Banu Hashim

In the early Makkan period, Abdullah ibn Abi Umayyah challenged the Prophet ﷺ in public. Abdullah was the Prophet ﷺ's first cousin, the son of his aunt Atikah. He made his challenge in front of the Nadi, the assembly of the Quraysh, to embarrass him. Abdullah said he would never believe until the Prophet ﷺ climbed a ladder into the sky in front of him and brought down a book from Allah. He also demanded to be shown the angels. He added that even if all this happened, he still would not believe. The Qur'an echoes the wording of this demand in 17:90-93.

Amr ibn Luhay al-Khuza'i, the chief of the Khuza'a tribe, was the first to change the religion of Ismail AS and bring idol worship and superstition to the Arabs. He travelled to Syria, where he found the Amaliq, or Amalekites. They were a tall, powerful people with an advanced civilization who had never been defeated. They worshipped idols, which they believed ended their droughts and defeated their enemies. Amr was deeply impressed and asked for one of their idols. They gave him Hubal, which he brought back and set up in front of the Ka'bah. Hubal became the main idol of the Quraysh. Hundreds of years later, at the Battle of Uhud, Abu Sufyan ibn Harb called out to this same idol, shouting "U'lu Hubal!" (Hubal has won!). The Prophet ﷺ told Umar ibn al-Khattab RA to answer him. Amr ibn Luhay is also said to have changed the talbiyah, the words pilgrims recite during hajj. The original declared that Allah has no partner. Amr's version said that Allah has no partner except a partner who belongs to Him, whom He controls along with all that the partner controls. This introduced the idea of a chief god with lesser gods beneath him, much like the gods of ancient Greece. Some say it was not Amr himself who made this change, but people a few generations after him. Three things allowed one man to overturn the religion of his forefathers. First, Amr felt inferior before the advanced civilization of the Amaliq, so he assumed their beliefs must be right too. Second, he was a generous, powerful and widely respected chief who had won many battles, and his tribe, the Khuza'a, controlled Makkah at the time. Third, at least 2,000 years had passed since Ibrahim AS, and true guidance had faded. Amr can only be dated roughly, because the Arabs of that time kept no calendar and marked time by major events. He belonged to the same generation as Fihr, the founder of the Quraysh. This places him around the first century CE, about 500 years before the Prophet ﷺ. It is also narrated that shaytan inspired Amr in a dream with the names of the very first idols: Wadd, Suwa', Yaghuth, Ya'uq and Nasr. The Qur'an mentions these idols from the time of Nuh AS. Ibn Abbas RA related that they were originally five righteous men who lived before Nuh AS. When they died, their people built statues to remember their piety, and over the generations people came to worship the statues. Amr revived these long-forgotten names, and according to this account they were worshipped again in Arabia, each idol belonging to a different tribe.

Shayba was the son of Hashim, the great-grandfather of the Prophet ﷺ, and Salma, a businesswoman of Madinah. He grew up in Madinah with his mother, and at first the Quraysh knew nothing about him. One day Hashim's brother, al-Muttalib, saw the boy in the streets of Madinah. He recognized the family features in his face and asked who his father was. The boy proudly answered that his father was Hashim. Al-Muttalib took Shayba back to Makkah. When the Quraysh saw the boy, they assumed he was al-Muttalib's new slave. They called him Abdul Muttalib, meaning "Muttalib's slave," and that became the name he was known by. Abdul Muttalib would later become the grandfather of the Prophet ﷺ.

For generations the well of Zamzam had been lost. It had been buried during the war between the tribes of Khuza'a and Jurhum, and the people of Makkah had to fetch their water from far away. Then Abdul Muttalib, the grandfather of the Prophet ﷺ, saw a dream telling him to dig at a certain spot beside one of the idols around the Ka'bah. At first he ignored it, but the dream kept coming back, until he realised it was from Allah. At that time he had only one son, Harith, his eldest. With Harith's help he took a shovel and an axe and began to dig. The Quraysh mocked him, asking whether he really thought he would find what no one had found in centuries. He kept digging until he struck water. As the water bubbled up, his own relatives surrounded him and claimed it as their property. Abdul Muttalib refused, saying he had found it and the rights were his. A deadly fight nearly broke out. In this moment he vowed to Allah that if he were ever given ten sons to defend him, he would sacrifice one of them. The two sides did not want to fight, so they agreed to take the matter to a priestess who lived far away. On the journey they lost their way and came close to dying of thirst. Abdul Muttalib told each man to dig his own grave, since they were too weak to bury one another. As he dug his own grave, he struck water again. His relatives said this was a sign from Allah that the water was his, because it had saved their lives. They turned back without going to the priestess and gave him the rights to Zamzam.

During a dispute with the Quraysh over the well of Zamzam, Abdul Muttalib made a vow to Allah. He promised that if Allah gave him ten sons to grow up and defend him, he would sacrifice one of them. Years later, when his sons had reached adulthood, he told them he was a man of his word and had to keep the vow. The son to be sacrificed was Abdullah, who was about 16 or 17 at the time. Abdul Muttalib brought Abdullah before the Ka'bah to carry out the sacrifice. The Quraysh stepped in and told him he could not do this, because Abdullah was the most beloved of his sons. They urged him to consult one of their priestesses to find a way out. The priestess advised that lots be drawn between Abdullah and ten camels. Each time the lot fell on Abdullah, ten more camels were added. When the camels reached one hundred, the lot finally fell on the camels instead, and Abdullah was ransomed.

Abdul Muttalib, the grandfather of the Prophet ﷺ, had once vowed to sacrifice his son Abdullah, and Abdullah was spared. Straight afterwards, Abdul Muttalib decided to find his son a bride. He chose Aminah bint Wahab, the daughter of the chief of Banu Zuhrah, one of the clans of the Quraysh. Shortly before the caravan season, Abdul Muttalib proposed to Aminah on his son's behalf. Her father Wahab agreed, and Abdullah married Aminah. There is a story that Abdullah had a special brightness, called nadarah, on his face before the marriage, and that it left him afterwards, passing on to his child. This report is not authentically narrated. Sheikh Yasir Qadhi mentions it only because there is no harm in relating it.

Abdullah, the father of the Prophet ﷺ, married Aminah bint Wahab. A few days later he left with a trade caravan for Syria. He fell seriously ill on the way back. When the caravan reached Yathrib, the city later called Madinah, he chose to stay behind with relatives there rather than hold up the rest of the group. His grandmother, the mother of Abdul Muttalib, lived in Yathrib. Abdullah died there while Aminah was pregnant with their son. No one knows where he is buried.

The Prophet Muhammad ﷺ was born in Makkah in the Year of the Elephant, on a Monday. Only one report gives the time of day. Sa'id ibn al-Musayyib, a scholar of the generation after the Companions, said he had been told that the birth was at high noon, without naming who told him. Others born around the same time later dated their own births by his. Qays ibn Makhramah said that he and the Prophet ﷺ were both born in the Year of the Elephant. Qubath ibn Ashyam RA said he was born before him, in a report found in al-Tirmidhi. Suwayd ibn Ghafala is reported to have said that he too was born in the Year of the Elephant, though another report has him say he was two years younger. According to Ibn Ishaq, on the seventh day his grandfather Abdul Muttalib held a feast for him and named him Muhammad ﷺ. Al-Bayhaqi relates a similar report, without a sound chain, that Abdul Muttalib slaughtered an animal for him. The Quraysh asked about the name, because no one in his family had been called it before. His uncle Abu Lahab freed his slave girl Thuwaybah, who later nursed the baby. It is narrated that he freed her because she brought him the good news of the birth, though not every source includes this detail.

Abraha was the governor of Yemen for the Najashi, the Christian king of Abyssinia. He built a great cathedral in Sana'a and wanted the Arabs to make their pilgrimage there instead of to the Ka'bah. A Bedouin went to the cathedral and relieved himself in it as an insult. Abraha was furious and decided to destroy the Ka'bah in revenge. Abraha marched on Makkah with an army that included several elephants. The lead elephant was named Mahmud. It is said that an Arab named Abu Rughal guided the army to the Ka'bah. When the army reached Makkah, it seized the livestock of Abdul Muttalib, the chief of Makkah, including over 200 camels. Abdul Muttalib went to meet Abraha and asked only for his camels back. He told Abraha that the House had its own Lord who would defend it. The Quraysh then left the city for the surrounding mountains, after Abdul Muttalib had prayed at the Ka'bah for Allah to defend it. When Abraha's men turned the lead elephant Mahmud toward the Ka'bah, he refused to move. However much they beat him, he would not go forward, yet he walked readily in any other direction. While the army was stuck, Allah sent flocks of birds, the Ababil. They pelted the army with stones of baked clay (sijjil). In front of the eyes of the Quraysh, every stone struck a man or an animal, and his flesh dissolved. Abraha himself suffered the worst of it. His men carried him back toward Yemen as his skin dissolved along the way, and he died just before reaching home. This was the Year of the Elephant, the year the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ was born. His mother Aminah was pregnant with him in Makkah when Allah defended the sanctuary. Years later, a man named Qubath proved he was older than the Prophet ﷺ by recalling that, as a young boy, his mother had shown him the elephants' droppings, withered and turned yellow.

Noble families of the Quraysh had a custom of sending their newborns away from Makkah to be nursed and raised by women of the desert. There were several reasons for this. The desert protected children from the diseases of crowded towns, hardened them for a difficult life, and kept them from being spoiled by relatives. Above all, certain desert tribes were famous for speaking the purest and most fluent Arabic, free of the borrowed words of the city. The most famous of these tribes was Banu Sa'd ibn Bakr, and it was they who fostered the Prophet ﷺ. Every year, the women of Banu Sa'd came to Makkah to take in infants of the Quraysh in return for payment. Halimah al-Sa'diyah and her husband were very poor. She had just had a baby son of her own, so she had milk to nurse another child. That year she came to Makkah hoping to find a newborn to nurse for two or three years. Every other woman in her group found a child to foster, but Halimah did not. The only child left was the orphan whose father had died. The other women had passed him over, because they expected little payment from a family with no father. With nobody else left, Halimah agreed to take him. At once, her household saw blessings. An old goat that had long stopped giving milk began to give milk again, and their old riding animal became the fastest of the whole group. Fostering usually lasted two years, but Halimah saw so many blessings that she wanted to keep him longer. The Prophet ﷺ's mother, Aminah bint Wahab, agreed, even though she could not pay as much as the other families were paying.

As a small child, the Prophet ﷺ was raised in the desert by his foster mother, Halimah al-Sa'diyah. When he was four years old, he was playing with the other children when the angel Jibril came to him. The other children ran away in fear, but he stood his ground. Jibril overpowered him and laid him on the ground. He opened his chest and took out his heart. He removed a black portion from it and threw it away, saying that this was shaytan's portion in him. He then washed the heart in a golden cup of Zamzam water, put it back and sealed the chest. Halimah's young son and her daughter Shayma ran to her screaming that their brother had been killed. Halimah rushed out and found him sitting with a pale face. He was frightened, but he was not screaming or crying. A line remained on his chest ﷺ where it had been opened, and it could still be seen late in his life. The incident worried Halimah, and she decided then and there to return him to his mother, Aminah.

When the Prophet ﷺ was around six years old, his mother Aminah took him to Yathrib, accompanied only by her servant Ummi Ayman. It was the only city he ever visited as a child, and the only one where he had relatives before the Hijrah. They stayed a few months, and on the return journey, at the small settlement of al-Abwa', Aminah fell ill and died. Ummi Ayman had her buried there by the people of the village.

After his mother died, the Prophet ﷺ, then about six years old, was raised by his grandfather Abdul Muttalib, the chief of the Quraysh. Ibn Ishaq reports that Abdul Muttalib had a raised platform right beside the Ka'bah. In the afternoon, when the shadow of the Ka'bah covered it, he would sit there and discuss the affairs of the Quraysh. The platform was like a king's throne. No one else was allowed to sit on it, not even his sons or grandsons. One day the young Prophet ﷺ came running and jumped up onto the platform to sit next to his grandfather. His uncles, including al-Zubayr, pulled him back down. But Abdul Muttalib stopped them. He said, "Leave him. This is my child, and he can remain on the platform." Of all his grandchildren, he was the only one Abdul Muttalib allowed to sit there.

When the Prophet ﷺ was a boy of seven or eight, some of the family's camels went missing. His uncles sent him out alone into the desert to find them. According to Ibn Sa'd, they chose him because every task he was given turned out well. He was late coming back. When his grandfather Abdul Muttalib learned that the uncles had sent the boy out alone, he was furious with them. He paced back and forth anxiously until the boy returned safely.

At age eight, the Prophet ﷺ became an orphan for the third time when his grandfather Abdul Muttalib, by then old and blind, passed away. On his deathbed, Abdul Muttalib entrusted the Prophet ﷺ to his son Abu Talib, the full brother of Abdullah, the Prophet ﷺ's father.

Very little is known about the life of the Prophet ﷺ between the ages of about 9 and 15. One thing that is known is his first job: he worked as a shepherd. He once said, "Allah never sent a prophet except that he was a shepherd." His companions asked whether that included him. He replied, "I was. And I used to tend to the flock of the people of Makkah in return for some qararit." Qararit were tiny coins, so he was working for pennies. The flocks he tended belonged to people of Makkah, and he grazed them in the valley of Ajyad.

When the Prophet ﷺ was about eleven or twelve years old, before he reached puberty, his uncle Abu Talib took him on a trade caravan to Syria. This version of the story says that Abu Bakr and Bilal ibn Rabah went with them. On the way they passed a monastery where a monk named Buhayra lived. He had never paid the caravans any attention before. This time he came out looking for them, greeted them and invited them all to a feast. When they asked why, he said that the boy among them would become a prophet. He said he had seen the clouds and the trees give him shade and the stones bow down to him. He told Abu Talib to take good care of the boy. While they were eating, seven Roman soldiers appeared. They were said to be searching for the coming prophet in order to capture and kill him. Buhayra hid the travellers and told them to go back to Makkah at once.

A series of battles between the tribe of Kinana (of which Quraysh is a branch) and the tribes of Qays Aylan (Ghatafan and Hawazin). A man from Kinana killed a man from Hawazin; when the Hawazin retaliated, the Kinanite tribes, including Quraysh, fled back into Makkah, relying on the law that whoever enters the Haram is safe. But the Hawazin, in their anger, followed and attacked the Kinana even within the sanctuary, violating the sanctity of the Haram. In response, Quraysh declared all-out war against Hawazin and Qays Aylan.

Quss ibn Sa'ida of the Banu Iyad tribe was one of the hunafa', the few Arabs before Islam who turned away from idol worship to Allah. He would come to Makkah for the hajj and preach against idolatry. He was also known as one of the most eloquent poets of his time, and his language was said to resemble that of the Qur'an. The Prophet ﷺ saw him when the Prophet ﷺ was a young man in his twenties and Quss was an old man of around 80 or 90.

A merchant of the tribe of Zubayd (from Yemen) sold goods to al-As ibn Wa'il, a rich Qurashi chieftain, before hajj, on the promise of payment afterward. Al-As repeatedly delayed paying him until the man realized he would not be paid. Having appealed unsuccessfully to several Quraysh subtribes for help, he made his grievance public by reciting a poem at the Ka'bah, appealing to the "family of Fihr" (Quraysh) for justice. Al-Zubayr ibn Abdul Muttalib, on hearing this, convened the senior members of the Quraysh at the house of Abdullah ibn Jud'an, where they agreed to a pact to side with the oppressed against the oppressor, regardless of tribe. Being unable to write, they sealed the pact by dipping their hands in perfume and touching them to the Ka'bah, hence its other name, Hilf al-Mutayyabin ("the Pact of the Perfumed Ones").

While working as a shepherd for wages, Muhammad ﷺ and another young man were hired by Khadija RA's older sister to tend her flock of camels outside Makkah. When the two came to collect their wages, Muhammad ﷺ, too shy to ask himself, sent his companion in his place. Khadija RA, who happened to be at her sister's house, asked after him, and her sister praised his shyness, honor, nobility, and chaste conduct. This was the first Khadija RA heard of him, and something entered her heart.

Khadija RA was known as the richest woman in Makkah. She had been married twice and ran a trading business, sending caravans between Makkah, Syria and Yemen. As a woman she could not travel with them herself. So she hired men on a mudarabah basis, a partnership in which the merchant earns a share of the profit instead of a wage. Khadija RA's older sister had praised Muhammad ﷺ highly to her. So Khadija RA sent her servant to him with an offer to take charge of her caravan, even though he had no experience in business. Muhammad ﷺ first went to his uncle Abu Talib for advice before accepting. Khadija RA offered him 50% of the profits as an incentive. She sent her servant Maysara along with him, and the caravan travelled to Bosra, a market town outside Damascus.

Khadija RA was a wealthy woman of Makkah. After Muhammad ﷺ led her trading journey to Bosra with great success, it was she who began the move towards marriage. In one version, she confided in an elderly servant named Nafisa. Nafisa went to him and asked why he did not marry. He smiled and said, "Who would marry me? I am an orphan and I am poor." Nafisa asked what he would say if Khadija wanted to marry him. He fell silent, then said, "Why would she want me?" He had not said no, and Nafisa took that as a sign of his interest. The reports differ on who gave Khadija RA in marriage. Ibn Ishaq says that the Prophet ﷺ's uncle Hamzah RA went with him to her father, Khuwaylid ibn Asad, who married her to him. Other reports say her guardian was her uncle, Amr ibn Asad. Sheikh Yasir Qadhi calls this second version the more authentic one. In that version, recorded by Ibn Faris, the Prophet ﷺ came with his uncle Abu Talib, who gave the formal address. Abu Talib praised Allah and the noble line of the Quraysh, the keepers of the Ka'bah. Then he proposed on his nephew's behalf, with a dowry of 12 uqiyyah and a nash of silver. Amr ibn Asad accepted on the spot. Ibn Hisham gives the dowry differently, as twenty young she-camels. One narration, with a very weak chain, claims that Khadija RA's father opposed the match and was made drunk so the marriage could go ahead. Ibn Hajar and others point out that this cannot be true, because her father had died long before. Khadija RA had been married twice before, first to Atiq ibn Abid al-Makhzumi and then to Abu Hala al-Tamimi. She had children by both. Ibn Hisham names Hind and Zaynab as her children by Abu Hala, and some reports also name a son, Hala ibn Abi Hala.

Of the four hunafa', Zayd ibn Amr ibn Nufayl alone accepted neither Christianity nor Judaism, telling the rabbis and priests he met on his search that theirs was not the true religion of Ibrahim AS either. He returned to Makkah and, once mature and respected among his people, openly declared that no one in the whole city remained upon the religion of Ibrahim AS besides himself. Asma bint Abi Bakr RA, the older sister of Aisha RA, recalled as a young child seeing Zayd ibn Amr rebuke the Quraysh for worshiping idols, for offering meat to them, and for burying their infant daughters alive. Whenever a man of Quraysh wanted to kill his daughter, Zayd would intervene and ask to raise the girl himself as his own, showing his generosity and refusal to take any part in their idolatry. The Prophet ﷺ, still a young man before his own mission began, once asked Zayd ibn Amr what was the matter between him and his people, and why there was such animosity, an early sign of the Prophet ﷺ's own inquisitive mind. Zayd answered simply that he could not worship idols, and the Prophet ﷺ, who himself had never worshiped an idol, found in him a kindred spirit. Zayd ibn Amr continued upon his tawhid until he died, about five years before the Prophet ﷺ began preaching Islam.

When Muhammad ﷺ was around 35 years old, the Ka'bah in Makkah was badly damaged. First, a woman cooking near it let an ember fly, and it set the Ka'bah's cloth on fire. Later a great flood swept through Makkah and destroyed its roof and some of its walls. The Quraysh decided that the whole building had to be rebuilt. Around the same time, a Roman ship ran aground at Juddah, the port now called Jeddah. The Roman emperor had loaded it with the finest wood and marble, and with skilled craftsmen, to rebuild a church in Yemen that the Persians had destroyed. The books of Seerah say that Allah sent a wind that drove the ship onto the coast. Its crew needed money to get home, so they sold the cargo. The Quraysh pooled their wealth, bought the materials and hired the craftsmen. The Quraysh were still afraid to tear down the House of Allah. One report in Ibn Ishaq says that a large snake came out of the Well of Zamzam and hissed at anyone who came near, until a great bird carried it away. They took this as a sign to go ahead. Even so, no one wanted to strike first. At last al-Walid ibn al-Mughira, a nobleman of Quraysh, took an axe and began breaking down one of the walls. The others only watched, waiting to see whether he would come to harm. When he woke up unharmed the next morning, they all joined in. The Quraysh divided the four walls among four groups of clans. The Banu Abd Manaf, which included the Banu Hashim, took the most prestigious wall. The Banu Makhzum took the second. The Black Stone sits at a corner where two walls meet, and those two walls belonged to these two rival groups. When the work reached that corner, each side claimed the honour of putting the Black Stone back in place, and other clans joined the quarrel. The anger grew so great that building stopped for five days. The Banu Makhzum and some allies even dipped their hands in camel blood and swore to fight to the death over it. On the fifth day, Abu Umayya ibn al-Mughira, the oldest man in Makkah, said there would be no bloodshed. He proposed that the next man to walk in should decide. That man turned out to be the Prophet ﷺ. Every clan was delighted, because each believed he loved them most. He asked for a cloth and placed the Black Stone on it with his own hands. Then he had a representative of every clan take hold of the cloth and lift it together. When it reached its place, he set the Black Stone into the wall himself.

Zayd ibn Harithah, kidnapped as a boy and sold into slavery, had become Khadija bint Khuwaylid RA's servant and was later gifted to Muhammad ﷺ upon their marriage. Years afterward, Zayd's father Harithah and uncle traveled to Makkah and asked Muhammad ﷺ to let them ransom Zayd back. Muhammad ﷺ left the choice to Zayd himself, and Zayd chose to remain with him rather than return with his own father and uncle. Muhammad ﷺ then took Zayd by the hand to the Hijr Ismail and publicly declared him a free man and his adopted son, so that Zayd became known as Zayd ibn Muhammad ﷺ.

In the months before the revelation, Muhammad ﷺ was given a love of being alone. He would climb up to the Cave of Hira, on the mountain now called Jabal al-Nur. The cave is a narrow crevice with room for one man, and it faces the Ka'bah. He took food and water for several nights and worshipped there until his supplies ran out. Then he came down to his wife Khadija to collect more, and went back up. In those months he began to see dreams that came true as surely as the dawn comes. By one report this lasted six months. He told Khadija about them, and she said it was a good sign. As he walked, he also heard stones and rocks greet him with salam. He said there was one rock in particular that he could still recognise. He was being prepared. Some reports say that on a Saturday in Ramadan he saw a light and heard a sound, but found nothing there. On the Sunday the same thing happened. Then on a Monday, in the last ten nights of Ramadan, on the Night of Qadr, Jibril came to him in the cave. The angel said to him, "Read." He answered, "I cannot read." The angel seized him and squeezed him until he could bear no more. Then he let him go and said it again. This happened a second time, and a third. Then Jibril recited to him the first five verses of Surah al-Alaq: "Read, in the name of your Lord who created, created man from a clinging clot. Read, and your Lord is the most generous, who taught by the pen, taught man what he did not know." No one knows why the angel squeezed him. Some say it was to show him that this was not a dream. Some say it was the weight of what was coming. Others say it foretold three great trials. And why was the word "read" said twice to an unlettered man, among an unlettered people? Because from that night on there would be a Book. It would be recited from memory and read from the page, and preserved in both ways. He came down the mountain with his heart pounding. He went in to Khadija and said, "Cover me up, cover me up." She wrapped him up until the fear passed. Then he told her what had happened, and that he feared for himself, for his life or for his mind. Khadija swore by Allah that it would never be so, and that Allah would never disgrace him. She reminded him that he kept the ties of kinship and spoke the truth. He carried the burdens of others, earned money for the destitute, honoured his guests, and helped in every good cause. Then she took him to her cousin, Waraqa ibn Nawfal. Waraqa was an old blind man who had abandoned idol worship long before. He read the earlier scriptures, and had written out the Gospel in Hebrew letters. Khadija said to him, "Listen to your nephew," a respectful way of speaking of a younger kinsman. When Waraqa had heard him, he said that this was the Namus, the keeper of secrets, who had come to Musa. He wished he were a young man again, so that he could help him when his people drove him out. The Prophet ﷺ asked, "My people will kick me out?" Waraqa said yes. No man had ever brought what he was bringing without being met with hostility. If he lived to see that day, Waraqa said, he would help him with all his strength. Waraqa died a few days later, and the revelation paused. Khadija later asked the Prophet ﷺ what had become of Waraqa, who had believed in him but died before his mission began. He said he had seen Waraqa in a dream wearing white garments, which no one destined for the Fire would wear. Al-Tirmidhi himself calls this report weak. Waraqa never said the shahada, because there was not yet a shahada to say. Even so, on the strength of this report some count him as the first to believe and the first to die a believer. Around this time Jibril came down and taught him how to make wudu and how to pray, though no fully authentic report fixes the exact moment. At this stage every prayer was two rak'ahs, as Aisha reports. Prayer was not yet obligatory. When the five prayers were made obligatory, he did not need to be taught again. In later years he spoke about the dreams that had come first. He said that after him nothing of prophethood would remain except true dreams, which are one part in forty-six of prophethood. Some have noticed that six months of dreams, set against twenty-three years of prophethood, is exactly that fraction.

After Surah al-Muddaththir commanded the Prophet ﷺ to arise and warn, he began quietly, with the people closest to him in Makkah. The first to believe was his wife Khadija RA. She believed before she even knew what she was believing in, out of trust in the man she knew. The second was her cousin Waraqa ibn Nawfal. There was no shahada to say yet, but he affirmed that Muhammad ﷺ was a prophet, and he died soon afterwards. Scholars differ over who came next among three people. A simple way to resolve this is to say that Ali RA was the first child to believe, Abu Bakr RA the first free man, and Zayd ibn Harithah RA the first freed slave. Ali was about ten years old and was being raised in the Prophet ﷺ's own household. No story of Abu Bakr's conversion has survived, only the manner of it. He accepted Islam the moment it was put to him. Years later in Madinah, the Prophet ﷺ was frustrated with something Umar RA had done. He said, "Allah sent me with the Truth, but all of you accused me of being a liar; and it was only Abu Bakr who said, 'You are telling the truth.'" In another hadith he said, "There was not a single person whom I invited to Islam except that he had some doubts before he converted, except for Abu Bakr." He also said that Allah had taken him as His khalil, His close friend, so he could have no other khalil, "but were I to choose a khalil, it would have been Abu Bakr." The Qur'an refers to Abu Bakr as the second of the two in the cave (9:40). Four men then became Muslims through Abu Bakr. All were noblemen of the Quraysh, and each became a great figure in Islam. The youngest was Sa'd ibn Abi Waqqas RA, about sixteen years old. His mother refused to eat or drink until he returned to the idols, and she grew weaker and weaker. Finally he swore to her that even if he had a hundred souls and lost every one of them watching her die, he would not give up his religion. Seeing his resolve, she began eating again. Allah then revealed that if parents press you to worship others besides Him, you should not obey them, but should still treat them kindly in this world (31:15). The second was Uthman ibn Affan RA. The third was Zubayr ibn al-Awwam RA, the Prophet ﷺ's cousin through his aunt Safiyyah. The Prophet ﷺ later said, "Every prophet has been given a hawari, and Allah has given me as my hawari Zubayr ibn al-Awwam." A hawari is a devoted disciple. The fourth was Abd al-Rahman ibn Awf RA, a trader of about thirty. Years later he would arrive in Madinah with nothing and ask only to be shown the marketplace. Next came Abdullah ibn Mas'ud RA. He was neither a nobleman nor a slave, but a young man from a Yemeni tribe hired to herd the sheep of Uqba ibn Abi Mu'ayt. One day two men came to him in the pasture and asked for milk. He told them he could not give it, because the sheep were not his. One of them asked him to point out a she-goat that had stopped giving milk. He did, and the man made du'a and rubbed its udder until it filled with milk. They milked it and drank. Amazed, Ibn Mas'ud asked who they were. He was told that this was Abu Bakr and this was the Prophet ﷺ, and he became a Muslim on the spot. He later said that he learned over seventy surahs directly from the Prophet ﷺ's mouth. The Prophet ﷺ said, "If you want to know how to read the Quran, read it the way Ibn Mas'ud does." After him came many from among the slaves and servants of Makkah. The best known are Bilal RA, Khabbab ibn al-Aratt RA, and Yasir, his wife Sumayyah and their son Ammar. Amr ibn Abasah, a man from Yemen, had already rejected idol worship on his own. He heard that a man in Makkah was preaching the same, so he travelled there. He found the Prophet ﷺ living in hiding and asked him what he was. The Prophet ﷺ said, "I am a prophet." Amr asked what a prophet was and what he had been sent with. The Prophet ﷺ told him he had been sent to keep the ties of kinship, to break all idols, and so that Allah alone would be worshipped. Amr asked who had followed him, and he answered, "One free man, and one slave." Amr said he wanted to follow him too. But the Prophet ﷺ said, "You cannot do this now. Don't you see my situation, that I have to hide from my own people?" He told Amr, "Go back to your people, and when you hear that I have been victorious over my people, come back to me." Years later, after the Hijrah, Amr came to the mosque in Madinah and asked the Prophet ﷺ whether he recognized him. The Prophet ﷺ said, "Yes, you are the man who came to me from Yemen in Makkah." In these first years, the call to Islam was private, and deliberately so.

As a young man, Abdullah ibn Mas'ud worked in Makkah as a hired shepherd for Uqba ibn Abi Mu'ayt. One day two men he did not recognise came up to his flock. They were Muhammad ﷺ and Abu Bakr. They told him they were thirsty and asked for some milk. Ibn Mas'ud honestly replied that he could not give it, because the flock did not belong to him. The Prophet ﷺ then asked him to point out an old she-goat that had stopped giving milk. Ibn Mas'ud showed them one. The Prophet ﷺ made du'a and rubbed its udder, and it filled with milk before Ibn Mas'ud's eyes. They milked it and drank. Astonished at this miracle, Ibn Mas'ud asked who they were. When he was told that they were Muhammad ﷺ and Abu Bakr, he accepted Islam on the spot. He became the sixth person to convert.

Amr ibn Abasah al-Sulami was a man from Yemen who knew, even before Islam, that idol worship was wrong. He heard that someone in Makkah was preaching against idolatry, so he travelled there to find him. He found Muhammad ﷺ hiding from his own people. Amr asked him what he was, and he replied, "I am a prophet." Amr asked what he had been sent with. He said, "To fulfill the tie of kinship, to break all idols, and that only Allah SWT be worshiped." Amr asked who had followed him. He said, "One free man, and one slave," meaning Abu Bakr and Bilal. Amr said he wanted to follow him. The Prophet ﷺ said, "You cannot do this now. Don't you see my situation, that I have to hide from my own people?" He told Amr, "Go back to your people, and when you hear that I have been victorious over my people, come back to me." Amr returned to Yemen and waited. Years later he heard that the Prophet ﷺ had emigrated to Madinah, so he went there and found him in his mosque. He asked whether the Prophet ﷺ recognized him. The Prophet ﷺ said, "Yes, you are the man who came to me from Yemen in Makkah." Amr then accepted Islam and became one of the Muhajirun, the emigrants to Madinah.

When Muhammad ﷺ lost his infant son Abdullah, one of his worst enemies, al-As ibn Wa'il, mocked him in his grief. Al-As ran through the streets of Makkah cheering that the Prophet ﷺ's line of descendants had been cut off. In response, Allah revealed Surah al-Kawthar (Qur'an 108:1-3).

After the first revelation in the Cave of Hira, the revelation stopped for a while. This pause is known as fatrat al-wahy. Accounts differ on how long it lasted. Some say two or three years, but this is considered far too long. A narration from Ibn Abbas puts it at 40 days, and Ibn Shihab al-Zuhri described it as around a month. Together they suggest it lasted about a month and ten days. During this time, Muhammad ﷺ was troubled. He later said, "I was worried for myself," meaning that he feared he was imagining things. Every day he went to Jabal al-Nour, the mountain of the cave, hoping to see the angel Jibril again, but he found nothing there. Then one day, as he was walking, he heard a sound and looked up. He saw the same angel he had seen in the cave, seated on a throne between the heavens and the earth. Trembling again, he rushed home to his wife Khadija RA and asked her to wrap him up. Jibril did not speak to him out on the mountain. He followed him home, and only once Muhammad ﷺ was wrapped up in Khadija's house did Jibril reveal the opening verses of Surah al-Muddaththir (Qur'an 74:1-7). Scholars suggest that the pause served to prepare him for what was coming, letting him recover and feel ready for the mission. Even so, he still trembled with fear when Jibril appeared to him again. This very human reaction is held up as evidence that he was not inventing his prophethood. Someone making a false claim tells grand stories in which he is the hero, and would not describe himself this way.

A few days or weeks after the private feast for his own clan, the Banu Hashim, the Prophet ﷺ took his message to the whole city. He climbed the mountain of Safa, the closest mountain to the Ka'bah, and began calling out to the people. Makkah was a small town of only around 1,000 people. One voice from the top of Safa was enough to bring all the tribes together. When everyone had gathered, he asked them, "What do you know from me? How do you trust me?" They said they knew nothing but good from him, and that he was al-Amin, the Trusted One, who had never lied to them. He asked whether they would believe him if he told them an army was coming to attack. They said yes, because they had never heard him tell a lie. He then said, "Then know therefore, I am a Warner sent by Allah, to proclaim the coming of severe punishment on the Day of Judgment unless you turn to Allah and leave your idolatry." He went on to call out to each clan of Quraysh by name, starting with the most distant and moving closer. He ended with his own uncles and aunts, and finally his beloved daughter Fatima. He told each of them to save themselves from the Fire, because he could not help them on the Day of Judgment. When he finished, his uncle Abu Lahab picked up some sand and threw it toward him. Abu Lahab cursed him and asked whether this was why he had called them all there. Allah then revealed Surah al-Masad (Qur'an 111) about Abu Lahab.

