansar. The Ansar provided shelter, maintained them, and supported them. Before the arrival of the Prophet ﷺ, Salim ﵁ led the Muhajiroon in prayer in Quba. When the Muslims began their migration to Madinah, the Quraysh became furious with them. A group of the Ansar who had taken the Second Pledge returned to Madinah, but then, when the first person departed for Quba, the Ansar went to the Prophet ﷺ in Makkah so they could accompany their Companions during their migration. They were therefore the Muhajiroon of the Ansar. They were: Dhakwan ibn Abd Qais ﵁, Uqbah ibn Wahb ibn Khaldah ﵁, Al-Abbas ibn Ubadah ibn Nadlah ﵁, and Ziyad ibn Lubaid ﵁. Nearly all the Muslims of Makkah went to Madinah; the only ones who stayed behind were the Messenger of Allah ﷺ, Abu Bakr ﵁, Ali ﵁, those who were being persecuted, those who were ill, and those who were too weak to depart.

The Measures of the Quraysh Against the Muhajiroon

The leadership of the Quraysh did everything in their power to prevent the Muslims from leaving Makkah. Nor did they allow the Muslims to practice their religion. These are some of the tactics they employed to prevent the Muslims from emigrating to Madinah:

Splitting Families

The measures of the Quraysh did not only affect the men. The cruelties were equally merciless toward women and children.

The Mother of the Believers Umm Salama Hind bint Abu Umayyah ﵂ explains in the following narration her own tragic experience when she emigrated to Madinah. Her testimony is one of the most heart-rending accounts from early Islamic history, a story of a young family that was literally torn apart.

Departure and Separation

When Abu Salama decided to go to Madinah, he prepared a saddle (and provisions) on his camel for me and placed me on it. He placed my son Salama ibn Abu Salama on my lap. He steered the camel and we departed. When men of the clan Banu Al-Mughiera ibn Abdullah ibn Umar ibn Makhzum (the clan of Umm Salama) saw him, they addressed him and said: You believe in Islam despite our trying to prevent you, but what about this female relative of ours? Why would we let you take her to another land? They pulled the reins from his hand and took me from him. This enraged Banu Abdul-Asad, the family of Abu Salama, and they said: No, by Allah, if you take her from our family member, we will not leave our son (Salama) with her. Men from both tribes began pulling at the arms of my son Salama until they dislocated his hand. Banu Abdul-Asad then took him away while the clan of Al-Mughiera held me captive, while my husband Abu Salama went to Madinah. My husband, my son, and I were thus separated from one another.

Three members of the same family, each in the hands of a different party. Abu Salama ﵁ departed alone to Madinah, little Salama was taken by his father’s clan, and Umm Salama ﵂ was left behind as a prisoner of her own family.

The Year of Tears

Every morning I went to Al-Abtah (a place between Makkah and Mina) and I sat there and wept until evening. I continued doing this for about a year.

Day after day, month after month, she returned to the same spot, waiting, weeping, hoping for change. Nearly a full year passed before the heart of one man finally softened.

The Reunion

Until, one day, a man of the Banu Al-Mughiera clan passed by, saw me, and took pity. He said to his clan: “Will you not give this poor woman permission to leave? You have separated her from her husband and son!” So they said to me: Go to your husband if you wish.

With the permission to leave, the first obstacle was overcome, but her son was still in the hands of Banu Abdul-Asad. Only after further negotiations did they also agree to return little Salama to his mother.

After this, Banu Abdul-Asad returned my son to me. I saddled and mounted my camel. I took my son and placed him on my lap. Then I departed for Madinah and I had no one with me. I said: I will travel with whoever I find, until I reach my husband.

The Journey with Uthman ibn Talhah

A woman, alone with a small child, on a camel in the desert. It was an extremely vulnerable situation. But at At-Tan’im, still on the outskirts of Makkah, fate intervened in an unexpected way.

When I reached At-Tan’im, I met Uthman ibn Talhah ibn Abi Talhah (at that time still a polytheist). He asked me: Where are you going, O daughter of Abu Umayyah? I said: I want to go to my husband in Madinah. He said: Is anyone with you? I said: No, by Allah, no one except Allah and my young son. He said: Then I cannot leave you alone. He took the reins and departed with me.

What followed was a journey that Umm Salama ﵂ would never forget, not because of the hardships, but because of the impeccable honor of her escort.