In the early years, when the Prophet ﷺ was quietly calling people to Islam in Makkah, Suwayd ibn al-Samit came for the pilgrimage. Suwayd was a poet from Yathrib (later Madinah), of Banu Amr ibn Awf of the Aws. He had heard of the Prophet ﷺ's eloquence and went looking for him. He told the Prophet ﷺ that he had something similar of his own. The Prophet ﷺ asked to hear it, and Suwayd recited his poetry. The Prophet ﷺ said, "What you have is good, but what I have is better." When Suwayd asked to hear it, the Prophet ﷺ recited the Qur'an to him. Suwayd was stunned and said he needed to think about it. He went back to Yathrib, and he was killed that same year in the Battle of Bu'ath, a war between the Aws and the Khazraj.

When the Muslims numbered around 20 or 30, the Prophet ﷺ saw that they needed a place to meet. It had to be secret. Many Muslims had not told their families and friends about their faith, and some converted slaves had not told their masters. He chose the house of al-Arqam ibn Abi al-Arqam, which stood behind Mount Safa in the center of Makkah. Al-Arqam was one of the first ten people to accept Islam. He was also a nobleman of Banu Makhzum, the clan of Abu Jahal, which was a rival of the Prophet ﷺ's own clan. The sources do not say why his house was chosen, but likely no one would suspect a Makhzumi of sheltering the Muslims. Its location near the Ka'bah also meant that people coming and going would not draw attention. The house, known as Dar al-Arqam, became the main meeting place of the early Muslims.

For about three years, the Prophet ﷺ called people to Islam privately. Then Allah revealed verses commanding him to preach openly, including "And warn your close relatives" (Qur'an 26:214). He began with his own clan, the Banu Hashim. He invited more than 40 of his uncles, aunts and other adult relatives to his house. He asked Ali ibn Abi Talib to prepare food and soup. The Prophet ﷺ ate first and blessed the food. The narrator reports that although there was only one plate, all 40 ate their fill as if each had eaten the whole plate alone. They drank the soup in the same way, as if each had drunk the whole cup. His uncle Abu Lahab sensed that the Prophet ﷺ was about to announce something. Before the meal was over, he stood up, made an excuse and left. Because he was a senior member of the family, others left with him, and the gathering broke up. The Prophet ﷺ saw that this was a tactic. A few days later he invited them again. This time, before they had finished eating, he stood up and spoke to them directly about his message.

In the early days of his dawah (calling people to Islam), the Prophet ﷺ spoke to a young man of the Khazraj, one of the two Arab tribes of Yathrib. The young man came close to accepting Islam. However, his chieftain talked him out of it, telling him to mind his own business and not to worry about the Prophet ﷺ. The young man was later killed in the Battle of Bu'ath, a war between the tribes of Yathrib. It is reported that as he was dying, he was glorifying, praising and magnifying Allah (saying the tasbih, tahmid and takbir).

Abu Dharr al-Ghifari RA narrated that he was in a gathering with the Prophet ﷺ, Abu Bakr, Umar, Uthman, and Ali, when the Prophet ﷺ took a group of pebbles in his hand and all present heard them praising Allah. He then passed the pebbles to Abu Bakr, then Umar, then Uthman, and in each of their hands the pebbles continued praising Allah and all present could hear it. When the Prophet ﷺ left and the pebbles were later picked up again, nothing could be heard from them.

In the early years in Makkah, the Quraysh tried to stop the Qur'an from being recited in public. Ibn Abbas reports that whenever the Prophet ﷺ recited it in front of the Ka'bah, they would shout and make noise. They cursed the One who revealed it and the one to whom it was revealed. Anyone who wanted to hear it had to pretend not to be listening. Because of the shouting, the Prophet ﷺ would often raise his own voice above theirs. Then Allah revealed a verse telling him to recite neither loudly nor in a whisper, but in a moderate voice between the two (Qur'an 17:110). Until then, no one but the Prophet ﷺ had recited the Qur'an in public. One day the Companions gathered in Dar al-Arqam, the house where the early Muslims met in secret. They asked which of them would step forward and do it. Abdullah ibn Mas'ud RA said that he would. The others wanted someone else. Ibn Mas'ud was of Yemeni origin and had no tribe in Makkah to protect him. He replied that he put his trust in Allah, and that Allah would protect him. The next day he went to the Ka'bah when the people had gathered there. He stood at the Maqam of Ibrahim and began reciting Surah al-Rahman in a loud and beautiful voice. People gathered around him, captivated, and asked one another what it was. Then one of them said that this was what Muhammad ﷺ claimed had been revealed to him. At once the crowd attacked Ibn Mas'ud and beat him until he could no longer recite. He had not managed to finish even two pages of the surah.

The Quraysh could not answer the Qur'an itself, so they turned to slander. They accused the Prophet ﷺ of being mad (Qur'an 68:51) and of being a soothsayer (Qur'an 69:42). They called him a magician, or a man under a spell (Qur'an 15:15, 51:52 and 17:47), and they called him a poet (Qur'an 36:69). The Qur'an answered each charge. To the charge of madness, it replied that he had lived a whole lifetime among them, so they knew him well (Qur'an 10:16). To the charge of poetry, Allah said that He had not taught him poetry, and that poetry was not fitting for him. Indeed, the Prophet ﷺ hardly ever recited poetry in his whole life. One scholar said he never recited even a full couplet of verse.

Abu Talib was the leader of the Banu Hashim clan and the uncle of the Prophet ﷺ. When the Prophet ﷺ began preaching openly, some of his fellow clansmen went to Abu Talib. They complained that his nephew was cursing their idols and preaching against the ways of their forefathers. In fact the Prophet ﷺ never cursed their idols, since the Qur'an forbids it. Abu Talib wanted to avoid a confrontation, so he gave them some gentle words and let the matter go. But the matter did not go away. More people converted, and visitors to Makkah carried the news of the new message home with them. A few weeks later the men came back and put more pressure on Abu Talib. They demanded that he either stop his nephew from preaching or hand him over to them to do with as they pleased. By Arab custom, no one could harm a member of a tribe unless its chief allowed it. So as long as Abu Talib protected him, they could do nothing. Abu Talib went to his nephew and begged him to have mercy on himself and on his old uncle. In what is probably the more authentic version of his reply, the Prophet ﷺ asked him, "Do you see the sun, O my uncle?" When Abu Talib said yes, the Prophet ﷺ said, "Wallahi, I have no more power to stop preaching than you do to light your stick with this sun." Seeing his sincerity, Abu Talib told him to do as he wished, and promised him his protection.

Abu Jahal, one of the fiercest enemies of Islam in Makkah, had bought something from a man but refused to pay him and kept putting him off. One day, as a joke, he told the man to go and get the money from Muhammad ﷺ instead. The man did not realize it was a joke. He went to the Prophet ﷺ and told him that Abu Jahal owed him money and had sent him to collect it from him. The Prophet ﷺ told the man not to worry, and that he would get his money back for him. He took the man by the hand and walked straight to Abu Jahal's house. When the door opened, he said, "O Abu Jahal, give the man his money back. Now." Abu Jahal's face went pale and he began to tremble. He ran back inside and threw the money at the man without even counting it. Abu Jahal later said that he had seen something behind the Prophet ﷺ that no one else could see, a herd of angry camels waiting to pounce on him, and that this was what terrified him.

The Quraysh told the Prophet ﷺ they would not believe unless they saw a miracle with their own eyes. They demanded that he make a spring burst out of the ground, or produce a garden with rivers gushing through it. They demanded that he bring the sky down on them in pieces, or bring Allah and the angels before them. They also asked for a house of gold, or for him to climb into the sky and bring back a book they could read (Qur'an 17:90-93). Allah told him to reply only that he was nothing but a human messenger. Allah did show them major miracles. The greatest was the splitting of the moon (Qur'an 54:1), yet they dismissed it, saying their eyes had been bewitched (Qur'an 54:2). Allah says that even if the angels came down and the dead spoke to them, they still would not believe (Qur'an 6:111). In any case, the Qur'an itself is Allah's greatest miracle, and it was enough. Allah also does not grant a demanded sign lightly. Whoever still refuses after seeing it faces a swift and final punishment (Qur'an 17:59 and 6:109).

One day the Prophet ﷺ was praying at the Ka'bah while Abu Jahal and other leaders of Makkah sat nearby. A camel had been slaughtered the day before. Abu Jahal asked which of them would bring its entrails and throw them on the Prophet ﷺ's back when he went down in prostration. Uqba ibn Abi Mu'ayt went and fetched them. When the Prophet ﷺ prostrated, Uqba dumped the entrails on his back. The load was so heavy that the Prophet ﷺ stayed pinned in prostration, and the onlookers laughed until they fell over. Ibn Mas'ud was watching from a distance. He had no tribe to protect him, so he could do nothing to help. Then someone went and told Fatima, the Prophet ﷺ's young daughter. She came running, crying, and pulled the entrails off her father's back.

Abu Jahal swore by al-Lat and al-Uzza that the next time he saw the Prophet ﷺ prostrating at the Ka'bah, he would put his foot on his neck and throw dust upon him. As the Prophet ﷺ prostrated in public prayer, Abu Jahal came forward to carry this out, but before reaching him he began retreating and pushing away with his hands. When asked what happened, he said he had seen a pit of fire between himself and the Prophet ﷺ, with wings hovering above it.

The Quraysh once begged the Prophet ﷺ to turn the Mountain of Safa into gold. Believing their request sincere, he made du'a to Allah for it. Jibril came to him and said that Safa could be turned to gold, but that if the Quraysh still refused to believe afterward, they would face instant punishment with no second chance. Understanding the implication, the Prophet ﷺ chose not to pursue it.

While the Prophet ﷺ was praying by the Ka'bah, Uqba ibn Abi Mu'ayt came from behind, removed his own garment, threw it around the Prophet ﷺ's neck, and began to choke him. The onlookers did not intervene until Abu Bakr was told his companion was being tortured; he rushed over and pulled Uqba away.

Tribal protection did not cover slaves or mawali (freed slaves who still owed loyalty to their former masters). So the Quraysh turned from social pressure to outright torture of these weak believers. The campaign was led by Abu Jahal, whom the Prophet ﷺ called the fir'awn (Pharaoh) of this ummah. He treated converts differently according to their standing. Converts from the Quraysh nobility were insulted and abused with words. Those who did business with the Quraysh were boycotted. Slaves and mawali, who had no tribe to protect them, were tortured. Ibn Abbas later described this time to his student Sa'id ibn Jubayr. He said the believers were tortured, starved and deprived of water so badly that they could not even sit up from the pain. When their tormentors asked them, "Is al-Lat and al-Uzza your god?", some would answer "Yes" just to end the torture. If an insect passed by and they were told to call it their god, they would do so. Islam allows a person to say such things under torture, as long as the heart remains firm in faith. The first seven people to declare Islam publicly were the Prophet ﷺ, Abu Bakr, Ammar ibn Yasir, Sumayyah, Suhayb al-Rumi, Bilal ibn Rabah and al-Miqdad. The Prophet ﷺ was protected through his uncle Abu Talib, and Abu Bakr was protected by his own tribe. The Quraysh rounded up the other five and tortured them. They put irons on their bodies and left them out on the desert sand.

Al-Walid ibn al-Mughira, chief of Banu Makhzum and regarded as the greatest poet in Makkah, managed to listen to the Prophet ﷺ recite the Qur'an uninterrupted for the first time. He was mesmerized, and walked away afterward a changed man, muttering to himself a description of the Qur'an's beauty.

Three leaders of Quraysh, Abu Sufyan ibn Harb, Abu Jahal ibn Hisham and al-Akhnas ibn Shurayq, each went out alone one night to listen secretly outside the Prophet ﷺ's house. He was praying at night and reciting the Qur'an. None of them knew that the others were there, and they listened until dawn. On the way home they met on the road and blamed one another, saying they must not come back. The same thing happened on the second night, and again on the third. On the third morning they made a firm promise never to return. Later that morning, al-Akhnas went to Abu Sufyan and asked him privately what he thought of what he had heard. Abu Sufyan said he had understood some of it but not all of it. Al-Akhnas then asked Abu Jahal the same question. Abu Jahal said that his clan had always competed with the Prophet ﷺ's clan for honour. Now that they claimed a prophet who received revelation from heaven, there was no way to compete with them, and he swore he would never believe in him.

For weeks or months, the Prophet ﷺ received no new revelation. During this time a woman of the Quraysh taunted him. Some narrators say she may have been the wife of Abu Jahal. She told him that she could see his "shaytan" had abandoned him, since he had nothing new to recite. By "shaytan" (devil) she mockingly meant the angel Jibril. The Prophet ﷺ was deeply grieved by this. Allah then revealed Surah al-Duha, which reassures him that his Lord has not abandoned him and does not detest him (Qur'an 93:3-5).

Uqba ibn Abi Mu'ayt once sarcastically invited the Prophet ﷺ to a meal. The Prophet ﷺ told him that he would never eat with him until he declared the shahadah, the testimony of faith. In his anger, Uqba spat in the Prophet ﷺ's face. The Prophet ﷺ calmly wiped it away.

Zayd ibn Amr ibn Nufayl was a man of Makkah who refused to worship idols and held to the religion of Ibrahim. He died about five years before the Prophet ﷺ began preaching Islam. His son, Sa'id ibn Zayd RA, became a Muslim and was one of the ten Companions promised Paradise (the Ashara Mubasharun). Sa'id once asked the Prophet ﷺ what his father's fate would be in the Hereafter. The Prophet ﷺ said, "He will be resurrected on the Day of Judgment as his own ummah." In other words, Zayd would stand alone as a one-man community of believers. Later, when the Prophet ﷺ returned from the Night Journey (al-Isra' wal-Mi'raj), he said to Sa'id, "I saw your father in Jannah. And Allah had blessed him with not one, but two Gardens!"

Dimad al-Azdi was one of the leaders of the tribes of Yemen, and he was also a medicine man. He came to Makkah while the Prophet ﷺ was calling people to Islam there. The Quraysh warned Dimad that the Prophet ﷺ was a magician and a madman. Their warnings frightened him so much that he put cotton in his ears so he would not hear him. Then Dimad thought again. He told himself that he was an intelligent man. If this man was wrong, Dimad could guide him, and if he was sick, Dimad could cure him. So he took the cotton out of his ears, went up to the Prophet ﷺ, and said he wanted to hear what he had to say. The Prophet ﷺ recited the khutbat al-hajah, a short opening sermon of praise to Allah. Dimad was so struck by its eloquence that he stopped him and asked him to repeat it. After hearing it a second time, Dimad said that he had memorised the poetry of every people, yet he had never heard anything so eloquent. He accepted Islam on the spot.

The Quraysh were sitting together, cursing and mocking the Prophet ﷺ. Utbah ibn Rabi'ah, a wise elder of Quraysh, asked whether anyone had actually tried to negotiate with him. No one had, so Utbah offered to go as their representative. He found the Prophet ﷺ sitting in front of the Ka'bah. He began by asking whether the Prophet ﷺ thought he was better than his father Abdullah and his grandfather Abdul Muttalib. It was a trick question, and the Prophet ﷺ answered it with silence. Utbah then described the harm that the new message had done to the people of Makkah. He made the Prophet ﷺ an offer if he would give up his call. He could have more wealth than anyone, or become their king, or marry any woman he chose. If he thought he was unwell, they would pay doctors to cure him. When Utbah had finished, the Prophet ﷺ recited the opening of Surah Fussilat to him. The recitation reached the warning of a thunderbolt like the one that struck the peoples of Ad and Thamud (Qur'an 41:13). Utbah began to tremble. He put his hand over the Prophet ﷺ's mouth and begged him, by Allah and by their kinship, to stop. Utbah went back to the Quraysh visibly shaken. He told them he had heard speech unlike anything he had heard before, and that this man's affair would become something great. He urged them to leave the Prophet ﷺ alone. If the other Arabs got rid of him, he said, the hands of Quraysh would be clean. If he won over the Arabs, his victory would be the victory of Quraysh. The Quraysh rejected this advice. They told Utbah that Muhammad ﷺ had bewitched him, just as he had bewitched everyone else.

Abu Salama RA was the husband of Umm Salama RA. He was also a cousin of the Prophet ﷺ, since his mother was a sister of the Prophet ﷺ's father, Abdullah. Abu Salama belonged to Banu Makhzum, the clan of Abu Jahal. On returning to Makkah, he asked for protection from his maternal uncle, Abu Talib, who agreed. Abu Jahal was angry and sent people to object. Abu Talib replied that if he could protect one nephew, he could protect the other. An argument broke out. Then help came from an unexpected source. Abu Lahab stood up for his brother Abu Talib. He told Abu Jahal to stop troubling the old man, or he would take his brother's side. Abu Jahal backed down.

Ammar ibn Yasir and his family were slaves in Makkah who were tortured for their faith. After he had watched his parents die under torture, Ammar was overwhelmed and said words of disbelief. Because he was the youngest, his torturers let him go. Full of remorse, Ammar ran to the Prophet ﷺ at Dar al-Arqam and told him that he had said words of disbelief. The Prophet ﷺ asked, "How is the faith in your heart?" Ammar answered, "As it always is." The Prophet ﷺ said, "If they return, then you return." Allah then revealed a verse in Surah al-Nahl. It makes clear that a person forced into disbelief while his heart remains firm in faith is not held to blame.

In the early years of the call to Islam in Makkah, Abu Jahal would stand at the edge of the city and warn visiting pilgrims that there was a madman in town. Sometimes Abu Lahab, the Prophet ﷺ's own uncle, did the same, saying his nephew had gone mad. One man who heard this was a physician. He decided to go and cure Muhammad ﷺ of his illness. The physician told the Prophet ﷺ that he had heard he was suffering from madness or possession, and offered to treat him. The Prophet ﷺ replied, "No, I am not a madman; but listen to my Message." He then recited the khutbat al-hajah, the words of praise to Allah that open a sermon. Before the Prophet ﷺ could go any further, the man stopped him and asked him to repeat what he had just said. The Prophet ﷺ repeated it. The man said that by Allah, he had never heard anything more beautiful. He then asked the Prophet ﷺ a series of questions, much as Amr ibn Abasah al-Sulami did in his own meeting with him. The answers convinced him, and he accepted Islam.

Abu Jahal would stand on the outskirts of Makkah and warn arriving pilgrims that there was a madman in town. Abu Lahab sometimes did the same about his own nephew, Muhammad ﷺ. He told visitors that Muhammad ﷺ had gone mad and was a magician who would captivate anyone who listened to him. He urged them to turn away and put their hands over their ears if they saw him.

As more people converted, Makkan society began to split apart, and the Quraysh tried to negotiate directly with the Prophet ﷺ. They proposed a compromise. One day all of them would worship Allah as Muslims, and the next day all of them would worship the idols together. Allah revealed Surah al-Kafirun (Qur'an 109:1-6) in response, rejecting any compromise in tawhid, the worship of Allah alone.

The Quraysh wanted to expose the Prophet ﷺ as a false prophet. The Arabs knew little about prophets, but the Jews had received prophet after prophet. So the Quraysh sent envoys to the Jews of Yathrib, the town later called Madinah, and asked for a question that would expose him. The Jews told them to ask him about Ishaq (Isaac), Ya'qub (Jacob) and Yusuf (Joseph), and about what had happened to the family of Ya'qub. When the Quraysh put the question to the Prophet ﷺ, Allah revealed the whole of Surah Yusuf in reply. It told the story of Ya'qub's family in detail, a story the Arabs had known nothing about.

The Quraysh sent another delegation to the Jews of Yathrib (later Madinah), asking for questions that would test the Prophet ﷺ. The Jews suggested three things that only a true prophet would know. The first was the story of some young men who slept for a long time in a cave. The second was the story of a great traveler who journeyed from the east to the west. The third was the nature of the ruh (the spirit or soul), which was meant as a trick question. The Prophet ﷺ told them to come back the next day for the answers, but he did not say "insha'Allah" (if Allah wills). Instead of one day, the revelation was delayed for two weeks, and all the while the Quraysh mocked him. Then Allah revealed Surah al-Kahf. It answered the first two questions with the story of the Companions of the Cave and the story of Dhu al-Qarnayn. About the ruh, Allah revealed in another verse (Qur'an 17:85) that it belongs to His command and that people have been given only a little knowledge.

Khabbab ibn al-Aratt was an Arab slave and a swordsmith, owned by a woman named Ummi Anmar. When she found out that he had become Muslim, she gathered a gang of Quraysh men. They surrounded him at his workplace and beat him until he was bloodied and bruised. After that, Ummi Anmar herself often burned his back with the same iron he used to forge swords. One day the Prophet ﷺ saw Khabbab being tortured with fire, and he prayed, "O Allah, help Khabbab." A few days later Ummi Anmar fell gravely ill and lost her senses. The doctors of Makkah said the only treatment was cauterization, burning the skin. She was cauterized on her back and head, and she eventually died from it.

Once, leaders of the Quraysh, including Abu Jahal and Umayyah ibn Khalaf, were talking with the Prophet ﷺ. The Prophet ﷺ became hopeful that some of them were coming closer to Islam. Then three believers of humble standing, Ammar, Suhayb, and Bilal, passed by. Abu Jahal was worried that the other leaders were growing sympathetic, so he used the moment. He asked how the truth could have reached these people before the nobles of Quraysh. He told the Prophet ﷺ that if he wanted them to accept his religion, he would have to send these people away. In response, Allah revealed verses in Surah al-An'am. One of them warned that to drive these believers away would be to join the wrongdoers (Qur'an 6:52).

Khabbab ibn al-Aratt, an early convert, was being tortured so severely that he went to the Prophet ﷺ for help. The Prophet ﷺ was sitting in the shade of the Ka'bah with his back against it. Khabbab asked how much longer they would have to bear this. He also asked whether the Prophet ﷺ would pray to Allah to bring them honour and end their humiliation. The Prophet ﷺ sat up. He told Khabbab that believers before them had been tortured worse, with iron combs that stripped their flesh and saws that cut them in half, and still they did not turn away from worshipping Allah. He swore that Allah would complete this religion until a Muslim shepherdess could take her flock from Sana'a to Hadhramaut, fearing no one but Allah, and the wolf for her sheep. Then he told them that they were being hasty.

Ibn Mas'ud RA reported that once they heard the food the Prophet ﷺ had put into his mouth making tasbih (glorifying Allah).

During the years of revelation, the angel Jibril would come to Muhammad ﷺ in the house of his wife Khadija RA. Jibril did not enter the house of any other wife of the Prophet ﷺ. On one occasion, the Prophet ﷺ told Khadija RA that Jibril was there, conveying Allah's salam (greeting of peace) to her along with his own. Jibril also brought her the glad tidings of a house in Jannah (Paradise) where there would be no noise and no struggle.

Yasir, his wife Sumayyah, and their sons Abdullah and Ammar were a family of slaves in Makkah who had accepted Islam. The Quraysh tortured them together, each in front of the others. Yasir was the first to die. Early authorities differ on exactly how he was killed. Some say he was dragged through the streets by a rope, and others say horses pulled him apart. His death only made Sumayyah's faith stronger, and she rebuked Abu Jahal, one of the fiercest enemies of Islam. Abu Jahal killed her with a thrust of his spear. Yasir and Sumayyah were the first martyrs of Islam. Their son Abdullah was then thrown into a ditch. Ammar was probably no older than fifteen. Overwhelmed by the torment, he said words of disbelief to make it stop. Because he was the youngest, the Quraysh finally let him go.

Ubay ibn Khalaf, a fellow Qurayshi, mocked and taunted the Prophet ﷺ more than most, telling him he would kill him one day and boasting that he was fattening a special horse to ride when he did it.

Abu Talib, the uncle and protector of the Prophet ﷺ, had already refused the first demand of the Quraysh. This time the leaders of all the clans of Quraysh came to him together, not only those of the Banu Hashim. They made him an offer. They would give him Umara ibn al-Walid, the son of al-Walid ibn al-Mughira and the most noble young man among them, to raise as his own son. In return, Abu Talib would hand over his nephew for them to do with as they pleased. Abu Talib was furious. He called it an evil and foolish bargain, and asked whether he should feed and raise their son while they took his own son and killed him. Then Mut'im ibn Adi, the most senior and least hostile man in Makkah, stood up. He told Abu Talib that his people had done all they could, and that he must accept one of their offers. Now the whole of Makkah stood against Abu Talib. He still refused. He told Mut'im that this was a plot planned in advance, and that they could do as they pleased, because he would not move from his position.

The leaders of the Quraysh called a meeting with the Prophet ﷺ at the house of his uncle Abu Talib. They asked him directly, "What can we do so that you get rid of this Message?" The Prophet ﷺ said, "I only want one word from you." They thought he meant a single condition, and they jumped up and offered him ten words instead of one. Then the Prophet ﷺ said, "What I want is the kalimah 'la ilaha illaLlah (there is none worthy of worship except God).'" They were taken aback. As the Qur'an records in verse 38:5, they said, "Has he made our objects of worship into one? This is something unheard of."

In Ramadan of the fifth year of his mission, the Prophet ﷺ recited the whole of Surah al-Najm before a gathering of Muslims and members of the Quraysh in Makkah. The surah builds toward a powerful ending, and its force moved everyone present. When he reached the last verse, "So prostrate to Allah and worship Him" (53:62), the Muslims fell into sajdah, or prostration. The Quraysh were so moved that they prostrated with them. For the first time, Muslims and non-Muslims all united behind the Prophet ﷺ. The only one who refused was al-Walid ibn al-Mughira, or in another narration Umayyah ibn Khalaf. He took a handful of sand, put it to his head, and said that this was enough for him. Ibn Abbas RA narrates this account in Sahih al-Bukhari, and scholars accept it as authentic. The detail that it happened in Ramadan comes from Ibn Ishaq. Later reports add a much weaker story. These reports are not found in the six main books of hadith, nor in the biographies of Ibn Ishaq and Ibn Hisham. They appear only in later works that collected everything, such as al-Tabari's Tafsir and al-Wahidi's Asbab al-Nuzul. They claim that after verse 20 of the surah, shaytan added two lines praising the idols al-Lat, al-Uzza and Manat. The lines called them "the exalted cranes, whose intercession is to be hoped for." One version says that only the Quraysh heard these words, and the Muslims did not. A further, more extreme version says that the Prophet ﷺ himself mistook shaytan's words for those of Jibril AS and recited them, until Jibril AS came back and told him the words were not his. The Western orientalist Sir William Muir later gave this story the name "the satanic verses". Islamic sources call it Qissat al-Gharaniq, the Story of the Cranes.

In the second emigration, more than eighty Muslims left Makkah for Abyssinia. Makkah was a town of only a few hundred people, so this was about a tenth of the city. For the Quraysh, the guardians of the Haram, it was a humiliation to see their own people fleeing from them. They sent two envoys to the king of Abyssinia, the Najashi, whose name was As'hama ibn Abjar. One was Amr ibn al-As RA. The sources disagree on the other: some name Abdullah ibn Abi Rabi'ah, others Umara ibn al-Walid. The two men took with them a large gift of fine leather. The story is told by Umm Salama RA, who was one of the emigrants. Until then, she says, the Muslims had been treated with every kindness by the Najashi and had never heard a harsh word from his people. The envoys did not go to the king first. They visited each of his ministers in turn, gave each one a gift, and asked a favour. They explained that some foolish young men from Makkah had run away to Abyssinia, and that their families wanted them home. When the matter came before the king, would the ministers please support the request? The next day the envoys appeared before the Najashi himself and presented his gifts. They told him that these young men had abandoned the religion of their fathers without accepting the king's religion either, and that the leaders of their people were asking for them to be returned. All the ministers spoke up together in support of the Quraysh. But the Najashi refused. He swore that he would not hand over people who had chosen his land and his protection above all others, at least not before he had heard what they had to say for themselves. He sent for the Muslims. They were frightened. Ja'far ibn Abi Talib RA told them that they would speak only the truth, and only what the Prophet ﷺ had taught them. When they entered the hall, the king was seated with his bishops around him. The Quraysh envoys bowed down in prostration before him, but Ja'far walked in standing upright. One of the ministers demanded to know why he had not prostrated. Ja'far answered that the Muslims prostrate to no one except their Lord. The Najashi asked them what this new religion was, which was neither his own Christianity nor the faith of their fathers. Ja'far's reply is one of the most famous speeches in the Seerah. He said that they had been a people of ignorance. They worshipped idols, ate dead animals, committed indecency, cut off their relatives, and the strong among them preyed on the weak. Then Allah sent them a Messenger ﷺ from among themselves, a man whose family and honesty they knew well. He called them to worship one God, to be truthful, to keep ties with their relatives and be good to their neighbours, to pray, fast and give charity, and to stop shedding blood, consuming the wealth of orphans and slandering others. They believed him and followed him. For that, their own people tortured them and tried to force them back to idol worship. So they had come to the king's land, choosing him over every other ruler, in the hope that they would not be wronged there. The Najashi asked whether they had with them anything of what their Prophet ﷺ said had been revealed to him from God. Ja'far recited the opening of Surah Maryam, which tells the story of Mary and the birth of her son Jesus. The bishops wept even though they could not understand the Arabic. When the verses were translated, the Najashi wept too. He swore that this recitation and the messages of Moses and Jesus had sprung from the same fountain. Then he told the envoys to leave, saying he would never hand these people over to them. On the way out, Amr told his companion that he had one more trick to try. His companion urged him to let it go, since the emigrants were their own relatives. Amr ignored him. The next morning he returned to the king and claimed that the Muslims said something outrageous about Jesus. The Muslims were summoned a second time and were even more afraid. Again Ja'far told them they would say exactly what the Prophet ﷺ had taught and nothing else. Before the king he said that Jesus was the servant of Allah, His Messenger, and His Word, which He cast into the virgin Mary. Ja'far did not attack the Christian belief in the Trinity. He simply stated what the Muslims believed and let it stand. The Najashi picked up a small twig from the floor. He said that what Ja'far had described did not differ from what Jesus himself had taught by even the length of that twig. Years later it became known that the king did not share the official doctrine of his priests, and that Ja'far's words matched what he privately believed. He dismissed the envoys a second time, and now he also returned their gifts. Umm Salama RA said the two men left humiliated and disgraced. The Muslims went on living in Abyssinia in peace and safety until they rejoined the Prophet ﷺ at Khaybar. Some of the king's own people grumbled that he had abandoned their religion, and he answered them using a parchment hidden inside his robe.

Hamzah became a Muslim most likely in Dhu al-Hijjah of the sixth year of the dawah. Three days later, the Muslims of Makkah gained a second man whom the Quraysh had thought could never be won over. This was Umar ibn al-Khattab. He and Abu Jahl were the strongest men of their generation, both in body and in family standing. They were also the two fiercest enemies the new faith had. Before this, Umar had shown a moment of softness. A woman named Layla was loading her camel for the second emigration to Abyssinia. She told him that his cruelty was driving them from their homes just so they could worship Allah. Umar softened for a moment, and wished her blessing wherever she went. Her husband, Amir ibn Rabi'ah, heard about it. He said that his father's donkey would accept Islam before Umar did. Neither of them knew that the Prophet ﷺ had made a du'a about Umar. He had asked Allah to strengthen Islam through whichever of the two men, Abu Jahl or Umar, was dearer to Him. Umar's son, Abdullah, later said that Umar was the dearer of the two. More than one story is told of how Umar came to Islam. They are best read as strands of a single rope. One night Umar went looking for a drink. None of his friends were at home, and even the wine-seller was out. So he went to the Ka'bah to walk off the craving. There he found the Prophet ﷺ alone in the dark, praying. Umar crept up behind him, meaning to beat him. Instead, for the first time, he listened. The Prophet ﷺ was reciting Surah al-Haqqah. Umar told himself that this was a poet's verse. At that moment the recitation said that it was not the word of a poet. He thought it might be the word of a soothsayer, and the recitation answered that too. He wondered whether the man had made it up. The verses said that if he had invented any of it, Allah would have seized him by the right hand and cut his aorta. Umar stood there until the surah was finished, and then went home. He said afterwards that Islam entered his heart that night, even though he did not yet accept it. Then one day Abu Jahl was speaking at length among the Quraysh about the man who had insulted their gods and their forefathers. He offered a reward to whoever would get rid of him. The reward was a hundred red and black camels and a hundred measures of silver. Umar went home, took his sword and set out. On the way he met Nu'aym ibn Abdillah al-Nahham, who was secretly a Muslim. Nu'aym asked him where he was going. Umar said he was going to kill Muhammad ﷺ. Nu'aym was frightened. He asked whether Umar really thought the Banu Abd Manaf would let him go on living after he killed one of their own. Then, to turn him aside, Nu'aym told him he had better put his own house in order first. His sister Fatima and her husband Sa'id ibn Zayd had accepted Islam. This did not calm Umar. He went to their house. Through the door he heard the Qur'an being recited. Khabbab ibn al-Aratt was inside with them, because the Prophet ﷺ had appointed him as their teacher. Khabbab hid, and Fatima sat on the written page to hide it. Umar pounded on the door and demanded to know what the murmuring had been. They denied that there had been anything. Umar struck at Sa'id, but the blow landed on his sister. Fatima and her husband were bleeding, but they were now beyond fear. They told him that yes, they were Muslims, and he could do whatever he liked. Seeing them stand so firm changed him, just as Layla's words had. He asked to see what they had been reading. First Fatima made him swear not to harm it. Then she told him that a mushrik could not touch it until he had washed. Umar did ghusl and read from Surah Taha. Then he asked to be taken to the Prophet ﷺ. Sa'id led him to the house of al-Arqam, where the Muslims met in secret. Umar still had his sword in his hand. Someone inside cried out that Umar was at the door with a sword. Hamzah told them to let him in. He said that if Allah wanted good for Umar, he would accept Islam. If not, Umar's own sword would be the end of him. The Prophet ﷺ took hold of Umar's collar. He asked him what he was doing there. He warned him that if he carried on down this path, Allah would destroy him with a punishment. Umar said he had come to believe in Allah and His Messenger ﷺ. The Prophet ﷺ cried "Allahu akbar," and everyone in the house heard it. That same day the Muslims, about forty of them, walked to the Ka'bah in two lines. Umar led one line and Hamzah led the other. They prayed there in public for the first time, and no one dared to touch them. The Prophet ﷺ gave Umar the name al-Faruq, meaning the one who separates truth from falsehood. Years later, as Umar lay dying, Ibn Mas'ud said that from the day Umar became Muslim, the Muslims never stopped being held in honour. Umar was not a man to hide what he had done. He went to Abu Jahl's door to tell him in person that he now believed in Allah and His Messenger ﷺ. Abu Jahl cursed him and slammed the door in his face. Then Umar asked who the biggest gossip in Makkah was. People pointed him to Jamil ibn Ma'mar al-Jumahi. Umar confided in Jamil that he had become a Muslim. Jamil ran out into the streets, barely dressed. He shouted that Ibn al-Khattab had become a Sabian. Umar followed behind him, correcting the word. He called out, "Aslamtu," which means "I have accepted Islam." A crowd at the Ka'bah fought him until al-As ibn Wa'il gave him protection. The Prophet ﷺ later said something about Umar. He said that there had been people before who were spoken to by the angels without being prophets, and that if anyone in his community was like this, it was Umar. And when Umar became caliph, the faith that had once been forty people walking to the Ka'bah spread over most of the known world.

One day Abu Jahal, a leader of the Quraysh, publicly cursed and insulted the Prophet ﷺ for as long as he wished, and no one stood up to defend him. Hamzah, the Prophet ﷺ's uncle, was away at the time. He was a well-known archer and one of the strongest men in Makkah. When Hamzah returned from his expedition, some women taunted him. They asked what kind of uncle he was if his own nephew could be insulted with no one to defend him, and where the honour of Banu Hashim had gone. Hamzah asked whether it had happened in public. They told him the whole of Makkah had seen it. Furious, Hamzah marched to the Ka'bah with his bow still in his hand. He struck Abu Jahal across the face with it, drawing blood. He demanded to know how Abu Jahal dared to curse his nephew. Then, without having planned it, he declared that he too followed the Prophet ﷺ's religion. Hamzah went home confused, unsure whether the new religion was true. He prayed to Allah to guide his heart to it if it was true, and spent a sleepless, miserable night. The next morning he went to the Prophet ﷺ and told him everything. The Prophet ﷺ spoke with him until he was convinced, and Hamzah testified that he was speaking the truth.

The Battle of Bu'ath was the climax of a civil war between the two Arab tribes of Yathrib (later Madinah), the Aws and the Khazraj. The war had lasted more than ten years. It began as small clashes over land, water and grazing rights, which grew until they ended in this major battle. Most of the senior leaders of both tribes were killed. Those left were mostly younger men, tired of a decade of bloodshed. The one senior leader still standing was Abdullah ibn Ubayy ibn Salul.

In the 7th year of the dawah (the call to Islam), the clans of the Quraysh agreed among themselves that the Prophet ﷺ must be killed. They knew, however, that his own clan, Banu Hashim, would never hand him over. So they went one last time to his uncle Abu Talib. They offered him whatever blood money he wanted if he gave the Prophet ﷺ up. If he refused, they threatened to cut off all trade, marriage and social ties with Banu Hashim and their cousin clan, Banu al-Muttalib. Abu Talib refused. The two clans left Makkah and moved to the Valley of Abu Talib, just outside the city. The Quraysh wrote the terms of the boycott in a treaty and hung it inside the Ka'bah. For about two to three years, the clans endured severe hardship and survived on leaves and shrubs. A few sympathisers secretly sent them food, most famously Mut'im ibn Adi and Hakim ibn Hizam. Throughout this time, the Prophet ﷺ still went out in the hajj seasons to call the visiting tribes to Islam. Three things brought the boycott to an end. First, the Prophet ﷺ prayed for a famine to strike the Quraysh, and it did. Second, a group of Quraysh with softer hearts, led by Hisham ibn Amr and Zuhayr ibn Abi Umayya, spoke out against the boycott at a public gathering and turned opinion against Abu Jahal. Finally, the Prophet ﷺ told Abu Talib that Allah had informed him that termites had eaten the treaty, leaving only the words "In the name of Allah". When the Quraysh opened it, they found this was true, and the pact was void.

Tufayl ibn Amr al-Dawsi was the chieftain of Daws, a tribe from Yemen. He came to Makkah to perform umrah at a time when the Prophet ﷺ was still being persecuted there. The Quraysh warned arriving pilgrims about him. They said that one of their own had become "a magician" whose speech could break the bonds between father and son. Tufayl grew so afraid that he stuffed his ears with cotton whenever he went to the Ka'bah, so that he would not hear him ﷺ. One day the Prophet ﷺ was praying and reciting the Qur'an, and Tufayl heard him despite the cotton. He was deeply moved. He scolded himself for refusing even to listen, since he was an intelligent man who could tell truth from falsehood. He took out the cotton and asked the Prophet ﷺ to let him hear what he had to say. The Prophet ﷺ sat him down, invited him to Islam and recited the Qur'an to him. By some accounts he recited only the last three surahs. Tufayl embraced Islam on the spot. Tufayl said he would go back and call his tribe to Islam, and he asked the Prophet ﷺ to make du'a for him. The Prophet ﷺ prayed for the guidance of Daws and told Tufayl to be gentle with his people. Some say this du'a was made later, in Madinah. Tufayl was much loved by his tribe. On the day he returned home, his father, mother and wife all accepted Islam. Over time, more than 80 families of Daws embraced Islam at his hands. While the Prophet ﷺ was still in Makkah, Tufayl offered him refuge in his tribe's fortress in Yemen. The Prophet ﷺ did not accept, because Allah had willed that he emigrate to Yathrib, the city later called Madinah.

Plots to kill the Prophet ﷺ began around the eighth or ninth year of his mission. Ibn Ishaq narrates that a woman who lived nearby warned his daughter Fatima that the Quraysh were planning to assassinate him. Fatima told her father. He reassured her that Allah would protect him and asked for water. He made wudu (the washing before prayer), made du'a (supplication), and then walked into the area around the Ka'bah, where the armed men of Quraysh were waiting for him. Not one of them could move or stand up. The Prophet ﷺ threw a handful of sand toward their faces and cursed them.

Rabi'ah ibn Abbad remembered a scene from his childhood, when the Prophet ﷺ was going from tent to tent among the tribes at Mina. The Prophet ﷺ came to the tent of Rabi'ah's father and invited him to worship Allah alone, to give up idol worship, and to take him under his tribe's protection. Behind him stood an older man wearing a Yemeni cloak, with his hair in two braids. Whenever the Prophet ﷺ finished and moved on to the next tent, this man stepped forward. He told the people that the Prophet ﷺ was calling them to abandon their gods al-Lat and al-Uzza, and urged them to keep to the way of their forefathers. Rabi'ah asked his father who the two men were. His father told him that the first was the man claiming to be a prophet, and the older man was his own uncle, Abu Lahab.

After the death of Khadija bint Khuwaylid RA, the Prophet ﷺ was not seen smiling for many months. Eventually Khawlah bint Hakim RA suggested that he marry again. She said that if he wanted an older woman there was Sawda bint Zam'a RA, and if he wanted a younger one there was Aisha bint Abi Bakr RA. He married both of them within a month of each other. Sawda RA had lost her husband, al-Sukran ibn Amr, who died very early. Her family had disowned her when she became Muslim, so she had no one to look after her. The Prophet ﷺ married her out of compassion, probably in Shawwal of the 10th year of the dawah, about six months after Khadija RA died. She was the eldest of all his wives.

Khadija RA passed away on the 10th of Ramadan, less than 40 days after the death of Abu Talib. The year of their deaths came to be called the Year of Sorrow (Aam al-Huzn). At that time the salah (prayer) had not yet been prescribed, so no funeral prayer was performed over her. The Prophet ﷺ took charge of her burial and placed her in the grave himself.

After Abu Talib's death removed the Prophet ﷺ's protection and Mut'im ibn Adi's guardianship proved precarious, the Prophet ﷺ realized he needed to leave Makkah. Having already failed at Ta'if, he began presenting himself to the tribes gathered for hajj at Mina, asking them to take him in and transfer their allegiance to him, a known but rare practice among the Arabs. He approached numerous tribes, including Kindah, Banu Kalb, Banu Hanifa, and Banu Amir ibn Sa'sa'a, most of whom rejected the message, some more harshly than others.

When the Prophet ﷺ went around the tribes at Mina looking for protection, he usually took Abu Bakr with him, because Abu Bakr was an expert in the tribes and their family trees. Together they approached the Banu Shayban ibn Tha'laba. Abu Bakr told the Prophet ﷺ that this was one of the noblest and wisest tribes of the Arabs. The Prophet ﷺ invited them to worship Allah alone and to reject false gods. He also asked them to take him into their tribe, because the Quraysh had stopped him from spreading Allah's word, and he recited to them verses of Surah al-An'am. Their chief said that he had come with good and had called them to the best of morals, and that the Quraysh had lied about him. Their elder, Hani' ibn Qabisah, said it would be too hasty to leave their religion after a single meeting. There were others in the tribe whose advice they needed, so both sides should wait and meet again. Hani' then turned to their military leader, al-Muthanna ibn Harithah. Al-Muthanna agreed that they should not be hasty. He explained that the tribe had two sets of treaties. They had no worries about their treaties with the Arab tribes. But they had promised Kisra, the emperor of Persia, to stay neutral, and this message did not look like something kings would approve of. So if they accepted, they could support him against the Arabs but not against Kisra. The Prophet ﷺ replied, "Your response has been fair. But Allah's religion will only be helped by those who embrace it fully." Before leaving, he asked what they would say if Allah gave them victory over the kingdom of Kisra, with its land and wealth. One of the younger men said they would accept, but the elders found the idea hard to believe.

The Prophet ﷺ was going around the tribes at Mina during the pilgrimage season, looking for a tribe that would protect him. He approached one of the chiefs of Kindah. Kindah had been a powerful tribal kingdom a few hundred years earlier, and though it had lost that status, it was still a large tribe. The chief listened carefully and found the message interesting. He brought the Prophet ﷺ before the other chiefs of Kindah so that they could hear it too. The chief then told his fellow tribesmen that if they took up this message, they could use it to conquer the other Arabs. He was thinking in terms of power, not faith. He asked the Prophet ﷺ whether, if they followed him and Allah gave them victory, Kindah would rule after him. The Prophet ﷺ answered, "The kingdom belongs to Allah, and Allah gives it to whomever He pleases." The chief replied that Kindah would be risking their necks for him, only for him to take the kingdom after they had shed their blood. He told the Prophet ﷺ to go, saying they had no need of this.

On the way back to Makkah after he was driven out of Ta'if, the Prophet ﷺ camped in the Valley of Nakhla. As was his habit, he prayed tahajjud, the night prayer, even though his wounds from Ta'if had not yet healed. Allah caused a group of jinn to pass by while he was reciting the Qur'an. They told one another to listen quietly, and they believed. Then they went back to their people as warners, calling them to Islam (Qur'an 46:29-31). These jinn later came to the Prophet ﷺ in Makkah to learn Islam from him. Abdullah ibn Mas'ud RA was asked about that night by his student Alqama ibn Qays. In the version in Sahih Muslim, Ibn Mas'ud said that no one was with the Prophet ﷺ. The companions noticed one night that he had disappeared. They searched everywhere and feared he had been kidnapped or killed. In the morning they saw him coming from the direction of the Cave of Hira. He told them that a caller from the jinn had come to him, and he had gone out to recite the Qur'an to them. He then showed them the jinn's campsite and the traces of their fires. In another version, in Mustadrak al-Hakim, Ibn Mas'ud went with him. The Prophet ﷺ drew a line in the sand and told him to stay there, then walked on and recited the Qur'an until he could no longer be seen. He came back after Fajr, the dawn prayer, and gave the jinn bones as food for themselves and animal droppings as food for their animals.

In the 11th year of the Prophet ﷺ's mission, two years before the Hijrah, twelve pilgrims from Yathrib (later Madinah) came to Makkah for the pilgrimage. Ten were from the Khazraj and two from the Aws. It was the largest group yet to accept Islam from outside Makkah. They met the Prophet ﷺ on the Plains of Aqaba. There they formally became Muslims, placing their hands in his and taking an oath. They swore to worship Allah alone, and not to commit fornication, steal or kill their children. They also swore to obey him ﷺ in all good matters. The oath was later called the Oath of the Women (Bay'at al-Nisa), even though all twelve were men. This was because, as with the women who became Muslim, it covered only belief and morals. It had no political or military conditions. There was no need for secrecy, since this was simply a group of pilgrims talking with the Prophet ﷺ. It was also the first time the Aws and the Khazraj, who had long been enemies, came together on common ground.

The people of Ta'if rejected the call of the Prophet ﷺ to Islam. Their leaders then sent a mob to stone him and his companion Zayd ibn Harithah out of the city. The Prophet ﷺ bled so much that his sandals were soaked with blood. Zayd was injured from head to toe trying to shield him. The mob kept stoning them until they were out of the city, at Qarn al-Manazil, also called Qarn al-Tha'alib. The Prophet ﷺ later told Aisha RA, "I didn't notice where I was until I reached Qarn al-Tha'alib." There he found shade under a tree beside a walled garden, not knowing whose garden it was. He sat down and made a famous du'a, which Ibn Ishaq records. It is not in al-Bukhari or Muslim and its chain has gaps. But one scholar of our time says it needs no chain, because its words could only come from the heart of a prophet. In it the Prophet ﷺ said, "O Allah, to You I complain of my weakness, and my lack of resources, and my lowliness before man. You are the Most Merciful of all those who have mercy, and You are the Lord of those who are humble, and You are my Lord. To whom do You leave me with? To somebody who is a stranger who will treat me harshly? Or to a close relative whom You have given power over me? As long as You are not angry with me, I don't care. Except for the fact that Your protection from tribulations is easier for me. O Allah, I seek refuge in Your Face which is the source of the Light that gets rid of the darkness, and because of which all of the affairs of this world and the Next are rightly guided. (I seek refuge in Your Face) that Your anger comes down upon me, or Your wrath envelopes me. It is Your right to criticize until You are content. And there is no power or change except with You and through You." This is a complaint made to Allah, not against Him. What troubled the Prophet ﷺ most was not the stones, but the fear that he might have earned Allah's anger. The garden belonged to Utbah and Shaybah, the sons of Rabi'ah, who were distant cousins of his father. They had watched him being stoned out of Ta'if and felt pity for him. They also felt the old tribal pride, angry that Ta'if would do this to one of their own. So they sent their servant Addas, a Christian from Iraq, to him with a bowl of grapes. It was as if Allah answered his du'a the moment he made it. The Prophet ﷺ said, "Bismillah," meaning "In the name of Allah," and began to eat. Addas was surprised, because the Arabs of that area did not use this phrase, and he asked what it was. The Prophet ﷺ said, "This is something my Lord has taught me. And where are you from, O Addas?" Addas said he was from Nineveh. The Prophet ﷺ said, "The city of Yunus ibn Matta?" Addas was amazed, because no one in that land had ever heard of Yunus, and he asked how he knew him. The Prophet ﷺ said, "How do I not know Yunus? He is my brother; and I am his brother. We are both prophets of Allah." Addas began kissing the Prophet ﷺ's feet, as Christians did to honour their priests, and he believed in him then and there. Utbah and Shaybah watched in shock. When Addas came back, they asked him why he had kissed the man's hands and feet. Addas told them that there was no one on earth better than him, because he had told him things only a prophet could know. His masters said the man had bewitched him away from his religion, and that his own religion was better. Five years later, they tried to force Addas to fight against the Prophet ﷺ at Badr. Addas refused, swearing that even the mountains could not harm him. Both of his masters were killed at Badr. Al-Bukhari records the Prophet ﷺ's own account of what happened next. He said, "When I reached Qarn al-Manazil, I looked up and there was a cloud that had given me shelter; and in this cloud, there was Jibril, and he said to me, 'O Muhammad ﷺ, your Lord has heard what your people have said to you and their rejection of you. And He has sent me with the Malak al-Jibal to put at your disposal and to do with as you please.'" The Malak al-Jibal is the angel of the mountains. Then the angel of the mountains greeted him with salam. He said that he was at the Prophet ﷺ's command, and that if he wished, he would crush the city between its two mountains. The Prophet ﷺ replied, "No. Rather, I hope Allah will extract from their progeny those who will eventually worship Him without associating partners with Him." He rested there, and on the way back to Makkah he camped in the valley of Nakhla, where a group of jinn heard him reciting the Qur'an.

After the Prophet ﷺ left Makkah for Ta'if, he could no longer safely return. By walking out of Makkah, he had seemed to accept the expulsion that Abu Lahab had imposed on him. His companion Zayd ibn Harithah RA asked him how they would enter Makkah now. The Prophet ﷺ replied that Allah would make a way out for them. The Prophet ﷺ then sent messages to a few leaders of the Quraysh, asking for their protection (jiwar). The first was al-Akhnas ibn Shurayq, who replied that his people were in a weak position and could not protect him. Next he asked Suhayl ibn Amr. Suhayl replied that his clan, Banu Amir ibn Lu'ayy, had never protected anyone from Banu Ka'b ibn Lu'ayy, and he did not want to set a precedent. Finally he asked Mut'im ibn Adi, the chief of Banu Nawfal ibn Abd Manaf. Mut'im agreed at once. He told his four sons to arm themselves and bring the Prophet ﷺ straight back to him. They rode out fully armed and escorted the Prophet ﷺ into Makkah. Mut'im waited for him at the Ka'bah and told him to perform tawaf, and the Prophet ﷺ circled the Ka'bah with the armed guards beside him. When he finished, Mut'im stood up and announced to the people of Makkah that he had given Muhammad ﷺ his protection. Abu Sufyan ibn Harb stood and asked whether Mut'im had become his follower or was only giving protection. Mut'im said he was not a follower and was only giving protection. Abu Sufyan replied that in that case the Quraysh would accept it.

In the 10th year of his mission, the Prophet ﷺ was going around the pilgrims' camps at Mina, looking for a tribe that would support him. Near Aqaba he came across a small group of six men without even a tent. He asked who they were, and they said they were from the Khazraj. He asked whether they were the Khazraj who lived as neighbors of the Jews, meaning the people of Yathrib (later called Madinah), and they said yes. Yathrib was home to three main groups. Two were Arab tribes, al-Aws and al-Khazraj. The third was made up of Jewish tribes, including Banu al-Nadir, Banu Qaynuqa and Banu Qurayza. Because they lived beside the Jews, the Aws and Khazraj were the only Arabs in the region who understood the idea of one God, prophets and a revealed scripture. During their wars, the Jews used to boast that a prophet was about to come, and that when he came they would defeat the Arabs completely. The Prophet ﷺ sat with the six men and explained the oneness of Allah (tawhid), warned them against worshiping others besides Him (shirk), and recited the Qur'an. He spoke with the same care and passion that he gave to the largest tribes. All six accepted Islam. Among them were Uqba ibn Amir al-Juhani, Jabir ibn Abdillah and As'ad ibn Zurarah. They went home and spread the message, and within a few months everyone in Yathrib had heard of it.

In Shawwal, a few weeks after the deaths of Khadijah RA and Abu Talib, the Prophet ﷺ lost his last protection in Makkah. His uncle Abu Lahab had briefly offered to protect him, then withdrew the offer. For the first time, the Prophet ﷺ began looking for another city where the message could take root. He chose Ta'if, the nearest major city to Makkah. To avoid attracting attention, he and Zayd ibn Harithah RA made the journey on foot. Ta'if was ruled jointly by three brothers of the tribe of Thaqif: Abd Yalil, Mas'ud and Habib, the sons of Amr. The Prophet ﷺ met them privately and invited them to Islam. Each of them rejected him with mockery. He asked them at least not to tell the Quraysh about his visit. According to the more authentic reports, he did not leave at once. He stayed about a week, preaching to the ordinary people in Ta'if's marketplace. No one accepted, though one person showed some interest. When the leaders heard of this, they grew alarmed. They sent a mob to stone the Prophet ﷺ and Zayd and drive them out of the city. The Prophet ﷺ bled until his sandals were soaked with blood. Zayd tried to shield him and was injured from head to toe. The mob kept pelting them until they reached Qarn al-Manazil, also called Qarn al-Tha'alib, outside the city.

As Abu Talib lay dying, his nephew the Prophet ﷺ came to see him. Abu Jahal was there as well. The Prophet ﷺ pleaded with him, "O my uncle, say 'la ilaha illaLlah', one kalimah that I will be able to present as an argument on your behalf before Allah." Abu Talib knew in his heart that the Message was true, and he was about to say it. But Abu Jahal and Abdullah ibn Abi Umayya challenged him, "O Abu Talib, are you going to leave the religion of Abdul Muttalib?" Abdul Muttalib was Abu Talib's father. They kept interrupting whenever he seemed ready to say the words. Abu Talib died without ever saying the kalimah, the declaration of faith.

While giving da'wah to a leader of Banu Amir ibn Sa'sa'ah, the Prophet ﷺ offered to show him a miracle. At his invitation, the chieftain called out to a small date palm in a nearby grove to come to him, and the sahabi narrating the account says the tree crawled all the way until it stood before him. The Prophet ﷺ then told it to go back, and it returned to its place. The chieftain accepted Islam on the spot.

After the death of Abu Talib, the Quraysh persecuted the Prophet ﷺ far more openly than before. Hostility that had been held back out of respect for Abu Talib was now on full display. Abu Lahab, the Prophet ﷺ's uncle, took over leadership of the Banu Hashim, since he was the most senior pagan of the clan still alive. Surprisingly, he offered the Prophet ﷺ his protection. When a man from outside the clan cursed the Prophet ﷺ, Abu Lahab went to the Prophet ﷺ and promised that he could live as he had in Abu Talib's time, for as long as Abu Lahab was alive. He did this not out of love, but from a chief's sense of duty to guard his own clan. People began to say that Abu Lahab had left his religion, which he denied. Abu Jahal and Utbah then saw a way to break the protection. They told Abu Lahab to ask his nephew about the fate of his father, Abdul Muttalib. The Prophet ﷺ answered that Abdul Muttalib was with his people. Abu Lahab came back pleased, until Abu Jahal pointed out that, according to the Prophet ﷺ, those people were in the Fire. Doubt took hold of Abu Lahab, and he withdrew his protection.

After the Second Covenant of Aqaba, the Prophet ﷺ announced to the Muslims that Allah had shown him, in a dream, the land they would emigrate to: a land of date palms between two volcanic plains. He was at first uncertain which city was meant, and speculated it might be Khaybar, or a land in Yemen, since both had large numbers of date palms, but neither has volcanic mountains around it as Yathrib does. He was then told clearly that it was Yathrib, and gave the Muslims permission to emigrate. They began emigrating in secret, by ones and twos, since the Quraysh would not have allowed it openly.

On the night of al-Isra wal-Mi'raj, the Prophet ﷺ was taken from Makkah to Jerusalem on al-Buraq, and brought back the same night. Some narrations, not fully authentic but acceptable to mention, say that on the way back he passed three caravans of the Quraysh. In the first he recognised a man he knew. From the second he drank water from their shared water container. In the third he saw a man searching for a lost camel. Back in Makkah he slept, and he woke in the Haram, where the journey had begun. The Prophet ﷺ later described that morning himself. He said he woke up anxious about how he would tell his people what had happened. As he sat there worried, Abu Jahl passed by and saw him. Abu Jahl asked him sarcastically whether something had happened. The Prophet ﷺ said yes, and told him that the night before he had been taken from Makkah to Jerusalem. Abu Jahl was astonished and asked whether he was really back among them that morning. He did not know whether to mock him at once, or to wait in case the Prophet ﷺ took his words back in front of others. So he asked whether the Prophet ﷺ would repeat the story if he called the people together, and the Prophet ﷺ said he would. Abu Jahl shouted for the people to gather. Makkah was a small city and Abu Jahl was a leading man, so everyone came. He told the Prophet ﷺ to repeat what he had said. The Prophet ﷺ said, "Last night, I went to Bayt al-Maqdis and I prayed in Masjid al-Aqsa." Bayt al-Maqdis is the Arabic name for Jerusalem. He did not mention his ascent to the heavens, which he told only to the Muslims later. The crowd did not know how to react. Some clapped, some put their hands on their heads, and some laughed. He had never been known to lie. Then a man who had been to Jerusalem asked him to describe the city, since everyone knew the Prophet ﷺ had never been there. He began to describe it. But they pressed him on details he could not remember, and he later said he had never been so distressed. Then he saw Bayt al-Maqdis raised up before his eyes, above the house of Aqil ibn Abi Talib, the house where he had grown up. After that, he could see the answer to every question they asked. In the end the man who knew Jerusalem said that his description was accurate in every detail. Ibn Hisham narrates that the Prophet ﷺ then gave them further signs. He told them about the three caravans. One would be back soon, because it was the closest to Makkah. The second had lost a camel, which they could ask about. From the third he had drunk from a large water container. Abu Jahl said that if this was true, the first caravan should be arriving at that very moment. While they were still arguing, news came that it was entering Makkah. Abu Jahl went to look, found it just as described, and came back saying it was plain sorcery. Ibn Hisham also has a line, with no chain of narration, saying that some Muslims left the religion when they heard the story. Scholars do not rely on it. No Muslim is known to have left Islam in the Makkan years, and Abu Sufyan later told the Roman emperor Heraclius that none had. Before the Prophet ﷺ could tell Abu Bakr himself, a man of the Quraysh ran to him with the news. He said that Abu Bakr's companion claimed to have gone to Jerusalem and back in one night, a journey of two months. Abu Bakr answered that if he had said it, then it was true. The man asked whether he really believed such a thing. Abu Bakr said that he believed him in something even more amazing. He believed him when he said that revelation came to him from above the seven heavens in an instant. From that day, Abu Bakr was called al-Siddiq, the one who always affirms the truth of the Prophet ﷺ.

A few months before the Hijrah, about 75 Muslims from Yathrib came to Makkah for the Hajj. They travelled with relatives who were still pagans, and they hid their Islam from them. The Prophet ﷺ had arranged to meet them on the last night of the Hajj, in a valley behind Aqaba. In the last third of the night, they slipped out of their tents one by one so as not to arouse suspicion. The Prophet ﷺ came with his uncle al-Abbas, who was still a pagan himself. Al-Abbas spoke first, on the Prophet ﷺ's behalf. He did not know these young men and was uneasy about them. He told them that the Prophet ﷺ had honour and protection among his own clan. If they were sure they could protect him, they could take on that responsibility. If not, they should leave him be. The people then asked the Prophet ﷺ to speak and set out his conditions. He recited the Qur'an and urged them to fear Allah. Then he asked for their pledge of allegiance (bay'ah) in return for their protection, that they would protect him as one of their own. Al-Bara ibn Ma'rur RA accepted at once. Then Abu al-Haytham ibn al-Tayhan RA raised a concern. Their new allegiance would break their treaties with the Jews of Yathrib. Once Allah gave the Prophet ﷺ victory, would he leave them and go back to his own people in Makkah? The Prophet ﷺ smiled and replied, "No. My blood is your blood, and my destruction is your destruction." The Prophet ﷺ then set out the full terms. They were to hear and obey in hardship and in ease, and to spend in the way of Allah. They were to command good and forbid evil, and to speak the truth whatever the consequences. And once he came to Yathrib, they were to support him as they would their own families. When someone asked what they would receive in return, he answered with one word, "Al-Jannah," meaning Paradise. Before anyone could take the Prophet ﷺ's hand, As'ad ibn Zurarah held it back. He warned the people plainly of the cost. Taking in the Prophet ﷺ would mean war with the Quraysh, and fathers would lose sons and sons would lose fathers. If they were not ready, he said, they should stop now. The people told him he had said enough, and asked him to let go of the Prophet ﷺ's hand. All 72 men present then gave the pledge. Two women gave their oath by word alone, since the Prophet ﷺ never took the hand of a woman who was not related to him. Each was promised Paradise in return.

Al-Isra wal-Mi'raj was a single night with two parts. The first part, al-isra, was the night journey from al-Masjid al-Haram in Makkah to al-Masjid al-Aqsa in Bayt al-Maqdis. The second part, al-mi'raj, was the ascent from there up through the seven heavens. It came after the Year of Sorrow and the stoning at Ta'if, the lowest point of the Prophet ﷺ's life. The scholars see it as the ease that Allah promises after every hardship. It was a gift given to him alone, and the rest of us are asked only to believe in it. Allah refers to it twice in the Qur'an. In the opening verse of Surah al-Isra, He calls the Prophet ﷺ "His servant", which is the highest title in the Qur'an. In Surah al-Najm, He says that the heart did not lie about what it saw. Ibn Ishaq and most early writers place the journey a year before the Hijrah. One report says that Khadija RA died before the prayer was made obligatory. If so, the journey cannot have happened before the last years in Makkah. No Companion tells us the month, and the Companions themselves did not think it important. Yet more of them narrate this one night than the rest of the Makkan period put together. That is also why storytellers padded it with legends, which the scholars had to sift out. It is also why the exact order of some scenes cannot be recovered. The Prophet ﷺ said that he was lying in the Hijr beside the Ka'bah. Another authentic report says that the roof of his house was opened. Ibn Hajar joins the two reports. He explains that Jibril AS came to the house first and then led him to the Hijr. There Jibril opened the Prophet ﷺ's chest. He washed his heart in a golden basin filled with Zamzam water, or in another wording with faith, and then closed it again. This was the second time his chest was opened, after the first time in his childhood. This time it was to strengthen him, so that he could see what no one else could have seen and still keep his mind. Then Jibril brought al-Buraq. It was a white animal, bigger than a donkey and smaller than a mule, and each of its strides reached as far as its eye could see. When it shied away, Jibril scolded it. He told it that no rider more honoured by Allah had ever mounted it. On the way, the Prophet ﷺ passed the grave of Musa AS and saw him standing in prayer. In that age, under Roman rule, the site of the Temple in Bayt al-Maqdis lay in ruins and was used as a rubbish dump. Yet the Prophet ﷺ found the sanctuary standing as it had once been. He tied al-Buraq to the ring that the prophets used, went inside and prayed two rak'at. There he found the prophets gathered with him. Musa was tall, strong and brown-skinned, like a man of the Shanu'ah tribe. Isa AS was of middle height and reddish in complexion, as if he had just come out of a bath. Of Ibrahim AS, the Prophet ﷺ said, "I could not see anyone more closely resembling Ibrahim AS than myself." When the call to prayer was given, he was put in front of them all as their imam. He was the leader of the leaders of every nation. He later said of himself, without boasting, that he will be the master of the children of Adam on the Day of Judgment. Then Jibril held out two vessels, one of milk and one of wine, and told him to choose for his community. The reports differ on whether this happened here or in the heavens. He chose the milk. Jibril told him that he had chosen the fitrah, the pure thing that nourishes, over the corrupted thing that corrupts. Jibril then rose with him to the gate of the lowest heaven and asked for it to be opened. A voice asked who was there, and Jibril gave his name. The voice asked whether anyone was with him, and Jibril said it was Muhammad ﷺ. The voice asked whether he had been sent for, and Jibril said yes. The gate opened. The same exchange took place at each of the seven heavens. In the first heaven stood Adam AS. He greeted the Prophet ﷺ as a righteous son and a righteous prophet. The souls of Adam's descendants were on his right and on his left. He smiled when he looked at those on one side and wept when he looked at those on the other. In the second heaven were Yahya AS and Isa. In the third was Yusuf AS, who had been given half of all beauty. In the fourth was Idris AS, and in the fifth was Harun AS. In the sixth was Musa. In the seventh was Ibrahim, sitting with his back against al-Bayt al-Ma'mur, the House in the heavens. Later reports place this House directly above the Ka'bah. Every day seventy thousand angels enter it, never to return. Each of these prophets greeted him as a brother and a prophet. Only Adam and Ibrahim called him son. After he had passed, Musa wept. Musa explained that he wept because a young man sent after him would bring more of his people into Paradise than Musa had. At some point on this night, the Prophet ﷺ sat with Ibrahim, Musa and Isa while they spoke about the Hour. Only Isa knew anything about it. He knew that he would return and kill the Dajjal. He knew that he would see Gog and Magog break out, and see them die because of his prayer. After that, he said, the Hour would be as near as the birth of a child to a woman in labour. Ibrahim sent his greetings to this community. He told them that Paradise is fertile soil waiting to be planted. Its seeds are the words subhan Allah, alhamdulillah, la ilaha illa Allah and Allahu akbar. The Prophet ﷺ also met Malik, the keeper of Hell, who greeted him first. A report not found in the main collections adds that Malik never smiled. It says that if he had smiled for anyone, it would have been for the Prophet ﷺ. Above the seventh heaven stood Sidrat al-Muntaha, the Lote Tree of the Utmost Boundary. Its fruits were like the great jars of Hajar, and its leaves were like elephants' ears. Its trunk was in the sixth heaven and its crown at the end of the seventh. It marks the place where everything that rises from the earth comes to an end, and where everything that comes down begins. The Qur'an says it was covered with what covered it. He saw colours he could not name, changing as he looked, and butterflies made of gold. At the foot of the Tree ran four rivers. Two were hidden, and these are the rivers of Paradise. Two could be seen, and these are the Nile and the Euphrates. Here he saw Jibril in the form in which Allah created him. Ibn Mas'ud RA reports that Jibril had six hundred wings. This was one of only two times that the Prophet ﷺ saw him like this. A later report adds that pearls and coral fell from his feathers. Some scholars count these three things, the Tree, the House and the angel, among the greatest signs of his Lord that the Qur'an says he saw. Then he was raised higher, alone. He reached a place where he could hear the scratching of the Pen that writes what is to happen. There Allah spoke to him. What passed between them is not recorded, and the scholars believe the silence is deliberate. Three things came out of it. The first was the closing verses of Surah al-Baqarah, which Ali RA described as coming from a treasure beneath the Throne. The second was a promise that anyone from his community who died without associating anything with Allah would be forgiven. The third was the command to pray fifty times a day. Whether he saw Allah was debated from the very first generation. Ibn Abbas RA said that he did. Aisha RA said that whoever claims this has lied against Allah, because eyes cannot grasp Him. Abu Dharr RA asked the Prophet ﷺ himself. He answered, "Light. How could I see Him?" On another occasion he described Allah's veil as light. He said that if it were lifted, it would burn away everything that His face reached. On the way down, Musa asked him what his Lord had commanded for his community. Musa told him to go back and ask for less. He said that he had tested the Children of Israel, and they had not been able to bear it. The Prophet ﷺ looked at Jibril, who nodded, and so he went back. He went up and down again and again, and each time the number fell by five or ten prayers. In the end he came down with five, and he could not bring himself to ask again. He said, "I have gone back to my Lord until I am ashamed. I am content." Then a voice called out. It said that Allah's command was settled and that He had lightened the burden on His servants. There would be five prayers, and they would be counted as fifty. He was then shown Paradise, with its tents of hollowed pearl on soil of musk. He was also shown the punishments of the Fire. Most of these come in a report that Ibn Ishaq gives from Abu Sa'id al-Khudri RA. He saw men with lips like camels' lips, swallowing coals, because they had devoured the wealth of orphans. Others were tearing their own faces with copper nails, because they had spoken ill of people behind their backs. Others left good meat and ate rotten meat instead, because they had committed adultery. Others were swollen and trampled, because they had taken usury. Others cut their own tongues with scissors of fire, because they had preached what they did not practise. He also saw the Dajjal, who had one eye like a swollen grape. One further report was not found in its fuller form in the collections checked. In it, the Prophet ﷺ noticed a beautiful fragrance and asked what it was. Jibril told him about the woman who dressed the hair of Pharaoh's daughter. She dropped a comb and let the word "bismillah" slip out. She refused to call Pharaoh her lord. Then her nursing baby spoke and told her that the pain of this world was nothing compared with the next. After that, she went into the cauldron with her children. He rode al-Buraq back to Makkah. On the road he passed three caravans of the Quraysh, and he drank from one of them. He lay down again in the Haram before dawn. In his own words, he woke up worried about how he would tell his people. By one report, it was Abu Jahl who found him first and called the Quraysh together to hear it. They asked him to describe Bayt al-Maqdis, a city he had never seen. Al-Bukhari reports that the city rose up before his eyes above the house of Aqil, so he could answer every question. Ibn Ishaq reports that the caravans arrived when he said they would. Abu Jahl is said to have called it sorcery. Someone told Abu Bakr RA the story before the Prophet ﷺ could tell him himself. Abu Bakr said that if the Prophet ﷺ had said it, then it was true. He added that he already believed him in something stranger still, that revelation came to him from the heavens. From that day he was called al-Siddiq. Most scholars hold that the journey was made while he was awake, in his body. They argue that a dream of Jerusalem would have been no miracle, and the Quraysh would not have mocked a dream. He also would not have needed a mount, or drunk on the way. Ibn Ishaq, however, reports that Aisha RA said his body stayed where it was. He also reports that Mu'awiyah RA called it a true vision. Ibn Ishaq himself holds that it was true either way. Some scholars see the journey, which begins and ends in Makkah, as the first hint that the qibla would turn back from Jerusalem to the Ka'bah after the Hijrah.