By Allah, I have never been in the company of an Arab more honorable than he. When we reached a resting place, he let the camel kneel and went to stand at a distance (so that he could not see how I dismounted from the camel). Once I had dismounted, he took the camel, unloaded the baggage, tied the camel, and went to rest under a tree some distance away. When it was time to depart, he went to my camel to saddle it and load it with my baggage, then sent it to me. He went to stand at a distance again and then told me I could mount the camel. After I was seated, he took the camel by the reins and led it to the next resting place. He kept doing this until he had escorted me to Madinah. When he saw the village of Banu Amr ibn Awf near Quba, he said: your husband is in this village, and indeed that was where Abu Salama ﵁ was staying. He said: enter it with the blessing of Allah, after which he returned to Makkah. By Allah, I know no Muslim household that was tested with what the family of Abu Salama was tested with, and I have never seen a companion as honorable and noble as Uthman ibn Talhah.

This is but one example of how the Quraysh used cruel and inhumane tactics to achieve their goals. The story of Umm Salama ﵂ also shows something else, however: that generosity and humanity were not bound to faith alone. Uthman ibn Talhah, at that time still a polytheist, displayed a chivalry that deeply moved even the Mother of the Believers.

Kidnapping

Besides splitting families, the Quraysh resorted to even more brutal methods.

The bulk of the Quraysh’s efforts were directed at preventing Muslims from departing for Madinah. But in principle, once a Muslim managed to reach Madinah, he was generally left alone because he had practically escaped their grasp. However, this was not always the case. In at least one instance, a Muslim was brought back to Makkah after he had already arrived in Madinah. Umar ibn Al-Khattab ﵁ speaks about this in the following narration, a testimony that shows how far the Quraysh were willing to go, even beyond the borders of Makkah.

The Plan to Migrate Together

When Ayyash ibn Abi Rabi’ah ﵁, Hisham ibn Al-As ibn Wa’il as-Shami, and I intended to migrate to Madinah, I made an appointment with them to meet at the trees of Adaat (about 12 km from Makkah), which belonged to Banu Ghaffar and overlooked Sarif (a valley). We said: “Whoever among us is not there in the morning, it means he was prevented from coming, so let the other two go (to migrate).” In the morning, Ayyash ibn Abu Rabi’ah and I were at the trees, but Hisham was prevented. He was persecuted and gave in. When we arrived in Madinah, we stayed with the Amr ibn Awf clan in Quba.

Umar ﵁ and Ayyash ﵁ reached Madinah safely, but the Quraysh had no intention of simply letting Ayyash ﵁ go. Abu Jahl, always the most ruthless among the Quraysh leaders, devised a scheme that played on the weakest point of every son: the love for his mother.

The Scheme of Abu Jahl

But Abu Jahl ibn Hisham and Al-Harith ibn Hisham had gone hunting for Ayyash ibn Abu Rabi’ah ﵁, and he was a cousin on their father’s side and half-brother on their mother’s side. When they reached Madinah and the Prophet ﷺ was still in Makkah, they spoke to Ayyash and said: Truly, your mother has sworn not to comb her hair until she sees you, and not to seek shade from the sun until she sees you.

The Warning from Umar

Umar ﵁ saw through the deception immediately. What followed was an urgent conversation between two Companions, one driven by clarity, the other torn between reason and filial love.

He ﵁ felt sorry for her, so I said to him: “O Ayyash, by Allah, your people are only trying to tempt you away from your religion, so be careful with them. By Allah, if lice were to bother your mother, she would comb her hair, and if the heat of Makkah became too fierce for her, she would seek shade.” Ayyash said: “I will fulfill my mother’s vow, and besides, I have wealth there that I will bring back.” I said: “By Allah, you know that I am one of the wealthiest people among Quraysh. Do not go with them, and I will give you half of my wealth.” But he refused and insisted on going with them. When I saw that he was determined, I said to him: “If you must do what you must do, then at least take this camel of mine. Stay on her back, and if you become suspicious of them, use it to save yourself.”

Despite all warnings, Ayyash ﵁ departed with his cousins. Umar’s fast camel was his last protection, but even that would not prove enough.

The Ambush and Capture

He departed while riding her. When they were on their way, Abu Jahl said to him: “O my brother, by Allah, the back of my camel is hard and rough. Will you not carry me behind you on this camel of yours?” Ayyash said: “Certainly.” They made their camels kneel at the same time so Abu Jahl could switch camels. When they were on the ground, Abu Jahl and Harith overpowered and bound him. They took him to Makkah and put him on trial, and he gave in. We said in Madinah: “Allah will not accept the obligatory nor voluntary deeds nor the repentance of those who gave in. They are a people who knew Allah but returned to disbelief when they were tested with a calamity.” And they (those who were put on trial) said the same about themselves. When the Prophet ﷺ arrived in Madinah, Allah ﷻ revealed the following verses regarding these people and regarding what they said about themselves:

The answer from the heavens was one of hope and forgiveness. Umar ﵁ did not hesitate for a moment to relay this message to his fallen brothers.