Abu Bakr RA, whom the Prophet ﷺ visited daily, prepared a camel and sought the Prophet ﷺ's permission to make Hijrah once the Muslims generally had been told to emigrate. The Prophet ﷺ asked him to wait, hoping Allah would grant permission for them to go together. Abu Bakr RA then prepared two camels, feeding and conditioning them for what he later recalled (rounding up) as about four months.

In the heat of midday, the Prophet ﷺ came to Abu Bakr RA's house with his turban wrapped around his face, unrecognizable until close, alarming the household who feared some grave emergency. He confirmed that Allah had given him permission to emigrate and that Abu Bakr RA would accompany him. Abu Bakr RA wept for joy, gave the Prophet ﷺ one of his two prepared camels (only after the Prophet ﷺ insisted on paying for it), and the household hurried to ready provisions and money for the journey.

One of the first things the Prophet ﷺ did after arriving in Madinah was the muakha, the "brothering." Some early scholars say he did it even before the masjid was built. He paired every male Muhajir (an emigrant from Makkah) with an Ansari (a Muslim native of Madinah), and each pair became brothers. Over 100 pairs were made. The Prophet ﷺ chose every pairing himself, because he knew each of the Muhajirun better than anyone. The two people in a pair usually had a great deal in common. For example, he paired Abu Bakr RA with Kharijah ibn Zayd RA, and both were noblemen of their people. Anas ibn Malik RA recalled that the Prophet ﷺ sat down and arranged the muakha "in our house," which scholars take to mean in Anas's part of Madinah. At first the bond was so complete that the brothers even inherited from one another. This rule was abrogated after the Battle of Badr, when Allah revealed in Surah al-Anfal that blood relatives are more entitled to inheritance (8:75). The Ansar were already very generous to the Muhajirun. They even offered the Prophet ﷺ half of their land for the Muhajirun. He made du'a for them but declined the gift. Instead, the Muhajirun would work the land and the Ansar would share the produce with them. He wanted the Muhajirun to earn their living rather than live on free handouts, which might one day breed resentment among the descendants of the two groups. The muakha did not stop after the early days. It continued through the whole Madinan period. Ja'far ibn Abi Talib RA only reached Madinah in the 7th year of the Hijrah, and the Prophet ﷺ still paired him with Mu'adh ibn Jabal RA. It is also reported that he arranged a muakha for Muawiyah ibn Abi Sufyan, who accepted Islam after the Conquest of Makkah (8 AH).

Suhayb al-Rumi was a freed slave who had become a wealthy businessman in Makkah. When he set out to emigrate to Madinah, a band of Quraysh stopped him on the outskirts of Makkah. He faced them with his bow ready. He swore that none of them would touch him until he had used every arrow in his quiver and broken his sword on their bones. The men then changed their demand. They said he had come to Makkah penniless, and they asked for his wealth in exchange for letting him go. Suhayb gave them all his money and the camel he was riding. He even told them where the rest of his wealth was buried. He then made the journey to Madinah on foot. By the time he reached Quba, he had nothing left and was crawling with exhaustion. The Prophet ﷺ wiped the dust off him and gave him food and water. Then he said, "O Abu Yahya, your business transaction has been the most successful." He was referring to a verse of Surah al-Baqarah that was revealed about Suhayb.

One night, Aisha RA awoke to find the Prophet ﷺ was not in bed. When he returned, he told her that Jibril AS had come to him in the night and instructed him to go and pray for the people buried in Baqi' al-Gharqad.

Abdullah ibn Salam, a learned Jewish rabbi of Madinah, rushed to Quba among the first to see the Prophet ﷺ as soon as he heard of his arrival. Looking at his face, he recognized through firasa (spiritual insight) that this was not the face of a liar. He would later narrate that the first words he heard the Prophet ﷺ say were an instruction to spread salam, feed people, be good to relatives, and pray at night.

When the Prophet ﷺ arrived, the city was called Yathrib, and he gave it a new name. Two years before the Hijrah he had been shown it in a dream. He saw a land of date palms, and at first he thought it was Yamamah or Hajar. He said that he had been commanded to go to a town that would devour all other towns. People called it Yathrib, but it was al-Madinah. The name Yathrib comes from a root meaning blame, or corruption. In the Qur'an, only the hypocrites use the old name. The Prophet ﷺ called the city Madinah, Tabah and Taybah, which means "the pure". He said that anyone who called it Yathrib should ask Allah's forgiveness. The Muhajirun, the emigrants from Makkah, found it hardest to love the city. A fever struck the newcomers. Aisha went to visit her father Abu Bakr and Bilal, and found both of them moaning with it. Abu Bakr was saying that a man wakes up among his family with death nearer to him than the strap of his sandal. Bilal was reciting verses about how he longed for one more night in a valley of Makkan grass. He also cursed, by name, the men of Quraysh who had driven them out. Aisha went back and told the Prophet ﷺ. He prayed, "O Allah, make Madinah as beloved to us as Makkah, or more. Bless us in its measures. Take its fever away to Juhfah." Slowly the love came. In time, Companions who were away from the city counted the days until they would see it again. Ibn Abbas said that whenever the Prophet ﷺ came home from an expedition and saw the outline of Madinah, he would spur his mount to reach it sooner. Over the years he taught its people what their city was. He told them that Uhud was a mountain that loved them, and that they loved it. It was one of the mountains of Paradise. The Dajjal would never enter Madinah, because two angels would stand guard at its approaches. No plague would ever enter it, and none ever has. When Islam was in danger, faith would return to Madinah the way a snake returns to its hole. The city would be its refuge. He also warned them about how to treat it. Anyone who plotted against Madinah would dissolve the way salt dissolves in water. Anyone who did wrong in it, or sheltered a wrongdoer, would bear the curse of Allah, the angels and all mankind. None of that person's deeds would be accepted, whether obligatory or voluntary. He told them that Madinah was better for them, if only they knew it. No one would leave it out of contempt without Allah replacing him with someone better. Whoever bore its hardships would have the Prophet ﷺ as an intercessor. And whoever was able to die in Madinah should do so, because he would intercede for anyone who died there. Jibril once sent him at night to Baqi' al-Gharqad to pray for the dead there. Ten thousand Companions are buried there, along with all of his wives except Khadija. Above all, he made Madinah a sanctuary, a Haram. He prayed, "Your servant Ibrahim declared Makkah a Haram. I am Your servant, and I declare Madinah a Haram." He also asked Allah to give Madinah twice the blessing of Makkah. Imam Malik, who was from Madinah himself, based his view that Madinah is the holier city on this hadith. Most scholars, however, chose not to rank the two. Makkah had been sacred since the heavens and the earth were created. It held the first house ever built for the worship of Allah. Madinah became sacred through the Prophet ﷺ's prayer. Inside a Haram, things that are lawful elsewhere become forbidden. No weapons are carried and no army enters. No game is hunted and no green plant is cut. Even a lost object must be left where it lies. Ibn Umar said that in the days of ignorance before Islam, a man might see his father's killer walking around the Ka'bah and still not touch him. That is how well the Arabs understood what the Haram of Makkah meant. There are only two such places in the world. Jerusalem is blessed, and prayer there is multiplied, but no scholar has ever called it a Haram in law. Every Haram is blessed, but not every blessed land is a Haram.

Sirma was the only hanif known to have lived in Madinah. A hanif was someone who abandoned idolatry to follow the pure monotheism of Ibrahim AS. From his youth, Sirma openly rejected the idol worship of his people, just as the hanifs of Makkah did. At one point he decided to become a Christian, but just before doing so he concluded that Christianity did not make sense either. He resolved instead to stay on the way of Ibrahim AS. According to Ibn Ishaq, Sirma would perform ghusl after intercourse, and he told his wife to perform ghusl after her menses. He also composed poetry praising monotheism and criticising idolatry. He spent many years living among the Quraysh in Makkah, but he did not find what he was looking for there, and he returned home. When the Prophet ﷺ emigrated to Madinah, Sirma was over 100 years old and in the last weeks or months of his life.

Anas ibn Malik RA was brought to the Prophet ﷺ at seven years old and served him for the next ten years. His mother gave him into the Prophet ﷺ's service, hoping the Prophet ﷺ would pray for her son. The Prophet ﷺ asked Allah to bless Anas RA in his life, his wealth, and his children. Anas RA lived for over 110 years, at a time when most people died at around 30. He became a wealthy and successful businessman. He lived to see his grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and even great-great-grandchildren, blessings that are attributed to the Prophet ﷺ's prayer for him.

The Prophet ﷺ lived in the two-storey house of Abu Ayyub al-Ansari RA for about six months, while his own house and Masjid al-Nabawi were being built. At first Abu Ayyub and his wife moved upstairs, giving the Prophet ﷺ and Abu Bakr RA the ground floor. Out of respect, the couple could not bear to live above him, and they insisted that he move to the upper floor. So the Prophet ﷺ spent only his first few weeks downstairs.

The Prophet ﷺ asked the sahaba (his companions) how the people should be called to salah, the daily prayer. One suggested using a bell, as the Christians did, but the idea was set aside. There are authentic hadiths that the Prophet ﷺ disliked bells, and that he said, "The angels do not accompany any caravan that has a bell." Others suggested a shofar, a horn, and that was set aside too. The meeting ended without a decision. That night, Abdullah ibn Zayd RA and Umar ibn al-Khattab RA each saw the same dream. In Abdullah's dream, a man taught him the words of the call to prayer, the adhan as Muslims know it today. Abdullah rushed to tell the Prophet ﷺ, who said, "This is a true dream, insha'Allah." The Prophet ﷺ chose Bilal RA to call the adhan because he had the loudest voice. Abdullah ibn Zayd stood beside him and told him each phrase, and Bilal repeated it aloud. While Bilal was calling, Umar RA came rushing into the masjid and said that he had seen the same words in his own dream.

When the Prophet ﷺ arrived in central Madinah, his camel knelt on a piece of land used for drying dates. It belonged to two orphan brothers, Sahal and Suhayl, who had inherited it from their father. They offered it as a gift, but the Prophet ﷺ insisted on paying its due price. The date palms on the land were cut down and used to make the front and back walls of the masjid. The Companions made clay bricks for the other walls. The Prophet ﷺ worked alongside them, taking his place in the line that passed the bricks along. According to al-Bayhaqi's Dala'il, the building took about two weeks, and the masjid measured roughly 100 by 130 feet. It had three public doors. Bab al-Rahma (the Door of Mercy) was on the south side and Bab Jibril (the Door of Gabriel) on the west. Bab al-Nisa' (the Door of Women) was on the east, set aside after Umar RA suggested that men and women should not share an entrance. There were also private entrances from the houses built against its walls, including the house of Abu Bakr RA and the Prophet ﷺ's own house, where Aisha RA lived. At first the roof covered only the northern part, which then faced the qibla towards Jerusalem. When the qibla changed to face Makkah, that covered area became the back of the masjid, and it was known as al-Suffa. A roof over the whole masjid was added later, but it only kept out the sun. Sahih Bukhari records that it rained on the 22nd of Ramadan, probably in 8 AH, and the Prophet ﷺ prostrated on the muddy ground. This shows that the roof leaked. The caliphs after him changed the building in turn. Abu Bakr RA left it as it was. Umar RA strengthened it with wooden pillars and a waterproof roof, and enlarged it by 10 to 15 rows. Uthman RA then enlarged it by about half again.

In the days before the arrival, the Ansar, the Muslims of Madinah, went out every morning toward Quba to wait for the Prophet ﷺ. Quba was the outermost settlement of Madinah on the side facing Makkah. Each day they waited until the midday heat forced them back home. One day, just after they had gone home, the Prophet ﷺ and Abu Bakr RA appeared in the distance. A Jewish man picking dates at the top of a palm tree was the first to see them. He shouted, "O Arabs, your king has arrived!" The Prophet ﷺ entered on a Monday in the 14th year of the dawah, which became the first year of the Hijrah. Hundreds of the Ansar rushed out to receive him. Al-Bara' ibn Azib RA, one of the Ansar, recalled that over 500 men came out armed and dressed up. The women climbed onto the rooftops and the children crowded around to see. The Prophet ﷺ and Abu Bakr RA waited about a week at Quba for Ali RA, Aisha RA, and Asma RA to arrive. Then they all entered central Madinah together, reportedly on a Friday. Every companion wanted the Prophet ﷺ to stay with him. The Prophet ﷺ let his camel walk freely and said, "Let the camel be, because Allah has taken charge of it." Wherever it sat down would be the site of his mosque and his house. It sat on an open piece of ground used for drying dates. The Prophet ﷺ asked which of his relatives lived closest, since his great-grandmother had come from the Banu al-Najjar clan of Madinah. Khalid ibn Zayd, known as Abu Ayyub al-Ansari, came forward and said he was from the Banu al-Najjar. This made him roughly the Prophet ﷺ's sixth cousin. So the Prophet ﷺ chose to stay with him until his own house was built. The poem Tala'a al-badru alayna is popularly said to have greeted him on this arrival. Sh. Yasir Qadhi argues that this cannot be so, because Thaniyat al-Wada', the pass named in the poem, lies on the road north of Madinah, not on the road from Makkah. If the singing happened, it was on his return from Tabuk.

Soon after arriving in Madinah, the Prophet ﷺ visited the city's souqs (marketplaces). The Ansar, the Muslims native to Madinah, were mostly farmers rather than traders. The main souqs were run by the Jewish tribes in their settlements outside the center of Madinah. The Prophet ﷺ disapproved of the deceptive practices he saw there, and he said to the Muslims, "This is not a souq for you." He then went back to his masjid. With his own feet he marked out lines in the sand for a new souq to the west of the masjid, and said, "This shall be your souq. So let it not be diminished, and let no one tax the people in it." The souq had two simple rules. All trade had to stay within the marked lines, and no one paid any tax or fee to trade there. He also banned interest and praised honesty in trade. He forbade cheating, lying, false oaths, and hiding defects in goods. He also forbade anyone living in Madinah from acting as an agent for a Bedouin who came to sell his goods. A local agent knew the market and could take advantage of an outsider who did not.

Not long after the Prophet ﷺ arrived in Madinah, he built the mosque and paired each emigrant from Makkah (the Muhajirun) with a Muslim of Madinah (the Ansar) as brothers, a pairing called the muakha. He ﷺ then issued a written constitution that governed the whole city, which was still called Yathrib at the time. The constitution named, one by one, around 40 Muslim subtribes from the Quraysh and from Yathrib, including the clans of the Aws and the Khazraj. It also named around a dozen Jewish tribes. It set out terms as well for the pagans who still lived in Yathrib at this stage. Its clauses can be grouped into four parts: those for the Muslims, those for the Jews, those for the pagans, and those for the whole community. Several features suggest that the document is early and authentic. It calls the city "Yathrib," not yet "Madinah." It does not yet use "Muhajirun" and "Ansar" as fixed titles. Its language is archaic, and it lists many subtribes whose names are now obscure. Ibn Ishaq preserves it in full, though without a complete chain of narrators (isnad). Musnad Imam Ahmad separately preserves one phrase of it with a chain.

The Prophet ﷺ and Abu Bakr RA were guided to Madinah by Abdullah ibn Urayqit, a hired guide from a distant Bedouin tribe. He took them along a back road that the Quraysh did not know, circling down toward what is now Jeddah before turning toward Madinah. This way they avoided the main road, where the Quraysh were searching for them. The Quraysh had offered a reward of 100 camels for the Prophet ﷺ, dead or alive. Suraqa ibn Malik, the leader of the Banu Mudlij, heard that three riders had been seen, and he rode after them to win the reward. As he drew near, his horse sank into the ground and threw him. This happened three times. After the third time he gave up the chase, knowing that this was a force beyond him. He called out that he meant them no harm, and asked the Prophet ﷺ for a written promise of protection, which he was given. Abu Bakr RA asked him not to tell anyone about them, and Suraqa kept their secret.

Madinah was originally called Yathrib. About two years before the Hijrah, while he was still in Makkah, the Prophet ﷺ told the Muslims about a dream. He said, "I saw a dream, that I will emigrate to a land with a lot of date palms. So I thought it might be al-Yamamah or Hajar, but it turned out to be Madinah." (al-Yamamah and Hajar were distant towns.) The Prophet ﷺ also said, "I have been commanded to emigrate to a city that shall devour all other cities. They call it Yathrib, but it is Madinah." In another hadith he said, "Whoever calls Madinah Yathrib should say istighfar, because it is Tabah." Tabah and Taybah both mean "the Pure." Istighfar means asking Allah for forgiveness. From then on, the Prophet ﷺ only called the city Madinah, Tabah or Taybah. Whenever the Qur'an mentions the name Yathrib, it is only in the words of the munafiqun, the hypocrites.

The five daily prayers were given during al-Isra wal-Mi'raj, the Night Journey and Ascension, and at first every prayer was two rak'ahs (units of prayer). At some point early in the Madinan period, the Prophet ﷺ and the Companions began praying the pattern known today. This is two rak'ahs for Fajr, four for Dhuhr, four for Asr, three for Maghrib and four for Isha. The shorter two-rak'ah form was kept for the traveller. The sunan and nawafil, the extra voluntary prayers, were added after this.

When the Prophet ﷺ emigrated to Madinah, his daughters Fatima and Ummi Kulthum RA stayed behind in Makkah. He entrusted his uncle Abbas ibn Abdul Muttalib RA with bringing them safely to Madinah. As Abbas was taking them, Al-Huwayrith ibn Nuqaydh, a man of Quraysh, refused to let them go and threatened them. Both girls fell from their horses and were hurt. Unlike in the earlier attack on their sister Zaynab, there was no miscarriage.

After spending two to three weeks building the masjid, the Prophet ﷺ began building his own houses. At the time he had two wives, Sawda RA and Aisha RA, and both of their houses were built against the masjid. These were the only two of his wives' houses that ever opened directly onto it. He married his later wives years afterwards, when other houses already filled the space around the masjid, so their houses stood in a separate block. Sawda RA was an elderly lady, older than the Prophet ﷺ. Wanting to please him, she later gave her night with him to Aisha RA. From then on the Prophet ﷺ would visit Sawda RA and spend time with her during the day, but he did not spend the night in her house. So of the two houses joined to the masjid, Aisha RA's was the only one he actually lived in.

The Prophet ﷺ reached Quba, the settlement of Madinah closest to Makkah, around high noon on a Monday. In Quba he stayed at the house of Kulthum ibn al-Hidm RA, an elderly man of the Banu Amr ibn Awf. Kulthum RA was the first companion to die in Madinah after the Prophet ﷺ arrived. Another report says the Prophet ﷺ stayed at the house of Sa'd ibn Khaythama RA. Some reports combine the two. They say he spent the nights at the house of Kulthum RA, who was a married man with children. He spent the days at the house of Sa'd RA, who was a bachelor, so that visitors could come to see him without difficulty. His companion Abu Bakr RA stayed at the house of another of the Ansar, the Muslims of Madinah.

During the Hijrah journey, a caravan passed the Prophet ﷺ and Abu Bakr RA and, as was customary, turned aside to greet them. One traveler recognized Abu Bakr RA and asked who his companion was. Abu Bakr RA replied that he was his guide, guiding him to the path, a tawriya (a statement with a true double meaning, not a lie): the caravan understood an ordinary travel guide, while Abu Bakr RA meant the Prophet ﷺ was guiding him to the path to Jannah. The exchange also shows that their guide Abdullah ibn Urayqit had already parted from them by this point in the journey.

On the night of the Hijrah, men from the tribes of Makkah surrounded the house of the Prophet ﷺ, waiting to kill him. According to Ibn Ishaq, the Prophet ﷺ told his young cousin Ali RA to lie in his bed, so that anyone looking in would think he was still there. He then walked out of the house reciting from Surah Ya-Sin and threw dust over the men outside, who could not see him. Ibn Ishaq gives these details without a chain of narrators. A hadith in al-Tirmidhi records the Prophet ﷺ standing at al-Hazwarah in Makkah and speaking to the city, which he would not enter again for years. He said, "You are the most blessed land on earth and the most beloved to me. And were it not for the fact that my people have expelled me, I would not have left you." The hadith itself does not say that this was on the night he left. Ibn Kathir also reports that the Prophet ﷺ made a long supplication asking Allah for protection, an easy journey and His mercy. This detail is not found in earlier sources.

The Quraysh held a secret meeting in the middle of the night at Dar al-Nadwa, their council house. Every clan sent a representative except the Banu Hashim, the clan of the Prophet ﷺ. Even Abu Lahab was not invited, because the plot was against his own nephew. They also left out Mut'im ibn Adi, who was protecting the Prophet ﷺ at that time. According to a weak report, an old man knocked on the door during the meeting. He said he was a leader from Najd and offered to help them with his advice. Ibn Abbas said this old man was Iblis. The council feared that if the Prophet ﷺ joined the Muslims who had already emigrated, he would become a threat to Makkah. One suggestion was to lock him up in a house, and another was to send him into exile, but both ideas were rejected. Then Abu Jahal proposed that every clan send one man, so that they would all strike him together. His blood would then be on all their swords, and no single clan could be blamed. The Banu Hashim could not fight all the clans at once, so they would have to accept blood money. The clans chose their men and sent them to the Prophet ﷺ's house. At the same time, Jibril AS came to the Prophet ﷺ and told him he must make the Hijrah, the emigration to Madinah, at once. That same evening the Prophet ﷺ spoke to Abu Bakr RA, and he left that same night.

The Prophet ﷺ and Abu Bakr RA hid for three nights in the Cave of Thawr, south of Makkah. This was the opposite direction from Madinah, which lies to the north. Abu Bakr RA had arranged for three people to help them. Every morning his son Abdullah ibn Abi Bakr brought them food, and he listened in the marketplace to what the Quraysh were saying about their search. The freed slave Amir ibn Fuhayra drove his flock of sheep behind Abdullah to cover his footprints. A Bedouin guide, Abdullah ibn Urayqit, was ready to lead them to Madinah by a back route the Quraysh did not use. Al-Baladhuri reports that the Quraysh hired an expert tracker. He followed the camel tracks from Abu Bakr RA's house to the foot of the mountain where the cave was, but could follow them no further. Search parties came there, including Abu Jahal and al-Walid ibn al-Mughira. According to a report in Musnad Imam Ahmad, the strongest of these accounts, a spider spun a web over the cave's entrance. Weaker reports from later generations add that a tree grew over the mouth of the cave and that pigeons nested there. The Quraysh passed by without realising anyone was inside. On the third night, the Prophet ﷺ and Abu Bakr RA met their guide as planned and set out for Madinah.

Salman al-Farisi RA told the story of how he came to Islam in his own words. He was born in Isfahan in Persia, in a place called Jai. His father was a Zoroastrian priest of high standing among his people, and Salman was his most beloved son. His people worshipped fire. Salman devoted himself to that worship until he became the keeper of the sacred fire, which was never allowed to go out. One day his father sent him to the family estate. On the way he passed a church and heard Christians praying inside. He went in, was deeply impressed, and stayed with them until sunset. He asked them where their religion came from, and they told him it came from Syria. When he got home, he told his father that their religion seemed better than his own. His father put fetters on his feet and locked him up. Salman secretly sent word to the Christians that he had joined their religion, and asked them to tell him when a caravan from Syria was about to head home. When it was, he broke free of his chains and left with it. In Syria, Salman asked who the best man of the religion was, and was sent to the bishop of the church. He lived with him, serving, praying and learning. But the bishop was a bad man. He collected money from people for charity and kept it for himself. When the bishop died, Salman told the people the truth and showed them where the treasure was hidden, seven chests of gold and silver. They refused to bury the bishop, and instead crucified his body and pelted it with stones. They appointed a new bishop, a sincere and devoted man whom Salman came to love more than anyone before. When this good bishop was dying, Salman asked him whom he should go to next. He sent Salman to a righteous man in Mawsil (Mosul). That man in turn sent him to another in Nisibin, and that one to a man in Amuriah (Amorium) in Byzantium. There Salman earned his living by raising cattle and sheep. When the man in Amuriah was dying, he told Salman that he knew of no one left who followed their way. But he said that the time had come for a prophet to be sent with the pure religion of Ibrahim AS, and that this prophet would migrate to a land of palm trees. He gave Salman three signs to recognise him. The prophet would not eat food given as charity, he would accept gifts, and he would have the Seal of Prophethood between his shoulders. Salman gave his cattle and sheep to a passing caravan of Arabs in return for taking him to their land. But at Wadi al-Qura they betrayed him and sold him as a slave to a Jewish man. Later a man from the Jewish tribe of Banu Qurayza bought Salman and took him to Yathrib, the city later called Madinah. As soon as Salman saw it, he knew this was the land he had been told about. He worked on his master's date palms. One day he was at the top of a palm tree when he heard that a man from Makkah had arrived at Quba claiming to be a prophet. He began to shake so much that he nearly fell onto his master below. That night Salman took some food to the Prophet ﷺ at Quba and offered it as charity. The Prophet ﷺ told his Companions to eat, but did not eat himself. The next day Salman brought food again, this time as a gift, and the Prophet ﷺ ate it with them. Some time later, Salman found the Prophet ﷺ after a burial at Baqi' al-Gharqad and tried to look at his upper back. The Prophet ﷺ understood what he was looking for and moved his garment aside. Salman saw the Seal of Prophethood between his shoulders, just as the monk had described. He fell upon the Prophet ﷺ, kissing him and weeping, and became a Muslim. Because he was still a slave, Salman could not take part in the battles of Badr and Uhud. The Prophet ﷺ advised him to agree terms with his master to buy his freedom, and told the Companions to help him. Once free, Salman fought alongside the Prophet ﷺ at the Battle of al-Khandaq, and he did not miss any major event with him after that.

Bilal ibn Rabah had been tortured in Makkah for his faith. All through his torment he kept crying out "Ahadun Ahad" ("One, One"), declaring the Oneness of Allah. As a reward for his steadfastness, the Prophet ﷺ chose him to be his official muezzin, the one who gives the adhan (the call to prayer). He chose Bilal because he had the best voice among the believers. The voice that had cried out "One, One" under torture became the voice that called the believers to prayer. Later, when the Prophet ﷺ reconquered Makkah, it was Bilal who gave the adhan in the Haram, the Sacred Mosque around the Ka'bah.

After the Hijrah, the Prophet ﷺ spent a few days in Quba, on the edge of Madinah, helping to build its masjid. On Thursday night he announced that he would enter central Madinah the next morning. He left Quba on Friday morning, and the time for the Friday prayer came while he was on the way. He stopped in the area of the Banu Salama clan and gave his first Jumu'ah (Friday) khutbah, or sermon, there. This was his own first Jumu'ah, but not the first one held in Madinah. The Muslims there had already been praying Jumu'ah before he arrived, because Mus'ab ibn Umayr RA was with them. After the prayer the Prophet ﷺ continued into central Madinah. There his camel knelt down, and he stayed in the nearest house, the home of Abu Ayyub al-Ansari RA.

During the Hijrah journey to Madinah, the Prophet ﷺ and Abu Bakr RA came to the tent of Umm Ma'bad, an elderly Bedouin woman, near Qadid. She did not know who they were. They asked if they could buy some food. She told them she had nothing to give, and that her husband was out looking for food himself. The Prophet ﷺ saw an old goat in the corner of the tent, too old to give milk. He asked her permission to milk it. She said its milking days were long gone, but when he asked again, she agreed. He made du'a, mentioned the name of Allah and moved his hand under the goat's udder, and it filled with milk. Abu Bakr RA milked it, and the two of them drank their fill. They left the rest for Umm Ma'bad and her husband. When her husband came back, he was astonished to find the milk. Umm Ma'bad told him about the two travelers and described them. He said they must be the two men the Quraysh were hunting, one of whom claimed to be a prophet. She realized he must truly be a prophet, and the couple accepted Islam.

The Prophet ﷺ built the first masjid in Madinah, Masjid Quba, at Quba, the settlement on the edge of Madinah where he first stopped after the Hijrah. He began it once Ali RA arrived, two or three days after he himself had reached Quba. The Prophet ﷺ laid the first stone himself. Ali RA and Abu Bakr RA continued after him, and then the Ansar, the Muslims of Madinah, took over the work. The Prophet ﷺ left for central Madinah on the Friday morning, before the masjid was finished. So Masjid Quba was the first masjid he began, but Masjid al-Nabawi was the first he completed and prayed in himself. Even before either was built, the Ansar already had a makeshift place for the Friday prayer, most likely the house of As'ad ibn Zurarah RA. In a hadith in Abu Dawud, the people of Quba were asked why Allah had praised them in the Qur'an in a way He did not praise others. They explained that after relieving themselves they would wipe and then wash with water. Most people at the time only wiped.

After the Prophet ﷺ had emigrated to Madinah, two Muslims were still held prisoner in Makkah. They were Ayyash ibn Abi Rabi'ah and Hisham ibn al-As, whom the Quraysh had thrown into a dungeon. The Prophet ﷺ prayed for them and kept asking the Muslims who would volunteer to rescue them. Going into Makkah meant walking into the lion's den, so few were eager to go. Finally Al-Walid ibn al-Walid, the older brother of Khalid ibn al-Walid, volunteered. He travelled to Makkah and entered the city in the middle of the night. He found the dungeon, broke into it and cut the two men's bonds. Then he brought both of them safely back to Madinah.

Al-Abwa appears to have been the first military expedition of the Muslims. It took place in Safar of the 2nd year after the Hijrah, about 11 months after the Prophet ﷺ emigrated to Madinah. The Prophet ﷺ heard of a caravan of the Quraysh and led the Muslims out to intercept it. They could not reach it in time, so no battle took place. During this expedition, the Prophet ﷺ made the first of many alliances with neighbouring tribes, with the Banu Damra. This extended the reach of the young Muslim state about 100 miles beyond Madinah.

For thirteen years in Makkah, the Muslims had been commanded only to be patient under persecution and not to fight back. Then Allah revealed the first verses permitting them to fight, Surah al-Hajj, verses 39 and 40. The first says: "Permission [to fight] has been given to those who are being fought, because they were wronged. And indeed, Allah is competent to give them victory." The next describes them as "[They are] those who have been evicted from their homes without right, only because they say, 'Our Lord is Allah.'" The permission was framed entirely around defending people who had been wronged and driven from their homes because of their faith. It was not an unconditional license to fight. Sheikh Yasir Qadhi divides jihad in the seerah into four stages. In the first, throughout the Makkan years, any military response was forbidden. In the second, which these verses began, fighting was permitted but not yet obligatory. This was immediately after the Hijrah. In the third, which covered most of the Madinan period, fighting became obligatory against the Quraysh only. In the fourth, it was extended against the polytheists of Arabia generally.

Zaynab bint Jahsh, whose birth name was Barrah, belonged to the clan of Banu Khuzayma of the Quraysh. Her mother, Umayma bint Abdul Muttalib, was an aunt of Muhammad ﷺ, so Zaynab was his first cousin. She had been married and widowed in Makkah. She then emigrated to Madinah with her brother, Abdullah ibn Jahsh RA, and was free to marry again. The Prophet ﷺ sent her a proposal on behalf of his adopted son, Zayd ibn Harithah RA. At that time Zayd was still called Zayd ibn Muhammad, because verse 33:5, which returned him to his father's name, had not yet been revealed. Zaynab and her brother objected that Zayd was not of their standing. The Prophet ﷺ insisted. According to the early books of seerah, Allah then revealed verse 33:36 of the Qur'an. It says that when Allah and His Messenger ﷺ have decided a matter, a believer has no choice left in it. Zaynab and her brother both said they were content with Zayd, and the marriage went ahead.

In the early, difficult years in Madinah, before wealth came to the Muslims, the Prophet ﷺ went out of his house one day or night. Outside he found Abu Bakr al-Siddiq RA and Umar ibn al-Khattab RA. He asked them, "What has brought you out of your houses at this hour?" They told him it was hunger. He said, "By Him in Whose Hand is my life, what has brought you out has brought me out too. Get up." The three of them went to the house of an Ansari, a Muslim of Madinah named Abu al-Haytham ibn al-Tayhan RA. He was not at home. His wife welcomed them and said he had gone to fetch fresh water for the family. When Abu al-Haytham RA came back and saw his guests, he praised Allah and said that no one had more honorable guests that day than he did. He brought them a bunch of ripe, dry and fresh dates and told them to eat. Then he picked up his knife to slaughter an animal for them. The Prophet ﷺ said to him, "Beware of killing a milch animal." So he slaughtered a sheep instead. When they had eaten and drunk their fill, the Prophet ﷺ turned to Abu Bakr RA and Umar RA. He said, "By Him in Whose Hand is my life, you will certainly be questioned about this bounty on the Day of Judgment. Hunger brought you out of your house, then you did not return until this bounty came to you."

The core acts of Islamic worship were made law within the first two years after the Hijrah. In the first Ramadan in Madinah, fasting was not yet obligatory. Then, on the 10th of Muharram in 2 AH, the Prophet ﷺ made the fast of that day, Ashura, obligatory (wajib). It was a single day's fast, a first step to accustom the Muslims to fasting. In the Ramadan of that same year, Allah revealed the verse of Surah al-Baqarah that made the whole month of Ramadan obligatory to fast (Qur'an 2:185). From then on, the fast of the 10th of Muharram became sunnah (recommended) rather than obligatory. Zakat followed the same gradual path. In that same Ramadan, Zakat al-Fitr, a small charity given at the end of the fast, became obligatory. A few months later in the same year came Zakat al-Mal, 2.5% of a person's wealth. The rulings of the prayer (salah) were also completed in this period. In Makkah every prayer had been two units (rak'ahs). In Madinah, Zuhr, Asr and Isha were lengthened to four units and Maghrib to three. The rules of purification, wudu (washing before prayer) and ghusl (the full ritual bath) also came down in these first two years.

Badr is a well on a plain about 130 km south-west of Madinah, where the road to Syria runs. It was named after the man of the Banu Damra who dug it. The battle fought there on Friday, 17 Ramadan 2 AH, was never meant to be a battle. In the year since the Hijrah, permission to fight had come down. The Muslims had begun to strike at the one thing that made the Quraysh what they were. That was their caravan road, which ran past Madinah. First came the expedition to al-Abwa, then the raid that saw the first arrow shot in the way of Allah, then al-Ushayra. At al-Ushayra, the Prophet ﷺ missed Abu Sufyan's great caravan, on its way north, by a single day. Then came Nakhla, where eight men killed a man of the Quraysh in the sacred month. That handed the Quraysh a grievance. Abu Jahl had once threatened Sa'd ibn Mu'adh RA at the Ka'bah for sheltering the Muslims. Sa'd had then sworn in front of the Ka'bah to cut the Quraysh off from their trade, which was dearer to them than tawaf. Shortly before the battle, the qibla turned from Jerusalem to Makkah. Ibn Ishaq places this in Sha'ban. In Ramadan the same caravan was due back from Syria, led by Abu Sufyan. By some reports it had a thousand camels. It carried the money and goods of the Quraysh, and Ibn Ishaq says that thirty or forty men guarded it. The Prophet ﷺ sent out scouts. According to Muslim, one scout, Busaysah, brought his report to a house where only the boy Anas RA was present. Other reports name Talha ibn Ubaydillah RA and Sa'id ibn Zayd RA as the scouts, and Ibn Ishaq names Basbas ibn Amr and Adiy ibn Abi al-Zaghba' as the two sent ahead to Badr. The Prophet ﷺ then told the people that anyone whose mount was ready should ride with him at once. He would not wait for those whose animals were grazing outside the town. In Ibn Ishaq's telling, he named the Quraysh caravan as the target when he called them out. It was meant to be a quick seizure, so the men came as they were. There were around 313 or 315 of them. Of these, 83 were Muhajirun, 62 were from the Aws and 170 were from the Khazraj. By one report they had two horses, which belonged to Zubayr RA and al-Miqdad RA. Ali RA said that al-Miqdad was their only horseman. They had seventy camels, with three men sharing each one. In Ibn Mas'ud RA's report, the Prophet ﷺ shared his camel with Ali RA and Abu Lubaba RA. Ibn Ishaq names Ali RA and Marthad ibn Abi Marthad RA instead. His two companions begged him to ride. He answered that they were no stronger than he was, and that he needed the reward no less than they did. He judged al-Bara' ibn Azib RA and Abdullah ibn Umar RA too young to fight. Hudhayfah RA and his father were held back for another reason. The Quraysh had once made them swear never to fight against Muhammad ﷺ, and an oath is an oath, even to an enemy. A pagan of Madinah, famous for his courage, asked three times to join. He was refused twice, because the Muslims do not seek help from an idolater, until he took the shahada. The blind Ibn Umm Maktum stayed behind in Madinah. By one report, Abu Lubaba RA was sent back from the road to take charge of the city. Abu Sufyan had been on his guard since al-Ushayra. He found the scouts' campsite and broke open the camel droppings. Inside he recognised the date stones of Yathrib. He turned the caravan down to the coast road, and sent Damdam ibn Amr al-Ghifari racing to Makkah. Three days before Damdam arrived, Atikah bint Abdul Muttalib had a dream. In it, a crier on a camel called the Quraysh traitors and promised them death in three days. Then a rock rolled down from Abu Qubays and shattered against every house in the city. Her brother al-Abbas told her to keep the dream to herself. But he told one friend about it, and before long Abu Jahl was sneering at the Banu Abdul Muttalib for producing a prophetess. On the third day Damdam rode in. His camel's nose was slit and his shirt was torn, and he was crying out that Muhammad ﷺ was upon the caravan. Makkah raised an army at speed. Every household sent a man or hired one to go. By some reports the army set out 1,300 strong, with a hundred horses and six hundred coats of mail. Umar RA's report in Muslim and Ahmad says that it stood at Badr about a thousand strong. Abu Lahab stayed behind and paid a man who owed him money to go in his place. By some reports Utbah ibn Rabi'ah did not want to fight his own kin, until his brother Shaybah shamed him into it. The same reports say that Uqba ibn Abi Mu'ayt had once spat in the Prophet ﷺ's face and had been promised death outside Makkah. He did not dare to go until a kinsman lent him the fastest camel in the city. Umayyah ibn Khalaf, fat and fearful, meant to stay at home. According to al-Bukhari, Abu Jahl told him that if the chief of the valley stayed, the people would stay too. According to Ibn Ishaq, Uqba brought him an incense burner and told him to perfume himself, because he belonged with the women. Umayyah then bought the best camel in Makkah. He told his wife that he meant to go only a short way. Every one of these men was on the list the Prophet ﷺ had named in his prayer on the day the entrails were thrown on his back. By one report, before they marched, the Quraysh held the curtains of the Ka'bah. They asked Allah to give victory to the better of the two parties. The Qur'an says that this prayer was answered, against them. Outside Makkah the army nearly turned back. They were afraid that the Banu Bakr would raid the empty city. Then Iblis himself came to them in the shape of Suraqa ibn Malik, a chief of Kinanah. He promised them his protection and rode with them. At Juhfa, Juhaym ibn al-Salt of the Banu al-Muttalib had a dream. In it a crier named Utbah, Shaybah, Abu Jahl and Umayyah among the dead. He also saw a camel stabbed in the chest, whose blood spattered every tent. Abu Jahl scoffed that here was another prophet from the Banu al-Muttalib. Then a messenger arrived from Abu Sufyan. He said that the caravan was safe and that the army should go home. Abu Jahl said they would go on to Badr anyway. They would camp there for three days, drink and be sung to, and let all Arabia hear that the Quraysh feared no one. Al-Akhnas ibn Shariq told the Banu Zuhrah to lay the charge of cowardice on him and go home. They did, and so did Talib ibn Abi Talib with some others. Meanwhile the Muslims had begun to hear of an army. The Prophet ﷺ had been shown in a dream that he would fight. By some reports he asked them twice what they thought of meeting the Quraysh instead of the caravan. Twice they answered that they had come for a caravan, with no armour and no supplies. The Qur'an records this reluctance, yet still calls them nothing but believers. The Prophet ﷺ and Abu Bakr RA went scouting themselves. They met an old Bedouin and got from him the exact positions of both the Muslims and the Quraysh. All they told him about themselves was that they were "from water". Then two water carriers of the Quraysh were caught. When the boys said they were from the army, the Companions beat them. The beating went on until the boys said they were from the caravan. The Prophet ﷺ finished his prayer and told the Companions that they had beaten the boys for telling the truth, and let the lie stand. He asked the boys how many camels the Quraysh slaughtered each day. They said nine or ten, and he said the army was nine hundred to a thousand strong. The boys then named its leading men, Utbah, Shaybah, Abu Jahl and Umayyah. The Prophet ﷺ told the Companions that Makkah had thrown them the pieces of its liver. He also pointed to the places on the ground where each of those men would fall. Earlier, at Dhafiran, news had come that the Quraysh had marched, and he had asked the army for its advice. Abu Bakr spoke and sat down. Umar RA spoke and sat down. Then al-Miqdad said that they would not speak as the Children of Israel had spoken to Musa. Instead they would fight at his right and his left, in front of him and behind him. Still the Prophet ﷺ asked again. At last Sa'd ibn Mu'adh understood that he was waiting to hear from the Ansar. In Muslim's report it was Sa'd ibn Ubadah. The Ansar's pledge at Aqaba had been to defend him in Madinah, not to march out to war. Sa'd told him to go wherever he wished. If he rode them into the sea, they would follow him, and perhaps Allah would show him through them something to comfort his eyes. The Prophet ﷺ was delighted. He told them to go forward, because Allah had promised him one of the two parties. It was as though he could already see the enemy lying slain. The Muslims reached the water of Badr before the Quraysh. Al-Hubab ibn al-Mundhir RA asked whether this campsite had been chosen by revelation, or was simply a soldier's choice. He was told it was a soldier's choice. So he proposed camping beyond the wells, so that the water lay behind the Muslims and the enemy had only what they carried. The Prophet ﷺ took his advice. The other wells were stopped up, and a cistern was built and filled for the Muslims. Sa'd ibn Mu'adh had a shelter built, from which the Prophet ﷺ could watch the field. That night a light rain fell. It firmed the sand on the Muslim side and, by some reports, drenched the Quraysh. Ali said that all the Companions slept except the Prophet ﷺ. He prayed under a tree until dawn: "O Allah, if this band perishes, You will not be worshipped on earth." While he dozed, he was shown the enemy as few in number. The Qur'an says that this spared the Muslims from quarrelling and despair. At dawn on the 17th he drew the army up in ranks. He straightened the lines with an arrow in his hand. When he prodded Suwad RA in the belly, Suwad demanded his right to retaliate. The Prophet ﷺ bared his own stomach, and Suwad kissed it. Suwad said that if he was to die, he wanted his skin to have touched the Prophet ﷺ's. He had given the flag to Mus'ab ibn Umayr RA. Two black banners were carried, one by Ali and one by a man of the Ansar. He put Qays ibn Abi Sa'sa'a RA in charge of the rearguard. He also ordered that certain men were not to be killed. These were al-Abbas and the Banu Hashim who had been dragged out to fight, and Abu al-Bukhturi, who had helped to break the boycott. Across the plain the Prophet ﷺ saw a man on a red camel riding up and down the lines of the Quraysh. He said that if there was any good in them, it was in that man. The man was Utbah. He was offering to pay the blood money for Amr al-Hadrami, the man killed at Nakhla. He pleaded with the Quraysh not to kill their own sons and brothers, but to leave Muhammad ﷺ to the other Arabs. Hakim ibn Hizam carried the offer to Abu Jahl. Abu Jahl mocked Hakim as Utbah's errand boy. He stirred up al-Hadrami's brother, and called Utbah a coward who had lost his nerve at the sight of the Muslims. Utbah had told them they could blame him for cowardice, but he could not bear to hear it from Abu Jahl. He called for his brother and his son. The Quraysh scout Umayr ibn Wahab reported three hundred men with nothing but their swords. He warned that not one of them would die without taking a man of the Quraysh with him. By one report, Abu Jahl told him that no one had asked his opinion. As the armies closed in, Abu Jahl prayed aloud. He asked Allah to destroy whichever army had cut the ties of kinship and brought a strange religion. It was another prayer against himself. Al-Aswad ibn Abd al-Asad swore to drink from the Muslims' cistern or die trying. Hamzah RA cut him down at the water. He was the first man killed at Badr. Then Utbah, Shaybah and al-Walid ibn Utbah stepped out and called for champions to face them. Three young men of the Ansar answered. They were Awf and Muawwidh, the sons of Afra', and Abdullah ibn Rawahah RA. The Quraysh waved them away. They said they had no quarrel with them, and asked for their equals instead. So the Prophet ﷺ sent Ubaydah ibn al-Harith RA, Hamzah and Ali. In Ibn Ishaq's account, Hamzah and Ali killed Shaybah and al-Walid at once. Ubaydah and Utbah struck each other down, and Utbah cut off Ubaydah's leg. Then the other two turned and killed Utbah. Ali RA's own report in Abu Dawud pairs them differently. In it Hamzah faced Utbah, Ali faced Shaybah, and Ubaydah and al-Walid wounded each other. Ubaydah died of his wound at al-Safra on the way home. This duel is the Qur'an's "two adversaries who dispute about their Lord". The Prophet ﷺ faced the qibla and raised his hands to the sky. He pleaded for the help he had been promised, until his cloak fell from his shoulders. Abu Bakr put it back on him. He told him that it was enough, and that his Lord would give what He had promised. According to Muslim, Allah then revealed that He would help them with a thousand angels. Ibn Ishaq says that the Prophet ﷺ dozed in the shelter and then woke. He told Abu Bakr to be of good cheer. He said that Jibril was there, holding a horse by the rein and leading it, with dust on his front teeth. A thousand angels were coming in file. The Prophet ﷺ recited the verse "the host will be routed and turn their backs". Umar is reported to have said that he had not understood this verse until that morning. Then the Prophet ﷺ took up a handful of pebbles. He threw them at the Quraysh, saying "may these faces be disfigured". By reports in the tafsir, every one of them got grit in his eyes. The Qur'an says that it was not he who threw, but Allah. What happened next can only be told through the dozen stories the Companions left behind. The Prophet ﷺ called on them to rise up to a Paradise as wide as the heavens and the earth. Umayr ibn al-Humam RA was chewing dates at the time. He said that if he lived long enough to finish them, that would be too long a life. He threw them down and fought until he was killed. The Muslims held back their arrows until the enemy was in range. They kept their swords sheathed until the enemy was upon them. Ali said that the Prophet ﷺ was the closest of them all to the enemy. By another report, Ali said he found the Prophet ﷺ three times in his shelter, in prostration, crying "O Living, O Sustaining", with Abu Bakr at his side. The Prophet ﷺ moved between the two. Iblis saw the angels and ran. Al-Harith ibn Hisham grabbed at the man he took for Suraqa, and was thrown onto his back. A mursal report in the Muwatta' tells what the Prophet ﷺ said about this. Satan is never more humiliated than on the day of Arafah, he said, except for what Satan was shown on the day of Badr. On that day he saw Jibril arranging the angels in ranks. Some Companions heard a rider above them urging on his horse, Haizum. They saw the pagan in front of them lose his head before their own blow landed. The man who captured al-Abbas was a slightly built man of the Ansar. Al-Abbas insisted that he had been taken by a handsome horseman on a piebald horse. The Prophet ﷺ told the Ansari to be quiet, because an angel had helped him. By one report the angels wore yellow turbans like Zubayr's, while Ibn Ishaq's report from Ibn Abbas RA says their turbans were white. Ukasha ibn Mihsan RA broke his sword. He was handed a stick of wood, and found a blade in his hand. By a report with a broken chain, Abu Ubaydah RA kept away from his father, Abdullah ibn al-Jarrah. In the end the old man came at him, and Abu Ubaydah killed him. The closing verse of Surah al-Mujadilah came down about him. It says that no believer loves those who fight Allah and His Messenger ﷺ, even if they are his father. Abu al-Bukhturi refused to be taken prisoner without his friend. He was killed by a man of the Ansar who had tried to spare him. The three men of the duel were the father, uncle and brother of Abu Hudhayfah RA. He said aloud that the Muslims were killing their own kin while the Prophet ﷺ's uncle went untouched. He regretted those words until he died at Yamamah. Two boys of the Ansar had each asked Abd al-Rahman ibn Awf RA to point out Abu Jahl. One was Mu'adh ibn Amr ibn al-Jumuh RA. The other was a son of Afra', called Mu'adh in al-Bukhari and Muawwidh in Ibn Ishaq. When Abd al-Rahman pointed him out, the boys went through the crowd like hawks. Mu'adh leapt and cut off Abu Jahl's leg. It cost him his own arm to Ikrimah's sword, so he tore the arm off and fought on without it. Muawwidh struck the second blow. Abdullah ibn Mas'ud RA was the shepherd whom Abu Jahl had despised. He found Abu Jahl dying and put a foot on his neck. To the end, Abu Jahl said that a man killed by his own people was not disgraced, and that Ibn Mas'ud was standing on a high place. Ibn Mas'ud's own sword had been blunted by the day's fighting, so he took Abu Jahl's sword and finished him with it. By a report with a weak chain in Ahmad, the Prophet ﷺ made Ibn Mas'ud swear three times before going to look for himself. He called Abu Jahl the Pharaoh of this community. Umayyah ibn Khalaf begged his old friend Abd al-Rahman to take him and his son prisoner. He said he was worth more than the coats of mail Abd al-Rahman was carrying. Then Bilal RA saw the man who had tortured him on the sand of Makkah. He called out to the Ansar, and Umayyah and his son died under their spears. Abd al-Rahman was wounded in the foot trying to shield them. Umayyah's body was the only one that could not be moved to the well. It came apart when they lifted it, so they covered it with stones where it lay. Seventy of the Quraysh were dead and about seventy were taken prisoner. That was one man in seven of their army. Fourteen or fifteen Muslims had been killed, and none were taken. The Quraysh fled by the one road the Muslims had left open. The Prophet ﷺ stayed on the field for three days, to bury the martyrs and to make it plain who had won. The Quraysh dead, all except Umayyah, were thrown into a dry well and covered over. On the third day, before leaving, the Prophet ﷺ stood at the mouth of the well. He called the dead by name, Utbah, Shaybah, al-Walid, Abu Jahl and Umayyah. He asked whether they had found their Lord's promise true, for he had found his Lord's promise true. Umar asked how he could speak to bodies without souls. He answered that they heard him no worse than the living did, though they could not reply. While still on the field, the Companions had already started arguing over the spoils. The men who gathered the spoils, the men who chased the enemy and the Prophet ﷺ's bodyguard each claimed the better right. Sa'd ibn Abi Waqqas RA asked for the sword he had won. Then the opening verses of Surah al-Anfal came down there, saying that the spoils belong to Allah and His Messenger ﷺ. Every man received an equal share. Shares also went to some who had been kept away on duty. Among them was Uthman RA, who was nursing his dying wife Ruqayyah. Looking over the prisoners, the Prophet ﷺ spoke of Mut'im ibn Adi, who had recently died. He said that if Mut'im had asked him for these prisoners, he would have freed every one of them. This was because of the shelter Mut'im had given him after Ta'if. Abu Bakr advised taking ransom, since the prisoners were their kin. Umar advised giving each Companion his own kinsman to kill. The Prophet ﷺ compared the first to Ibrahim and Isa, and the second to Nuh and Musa. He chose ransom. The next day Umar found him and Abu Bakr weeping under a tree, because of verses that had come down. The verses said that no prophet should take captives before he has subdued the land. They also said that but for a prior decree, a punishment would have touched them. Two prisoners were executed on the road home. One was al-Nadr ibn al-Harith, who had mocked the Qur'an as old fables that he could improve on. The other was Uqba ibn Abi Mu'ayt. Uqba asked who would look after his children, and the answer he was given was the Fire. Their execution was the only time captives of Badr were put to death. Zayd ibn Harithah RA carried the news to Lower Madinah, naming the dead one by one. Abdullah ibn Rawahah RA took it to Upper Madinah. By some reports Zayd was riding the Prophet ﷺ's own camel, and people thought he was mad. Abdullah ibn Ubayy heard him and said that the matter was now settled. The hypocrisy of Madinah dates from that day. Uthman heard the shouting just as he finished burying Ruqayyah. The prisoners were lodged with the men who had captured them. The captors were ordered to treat them well. They gave the prisoners their bread, and ate dates themselves. Suhayl ibn Amr was kept in the Prophet ﷺ's own house. There Sawda RA saw the chief of the Quraysh tied up in a corner, and cried out that he should have died a noble death. When the Prophet ﷺ rebuked her, she said she could not contain herself. Each man's ransom was set according to his means. The poor were freed for nothing. According to Ahmad, some who had nothing to pay with were freed for teaching the children of the Ansar to write. Al-Abbas protested that he was a Muslim. He was told that Allah knew his heart, but he had fought. Then he was told where he and Umm al-Fadl had set money aside when no one else was present. So he paid for himself, and for Aqil and Nawfal too. By one report, he used to say that Allah had given him twenty merchants in return for those twenty ounces. Abu Sufyan refused to pay for his son Amr, having already lost another son on the field. Later he kidnapped an old Ansari pilgrim in Makkah to force an exchange. Abu al-As ibn al-Rabi' was ransomed with a necklace. Khadija RA had given it to her daughter Zaynab RA as a wedding gift. When the Prophet ﷺ saw it, his face changed. At his word the captors returned it, and Abu al-As went home on his promise to send Zaynab to Madinah. In Makkah, the first survivor to arrive was al-Haysaman al-Khuza'i. He listed so many dead nobles that Safwan ibn Umayyah tested him by asking about himself. Al-Haysaman told him that he had watched Safwan's father and brother die. The Quraysh banned wailing for the dead, so that the Muslims would take no pleasure in it. Al-Aswad ibn al-Muttalib, who had lost three sons, was overjoyed to hear a woman wailing. Then he learned that she was weeping for a camel. Abu Lahab heard from his nephew, Abu Sufyan ibn al-Harith, about men in white on piebald horses whom no one could withstand. Al-Abbas's slave Abu Rafi' said they were angels, and Abu Lahab beat him for it. Then Umm al-Fadl split Abu Lahab's head open with a tent pole. Within days he died of a foul sickness. According to a report in al-Tirmidhi, on the same day, far away, Rome defeated Persia, as Surah al-Rum had foretold. Years earlier, Abu Bakr had made a bet with a Makkan, Ubay ibn Khalaf, that this would happen within six years. The six years had passed, so Abu Bakr had already lost the bet. Within weeks, Umayr ibn Wahab came to Madinah with a poisoned sword to kill the Prophet ﷺ, and went home a Muslim. The Banu Qaynuqa told the Prophet ﷺ that he had beaten only men who knew nothing of war. They were besieged and sent out of Madinah. Jibril asked how the Muslims regarded those who had fought at Badr. He was told that they were the best of the Muslims. Jibril said that the angels regard the angels who were there in the same way.

The Battle of Badr forced the Quraysh trade caravans onto new routes, which cut off the business of some neighbouring tribes. Only seven days after Badr, the Banu Salim and the large tribe of Ghatafan sent a raiding party of about 200 men to attack Madinah in revenge. When the Prophet ﷺ heard of this, he marched out against them. Although they outnumbered the Muslims, the raiders fled when they saw them coming. They left behind their tents, belongings and animals. The spoils were so large that every Muslim who took part is said to have received two camels. The Prophet ﷺ then camped there for three days, as was his practice after a battle. The first person the Muslims captured was an Abyssinian slave named Yasar. After some time he became a Muslim, and the man who captured him gave him to the Prophet ﷺ, who freed him. Yasar chose to stay on as one of the Prophet ﷺ's servants.

Some allies of the Quraysh slipped into Madinah at night, stole a number of camels, and killed one or two herders. When the Prophet ﷺ found out, he gathered 70 of the Muhajirun and went after them. The chase brought the Muslims to the Plain of Badr for the first time, which is how this expedition got its name. The raiders were only four or five men and much faster, so they escaped, and the Prophet ﷺ was unable to catch them. As a result, the Prophet ﷺ decided he needed scouts to keep track of the movements of the Quraysh and their allies, including their caravans to Yemen. This led directly to the Sariyya Nakhla.

Hassan ibn Thabit was the official poet of the Prophet ﷺ. The Quraysh composed poems attacking the Prophet ﷺ. He told Hassan, "Stand up, O Hassan. And defend me. And the angel Jibril will be with you." The angel Jibril would inspire Hassan with the words to answer them. Hassan was later given his own minbar (pulpit) in the masjid to stand on while reciting his poetry. He is the only companion known to have had a minbar of his own.

The Prophet ﷺ saw in a dream an angel carrying to him a woman whose face was covered. The angel told him, "This shall be your wife." When he uncovered her face, it was Aisha bint Abi Bakr RA. He said that if the dream was from Allah, it would come to pass, and it did. The nikah, the marriage contract, was done in Makkah. The marriage itself only began later, in Madinah, in the 2nd year after the Hijrah.

After the Battle of Badr, the Muslims took 70 prisoners back toward Madinah. Two of them were executed on the way. They were al-Nadr ibn al-Harith and Uqba ibn Abi Mu'ayt. The early biographer Ibn Ishaq calls them the "devils" (shayatin) of the Quraysh. Al-Nadr had mocked the Qur'an more than anyone, telling people he could tell them better stories. Uqba was the man who had thrown a camel's entrails on the Prophet ﷺ while he prayed, and who had tried to choke him. When Uqba was brought out, he asked why he had been singled out from all the others. Ali ibn Abi Talib RA told him it was because of his hostility to Allah and His Messenger ﷺ. It is said that Ali RA carried out the execution.

Salman al-Farisi, then enslaved in Madinah to a man of Banu Qurayza, agreed with his master to be freed in exchange for planting more than 100 date-palm seedlings and waiting for them to bear fruit, ordinarily a wait of 15 years or more. Salman told the Prophet ﷺ of the arrangement, and the Prophet ﷺ told him, "Call me when the season comes." When the season arrived, the Prophet ﷺ personally planted every single seedling himself, and by his barakah they all grew to fruit within a few years, and Salman was freed.

In the weeks after Badr, Safwan ibn Umayyah sat in the Hijr, the open area beside the Ka'bah, with his cousin Umayr ibn Wahab al-Jumahi. Safwan's father and brother had both been killed at Badr. Umayr had been the scout of Quraysh on the morning of that battle. He had warned Abu Jahl that the Muslims would each kill at least one of the Quraysh before they fell. Now Umayr's own son was a prisoner in Madinah, and Umayr had not paid his ransom. Safwan cursed the new religion and the harm it had done them. Umayr said that if it were not for a debt he owed and a family he had to look after, he would go to Madinah himself and kill Muhammad ﷺ. Safwan came from a wealthy family, and he took Umayr up on it. He promised to pay Umayr's debt and to provide for Umayr's family just as he provided for his own. Umayr agreed, and asked him to keep the plan secret. Umayr went home, sharpened his sword and soaked it in poison. He rode to Madinah alone without telling anyone, not even his wife. He entered the city with his face covered like any traveller and his sword hanging from his neck, and went straight to the mosque. Umar recognised him by his eyes. He said aloud that this enemy of Allah had come with evil intent, and he went to warn the Prophet ﷺ. The Prophet ﷺ told Umar to bring the man in. Umar took his sword and escorted Umayr inside. The Prophet ﷺ told Umar to watch Umayr's every move, and Umar stood by with his hand on his sword. Umayr greeted the Prophet ﷺ with the old Arab greeting, "Good morning." The Prophet ﷺ told him that Allah had given the Muslims a better greeting, the salam, which is the greeting of the people of Paradise. He then asked Umayr why he had come. Umayr said he had come to ransom his son. The Prophet ﷺ asked what the sword around his neck was for. Umayr answered that swords had done them no good at Badr. The Prophet ﷺ asked him again to tell the truth, but Umayr stuck to his story. Then the Prophet ﷺ said, "Rather, you and Safwan were sitting alone in the Hijr and you mentioned your losses at Badr, and you said, were it not for your debt and your family, you would personally go and kill Muhammad ﷺ. So Safwan offered to take care of your debts and your family so that you may come to kill me. But Allah has come between you and your plans." No one else had been in the Hijr. Umayr had told no one, and he had taken the fastest road, so no rider could have reached Madinah before him. He realised there was only one way the Prophet ﷺ could know this. At once he said, "I testify that you are the Messenger of Allah ﷺ." He added that they used to reject the Prophet ﷺ when he said revelation came from the sky, but no one had known of this plan except him and Safwan. The Prophet ﷺ said to Umar, "Teach your brother about the religion, help him to memorize the Quran, and free his captive." Umayr stayed in Madinah for a while to learn. Before he left, he asked permission to go back to Makkah and call people to Islam, just as he had once pushed them away from it. He also wanted to defend the Prophet ﷺ and his Companions, as he had once harmed them. Ibn Ishaq says that many people became Muslim at his hands. Meanwhile in Makkah, Safwan had spent two weeks telling Quraysh that good news was coming. When he learned that Umayr had become Muslim, he vowed never to look at him, speak to him or sit under the same roof with him again. Umayr later made Hijrah to Madinah. Six years later, at the conquest of Makkah, Safwan fled the city, sure that he would not be forgiven. It was Umayr who went after Safwan with the Prophet ﷺ's promise of protection and brought him back. Safwan then said the shahada (the declaration of faith) in front of the man the two cousins had once plotted to kill.