With my own hands I wrote these verses on a scroll, and I sent this scroll to Hisham ibn al-As ﵁. Hisham ﵁ said: “When the scroll reached me, I began reading it at Dhu Tuwa (a valley in Makkah), but I did not understand the meaning of the verses. So I said to Allah: ‘O Allah, let me understand it.’ Allah cast understanding into my heart, that it was indeed revealed for us, because of what we said about ourselves and because of what was said about us. I returned to my camel, mounted it, and managed to reach the Prophet ﷺ, who by then had arrived in Madinah.”

Imprisonment

The Quraysh employed this tactic more than the other two mentioned above. When the Quraysh caught someone trying to migrate to Madinah, he was imprisoned in one of their houses, with arms and legs chained so they could not escape. In some cases, they would hold a Muslim captive in a roofless house, an extremely cruel form of torture to which both Ayyash ﵁ and Hisham ibn Al-As ﵁ were subjected. They were not only faced with hours of solitary confinement, but were also forced to sit for hours under the direct heat of the sun, without shade, in one of the hottest places on earth.

They had two goals in mind with this strategy:

1. Preventing Muslims from migrating to Madinah
2. Setting an example for anyone who dared to consider migration. They wanted to discourage the Muslims with this.

But even this cruel strategy could not prevent the Muslims from migrating, and eventually, a number of the Muslims who had been captured managed to escape, including Ayyash ﵁ and Hisham ﵁.

After he ﷺ migrated to Madinah, the Prophet ﷺ made a special supplication for the weaker Muslims who were forced to remain behind in Makkah. In a narration from Abu Huraira, he recounts:

When the Prophet ﷺ raised his head from ruku’ in the last rak’ah of prayer, he ﷺ said: “O Allah, save Ayyash ibn Abi Rabi’a; O Allah, save Salama ibn Hisham; O Allah, save Al-Walid ibn Al-Walid; O Allah, save the weak believers. O Allah, intensify Your punishment upon Mudar; O Allah, afflict them with years of drought like the years of drought of Yusuf.”

The Muslims did not give up when Ayyash ﵁ was kidnapped; on the contrary, the Messenger of Allah ﷺ sent one of his Companions ﵃ to free Ayyash ﵁. This Companion ﵁ went to Makkah and showed resourcefulness and intelligence, managing to reach the house where Ayyash ﵁ and Hisham ﵁ were imprisoned, and freed them. He ﵁ ultimately succeeded in his mission by safely bringing them back to Madinah.

The Confiscation of Wealth

But even when a Muslim managed to escape physically, the Quraysh still tried to take everything they could.

When a Companion ﵁ of the Prophet ﷺ left Makkah, he risked his well-being, if not his life. Under such circumstances, there was little time or opportunity to gather one’s wealth and take it along. Ultimately, they appropriated all the wealth that the Muslims had left behind. Suhaib ibn Sinan Namari ﵁ lost all his wealth but in a somewhat different way, one that demonstrated his strong iman in Allah ﷻ and dedication to the cause of Islam.

Suhaib ﵁ was not a native resident of Makkah. He originally belonged to the tribe of An-Namar ibn Qasit. When the Romans attacked Suhaib’s tribe, they took Suhaib ﵁ captive, as he was still a small boy at the time. He learned their language, and as he grew up he was bought and sold multiple times until he eventually ended up with Abdullah ibn Jud’an, one of the leaders of Makkah. Suhaib ﵁ was so well-liked by him that he eventually set him free. He was, however, bound to Jud’an, which meant he did not enjoy the status of a native Makkan resident. Nonetheless, Suhaib ﵁ made the best of his situation and became a successful, very wealthy businessman, even by the standards of the Qurayshi nobles.

When Suhaib ﵁ wanted to leave, the Qurayshi nobles became angry at the fact that a foreigner who had risen from among their ranks would have the audacity to leave them and take his wealth with him. What followed was a negotiation that exposed the essence of Suhaib’s ﵁ character: a man who understood that faith was worth more than any wealth.

He gave them his entire wealth, and news of this reached the Prophet ﷺ, who then said:

Suhaib has profited, Suhaib has profited!

Ikrimah ﵁ narrated a slightly different version with more details and context. He narrated that when Suhaib ﵁ was on his way to Madinah, the Makkans pursued him. When they were about to seize him, he took his quiver and shot forty arrows. He ﵁ then said:

You will not reach me until each of you receives an arrow (he was known for his archery), and after that I will rely on my sword. Truly, you know that I have left behind two Qainahs (a large sum of money). You may have them as long as you do not pursue me.

Ikrimah ﵁ said that the following verse was revealed to the Prophet ﷺ:

When the Prophet ﷺ saw him, he said:

Abu Yahya (Suhaib) has profited from the transaction.

He then recited the verse.