The Banu Qaynuqa were the largest of the three Jewish tribes of Madinah, with some seven hundred men. They were goldsmiths, and they had the biggest market in the city. They were also the first tribe to break with the Prophet ﷺ. Ibn Ishaq gives the affair less than a page, as the early historians did with every such falling-out. He records only that after Badr they became openly hostile, and that the Muslim victory upset them. The Prophet ﷺ went to their market and gathered them together. He reminded them of the Constitution they had signed, under which each side would protect the other against outsiders. One of their leaders answered him to his face. He told the Prophet ﷺ not to be fooled by beating a handful of nobodies at Badr. If he had fought real men, men like them, he said, he would have seen a different result. Then a crude incident lit the fuse. An Ansari woman had sold her goods in the market, and sat down at a goldsmith's shop to buy something. The goldsmith kept pestering her to uncover herself, and she refused. He signalled to a man behind her, who pinned her garment so that it would fall away when she stood up. When she rose, she was left uncovered, and the men of the market laughed. She screamed for help. A Muslim man who was there drew his sword and killed the goldsmith. The Banu Qaynuqa, who were on their own ground, surrounded him and killed him. The Prophet ﷺ sent them word that the treaty was at an end. Islam does not break a treaty in secret. The Qur'an says that if you fear betrayal from a people, you should throw their treaty back to them openly. They did not expect him to do any more than that, because they trusted in their numbers and their walls. But he marched against them at once, and they shut themselves inside their fortress. The Muslims had no way of breaking in, so they cut off its supplies. After fifteen days the Banu Qaynuqa surrendered. The Prophet ﷺ had the men tied up while their fate was decided. Before Islam, the tribe had had two allies among the Khazraj, and they appealed to both of them. The first was Ubadah ibn al-Samit. He went straight to the Prophet ﷺ and renounced the alliance. He said that his protectors now were Allah and His Messenger ﷺ, and that he had cut his ties with the Banu Qaynuqa. The second was Abdullah ibn Ubayy ibn Salul. He went to the camp where they were being held. He told the Companion guarding them to release them, or else he would do it himself. The guard told him that if he tried, he would be killed. So Ibn Ubayy went to find the Prophet ﷺ. He called him by his bare name, Muhammad ﷺ, as he always did, and asked him to be generous to his allies. The Prophet ﷺ said nothing. Ibn Ubayy asked again, and the Prophet ﷺ turned away. Then Ibn Ubayy pushed his hand into the neck of the Prophet ﷺ's armour and held on to him. The Prophet ﷺ said, "Let go of me." Ibn Ishaq says the anger showed in his face. Ibn Ubayy held on tighter, and the Prophet ﷺ said, "Woe to you, let go of me." Ibn Ubayy swore that he would not let go until the Prophet ﷺ promised to treat them well. He said they were seven hundred men, three hundred of them in armour. They had protected him from every enemy, white and black, and was the Prophet ﷺ going to cut them down in a single morning? He said he was afraid of a turn of fortune. The Prophet ﷺ answered, "I give them to you." The Prophet ﷺ had never said he would kill them. But he gave Ibn Ubayy their lives in public, and there was wisdom in that. Ibn Ubayy was still the most respected chief of old Yathrib, and there was still hope for him. The verdict was that they had three days to leave Madinah. They begged for more time. They tried asking Ubadah, who told them he would not even have given them three. Ibn Ubayy tried again to have the sentence lifted, and failed. Ubadah escorted them out of the city. They took their gold and whatever else they could carry, and left the rest behind. What they left passed to the Muslims. Allah then revealed the verses of Surah al-Ma'idah about not taking Jews and Christians as protectors. The verses quote Ibn Ubayy's fear of a turn of fortune, putting it in the mouths of those with sickness in their hearts. They also praise the choice Ubadah had made, saying that your only protectors are Allah, His Messenger ﷺ and the believers. It was the lightest of the three punishments that the Jewish tribes of Madinah brought on themselves. And the true colours of the hypocrites had begun to show.

When survivors of the Quraysh army began returning to Makkah with news of the crushing defeat at Badr, Abu Lahab refused to believe them. He had not fought at Badr himself. He insisted on hearing the account from Abu Sufyan ibn Harb. The two met at the house of Abu Lahab's brother al-Abbas, who was being held as a prisoner of war in Madinah. Al-Abbas's wife, Umm al-Fadl, and his household were at home. Abu Sufyan described how the Muslims had overpowered the Quraysh, killing and taking prisoners as they pleased. He said he had seen men with white faces on black-and-white horses, hovering between heaven and earth, whom no one could overpower. A slave of al-Abbas overheard this. He cried out with joy that these had been angels helping the Muslims. Abu Lahab was enraged to see the slave rejoicing at the defeat of the Quraysh. He threw him to the ground and beat him almost to death. When Umm al-Fadl tried to stop him, he began beating her too. She rebuked him for treating her husband's household this way while al-Abbas was away. Ashamed, Abu Lahab fled. Soon afterwards he was struck by a disease, and he died shortly after.

On the day the qibla changed, the Prophet ﷺ prayed Fajr in his own masjid facing Jerusalem, then announced the change and prayed Zuhr facing Makkah. The change was announced between the two prayers, not in the middle of one. Those who had prayed Zuhr with him were then meant to carry the news to their own people. The companion tasked with informing the masjid of Banu Salama arrived late; by the time he reached them, they were already praying Asr, so he called out from the back of the mosque, "O people of the masjid! I have just come from the Prophet's ﷺ Masjid, and I prayed with him Zuhr, and he was praying facing Makkah! The command has come to change direction!" The entire congregation turned together, mid-prayer, with the imam walking straight through the rows to the new front.

In Rajab of 2 AH, the Prophet ﷺ handpicked eight of the Muhajirun, the emigrants from Makkah, and put his cousin Abdullah ibn Jahsh in charge. He gave Abdullah a sealed letter and told him to travel northeast for two days before opening it. This kept the mission secret and misled anyone watching. When Abdullah opened the letter, it told the group to go instead to Nakhla, a grove of date palms outside Makkah, and watch the movements of the Quraysh. It also said that any companion who wished could turn back. All eight chose to go on. On the way, the camel shared by Sa'd ibn Abi Waqqas and Utbah ibn Ghazwan went missing. The two stayed behind to search for it, and the other six went on. They reached Nakhla on the 30th of Rajab, the last day of a sacred month in which fighting was forbidden. There they saw a small trade caravan of the Quraysh, loaded with goods and guarded by only three men. The six debated what to do. Only an hour or two remained before sunset, when the sacred month would end. If they waited, the caravan would be gone. If they attacked now, they would be fighting in the sacred month. In the end they attacked. One of the caravan's men was killed and two were taken prisoner, among them al-Hakam ibn Kaisan. When the group returned to Madinah and the Prophet ﷺ heard that they had killed a man, he told them, "I didn't command you to fight." He refused to accept any of the booty. The Quraysh spread the news across Arabia that the Muslims had shed blood in a sacred month. According to Ibn Ishaq, the Prophet ﷺ felt great distress, because the criticism was valid. Then Allah revealed Qur'an 2:217. The verse agreed that fighting in the sacred month was a serious sin. But it declared that what the Quraysh had done was even worse in the sight of Allah. They had turned people away from His path, disbelieved in Him, barred the way to the Sacred Mosque and driven its people out of Makkah. After this, the Prophet ﷺ accepted the booty and the two prisoners. He asked the Quraysh to send a ransom for them, but said they would not be released until Sa'd and Utbah reached Madinah safely. The two eventually found their camel and returned a week or two later, and the prisoners were then released.

After Hijrah was made obligatory on all Muslims still in Makkah, Junda' ibn Damura (elderly, blind, and unable to walk) refused to accept his weakness as an excuse. He had his servants carry him out of Makkah on his chair, trusting Allah to guide him to Madinah, but he died just outside the city, at Tan'im. As he was dying, he placed his right hand on his left as a gesture of allegiance to the Prophet ﷺ. When news of his death reached Madinah, the sahaba remarked on how close he had come without completing the journey.

Early in the Madinan period, around the time of Badr, Allah revealed the first of three verses about alcohol and gambling (Qur'an 2:219). It told the believers that both carry great harm and some benefit, and that the harm outweighs the benefit. The verse hinted that they should avoid alcohol, but it did not yet forbid it.

At first, Allah commanded the Prophet ﷺ to pray facing Bayt al-Maqdis (Jerusalem), and he did so throughout his time in Makkah. Some books report that he would stand so that the Ka'bah was also in front of him, a kind of "double qibla." The qibla is the direction Muslims face in prayer. After he emigrated to Madinah, this was no longer possible. Madinah lies due north of Makkah, and Bayt al-Maqdis lies further north still. So to face Jerusalem from Madinah, he had to turn his back to the Ka'bah. When he first arrived, the Prophet ﷺ was hopeful about the Jews of Madinah. They believed in the same God and the same line of prophets, and in Paradise, Hell and the Day of Judgment. Their chief rabbi, Abdullah ibn Salam RA, had even accepted Islam. But as the Jews began to show open hostility, the Prophet ﷺ began to wish that he could face Makkah instead. He could not change the qibla by his own choice. It is narrated that he once said to Jibril AS, "O Jibril, I wish to pray facing Makkah." Jibril AS replied that he was only a servant who came by Allah's command, and that the Prophet ﷺ should ask Allah through du'a. So the Prophet ﷺ began to make du'a earnestly, by night and by day. He even looked up to the sky as he prayed, something he did only at times of great distress. Allah then revealed Qur'an 2:144, which told him to turn towards Masjid al-Haram in Makkah. Further verses on the change followed, and they now open the second juz (part) of the Qur'an. The change confused the Jews, some Muslims and the pagans of Makkah alike. This was the first time Allah had replaced one ruling with another, a concept called abrogation (naskh), so the idea itself was new. Some of the Jews openly mocked the change. Allah answered that true piety is not about which direction a person faces (2:177). He also told the Prophet ﷺ that no amount of proof would make the People of the Book follow the Muslims' qibla, and that the Muslims would not follow theirs (2:145). The Companions also asked about those who had died while praying towards Bayt al-Maqdis. They wanted to know whether those prayers would be accepted. Allah revealed that He would never let their faith go to waste (2:143). Imam Bukhari later pointed out that in this verse Allah called their prayer "faith." Scholars used it as evidence that prayer (salah) cannot be separated from faith (iman).

Ka'b ibn al-Ashraf had an Arab father and a Jewish mother. His father was an Arab of the Banu Nabhan who had killed a man among his own people and had to flee. The Banu Nadir of Yathrib took him in. Ka'b's mother was from the Banu Nadir, and by Jewish reckoning this made him a Jew. So he had an Arab's family line and the learning of the Banu Nadir. He grew up to be one of the tribe's leaders. He was rich enough to own a fortress of his own, and he was famous for his good looks and his poetry. His hostility to Islam began early. When the qibla was changed, it was Ka'b who asked what had turned the Muslims away from the direction they used to pray towards. The Qur'an answers his question. When zakat was made obligatory, he went to his friends among the Ansar. He told them not to give their money away, because no one knew what would become of this man. A verse came down about this, speaking of those who are stingy and who urge others to be stingy too. Messengers came into Madinah shouting the news of Badr. Ka'b said that if Muhammad ﷺ had really killed those men, the noblest of the Arabs, then it was better to be under the earth than on it. As it turned out, he had passed a verdict on himself. Then Ka'b went to Makkah with some of the Banu Nadir. There he made a pact with Abu Sufyan against the Prophet ﷺ. No book records the terms of the pact. The sources keep only one exchange. Abu Sufyan asked which side was better guided, the Quraysh or Muhammad ﷺ. Ka'b answered that the Quraysh were. Surah al-Nisa quotes this answer back at him. Ka'b came home believing the alliance was a secret, but Allah had told the Prophet ﷺ about it. Ka'b had long written poems against the Muslims. The last straw was a set of mocking love poems about Muslim women, in which he named them. The sources disagree about when the next part happened. Ibn Ishaq, Ibn Hisham and al-Waqidi place it between Badr and Uhud. Muqatil, al-Baghawi and al-Salihi place it after Uhud. They add that Ka'b was the mind behind the Banu Nadir's plot to poison the Prophet ﷺ, and that he died the night before the plot was to be carried out. The Prophet ﷺ stood up and asked who would deal with Ka'b ibn al-Ashraf, who had transgressed against Allah and His Messenger ﷺ. Muhammad ibn Maslamah stood up. He was from the Aws. Before Islam the Aws had been allies of the Banu Nadir and had no old feud with them. So if a man of the Aws did the killing, it would not reopen the old pre-Islamic quarrel between the Banu Nadir and the Khazraj. For three days afterwards, Ibn Maslamah neither ate nor drank. The Prophet ﷺ was told, and came to ask him what was wrong. Ibn Maslamah explained that he had promised something he was not sure he could do. The Prophet ﷺ told him simply to try. Ibn Maslamah then asked permission to say things he did not mean. The Prophet ﷺ told him to say whatever he liked. Ibn Maslamah went to Ka'b during his business hours and took him aside. He complained that this man had brought nothing but trouble on them. He said he had turned the Arabs against them, and was now asking them for their money. Ka'b was delighted, and told him that things would get even worse. Ibn Maslamah said that since they had followed this man, they could not abandon him until things changed. Then he asked Ka'b for a loan, to pay what was being demanded of him. Ka'b made his living by lending money, and he wanted something as security. He suggested the women of Ibn Maslamah's household, or his sons. Ibn Maslamah replied that no one would trust a woman near the handsomest man in Yathrib. As for his sons, they would be mocked all their lives for having been pledged as security by their father. He offered his weapons instead, and Ka'b gladly accepted. Silkan ibn Salama, known as Abu Na'ila, was Ka'b's foster-brother. He and one or two others took loans on the same terms. Now they could come to Ka'b's fortress carrying weapons, and he would be expecting them. Abu Na'ila set a night for the visit. By al-Waqidi's reckoning it was the 14th of Rabi' al-Awwal in the third year. The sky was cloudless and the moon was full. The Prophet ﷺ walked with them as far as Baqi' al-Gharqad. He sent them on their way with a prayer for their success. Ka'b's fortress was on the edge of the city. When they arrived, they called to him to come down. He had recently married a new wife, and she tried to hold him back. She asked why these men were coming at such an hour, when he was a man at war. Ka'b answered that Abu Na'ila was his foster-brother and Ibn Maslamah was an old friend, and he went down. They walked and talked in the moonlight. Then Abu Na'ila commented on the perfume Ka'b was wearing. Ka'b told him it came from the most fragrant woman in Arabia. Abu Na'ila asked if he could smell his hair. Ka'b bent his head. Ibn Maslamah seized it, and the others struck. Because of the armour Ka'b was wearing, it was slow work. In the dark, al-Harith ibn Aws was badly cut by his own companions' swords, and he limped back bleeding. When they reached the Prophet ﷺ, he put his saliva on the wound and it closed. The other tribes complained, but the Prophet ﷺ did nothing about it, because he had ordered the killing himself. Ibn Ishaq says that after that night no enemy of the Muslims felt safe. Sh. Yasir Qadhi stresses that this was a political act by the ruler and judge of Madinah. It was taken against a man who had broken the Constitution of Madinah by making a pact with the Quraysh, and who had crossed every line in his poetry. Even Ka'b's own wife understood the danger he was living under. In his view, the act should not be judged by the customs of a later age.

A few months before the Battle of Uhud, most likely in Rabi' al-Awwal of 3 AH, the Quraysh were preparing their annual trade caravan to Syria. The defeat at Badr had shown them that they could no longer use their usual route. Safwan ibn Umayyah, who was put in charge of the caravan, pointed out that most of the tribes along the coastal road had already given their allegiance to the Prophet ﷺ. An elder of the Quraysh, al-Aswad ibn al-Muttalib, suggested taking a route to the northeast, through Iraq, and then turning back toward Syria. The plan was meant to be secret. But one of the Quraysh leaders who knew of it boasted about it while drinking with Salit ibn al-Nu'man, who was secretly a Muslim in Makkah. Salit passed the news to the Prophet ﷺ, who sent Zayd ibn Harithah to intercept the caravan. Zayd captured the entire caravan without a single casualty.

The Prophet ﷺ led around 150 to 200 sahaba out to intercept the most important caravan of the Quraysh, their large annual caravan to Syria. It had at least 70 to 80 camels and carried around 70 to 80 percent of the wealth of Makkah, because almost everyone in the city who had money invested in it. It was led by Abu Sufyan ibn Harb. By the decree of Allah, the two sides never met. A man from the caravan happened to stray and saw the Muslims coming in the distance. He rushed back to warn the others, and Abu Sufyan quickly took the caravan along a different route. The caravan reached Syria safely, and the Muslims returned to Madinah.

In his youth, al-Mughira ibn Shu'ba of the tribe of Thaqif fell into bad company. He joined a band of men who robbed travellers on the highways, killing innocent people and stealing their goods. Once, the tribe of some of their victims declared war on Thaqif. Thaqif had to pay a great deal of blood money to calm the situation. After this, Mughira and his companions broke up and fled, since they could no longer go back to Thaqif. Mughira later heard of Islam and accepted it, and he made his way to Madinah.

The Prophet ﷺ once sent the young Anas ibn Malik RA on an errand. On the way, Anas saw some children playing in the street. He joined them and forgot all about the errand. The Prophet ﷺ came out looking for him and found him playing with the other children. Anas later recalled that someone took hold of his ears from behind, and when he turned around, it was the Prophet ﷺ smiling at him.

Aisha RA never met Khadija RA, the first wife of the Prophet ﷺ. Yet she said she was never more jealous of any woman than of Khadija, because she knew how much the Prophet ﷺ loved her. One reason was that whenever the Prophet ﷺ received gifts, money, or meat, he would send part of it to Khadija RA's friends. Once, when the Prophet ﷺ was speaking about Khadija RA, Aisha RA lost patience. She asked him how long he would keep mentioning an old woman when Allah had given him a young wife in her place. The Prophet ﷺ was displeased and replied, "No, by Allah. Allah has not given me anyone better than her. She was the first to believe in me when everyone rejected me. And she gave me of her money when everyone had abandoned me. And she supported me when the community gave me the cold shoulder. And Allah blessed me with children only through her." After this, Aisha RA never mentioned Khadija RA again.

Several months after Badr, an elderly man of the Ansar named Sa'd ibn al-Nu'man travelled to Makkah to trade and to perform Umrah. He had nothing to do with the battle. Abu Sufyan ibn Harb, the leader of the Quraysh, had refused to pay a ransom for his son Amr ibn Abi Sufyan, who had been captured at Badr. Now Abu Sufyan kidnapped Sa'd in broad daylight inside the Haram, the sacred precinct of Makkah, where even the Quraysh had always forbidden such acts. He said he would not release Sa'd until the Muslims released his son. Sa'd's tribe brought the matter to the Prophet ﷺ, who released Amr without ransom so that Sa'd could go free.

After their defeat at Badr, the Quraysh spent a full year preparing for revenge. Four motives drove them together. The first was religious hatred of the new faith. The second was personal grief for the leaders they had lost, since the fathers of both Ikrimah ibn Abi Jahal and Safwan ibn Umayyah had died at Badr. The third was economic, because the Muslims now controlled their trade route to Syria and that trade had collapsed. The fourth was political, the threat of a growing Muslim state. Abu Sufyan ibn Harb, together with Safwan and Ikrimah, went from door to door. They collected the profits of the Badr caravan from every Qurashi household that had invested in it. They used this money to recruit allied tribes such as Kinana and Tihama. On the 7th of Shawwal, 3 AH, an army of 3,000 set out from Makkah. It had 200 horses and 700 suits of armour. Around two dozen women of the Quraysh came with it, among them Hind bint Utbah, to urge the men on with their songs. The journey to Madinah normally took two weeks, but the army covered it in seven days. Abu Sufyan held overall command. Khalid ibn al-Walid led the right flank, and Ikrimah ibn Abi Jahal led the left. There is a report, not found in Ibn Ishaq, about al-Abbas ibn Abdul Muttalib RA, who had stayed behind in Makkah. He sent a trusted servant racing to Madinah with the exact numbers of the army. The servant covered the distance in three days. He found the Prophet ﷺ at Quba, and Ubay ibn Ka'b RA read the letter to him privately. The news was urgent, but the Prophet ﷺ did not act on a single report. He first sent scouts to confirm where the Quraysh were. Only then did he call a general meeting of the Muslims. The meeting took place at the Friday gathering, which was even larger than usual because a funeral had already brought many people out. The Prophet ﷺ explained the threat and asked for advice. He gave his own view first. He wanted to stay inside Madinah and use its natural defences. There were fields of volcanic rock to the east and west, Mount Uhud to the north, and date palm groves to the south. The Quraysh would then be forced into costly fighting in the streets. Abdullah ibn Ubayy ibn Salul, the most experienced warrior in the city, agreed with this plan. He did so not out of any respect for the Prophet ﷺ, but because it was clearly the stronger position. A group of younger Companions argued the other way. Many of them had missed Badr and were eager to prove themselves, so they pressed to meet the Quraysh in open battle. The Prophet ﷺ judged that most people wanted this, so he agreed and went inside to put on his armour. The younger men then had second thoughts. They told him they would not oppose him if he wished to stay in the city. This is in Ibn Ishaq, and some retellings name Hamzah ibn Abdul Muttalib RA as the one who said it. The Prophet ﷺ replied that once a prophet has put on his armour, it is not fitting for him to take it off before he has fought. He marched out on Friday, the 14th of Shawwal, with roughly 700 Muslims. He divided them into three groups. Mus'ab ibn Umayr RA led the Muhajirun, Usayd ibn Hudayr RA led the Aws, and al-Hubab ibn al-Mundhir RA led the Khazraj. Between them they had only a handful of horses and 100 suits of armour. The Prophet ﷺ led them along a secret route through the date palm groves instead of the main road, so that their position would not be revealed too early. The route passed through the garden of Mirba' ibn Qayzi, a blind hypocrite. He threw dust at the Muslims, and the Prophet ﷺ told the Companions to leave him alone. During the march, Abdullah ibn Ubayy turned back with about 300 men. He said publicly that his advice had been ignored. Abdullah ibn Amr ibn Haram RA confronted him for abandoning the Prophet ﷺ. Abdullah ibn Ubayy insisted that he did not believe there would be any fighting. The Qur'an later exposed this as a lie (Qur'an 3:167). Some of the Aws, from Banu Harithah, and some of the Khazraj, from Banu Salama, also wavered. In the end they stayed, and Qur'an 3:122 credits their steadfastness to Allah's protection. The roughly 700 who remained reached Uhud in the early afternoon of the 14th. The Prophet ﷺ chose the site with care. The mountain protected the army on two sides. The third side was covered by fifty archers under Abdullah ibn Jubayr RA, posted on a hill called Jabal Aynayn. That hill was later renamed Jabal al-Ruma in their honour. The archers had strict orders never to leave their position, no matter how the battle seemed to be going. This left the much larger Quraysh army only one narrow approach to attack through. The Prophet ﷺ arranged the army for battle and sent home the boys he judged too young. Two boys, Rafi ibn Khadij RA and Samura ibn Jundub RA, were allowed to stay. Ibn Hisham says they were fifteen. Rafi' was allowed because he was a good archer, and Samurah because he could beat Rafi' at wrestling. On the morning of the 15th, the Prophet ﷺ offered his own sword to whoever would take it and give it its due. Abu Dujana RA accepted it. He put on his turban of death and walked along the ranks, giving the Muslims courage. Abu Sufyan first sent a message trying to split the Ansar away from the Muhajirun. Then he sent Abu Amir al-Rahib, a former leader of the Aws who had rejected Islam, to appeal directly to his own people. The Ansar refused both approaches. They gave Abu Amir a new name, Abu Amir al-Fasiq. The battle opened with single combat. Talha ibn Abi Talha came out first. He was of Banu Abd al-Dar, the clan that carried the standard of the Quraysh. Ali ibn Abi Talib RA struck him down. Ibn Ishaq counts him among the men Ali RA killed. Another report says that Talha begged Ali RA by the ties of kinship, so Ali RA left him, and he later died of his wounds. The Muslims then charged and broke the ranks of the Quraysh. They killed the standard bearers of Banu Abd al-Dar one after another, until the standard fell. The story of Usayrim belongs to this same morning. He was from Banu Abd al-Ashhal, and for three years he had been the only pagan left in his clan. He accepted Islam after the Fajr prayer and was martyred before Zuhr, without ever having prayed a single rak'ah. In this first phase the Quraysh broke and fled. The Companions became overconfident. They put down their weapons and began collecting the spoils of war. The rules for dividing spoils had not yet been fully settled, and many assumed the battle was over. The fifty archers on Jabal al-Ruma watched the spoils being gathered below. As the minutes passed, no word came from the Prophet ﷺ. The archers began to argue about whether to go down and join in. Abdullah ibn Jubayr RA, their leader, refused to move without a direct command from the Prophet ﷺ. Even so, over perhaps the better part of an hour, forty of the fifty left the position and went down, leaving only ten. Khalid ibn al-Walid had not simply fled. He had been watching carefully, and now he saw his chance. He moved in along a low ditch on the army's right that could not be seen from ground level. He overran the ten archers who were left. Then he led his cavalry, estimated at 100 to 150 riders, around Jabal al-Ruma and attacked the Muslims from behind. This cut the Muslim army in two. On one side was the Prophet ﷺ's own camp. On the other were the scattered Muslims still collecting spoils, most of them unarmed. It is said that the Prophet ﷺ was the first to see Khalid's attack coming. The enemy was hunting for him personally, and shouting would reveal where he was. Even so, he stood up and shouted a warning to the Muslims. The surprise attack threw the Muslims into chaos. Many fled, unable to tell friend from foe. The sources say that shaytan stirred up the confusion, and some Muslims struck down other Muslims in the fighting. One of them was al-Yaman RA, the father of Hudhayfah ibn al-Yaman RA. His own side killed him before Hudhayfah's shouts to stop could be heard. Hudhayfah said, "May Allah forgive you." The Prophet ﷺ paid him the blood money for his father, and Hudhayfah gave it away as charity to the Muslims. As the Muslim army split apart, the Prophet ﷺ was left with a guard of only nine men. Two of them were Muhajirun, Sa'd ibn Abi Waqqas RA and Talha ibn Ubaydillah RA. The other seven were Ansar. Ibn Ishaq names Ziyad, or Umarah, ibn al-Sakan among them. A report from al-Bara' RA in al-Bukhari gives the number as twelve. Meanwhile the rest of the army, believing the battle already won, was scattered across the field. One by one, the Ansar in that small group went out to stop the approaching enemy, and each was killed. In the end only Sa'd, Talha and the Prophet ﷺ himself remained. They pulled back into a narrow gap in the mountainside, barely wide enough for one or two people. From the opening, Sa'd and Talha fired arrow after arrow. It is said that the Prophet ﷺ picked spent arrows up off the ground and handed them back to Sa'd to shoot again. Abu Talha al-Ansari RA begged the Prophet ﷺ not to raise his head, for fear of a stray arrow. He offered his own neck and chest in place of the Prophet ﷺ's (al-Bukhari). It was here that the Prophet ﷺ said to Sa'd, "Fidaka abi wa ummi (may my mother and father be given in ransom for you)! Shoot, O Sa'd, shoot!" Ali RA said he never heard the Prophet ﷺ say these words to anyone else. However, al-Zubayr RA reports that the Prophet ﷺ said the same to him at Qurayzah. An attacker reached Talha and cut off several of his fingers, and Talha cried out in pain. The Prophet ﷺ told him that if he had said "Bismillah" instead, the angels would have lifted him up in front of everyone. Qatada ibn al-Nu'man al-Awsi RA took up the Prophet ﷺ's bow and shot with it until it broke. His eye was struck so badly that it hung down on his cheek. The Prophet ﷺ put it back in place with his hand, and it became the better and sharper of his two eyes (Ibn Ishaq). During this same period the Prophet ﷺ was wounded several times. Utbah ibn Abi Waqqas threw a stone that broke his lower right incisor and injured his lip. Abdullah ibn Shihab al-Zuhri wounded his forehead. Ibn Qami'ah struck his cheekbone and drove two rings of his helmet into his cheek. This account is from Ibn Hisham, on the authority of Abu Sa'id al-Khudri RA. Other reports describe the wounds differently. In them, an arrow shot by Utbah passed through his cheek and knocked out a tooth, and a sword blow from Ibn Qami'ah or Abdullah ibn Shihab drove his helmet into his cheekbone. With blood streaming down his face, the Prophet ﷺ was heard to say, "How can a people succeed who have wounded their own Prophet ﷺ while he called them to their Lord?" Sa'd ibn Abi Waqqas RA later said that he saw two men dressed in brilliant white fighting fiercely at the Prophet ﷺ's side that day. He had never seen them before and never saw them again. Around the same time, Ubay ibn Khalaf charged straight at the Prophet ﷺ. Ubay was a Makkan who had long vowed to kill the Prophet ﷺ, and he had been fattening a horse for that purpose. Back then, the Prophet ﷺ had replied that he would be the one to kill Ubay instead. Now he reminded Ubay of that reply. He took a spear from a companion and struck Ubay in the neck. The wound looked minor, but Ubay himself insisted it would kill him. He died on the road home, before he reached Makkah. Ibn Qami'ah cut down Mus'ab ibn Umayr RA and thought he had killed the Prophet ﷺ. He shouted that Muhammad ﷺ was dead. The false news spread quickly and broke the spirit of part of the Muslim line. Some of them simply sat down in the middle of the battle. Anas ibn al-Nadr RA rallied a group of them back into the fight. He asked them what they would do with life after the Prophet ﷺ, and told them to die as he had died. Anas fought on until he was killed. His body was so disfigured that no one could recognise him, until his sister identified him by the tips of his fingers. Ka'b ibn Malik RA was the first to recognise the Prophet ﷺ, by his eyes. He was about to announce that the Prophet ﷺ was alive. The Prophet ﷺ signalled to him to stay silent, so as not to give away his position. A later report adds that the two of them exchanged armour. Abu Bakr RA, Umar ibn al-Khattab RA, Ali ibn Abi Talib RA, Zubayr ibn al-Awwam RA and Abu Ubaydah ibn al-Jarrah RA fought their way back to him. They found the two rings of his helmet still stuck in his cheek. Abu Ubaydah did not want to risk hurting him further with his hands. It is reported that he pulled each ring out with his own teeth instead, and lost a tooth each time. As the fighting died down, Abu Sufyan called out from a distance. He asked whether Muhammad ﷺ was still alive. Then he asked about Abu Bakr RA and Umar RA. The Prophet ﷺ told the Muslims not to answer him. Then Abu Sufyan declared victory and gave the credit to the idol Hubal. This time the Prophet ﷺ had the Muslims reply, "Allah is mightier and more worthy of honour." He stayed silent about his own survival, but he would not let shirk against Allah go unanswered. Abu Sufyan swore that the two sides would meet again the next year at Badr, and the Quraysh withdrew. Afterwards the Prophet ﷺ walked over the battlefield. He found the body of his uncle, Hamzah ibn Abdul Muttalib RA, mutilated by Hind bint Utbah RA. Her father and brother had been killed at Badr, and in revenge she had cut open Hamzah's stomach and taken his liver. The Prophet ﷺ wept. He vowed to mutilate thirty bodies of the Quraysh in return. Then Allah revealed Qur'an 16:126, which limits retaliation to no more than what was suffered. After that, the Prophet ﷺ forbade mutilation completely. On the way back, Hamnah bint Jahsh RA met the army. She was told, one after another, of the deaths of her brother Abdullah, her uncle Hamzah RA and her husband Mus'ab ibn Umayr RA. Wailing for the dead broke out across Madinah. When the Prophet ﷺ heard it, he allowed it once for Hamzah RA's sake. After that he forbade it as a general rule. The martyrs were reported to number around seventy, most of them Ansar. They were buried two, three or four to a grave, in the clothes they had died in, without being washed. The Prophet ﷺ instructed that whoever had memorised the most Qur'an should be placed in the grave first. According to Jabir RA's report in al-Bukhari, no funeral prayer was said over them. A report from Ibn Abbas RA in Ibn Ishaq says that the Prophet ﷺ did pray over Hamzah RA and the others. Only one prisoner was taken in the whole battle, Abu Azzah al-Jumahi. He had earlier been pardoned on condition that he never fight the Muslims again. Because he broke that condition, he was executed. Before all this, the Prophet ﷺ had sent Ali ibn Abi Talib RA to follow the Quraysh. Ali RA found them riding their camels and leading their horses, a sign that they were heading back to Makkah. The next morning, Sunday the 16th, the Prophet ﷺ called out the men who had fought the day before, wounded as they were. He led them to Hamra al-Asad, about eight miles from Madinah. They stayed there on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. At some point before or during this period, the Prophet ﷺ told the Companions about a dream. Accounts differ on exactly when he told it. He said, "I saw in a dream that I had struck with my sword, but my sword broke, and this is what afflicted the Muslims at Uhud. Then I hit it again, and it came back as good as it ever was, and this was the victory that Allah gave to the Muslims and the coming together of the believers." He went on, "I saw cows, and Allah is good, and this was the believers on the Day of Uhud." In a version in the Musnad of Imam Ahmad, he also saw himself wearing protective armour, which he took to mean Madinah itself.

Ubay ibn Khalaf was a man of the Quraysh who had mocked the Prophet ﷺ for years in Makkah and vowed to kill him. At Uhud he charged at the Prophet ﷺ on his horse. The Prophet ﷺ took a spear from one of his companions, dodged Ubay's blow and pierced his armour at the neck. Ubay's companions carried him off and told him the wound would heal. He insisted that it was a fatal wound. He died before reaching Makkah, in the valley of Sarif.

After the setback at Uhud, there were a number of small skirmishes. In one of them, the Prophet ﷺ sent 150 Muslims to attack and subdue a small group of the Banu Asad. Their leader was Tulayha al-Asadi.

Around 4 AH, a chieftain of Najd (the highlands of north-central Arabia) named Abu Bara Amir ibn Malik stayed in Madinah for a while. He did not accept Islam, but he was impressed by it. He asked the Prophet ﷺ to send Companions to call the people of Najd to Islam, and he promised them his protection. The Prophet ﷺ chose 70 of the best reciters of the Qur'an and preachers. Most of them were Ahl al-Suffa, the poor Companions who lived at the Prophet ﷺ's mosque and devoted themselves to worship and learning. When the 70 reached the Well of Bir Ma'una, they sent Haram ibn Milhan with a letter to Amir ibn al-Tufayl, the arrogant chieftain of a local tribe. Amir signalled to one of his men, who speared Haram from behind. Killing a messenger who also had protection was a grave betrayal. Amir then called on the tribes to help him kill the rest. Many refused because of Abu Bara's protection. But three clans, Asiya, Ra'l and Dhakwan, agreed. About 400 to 500 men surrounded the Companions, who had not come prepared for battle, and killed them. Three men were not killed in that attack. Ka'b ibn Zayd was wounded and lay unconscious under the bodies of the martyrs, so the attackers did not see that he was alive. Amr ibn Umayyah and al-Mundhir ibn Muhammad had been away from the camp on an errand. When they returned, they saw vultures circling. Amr wanted to go back and tell the Prophet ﷺ. Al-Mundhir would not leave the place where his companions had died. Both went in and were captured. Al-Mundhir was killed, and Amr was set free. On his way home, Amr met two men from Amir ibn al-Tufayl's tribe and killed them while they slept. He did not know that the Prophet ﷺ had given them protection. Amr then brought the news of the massacre to Madinah. According to a report in al-Waqidi, the Prophet ﷺ heard of this and of the massacre at al-Raji on the same night. He was deeply grieved. For a whole month he made a special supplication (qunut) in every one of the five daily prayers. He prayed for the martyrs and against the four tribes responsible: Asiya, Ra'l, Dhakwan and Banu Lahyan.

When the qibla changed, the front of the Prophet ﷺ's mosque became its back. He ordered that this old front be covered with a shade of palm branches. The roof was not yet waterproof, but it served a purpose. At first, every emigrant from Makkah had been taken in by an Ansari household in Madinah, which looked after him until he could stand on his own feet. But the emigrants and new converts kept coming, until the households could take no more. So around Ramadan of the second year after the Hijrah, the time of Badr, the newcomers were given this shaded area at the back of the mosque as a public shelter. It was called the Suffa, and the people who lived there were called Ahl al-Suffa, the People of the Suffa. Sometimes there were five or ten of them, and at other times up to seventy. They were among the best of the Companions in memorizing the Qur'an, in night prayer and in learning. They had given up everything to live in the mosque. The most famous of them was Abu Hurairah, of the tribe of Daws. Emigrants such as Abu Dharr, Suhayb, Bilal and Ibn Mas'ud lived there too. Even some of the Ansar, such as Hanzala and Ka'b ibn Malik, left their own homes to join them. The People of the Suffa were desperately poor. Some had so little clothing that the Prophet ﷺ told the women in the congregation not to raise their heads from prostration too quickly. Many went two days at a time without food, and some would collapse from weakness when he came in to lead the prayer. Anything given to him in charity went to them, and he shared any gift of food with them. He would often ask a Companion to take some of them home for supper. Sa'd ibn Ubadah sometimes hosted as many as eighty of them at once. They were always on the Prophet ﷺ's mind. When his grandson Hasan was born, he told his daughter Fatima to give charity to the People of the Suffa. Years later, Fatima asked him for one servant from a group of prisoners of war to help with her housework. He told her he could not give her a servant while the People of the Suffa were starving, and he swore he would sell the prisoners and spend the money on them. Abu Hurairah later admitted something about those days. He would stop a Companion leaving the mosque and ask him a question he already knew the answer to. He did this only to keep the man talking until they reached his door, in the hope of being invited in to eat. Abu Hurairah also told this story. One day the Prophet ﷺ saw that he was faint with hunger and took him home. He asked his wife Aisha whether there was anything to eat, and she said a neighbour had sent a cup of milk. Abu Hurairah was delighted, but the Prophet ﷺ then told him to go and call the People of the Suffa. Thirty or forty of them came. The Prophet ﷺ handed Abu Hurairah the cup and told him to pass it to each of them. Every man drank his fill, while Abu Hurairah wondered what would be left for him. In the end only he and the Prophet ﷺ remained. The Prophet ﷺ told him to sit and drink. He drank, and the cup was as full as when it started. The Prophet ﷺ told him to drink again and again, until Abu Hurairah swore he had no room left. Then the Prophet ﷺ took the cup and drank last. Later, a rope was strung between two of the Suffa's pillars. Dates were hung on it so that the poor could eat without having to ask. This custom survived in the mosque for about thirteen centuries. Abu Hurairah came to Madinah late, after Khaybar, yet he narrated more hadith than anyone. When people complained that he narrated too much, he explained why. The emigrants were busy trading in the market, and the Ansar were busy working their fields. He, meanwhile, stayed at the Prophet ﷺ's side with an empty stomach, and so he memorized what they did not. He was not a poor man by background, but he chose the Suffa to be near the Prophet ﷺ and learn from him.

As a young child, Abdullah ibn Busr RA was present when the Prophet ﷺ visited his parents' house. His father gave the Prophet ﷺ a worn-out rug to sit on, and his mother sent hais (a dried date-and-flour cake) with young Abdullah to serve him. The Prophet ﷺ turned to the boy, rubbed his head, and told him, "This child shall live for a century." Abdullah ibn Busr later narrated this hadith as an old man of 95 in Damascus, one of the last of the sahaba still alive, and died exactly five years later, at the age of 100, while performing wudu.

Khalid ibn Sufyan al-Hudhali, the chieftain of the large Bedouin tribe of Hudhayl, began gathering an army to launch a surprise attack on Madinah. When the Prophet ﷺ heard of this, he decided to strike first. He sent just one man, Abdullah ibn Unays al-Juhani, to kill the chieftain. The Prophet ﷺ told Abdullah that he would find Khalid in the Valley of Arana. Abdullah asked what Khalid looked like. The Prophet ﷺ replied, "When you see him, you shall feel more terrified than you have ever been at anybody's appearance." The Prophet ﷺ had never seen Khalid, so this knowledge came from Allah. Abdullah found Khalid in the valley, and his appearance terrified him just as he had been told. It was the time of the midday (Zuhr) prayer, and Abdullah did not want to miss it. So he prayed while walking, making the movements with his head. This was a form of what was later called the Prayer of Fear (Salat al-Khawf). Abdullah approached Khalid, who had only a few men with him. He asked whether Khalid was gathering an army and offered to join it. This was a ruse, and when the moment was right, he killed him.

Abu Salama Abdullah ibn Abd al-Asad RA was a cousin of the Prophet ﷺ through his mother. He was married to Umm Salama RA, and the two had a strong and loving marriage. Abu Salama RA was badly wounded at the Battle of Uhud, and he died of his wounds a few months later. As he lay dying, Umm Salama RA suggested that they promise each other not to remarry, so that they would be reunited in Jannah. He asked whether she would obey him, and she said she would. He then told her to marry again after his death. He also made du'a that Allah would give her a husband better than himself, who would care for her and never harm her. Some time before this, Abu Salama RA had come home delighted with a hadith he had heard from the Prophet ﷺ. It said that anyone struck by a calamity who is patient and recites the du'a "Inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi raji'un..." will be rewarded and given something better in its place. When Abu Salama RA died, Umm Salama RA recited this du'a herself.

Zaynab bint Khuzayma al-Hilaliyah was not of the Quraysh but of the Banu Hilal of Najd. Even before Islam she was known as Umm al-Masakin, "Mother of the Poor", because she cared for the poor and for orphans. According to one report, her husband was Ubaydah ibn al-Harith. He was one of the three Muslims who fought in the single combat that opened the Battle of Badr. His leg was cut off, and he later died of the wound. After her husband's death, the Prophet ﷺ married her, probably around the 3rd year after the Hijrah.

In Muharram of 4 AH, a Muslim sent by the Prophet ﷺ killed Khalid ibn Sufyan, a chieftain of the tribe of Hudhayl who had been gathering men to attack Madinah. Hudhayl wanted revenge. They paid two other tribes, Udal and al-Qara, to set a trap. Men of these tribes would pretend to accept Islam, go to Madinah, and ask the Prophet ﷺ to send them teachers of the Qur'an and the religion. The plan worked. Around ten Companions volunteered, led by Asim ibn Thabit. When they reached the Well of al-Raji, 100 warriors ambushed them. The Companions climbed to the top of a hill and fought back with their bows and arrows. They held out until Asim and most of the others were killed. The attackers then promised the last three men safety if they came down. These were Khubayb ibn Adi, Zayd ibn al-Dathinah and Abdullah ibn Tariq. As soon as they surrendered, they were tied up. Abdullah ibn Tariq said that this was the first sign of treachery, and he refused to go along as a prisoner. They killed him on the spot. Khubayb and Zayd were taken to Makkah and sold to men who wanted revenge for the battle of Badr. Khubayb was bought by Banu al-Harith, because he had killed one of their men at Badr. Zayd was bought by Safwan ibn Umayyah, because Zayd had been among those who killed Safwan's father, Umayyah ibn Khalaf, at Badr. Both men were executed soon afterwards.

Shortly after the Battle of Uhud, a companion who was drunk led the prayer and made serious mistakes in his recitation. Allah then revealed Surah al-Nisa, verse 43, which forbade believers from coming to the prayer while drunk.

In the early years in Madinah, the Prophet ﷺ gave his khutbah (sermon) standing on a tree stump. When the mosque was first built, the Companions had cut down the trees on the site and left one stump for this purpose. It was large enough that he once led the prayer on it to show the Ansar how to pray, stepping down for the prostrations. Because no one can choose where a tree grows, the stump stood toward one side of the mosque. As money came in, a Companion suggested building a proper pulpit. One of the women of the Ansar had a servant who was trained as a carpenter. He built a minbar (pulpit) with three steps, and it was placed in the middle of the mosque. The first time the Prophet ﷺ gave the khutbah from the new minbar, the mosque was packed with over 1,000 people. The Companions heard a wailing like the cry of a baby camel, and they found that it came from the old stump. The Prophet ﷺ stopped the khutbah, came down from the minbar, and hugged the stump. He patted it until it stopped crying. He then had the stump buried beneath his new minbar.

A group of Jews came to the Prophet ﷺ and asked to see him, and he let them in. They greeted him with a play on words. Instead of the Muslim greeting "as-salamu alaykum" ("peace be upon you"), they said "as-samu alaykum" ("death be upon you"). Aisha RA heard this and answered them sharply, wishing death and a curse upon them. The Prophet ﷺ told her that Allah loves gentleness in every matter. After the men left, Aisha asked him whether he had not heard what they said. He replied that he had answered them only with "wa alaykum" ("and upon you"), without cursing them back.

In Safar of 4 AH, the Muslims suffered two massacres, at al-Raji and at Bir Ma'una. Amr ibn Umayyah RA, the only survivor of Bir Ma'una, killed two men on his way home, thinking they belonged to the guilty tribe. In fact they were innocent, so the Prophet ﷺ agreed to pay their blood money. This came to 200 camels, a huge sum. Under the Constitution of Madinah, a burden that fell on the whole city was to be shared by all its tribes. The Banu Nadir were a wealthy Jewish tribe living south of Madinah. Relations with them were already tense. The Musannaf of Abd al-Razzaq reports that some of them had plotted to murder the People of the Suffa, a group of companions devoted to learning, but the plot was exposed in time. Musa ibn Uqba, an early historian, records that they had helped the Quraysh at the Battle of Uhud with supplies and knowledge of the land. One of their chieftains, Ka'b ibn al-Ashraf, had also been killed for his open hostility to the Muslims. Even so, the Prophet ﷺ went to the Banu Nadir with Abu Bakr RA, Umar RA and others to ask for their share of the blood money. The leaders welcomed them and asked them to wait outside their fortress while they went inside. According to one report, they said they wanted to prepare a feast for their guests. Inside, one leader suggested dropping a rock from the top of the wall onto the Prophet ﷺ. Another warned that this would cause a serious backlash, but in the end the plan was approved. Before they could carry it out, the Prophet ﷺ suddenly stood up and walked back to Madinah without saying a word. His companions did not understand why he had left. They waited a long time for him to return, and finally went back to Madinah themselves. There the Prophet ﷺ explained that Jibril AS had come to him and told him to get up and leave at once.

The day after the Battle of Uhud, the Prophet ﷺ worried that the retreating Quraysh army might turn back to finish off the Muslims. He called for volunteers to follow them. He allowed only those who had fought at Uhud to go, which left out the 300 who had turned back with Abdullah ibn Ubayy before the battle. About 70 Companions volunteered, led by Ali ibn Abi Talib. They marched out and camped at Hamra al-Asad. The Prophet ﷺ joined them the next day. They stayed there for three days to make sure the Quraysh did not return, and then went back to Madinah.

Around the time of the Banu Nadir affair, if not slightly before, the Prophet ﷺ commanded Zayd ibn Thabit RA to learn Hebrew, wanting someone trustworthy to know the language. Zayd was chosen because he was young and sharp-minded, and because he had grown up around Jewish neighbors and already had some background in the language, having reportedly attended their schools.

One night in Madinah, people heard a loud commotion outside. They did not know what it was, so they came out cautiously to see. They found that the Prophet ﷺ had already gone toward the sound alone. He had found the horse of Abu Talha RA, and he was riding it back without a saddle, with his sword hanging around his neck. He was coming back to reassure the people of Madinah that there was nothing to fear.

At the end of the Battle of Uhud, Abu Sufyan had called out that the two sides would meet again one year later at Badr. In Sha'ban of the 4th year of the Hijrah, the Prophet ﷺ marched out with around 1,500 sahaba, with Ali ibn Abi Talib RA as flag bearer. They camped at Badr for over a week, waiting for the Quraysh. The Quraysh had in fact gathered an army of about 2,000 and marched out, but their hearts were not in it. After much argument they turned back without a fight, saying it had been a year of drought and hardship.

The sources disagree about when Dhat al-Riqa took place. Ibn Ishaq places it in Sha'ban of the fourth year, straight after the meeting at Badr that the Quraysh failed to turn up for. Al-Bukhari places it after Khaybar. The strongest evidence for the earlier date is the story of Jabir, told below. In it, Jabir has just married after his father's death at Uhud, and the Prophet ﷺ does not know about the marriage yet. News had come that Ghatafan meant to attack first. Ghatafan were a large Bedouin tribe to the north, known for raiding. The Prophet ﷺ marched out with seven hundred men. For a week or two the two sides camped within sight of each other. But Ghatafan never advanced, and no blow was struck. The expedition is remembered for four things that happened around it. The first is the prayer of fear. It was here that Allah revealed, in Surah al-Nisa, how to perform Salat al-Khawf. The imam prays the whole prayer, while the army prays in two shifts. One line stands guard with its weapons while the other line prostrates, and then they change places. This way the enemy never finds all of them with their backs turned. The second happened on the way home. It was high summer. In the late morning the sun became unbearable, so the army spread out to find whatever shade the valley offered, and they slept. The Prophet ﷺ slept under a tree, with his sword hanging from a branch. A Bedouin of Ghatafan named Ghawrath ibn al-Harith had been secretly following the army. He walked through the sleeping camp, took the sword down and drew it. Then he woke the Prophet ﷺ with the blade in his face. Ghawrath asked him whether he was afraid of him. The Prophet ﷺ said no. Ghawrath asked whether he was really not afraid, when Ghawrath was the one holding the sword. Again the Prophet ﷺ said no. In another telling, Ghawrath asked who would protect him now, and the Prophet ﷺ answered, "Allah." At that word the man began to shake, and the sword fell from his hand. The Prophet ﷺ picked it up, turned it on him, and asked who would protect him now. Ghawrath asked the Prophet ﷺ to be the better of the two men who had held the sword. The Prophet ﷺ asked him to testify that there is no god but Allah and that Muhammad ﷺ is His Messenger ﷺ. Ghawrath refused. But he swore that he would never again fight the Prophet ﷺ, or help anyone who did. Only then did the Prophet ﷺ call out for the Companions. In Jabir's words, they woke to his voice and found him holding his sword at the Bedouin's neck. He let the man go. Ghawrath went back to his people and told them he had come from the best of men. The third happened that night. Ammar ibn Yasir and Abbad ibn Bishr were posted to keep watch for Ghatafan. Abbad took the first watch and stood up to pray. An archer from Ghatafan shot an arrow into him. Abbad pulled it out and carried on praying. A second arrow hit him, and he pulled that out too. Only when he felt he was about to faint did he wake Ammar. Ammar saw the blood and asked why he had not stopped praying. Abbad said he had been reciting a surah, said to have been Surah Yusuf, and had not wanted to leave it. He said that if it were not for the duty the Prophet ﷺ had given him, he would rather have died than stop. The fourth story is Jabir's. On the road back, his camel was the oldest and weakest in the army, and it left him trailing at the back. He rode alone with his worries. His father, Abdullah ibn Amr ibn Haram, had been killed at Uhud. His debts were unpaid. He had seven sisters to feed and no brother to help. Then a voice asked who was there at the back. It was the Prophet ﷺ. The Prophet ﷺ asked Jabir why he was so downcast, and heard the whole story. Then he asked whether Jabir had married. Jabir said he had. The Prophet ﷺ asked whether he had married a young girl or a widow. Jabir said a widow. The Prophet ﷺ asked why he had not married a young girl he could play and laugh with. Jabir answered that he had wanted someone to look after his sisters, not one more person for him to look after. The Prophet ﷺ told him he had done the right thing. Then the Prophet ﷺ had Jabir get down, and he mounted the old camel himself. He struck it, saying "Bismillah." Jabir watched it become the fastest camel he had ever seen. It raced ahead until Jabir, riding it, caught up with the Prophet ﷺ. The Prophet ﷺ at once asked to buy it. Jabir refused. Then he offered it as a gift. The Prophet ﷺ again told him to sell it. The bargaining went from one dirham up to forty. Jabir made one condition, that he could ride the camel home first. The Prophet ﷺ told Jabir not to burst in on his wife at night. Instead, he should let the crier announce the army's return, so that she could get ready for him. The next morning in the mosque, the Prophet ﷺ asked Jabir whether he had prayed two rak'at. He told Bilal to weigh out the forty dirhams and add some more. As Jabir turned to leave, the Prophet ﷺ called him back and told him he had forgotten his camel. Jabir said he had sold it. The Prophet ﷺ said, "O Jabir, did you think I will cheat you out of your camel? Take the money and take your camel!" Ibn Hajar said that a hundred lessons could be drawn from this story. Jurists cite it in rulings on bargaining and on conditions in a sale. But what it shows first is the care that noticed one grieving young man at the back of an army of seven hundred.

The Banu Nadir were one of the Jewish tribes of Madinah. When the Prophet ﷺ visited them, some of their leaders plotted to kill him by dropping a rock on him while he waited outside their fortress. After he learned of the plot, he sent Muhammad ibn Maslamah RA to them with an ultimatum. They had ten days to leave Madinah, and anyone still found there after that would be put to death. Abdullah ibn Ubayy ibn Salul was a powerful chieftain among the Arabs of Madinah, the Aws and Khazraj, and an old ally of the Banu Nadir. He secretly sent them a message promising his full support. He said 2,000 of his allies from Ghatafan would come to defend them. He vowed to fight alongside them, or to go into exile with them if they were expelled. The Banu Nadir argued among themselves about what to do. Their chieftain Huyayy ibn Akhtab trusted Ibn Ubayy's promises and wanted to stand firm. Many of his people disagreed, but Huyayy won the argument. They sent word to the Prophet ﷺ that they would stay. That same day, the Prophet ﷺ marched about 700 Muslims to their fortresses and laid siege to them. During the siege, the Prophet ﷺ went with most of his men to the Banu Qurayza, another Jewish tribe of Madinah. He asked them to renew their oaths under the Constitution of Madinah. They agreed to keep the treaty and not to help the Banu Nadir. Meanwhile, Abdullah ibn Ubayy never sent any help. The siege lasted seven to ten days, without any real fighting. To break the Banu Nadir's resolve, the Prophet ﷺ had some of their prized date palms cut down and burned. This distressed them greatly. It also troubled some of the Companions, until the Qur'an confirmed that it had been done by Allah's will. With no help coming, the Banu Nadir surrendered unconditionally. The Prophet ﷺ spared their lives and let them go into exile with as much as their camels could carry. The only thing they could not take was weapons. Out of spite, many of them hacked down their own houses rather than leave them for the Muslims. Two or three of them accepted Islam and were allowed to stay with their property. The land, orchards and goods left behind were fay', property gained without fighting. The Prophet ﷺ gave it mainly to the emigrants from Makkah (the Muhajirun) who had no land. Until then the Ansar of Madinah had been supporting them, so this made the two groups more equal. According to Ibn Ishaq, three landless men of the Ansar who had fought in several battles also received a share.

Zahir ibn Haram RA was a simple, sincere companion whom the Prophet ﷺ loved dearly, though little else is known about him. Once the Prophet ﷺ saw him in the marketplace, calling out for buyers for the goods he was selling. The Prophet ﷺ came up quietly from behind and gave him a bear-hug. Then, as a joke, he called out, "Who is going to buy this abd from me?" In the marketplace the word "abd" meant a slave. But the Prophet ﷺ meant that Zahir was an abd of Allah, a servant of Allah, so even his joke was true.

Hafsa bint Umar RA lost her first husband, Khunays ibn Hudhafah RA, in Madinah. Ibn Sa'd says he died soon after Badr. Ibn Abd al-Barr says he died of wounds he received at Uhud. Her father, Umar ibn al-Khattab RA, felt her loss deeply. When her waiting period was over, he offered her in marriage to Uthman ibn Affan RA, whose wife Ruqayyah, the Prophet ﷺ's daughter, had recently died. Uthman said he did not want to marry just then. Umar RA then offered her to Abu Bakr RA, who gave him no answer at all. Umar RA was hurt by both refusals. Neither man could explain. The Prophet ﷺ had privately mentioned Hafsa RA to them, and they could not reveal his secret. Then the Prophet ﷺ proposed to Hafsa RA himself. Uthman RA later married another daughter of the Prophet ﷺ, Umm Kulthum.

Umm Salama, whose name was Hind bint Abi Umayya al-Makhzumiyah RA, was widowed when her husband Abu Salama RA died of the wounds he received at Uhud. The first man to propose to her afterwards was Abu Bakr RA, and she turned him down. Later the Prophet ﷺ proposed to her. She told him there were three things he should know. She had ghayra, a jealous nature, and he already had wives. She was no longer young. And she had a family of four children. The Prophet ﷺ replied, "As for your ghayra, I will make du'a to Allah, and insha'Allah, it will be removed from your heart. As for your age, I am afflicted with the same calamity as you. And as for your family, they are my family."

During the siege of the Banu Qurayza, the Prophet ﷺ refused every offer the tribe made except unconditional surrender. Then their messenger asked that Abu Lubaba be sent in to them. Abu Lubaba belonged to the Aws, who had been allies of the Banu Qurayza before Islam, and he was a close friend of theirs. They hoped he would speak up for them. He was also a respected Companion, counted among the men of Badr, who had fought at Uhud and in later battles. The Prophet ﷺ sent him in. Ibn Ishaq says that inside the fortress the women and children ran to him, weeping and begging for mercy, and his heart softened. They asked him whether they should surrender. He told them yes, but as he said it he made a gesture at his throat, as if to say that surrender meant death. Abu Lubaba later said that before his feet had even moved from that spot, he knew he had betrayed Allah and His Messenger ﷺ. He had spoken without knowledge, because the Prophet ﷺ had told him nothing about their fate. And at the tensest moment of the siege, he had shown sympathy for the enemy rather than for the Muslims. He left the fortress and walked past the army and the Prophet ﷺ without stopping. He went straight to the Prophet ﷺ's mosque in Madinah and tied himself to one of its pillars. He swore that he would stay tied there until Allah accepted his repentance. He also swore never again to set foot among the Banu Qurayza, where he had disobeyed Allah and His Messenger ﷺ. When the Prophet ﷺ heard what had happened, he said that if Abu Lubaba had come to him, he would have asked Allah to forgive him. But since Abu Lubaba had bound himself by a vow, only Allah could release him. Abu Lubaba stayed tied to the pillar for probably more than a week. Then one morning the Prophet ﷺ woke for the Fajr prayer laughing. His wife Umm Salama prayed that Allah would keep him laughing all his life, and asked him why he was laughing. He told her that Allah had accepted Abu Lubaba's repentance. She asked whether she could go and tell him, and he said she could if she wished. Her house had a door that opened straight onto the mosque, and the verses of hijab had not yet been revealed. So she rushed out and called to Abu Lubaba to rejoice, because Allah had accepted his repentance. The Companions waiting for Fajr came to untie him, but he refused. He wanted the Prophet ﷺ to untie him himself, to be sure his repentance had been accepted. So the Prophet ﷺ came and untied him with his own hands. Two verses are said to have been revealed about him. The first, in Surah al-Anfal, warns the believers not to betray Allah and the Messenger ﷺ, nor the trusts they carry. The second, in Surah al-Tawbah, speaks of others who confessed their sins and mixed a good deed with a bad one, and says that perhaps Allah will forgive them. Ibn Abbas said that whenever Allah says "perhaps" in this way, He will do it. Al-Hasan al-Basri called it the most hopeful verse in the whole Qur'an.

Al-Hasan ibn Ali ibn Abi Talib RA was the first grandson of the Prophet ﷺ, born to Ali RA and Fatima RA. When he was born, the Prophet ﷺ asked Ali RA to show him the baby and asked what he had named him. Ali RA said he had named him "Harb", which means War and was a common name before Islam. The Prophet ﷺ renamed him Hasan, which means Beauty. The Prophet ﷺ gave the adhan (the call to prayer) in Hasan's right ear. He told Fatima RA to shave the baby's hair and give its weight in silver in charity. He then performed the aqiqah, the sacrifice made for a newborn, himself. Out of his happiness and pride, he sacrificed the two sheep and invited the guests.

In the 5th year after the Hijrah, the Prophet ﷺ was giving a sermon when he said, "Soon, a delegation will come to you, and they are the best people from the east." A day or two later, Umar ibn al-Khattab RA was in the marketplace of Madinah when he saw a group of travelers arrive. They were from Abd al-Qays, a tribe from the region of Bahrain whose people were a mix of Christians and pagans. Umar RA rushed to greet them and gave them the good news of what the Prophet ﷺ had said about them. All the delegates hurried off to meet the Prophet ﷺ except the youngest, who became known as Ashaj Abd al-Qays. He stayed behind to bathe, put on good clothes and perfume himself, and only then went to the Prophet ﷺ. The Prophet ﷺ said to him, "O Ashaj, you have two characteristics that Allah and His Messenger love." They were forbearance (al-hilm) and calm deliberation (al-anat). Ashaj asked whether he had developed these himself, and the Prophet ﷺ told him that Allah had placed them in him. The delegates explained that the hostile tribe of Mudar lay between them and Madinah. This meant they could only travel during the Sacred Months, when fighting stopped. They asked to be taught something that would bring them into Paradise and that they could teach their people. The Prophet ﷺ replied, "I command you to have Iman in Allah. And do you know what is Iman in Allah? That you say the shahada, you pray the prayers, you fast Ramadan, and you pay zakat." Iman means faith, and the shahada is the declaration of faith. He did not mention Hajj, because it had not yet been made obligatory. They also said they lived in a cold climate and asked whether they could drink alcohol. The Prophet ﷺ forbade it, listing their different kinds of drink one by one. The tribe is said to have been the first to build a mosque outside the Hejaz, and the first to hold the Friday prayer outside Madinah.

In Jumada al-Awwal of 6 AH, the Prophet ﷺ sent Zayd ibn Harithah RA with 170 men to al-'Is, north of Madinah. Their task was to intercept a caravan of the Quraysh returning from Syria. They captured the whole caravan, with its camels, its goods and its men. One of the prisoners was Abu al-As ibn al-Rabi', the Prophet ﷺ's son-in-law and the husband of his daughter Zaynab. Abu al-As had already been taken prisoner once before, at Badr. The next morning, as the Prophet ﷺ began the Fajr prayer, Zaynab called out from the women's section. She announced that she had given Abu al-As her protection, and asked the Muslims to give him theirs as well. After the prayer, the Prophet ﷺ told the people that he had known nothing of this beforehand. He then declared that any Muslim, even the least of them, can grant protection, and that the Muslims would protect whomever Zaynab had protected. The Prophet ﷺ then spoke to the men who had captured Abu al-As's part of the caravan. He told them they could return it to him if they wished, and that this would be more beloved to him, but that keeping it was their right. The Ansar who held it agreed to give it back. First, though, they urged Abu al-As to accept Islam, saying he could then keep the wealth and stay in Madinah. Abu al-As refused. He said it would be wrong to change his faith and betray a trust for the sake of money. They gave the wealth back to him anyway. The wealth was not his own but the investments of the people of Makkah. Abu al-As took it back to Makkah and returned every last part of it to its owners. Once all his obligations were settled, he declared the shahada in front of the Quraysh, so that no one could say he had become Muslim for money or to save his life. He then returned to Madinah as a Muslim and was reunited with Zaynab.

Sa'd ibn Mu'adh RA was the chieftain of the Aws, one of the two Arab tribes of Madinah. He had been among the earliest people of Madinah to accept Islam, at the hands of Mus'ab ibn Umayr, and his whole clan had followed him into Islam. Ibn Ishaq and Ibn Sa'd describe him as tall, broad-shouldered, fair and handsome, with a full beard. During the Battle of Khandaq, Sa'd came to say goodbye to his mother before going to the front line. Aisha RA was sitting with her, and she remarked how little of his body his armour covered. An arrow later struck him exactly where she had worried, in the upper arm beside the neck. It was shot by Hiban ibn al-Ariqah, one of the enemy. Sa'd then made a du'a. He asked Allah that if the Quraysh would ever fight again, he be kept alive to fight them. If not, he asked to be taken as a martyr, but only after his eyes had been comforted by seeing what became of the Banu Qurayza. They were a Jewish tribe of Madinah who had broken their treaty with the Muslims during the battle. He was carried to the hospital tent of Rufayda al-Aslamiyyah RA, a woman who cared for the wounded. He lay there bleeding through the twenty-five days of the siege of the Banu Qurayza. Then the Prophet ﷺ named him as judge over them. He was brought to them on a mule, since he could not walk, to give his verdict. The Prophet ﷺ said that he had judged with the judgment of Allah from above the seven heavens. Sa'd died a few days later, at the age of thirty-seven. The Prophet ﷺ said that the Throne of Allah shook at his death, and that the angels prayed over him. Scholars explain the shaking either as joy in welcoming him or as anger that he had been killed. When the companions carried his body, they found it strangely light. The Prophet ﷺ told them that seventy thousand angels, who had never come down to the earth before, were carrying it with them. At the grave, the Prophet ﷺ spoke to him, "Jazak'Allahu khayran from the leader of the people. You have fulfilled your promise to Allah, and Allah will fulfill His promise to you." As the body was laid down, the Prophet ﷺ's face changed and he began repeating "subhan Allah." Everyone at al-Baqi' repeated it with him, until he said "Allahu akbar." The companions asked him why. He explained that even this righteous servant had been squeezed once in the grave and then released. This was a man for whom the Throne had shaken and the gates of heaven had opened. If anyone were to be spared that squeeze, it would have been Sa'd. A few years later, the ruler of Bahrain sent the Prophet ﷺ a robe. It was so fine that the companions crowded round to touch it. The Prophet ﷺ told them that Sa'd's handkerchief in Paradise was better than it.

The slander, known as al-ifk, was the last and most painful of three things that happened on the way home from the expedition of al-Muraysi'. That expedition was against the Banu al-Mustaliq, in Sha'ban of 5 AH. Most books of Seerah follow Ibn Ishaq and date it to 6 AH instead. More hypocrites marched with the Muslims on this expedition than on any other. The target was close, there was no harvest to keep men at home, and victory was certain. So Abdullah ibn Ubayy ibn Salul and his followers came along. On the way back, a Muhajir and a man of the Ansar scuffled at a well. The quarrel grew into a stand-off between the two halves of the army. It ended when the Prophet ﷺ condemned the old tribal war cries as rotten. Ibn Ubayy had hoped for a fight. In his tent he said that once they reached Madinah, the honourable would drive out the lowly. A boy, Zayd ibn Arqam RA, reported what Ibn Ubayy had said. Ibn Ubayy swore that he had said no such thing. That morning, Surah al-Munafiqun was revealed, quoting his own words back at him. The Prophet ﷺ then marched the army for twenty hours without stopping, so that the gossip had no time to spread. Ibn Ubayy had been exposed by the Qur'an itself, and he looked for revenge. He found it in the Prophet ﷺ's own household. Aisha RA told the whole story herself, in long narrations in Sahih al-Bukhari that run to several pages. Before a journey, the Prophet ﷺ would draw lots among his wives, and this time her name had come up. The verses about hijab had already been revealed, so she travelled inside a covered seat, called a howdah, on her camel. On the last night before Madinah, the order came to make camp. She walked out beyond the army to relieve herself. On the way back she felt at her neck and found that her necklace of Yemeni onyx had broken. She went back to look for it. While she was searching, the order came to move on. The men who carried her howdah lifted it onto the camel without noticing that she was not inside. Fifty years later she explained why, gently excusing them as she always did. She had been a slight young girl who ate little. The army moved off. She found the necklace under the spot where her camel had knelt, and returned to an empty camp. She was sure they would notice she was missing and come back. So she wrapped herself up and fell asleep. She woke to hear a man saying, "La hawla wa la quwwata illa billah." It was Safwan ibn al-Muattal RA, who had fallen behind the army and slept through its departure. He had seen her before the verses of hijab came, and he recognised her. She covered her face. He said nothing more. He made his camel kneel and turned his back while she climbed on. Then he led the camel on foot until they caught up with the army, which had stopped to rest in the heat of the day. The hypocrites always rode at the back of the column, and Abdullah ibn Ubayy was among them there. That was when the talk began. Out of respect for her, the books of Seerah never record what was said. They simply call it "the slander". Aisha herself heard none of it. She fell ill with a fever when they reached Madinah, and spent a month in bed. She only noticed that the Prophet ﷺ was not as tender with her as usual, and she did not know why. When she recovered, she went out one night with Umm Mistah bint Abi Ruhm RA, her father's cousin. They went to the open ground that people used before houses had their own toilets. Umm Mistah tripped on her cloak and cursed her own son, Mistah RA. Aisha scolded her for cursing a man who had fought at Badr. Umm Mistah asked whether she really had not heard. Then she told her. Aisha went home more ill than before. She asked the Prophet ﷺ's permission to go to her parents. There she asked her mother, Umm Ruman RA, what people were saying. Her mother tried to soften it. She said that a beautiful woman whose husband loves her, and who has co-wives, will always be talked about. Aisha understood that the rumours were real. She wept all night, until she thought her liver would burst. The story had been started by Ibn Ubayy and some of his followers from the Khazraj. Only three believers had repeated it. They were Mistah, the poet Hassan ibn Thabit RA, and Hamnah bint Jahsh. Hamnah was the sister of Zaynab bint Jahsh RA, Aisha's one real rival among the wives. The Prophet ﷺ asked Zaynab herself about Aisha. Zaynab said that she would protect her ears and her eyes, and that she knew nothing but good of Aisha. As Aisha later put it, Zaynab's religion protected her, while her sister was ruined for her sake. Meanwhile, no revelation had come to the Prophet ﷺ for a whole month. He asked the advice of the two young men closest to his household. Usama ibn Zayd RA had been born and raised in his house. He said plainly that the rumour was impossible. Ali ibn Abi Talib RA said that Allah had not limited him to one woman. He also advised him to question Aisha's maidservant, Barirah RA, who would know the truth. Barirah was terrified. The only fault she could find in her mistress was that she sometimes fell asleep while kneading dough and let the family goat eat it. The Prophet ﷺ then stood on the minbar. He asked who would defend him against a man who had hurt him through his own family. He said that he knew nothing but good of his wives, and nothing but good of the man they had named. Sa'd ibn Mu'adh RA, of the Aws, answered first, though some narrations name another young leader of the Aws. He said that if the man was from his own tribe, he would behead him. If the man was from the Khazraj, he only needed the order. Sa'd ibn Ubadah RA, of the Khazraj, was a righteous man. But as Aisha said, the old tribal feeling flared up in him for a moment. He called Sa'd ibn Mu'adh a liar and said he would never dare to do it. Usayd ibn Hudayr RA then called Sa'd ibn Ubadah a hypocrite who was defending hypocrites. The two tribes were on their feet before the Prophet ﷺ calmed them down. While Aisha was still weeping, the Prophet ﷺ came to her at her parents' house. A woman of the Ansar was sitting and weeping with her. He sat down and praised Allah. Then he told Aisha that if she was innocent, Allah would clear her name. If she had slipped, she should ask Allah's forgiveness, because He forgives whoever repents. At once her tears dried up. She asked her mother to answer for her, but her mother did not know what to say. She asked her father, Abu Bakr RA, but he did not know what to say either. So she answered for herself. She used the words of the father of Yusuf, though in her distress she could not remember his name. She said, "Patience is beautiful, and Allah is the One whose help is sought against what you describe" (Qur'an 12:18). Then she turned to face the wall. She had hoped that Allah might show her innocence in a dream. She never imagined that He would reveal Qur'an about her. But before the Prophet ﷺ had even left the room, the signs of revelation came over him. He felt the heaviness, and sweat ran down him on a cold day. When it lifted, he was laughing. He said, "O Aisha, Allah has declared you innocent." The opening passage of Surah al-Nur had been revealed, from 24:11 onwards. It called the affair a lie. It promised the worst of punishments to the man who led it. It set a punishment of eighty lashes for anyone who accuses a chaste woman without four witnesses. It also asked the believers why they had not simply said what Abu Ayyub al-Ansari RA had said. His wife had asked him whether he had heard the rumour. He had answered, "Glory be to You, this is a monstrous slander." Aisha's mother told her to get up and thank the Prophet ﷺ. Aisha said that she would get up and thank only Allah. The three believers who had repeated the story were flogged. The hypocrites who had invented it were left to be judged in the Hereafter. Abu Bakr had been supporting Mistah, a poor relative of his. He swore never to give him another coin. Then a verse was revealed asking whether he did not want Allah to forgive him. So he swore instead to support Mistah for the rest of his life. Before the matter was settled, Safwan had struck Hassan with the flat of his sword for repeating the rumour. The Prophet ﷺ ruled in Hassan's favour, because no man may take the law into his own hands. Then he asked Hassan to forgive Safwan. Hassan forgave him for the Prophet ﷺ's sake, and he was given a garden. Safwan swore that he had never lifted the veil of any woman. He married later, and he died a martyr in the time of Umar RA. When Aisha told the story, she made excuses for everyone in it. She would never allow anyone to speak ill of Hassan in her presence.

On the march home from al-Muraysi', two young men went to fetch water for the caravan. One was from the Ansar, the Muslims native to Madinah. The other was from the Muhajirun, the Muslims who had emigrated from Makkah. On the way they quarrelled, though no one recorded what about, and it turned into a fistfight. The Muhajir called out, "O Muhajirun, come and help me!" The Ansari called out, "O Ansar, come and help me!" Both groups rushed over, each taking the side of its own young man. Tempers flared, the two sides lined up facing each other, and weapons were about to be drawn. The Prophet ﷺ heard the commotion and rushed out of his tent. He asked what was going on, and they told him the story. The Prophet ﷺ said, "Are you going back to the calls of Jahiliyyah? Leave it, for it is muntinah!" Jahiliyyah means the age of ignorance before Islam, and muntinah means rotten or filthy. With that, the quarrel ended.

Uyaynah ibn Hisn was the chieftain of the Banu Fizara, and later one of the leaders of the Ahzab, the confederate armies, at Khandaq. He was a crude Bedouin known for his bad manners. Before the verses of hijab were revealed, he came to Madinah to see whether a treaty could be made, not to accept Islam. He walked straight into the Prophet ﷺ's house without asking permission. When the Prophet ﷺ told him that he should ask before entering, Uyaynah replied that he had never in his life asked such permission. Then he saw Aisha RA and asked who she was. He offered to give the Prophet ﷺ one of his own wives instead, who he claimed was more beautiful. The Prophet ﷺ refused, saying, "Allah has made this haram."

The Muslims had only just returned home from Khandaq, and the Prophet ﷺ had barely set down his sword, when Jibril AS arrived. Jibril said that the angels had not yet put their swords down. He brought Allah's command to march on the Banu Qurayza at once. The Prophet ﷺ sent a crier through Madinah to announce, "Whoever hears must obey! And nobody is allowed to pray Asr except at Banu Qurayza!" The sahaba set out in groups, and some of them were caught by sunset before they arrived. They could not agree whether the order meant they should hurry or should be taken literally. Some prayed Asr where they were. Others delayed it until they reached the Banu Qurayza, and so missed its time. When the Prophet ﷺ was told about this on their arrival, he criticised neither group. A report that he said "both of you have done correctly" is not authentic. But his silence itself became a foundational example for later scholars. It showed how equally qualified mujtahids, scholars able to reason out rulings for themselves, may reach different conclusions without either being blameworthy. This holds even when the conclusions exclude each other, and even though only one of them can match the truth in Allah's sight. Ali ibn Abi Talib RA was the first to reach the massive fortress of the Banu Qurayza. He planted the Prophet ﷺ's flag outside it. The Banu Qurayza were shouting insults at the Prophet ﷺ from the walls. When he arrived, Ali RA tried to steer him away so that he would not hear them. But the Prophet ﷺ set up his camp directly in front of the fortress anyway. He called out, "O group of the Jews! Didn't Allah humiliate you? Hasn't Allah's anger come upon you?" He then called on them to surrender, and they refused. The siege lasted 25 days. Two leaders were inside the fortress. One was Huyayy ibn Akhtab, the exiled leader of the Banu Nadir. He had chosen to stay and face their fate rather than risk the anger of Abu Sufyan. The other was Ka'b ibn Asad, the chieftain of the Banu Qurayza. As their supplies ran low, Ka'b ibn Asad put three choices to his people, one after another. The first was to accept the Prophet ﷺ's message. They all knew, and none of them denied, that he was the very messenger foretold in their own scripture. The second was to kill their own families and make one desperate final attack. The third was to break their own Sabbath and launch a surprise attack on a Saturday. His people refused all three. They refused the last one because they believed Allah would punish them for breaking the Sabbath. Ka'b despaired of them ever making a decision. Twice the Banu Qurayza sent messengers offering to leave with their wealth, as the Banu Nadir had been allowed to do. The Prophet ﷺ refused both offers. He would accept nothing less than unconditional surrender. On the 25th day the Banu Qurayza surrendered. The Aws had been allies of the Banu Qurayza since Jahiliyyah, the time before Islam. They pleaded with the Prophet ﷺ to be as merciful to their ally as he had been to the ally of the Khazraj, the Banu Qaynuqa. The Prophet ﷺ asked the Aws whether they would accept one of their own as judge. When they agreed, he named Sa'd ibn Mu'adh, their own leader, who was dying of the wound he had received at Khandaq. Sa'd ibn Mu'adh RA was carried to the fortress on a mule. All the way there, the Aws pressed him to show mercy. When he arrived, he gave his judgment. The fighting men were to be executed, their property was to be distributed, and their women and children were to be taken captive. The Prophet ﷺ declared that Sa'd had given the very judgment of Allah from above the seven heavens. Trenches were dug on land that belonged to a woman of the Banu Najjar. The men of the Banu Qurayza were executed there in groups. The Seerah sources vary widely on how many died. Ibn Ishaq, the most authoritative of them, gives 600 to 700, and notes that some exaggerate the number to 800 or 900. A hadith in Musnad Imam Ahmad gives around 400. No children were executed. Only one woman was put to death. During the siege she had killed a Muslim by dropping a grinding stone on him from the fortress wall. Some of the Banu Qurayza had already embraced Islam, and they were spared. So was anyone a Muslim vouched for because he owed that man a personal debt of honour. A great deal of booty was taken. According to one report, it included some 1,500 swords, 1,500 shields, 2,000 spears, 300 suits of armour, and large numbers of livestock. According to one version, it was around this time that the shares of ghanima, the spoils of war, were fixed. A rider on horseback received three shares, one for his mount and two for himself. A man on foot received one. A fifth was reserved for the Islamic state, as Surah al-Anfal sets out.

Once, during the Madinan years, the Prophet ﷺ was returning home from a journey when he turned off the road into the wilderness. His companions walked with him without asking why. He came to a grave, sat down beside it and wept until his beard was wet. Many of the companions had never seen him cry like this before. None of them asked a question, but the whole gathering wept with him. It was the grave of his mother, Aminah, who had died at al-Abwa' when he was about six years old.

"Khandaq" means "the trench", and "Ahzab" means "the confederates". The confederates were the coalition of tribes that marched on Madinah in the fifth year after the Hijrah. The whole affair, from the first spade in the ground to the flight of the confederates, lasted around forty days. That was a week or so of digging and close to a month of siege. Even the date of the battle is a matter of scholarly disagreement. Abdullah ibn Umar RA said that he was fourteen at Uhud and was turned away, and that he was fifteen at Khandaq and was allowed through. This led al-Bukhari, al-Zuhri, al-Nawawi and Ibn Hazm to place the battle in 4 AH. However, Ibn Ishaq, Ibn Hisham, al-Tabari and the specialists of the Seerah place it in Shawwal 5 AH. Their reasoning is that the fourth year was taken up by Badr al-Maw'id, and that Sa'd ibn Mu'adh RA is agreed to have died right after Khandaq, in the fifth year. Al-Waqidi and Ibn Sa'd give the month as Dhu al-Qa'dah rather than Shawwal. The instigators were the Banu al-Nadir. They had tried to kill the Prophet ﷺ with a rock. After that they were expelled from Madinah and allowed to take only what their camels could carry. They settled in Khaybar, but they still wanted their date groves back. A delegation of their leaders, among them Sallam ibn Abi al-Huqayq and Huyayy ibn Akhtab, went to the Quraysh in Makkah. They proposed a joint attack and offered money and food on top. The Quraysh seized on the idea. Their trade route to Syria had been all but destroyed, and they had failed to show up at Badr al-Maw'id. Abu Sufyan asked the Jewish delegation which religion was closer to their own, that of the Quraysh or that of Muhammad ﷺ. The delegation answered that the pagans were the better guided. The Qur'an quoted their answer back to them in 4:51. With the Quraysh on board, the Banu al-Nadir turned to the Ghatafan, the largest tribe of the north. The Ghatafan had no trade route at stake, so they had to be paid. The price was half of Khaybar's produce for a year, in return for a single battle. The Quraysh, for their part, called in the smaller tribes that had been hurt by the loss of the caravan road. These included the Banu Asad, the Banu Sulaym, the Banu Murrah, Ashja', Kinana and others. Each of them sent men, horses or weapons. Ibn Sa'd counts around 4,000 men and 300 horses from the Quraysh alone. To these he adds 700 from the Banu Sulaym, 1,000 from the Banu Fizara, 400 each from Ashja' and the Banu Murrah, and 700 from the Banu Asad. Ibn Ishaq puts the whole force at some 10,000 men. Against them, the Muslims had at most 2,500 fighting men. Abu Sufyan was the senior commander, but there was no single leader over the whole army, and this weakness would prove fatal. Never before had ten or fifteen Arab tribes marched together under one banner. Arabia was dividing into two camps, the banner of Islam and the banner of disbelief. An army that size cannot gather in secret. When the news reached the Prophet ﷺ, he consulted the Companions, as he had done before Badr and Uhud. Salman al-Farisi RA had recently been freed, and this was his first battle. He proposed a tactic the Arabs had never seen. He explained that back in Persia, people would dig a trench and shelter behind it. The Prophet ﷺ accepted the idea at once. According to Ibn Sa'd, he himself drew the lines to show where the trench should run. According to Ibn Ishaq, the Prophet ﷺ also had the women and children taken up into the forts. One of these was the fort of the Banu Harithah, one of the strongest in Madinah. He was already thinking several steps ahead. Every man would be out on the perimeter, yet the Banu Qurayza still lived inside Madinah, at al-Awali. They had renewed their covenant three times, most recently only months earlier during the Banu al-Nadir affair. Even so, no one could be sure where their loyalty lay. If they turned, the Muslims would be caught between two fronts. The Prophet ﷺ assigned ten men to each stretch of the trench. Its exact course is unknown. The most careful modern estimates put it at around two kilometres long, ten to thirteen feet wide and seven to nine cubits deep. It cut across the one open approach to the city, from the north. Lava fields to the east and west and dense palm groves to the south already made Madinah impassable to an army from those sides. Ibn Sa'd says the digging took six days, while others say a fortnight. It was done by hand, without slaves or machines, in the cold of winter. The men were hungry from the start. Al-Bukhari records that they ate barley mixed with rancid oil. According to Jabir ibn Abdillah RA, they sometimes ate date stones. Anas ibn Malik RA remembered the Prophet ﷺ coming out to the trench on a cold evening and praying for the Ansar and the Muhajirun. Al-Bara' ibn Azib RA remembered him carrying earth until the dust covered his chest. He chanted a rajaz, a short rhythmic verse, together with the men. It ended with the words "when they want fitna, we refuse, we refuse", and every voice rose on the refrain. Jabir saw a stone tied against the Prophet ﷺ's stomach to dull his hunger. Jabir slaughtered the one small goat he owned. The Prophet ﷺ announced the meal to everyone and blessed it. Jabir then watched a pot meant for a handful of people feed the whole trench, around a thousand men, ten at a time. At one point a boulder on the marked line would not break. The Prophet ﷺ took the pickaxe himself and struck it three times, and each strike was greeted with a takbir. He told the men that he had been shown the red palaces of al-Sham, the white pillars of al-Mada'in in Persia and the gates of Sana'a in Yemen. These were three lands the Muslims would conquer within a generation. He also watched Ammar ibn Yasir RA doing the work of two men. He repeated a prophecy he had first made while building the mosque, that the transgressing party would kill Ammar. It was fulfilled decades later at Siffin. The confederates arrived to find a ditch they could not charge across. So they made camp and settled in to starve the city out. Their commanders included Abu Sufyan, Uyaynah ibn Hisn of the Banu Fizara, and Tulayha al-Asadi of the Banu Asad. Uyaynah was a chieftain so coarse that he had once barged into the Prophet ﷺ's house without asking permission. Tulayha would later claim prophethood, and later still he would die a martyr for Islam at al-Qadisiyyah. The Ghatafan were not eager to fight. They sent an envoy to the Muslims with an offer. They said they would go home if the Muslims gave them a third of Madinah's dates. In Ibn Ishaq's version, the offer came the other way. He says that the Prophet ﷺ sent word to the Ghatafan leaders, Uyaynah and al-Harith ibn Awf, and that a document was drafted but never signed. The Prophet ﷺ consulted Sa'd ibn Mu'adh and Sa'd ibn Ubadah RA, the leaders of the Aws and the Khazraj. They asked him whether this was something Allah had ordered, or something he was doing for their sake. He said it was for their sake, because the Arabs had united against them. Sa'd ibn Mu'adh replied that back when they were idolaters, these people had never eaten a date of theirs except as guests or by buying it. Now that Allah had honoured them with Islam, he said, they would give them nothing but the sword. The Prophet ﷺ was pleased with their answer, and the Ghatafan were sent away with nothing. In Ibn Ishaq's version, Sa'd erased the document himself. Ibn Sa'd dates the Prophet ﷺ's move from his house to a tent by the trench to 8 Dhu al-Qa'dah. The Muslims camped facing the ditch, with their backs to Jabal Sila', and were divided into shifts. All night, patrols walked the line shouting the takbir, so that anyone approaching would think it was heavily manned. The Prophet ﷺ took his own turn on watch. Umm Salama RA witnessed al-Muraysi', Khaybar, Hudaybiyyah, the Conquest and Hunayn. She is reported to have said that none of them was as exhausting or as frightening as Khandaq. There is also a story of Sa'd ibn Abi Waqqas RA coming by night in his armour to guard the Prophet ﷺ, so that he could sleep. It is sometimes told as part of the siege. However, Aisha RA's report in al-Bukhari places it on a night after his arrival in Madinah. Then came the blow that changed everything. Huyayy ibn Akhtab slipped into Madinah, a city he had known all his life. He made for the fortress of the Banu Qurayza and their chieftain, Ka'b ibn Asad. At first Ka'b barred the door against him. He said he had a treaty with Muhammad ﷺ and had seen nothing from him but truthfulness. Huyayy shamed him into opening it by accusing him of not wanting to share his food. Huyayy then pressed Ka'b all through the night with promises of oceans of men. He swore that if the confederates left, he would share whatever fate befell the Banu Qurayza. Ka'b told him that he was like a cloud that promised rain but brought only thunder and lightning. Even so, by morning Ka'b had given way, and he tore up the covenant. The Prophet ﷺ sensed that something was wrong and asked for a volunteer to find out. Zubayr ibn al-Awwam RA went. It was on this occasion that the Prophet ﷺ said that every prophet has a disciple, and that his disciple was Zubayr. Zubayr came back convinced that the Banu Qurayza had broken the treaty. But a war is not fought on presumption. So the Prophet ﷺ sent the four Ansar leaders who had been closest to the Banu Qurayza in the old days. They were Sa'd ibn Mu'adh, Sa'd ibn Ubadah, Abdullah ibn Rawahah RA and Khawwat ibn Jubayr RA. He told them that if there had been treachery, they should signal it indirectly, so as not to spread panic. If the treaty still held, they should announce it aloud. The four found the Banu Qurayza foul-mouthed and defiant. The Banu Qurayza denied that there was any Messenger of Allah ﷺ or any treaty. Sa'd ibn Mu'adh, a man with a temper, cursed them, and they cursed him back, until Sa'd ibn Ubadah pulled him away. The envoys brought back a report of just two words, "Adl and al-Qarah". These were the tribes behind the treachery of al-Raji. The Prophet ﷺ answered, "Allahu akbar, good news!" It was a double-edged phrase, and it kept the camp calm. The news spread anyway. The Companions called it the worst night of their lives. There were ten thousand enemies outside the trench and two thousand more inside the city, and their families were in an unguarded fortress. The Qur'an describes that time in 33:10 and 33:11. It says that the enemy came from above them and from below them, that eyes rolled in terror and hearts rose into throats, and that the believers were shaken violently. According to a report not found in Ibn Ishaq, the Prophet ﷺ split his thin patrol. He sent Zayd ibn Harithah RA and Salama ibn Aslam RA with a small group to guard the forts. Around this time, the Banu Qurayza sent scouts to test whether the fortress was defended. Safiyyah bint Abdul Muttalib killed one of them with her own hands. This was the defence of al-Fari'. Meanwhile, the hypocrites asked permission to go home to "protect their families". One of them mocked aloud that Muhammad ﷺ had promised them the treasures of Khosrow and Caesar, yet now none of them dared to go out to relieve himself. For a siege of this size, the fighting was small. At most six or seven Muslims were killed, most of them by arrows, and three or four of the enemy. The Companions counted this as a sign from Allah (47:7). A handful of horsemen did get across at a narrow point. Amr ibn Abd Wud, an elder of the Quraysh famed for his ferocity, had put on a red turban, a known sign that he had come to kill. He called out for a challenger. Ali ibn Abi Talib RA offered to fight him. Amr called out three times. Each time Ali stood up, and each time the Prophet ﷺ held him back, reminding him that this was Amr ibn Abd Wud. The third time, Ali said that he would fight him even if he was Amr, and the Prophet ﷺ let him go. Amr sneered at the idea of fighting a youth, and Ali replied that he had every desire to kill him. Ibn Ishaq says that the dust raised by their horses hid the fight, and that a takbir rang out to announce Ali's victory. Another report says that Amr's blow split Ali's shield, and in the same instant Ali killed him with one stroke to the neck. Nawfal ibn Abdillah rolled down into the trench and was killed. In al-Tabari's report from Ibn Ishaq, it was Ali RA who killed him, while other retellings say it was Zubayr RA. Al-Tirmidhi reports that the Quraysh wanted to buy back Nawfal's body. The Prophet ﷺ refused to take money for it, but he told them to come and take the body and bury it. According to Ibn Ishaq, Ikrimah ibn Abi Jahal fled back across, throwing away his spear. Later reports add Khalid ibn al-Walid as well. Both men were still pagans at the time. The costliest arrow was the one shot by Hiban ibn al-Ariqah. Aisha had watched Sa'd ibn Mu'adh say goodbye to his mother in the fortress, and she had wished aloud that his breastplate covered more of him. The arrow struck him exactly there, cutting the vein of his arm. Sa'd prayed that if the Quraysh were going to fight again, he might live to fight them. If this was the last time, he asked to be taken as a martyr, but not before his eyes had been comforted by what became of the Banu Qurayza. He was moved, bleeding, to the hospital tent of Rufayda al-Aslamiyyah RA. He would live just long enough for that prayer to be answered. On one of those days the fighting was so intense that the Muslims missed the Asr prayer altogether. After sunset, Umar RA came to the Prophet ﷺ to confess it. The Prophet ﷺ answered that he too had not prayed. He cursed the enemy for keeping them from the middle prayer mentioned in Qur'an 2:238. Then he prayed Asr and then Maghrib, in that order. The fiqh of making up missed prayers is derived from that evening. As the siege wore on, the tide was turned by a single man. Nuaym ibn Mas'ud RA was a second-rank noble of the Ghatafan. He had carried messages for Abu Sufyan in the past and had dealt with the Banu Qurayza for years. One night he walked into the Muslim camp and waited for the Prophet ﷺ to finish praying. Then he said that Allah had thrown Islam into his heart, and that he would do whatever he was told. He was the only Muslim in his tribe, and no one knew it. The Prophet ﷺ told him that he was only one man, but that he should do what he could. Nuaym asked whether he was allowed to say whatever he liked. The Prophet ﷺ gave his famous answer that war is khid'a, a ruse. A ruse is not khiyana, the betrayal of a trust. Nuaym went first to the Banu Qurayza. Speaking as an old friend, he advised them not to fight until the Quraysh handed over some of their nobles as hostages. Later accounts give the number as seventy. Otherwise, he warned, the Quraysh could ride away and leave the Banu Qurayza to face the consequences. The next morning he went to Abu Sufyan and warned him, in confidence, that the Banu Qurayza regretted their treachery. He said they had offered Muhammad ﷺ the heads of seventy men of the Quraysh to make amends, and that a request for hostages would be the sign. Then he told his own tribe the same thing. Within hours, Azzal ibn Samuel arrived from the Banu Qurayza. He demanded a date for a joint assault and seventy nobles as a guarantee. Abu Sufyan was hearing exactly what Nuaym had predicted. He sent Azzal away, saying "let me think about it", and then told the Quraysh not to hand anyone over. Nuaym went back to the Banu Qurayza and told them that Abu Sufyan had sworn not to give them even a baby camel. Ka'b ibn Asad began to lament that Huyayy had brought them nothing but ruin, and al-Zubayr ibn Batta saw plainly that if the confederates left, nothing awaited his people but the sword. Abu Sufyan now feared that the Banu Qurayza would switch sides again. He ordered a general attack for the next morning and sent Ikrimah to tell them so. It was Friday, after Asr. The Banu Qurayza answered that the next day was the Sabbath, on which they would not fight. Even on Sunday, they said, they would not move without the seventy hostages. The Quraysh had never lived beside Jews. To them, a day on which one may not fight sounded like an excuse to run to Muhammad ﷺ. Abu Sufyan demanded an explanation from Huyayy. He dismissed the Sabbath as just a day between Sunday and Friday, and he swore by al-Lat and al-Uzza that this was treachery. Huyayy was terrified. He crept away to beg the Banu Qurayza to break the Sabbath just this once, but Ka'b refused in fury. Huyayy was too afraid to go back to Abu Sufyan, so he stayed inside the fortress. That choice would cost him his life. That Friday night the weather broke. The Companions remembered it as the coldest, darkest and windiest night of their lives. It was so black that a man could not see his own fingertips, and the wind roared like thunder. Hudhayfah ibn al-Yaman RA told the story as an old man in Iraq. He was speaking to a young man who boasted of what he would have done if he had been with the Prophet ﷺ. Hudhayfah recalled that the Prophet ﷺ asked three times who would bring him news of the enemy. He promised that whoever went would be his companion on the Day of Judgment. Three times, after a month of siege, no one answered. Then the Prophet ﷺ said, "O Hudhayfah". Hudhayfah admitted that after that he had no choice but to go. He stood up shivering. Yet, as Muslim reports, he felt warm, as if he were walking in a heated bath, until he reached the enemy. The Prophet ﷺ had prayed for his protection from every side, and Hudhayfah said that after that prayer his fear left him. He walked through the storm into the camp of the Quraysh, unrecognised in the dark. He found himself close enough to Abu Sufyan to shoot him, but he remembered his order to stay hidden. Abu Sufyan told every man to check who was sitting beside him. Hudhayfah seized the hand of the man next to him and demanded his name first. Then Abu Sufyan stood up and spoke to the Quraysh. He told them that their horses and camels were dying and that the Banu Qurayza had betrayed them. The wind would not let a pot stand or a fire burn. Whatever the rest of them decided, he said, he was leaving. He untied his camel and rode away, and the Quraysh went with him. Hudhayfah had a second clear shot at him, and again he let him go. Al-Bayhaqi reports that on the way back, Hudhayfah met twenty horsemen with veiled faces. They told him to tell his companion that they had fought on his behalf. These horsemen were the angels. Hudhayfah found the Prophet ﷺ standing in prayer, wrapped in a blanket belonging to one of his wives. He was drawn in under the blanket to warm himself until the prayer ended. Then he gave the news. The Prophet ﷺ had spent the night in supplication against the confederates. He called on Allah as the Sender of the Book, the Swift in reckoning, the Mover of the clouds and the Defeater of the confederates, asking Him to shake them and defeat them. Allah answered with the Saba wind. This is the eastern wind of mercy that gathers rain clouds, not the Dabur wind that destroyed the people of Ad. It broke the confederates' camp but killed none of them, and many of those men would one day become Muslims. The Qur'an speaks of it in 33:9, which mentions a wind and forces you could not see. When the Muslims woke the next morning, the plain was empty and every tent had been overturned. The Prophet ﷺ had barely laid down his armour when Jibril AS came to him. Jibril told him that the angels had not yet laid down theirs. So the army was sent on without pausing, to the fortress of the Banu Qurayza. Sa'd ibn Mu'adh lived long enough to give the judgment on them, and then he died of his wound. Sallam ibn Abi al-Huqayq, who had financed the confederacy, was killed in Khaybar in the months that followed. The Prophet ﷺ had said that from now on, the Muslims would be the ones to march. His words came true at Hudaybiyyah, Khaybar and finally Makkah itself.

A dispute arose between the Prophet ﷺ and Hafsa bint Umar RA; according to one narration he considered divorcing her, and according to another he issued a single talaq. Jibril AS came to the Prophet ﷺ and told him Allah commanded he take her back, for she was sawwama qawwama (one who fasts and prays much) and would be his wife in Jannah. On another occasion of tension between them, her father Umar RA, finding her in tears, warned her that if the Prophet ﷺ divorced her again he would never speak to her again.

Juwayriyya bint al-Harith was the daughter of the chief of the Banu al-Mustaliq. She was taken captive in the fighting at al-Muraysi' and given to Thabit ibn Qays ibn Shammas RA, one of the Ansar. She did not want to remain a captive, so she agreed with Thabit to buy her own freedom. She came to the Prophet ﷺ's door to ask for help with the money. She told him she was the daughter of her tribe's chief, and that she had arranged to free herself from Thabit. The Prophet ﷺ said, "What if I give you something better?" She asked what it was. He said, "I will free you myself and marry you." She agreed, and her freedom became her dowry.

As the Muslim army was returning to Madinah, Abdullah ibn Ubayy had been exposed for saying that once they were back in the city, the honorable would expel the inferior. Allah revealed Surah al-Munafiqun about this. As was the custom, a crier went ahead of the army to announce its return, and the news spread through the city. Abdullah ibn Ubayy's own son, Abdullah ibn Abdullah ibn Ubayy RA, heard the news and went out to meet the Prophet ﷺ before the army arrived. He said he had heard that the Prophet ﷺ was considering executing his father. If someone else were ordered to do it, he feared he would kill that man in anger and so earn Hellfire for killing a Muslim. He therefore offered to carry out the execution himself if the Prophet ﷺ commanded it. The Prophet ﷺ refused. He told the son to be a good companion to his father, and promised to be gentle with Abdullah ibn Ubayy for as long as he lived among them. The son was relieved but still angry with his father. He stood at the gate of Madinah and would not let his father enter until the Prophet ﷺ gave permission.

Sometime before the Treaty of Hudaybiyyah, the Prophet ﷺ sent 300 men under Abu Ubaydah Amir ibn al-Jarrah RA to intercept a caravan of the Quraysh, most likely on its way to Syria. The Quraysh escaped them. As the Muslims gave chase, their supplies ran dangerously low. Abu Ubaydah collected all the food in the army and rationed it, until each man was getting a single date a day. When even that ran out, the companions were forced to eat khabat, the dried, withered leaves of thorn bushes. The expedition is named after these leaves. Eventually they reached the shore at Yanbu, not far from Madinah, and found an enormous whale washed up on the beach. Thirteen or fourteen of the companions could sit together in the socket of its eye. They set one of its bones upright, and Abu Ubaydah rode his largest camel underneath it without lowering his head. The army camped there for a month, living off the whale. They returned to Madinah with the leftover meat and asked the Prophet ﷺ whether it had been allowed to eat an animal they had found already dead. He asked whether any of the meat was left, had it brought to him, and ate from it himself.

The Banu al-Mustaliq were a tribe living by a pool of water called al-Muraysi', between Makkah and Madinah. They were allies of the Quraysh and had fought against the Muslims at Uhud. News came that their chieftain, al-Harith ibn Abi Dirar, was planning a surprise attack on the Muslims. The Prophet ﷺ first sent Buraydah ibn al-Husayb RA to check whether the rumor was true. Buraydah pretended to be a Bedouin who wanted to join the raid for a share of the spoils. Al-Harith confirmed the plan and welcomed him. That night Buraydah slipped away and reported back. The Prophet ﷺ quickly gathered more than 700 Companions, 30 of them on horseback and fully armed. They attacked right after the dawn prayer, taking the tribe completely by surprise. The women were out collecting water and the children were playing outside. The tribe surrendered almost at once. Because a large battle seemed so unlikely, many of the hypocrites (munafiqun) joined this expedition, including their leader Abdullah ibn Ubayy ibn Salul. They had stayed away from both Badr and Uhud.

Al-Harith ibn Abi Dirar was the chieftain of the Banu al-Mustaliq. After the Muslims defeated his tribe, many of its people were taken captive, including his daughter Juwayriyya. Al-Harith himself had fled. Juwayriyya then married the Prophet ﷺ. When the Ansar heard of the marriage, they said they could not keep the Prophet ﷺ's in-laws as captives, and they freed every one of them. Al-Harith knew none of this when he came to Madinah to pay a ransom for his people. He asked for his daughter back. The Prophet ﷺ told him that it was up to Juwayriyya whether she went back with him. She chose of her own free will to stay with the Prophet ﷺ rather than return with her father. Seeing this moved al-Harith so deeply that he embraced Islam.

Decades after Muhammad ﷺ adopted Zayd ibn Harithah RA and he became known as Zayd ibn Muhammad ﷺ, Allah revealed Surah al-Ahzab, verse 5: "Call children by their fathers. That is more just in the Sight of Allah." Abdullah ibn Umar RA later remarked that they had never known Zayd by any name other than Zayd ibn Muhammad ﷺ until this verse came down.

The verses of hijab were revealed around the beginning of Dhu al-Qa'dah in the 5th year after the Hijrah, according to the strongest opinion. Anas ibn Malik RA reports in Sahih al-Bukhari that they came down on the very night of the Prophet ﷺ's marriage to Zaynab bint Jahsh RA.

During the expedition of al-Muraysi', a quarrel between the Ansar (the Muslims of Madinah) and the Muhajirun (the emigrants from Makkah) had just been settled. Abdullah ibn Ubayy ibn Salul, the head of the hypocrites, was angry that it had ended peacefully. In his tent, among his own people, he complained bitterly about the Muhajirun. He said that sheltering and feeding them was like "fattening a dog so it comes back to eat you." He also swore that once they were back in Madinah, "the honorable will expel the inferior." He meant that the people of Madinah would drive the Muhajirun out. A young boy, Zayd ibn Arqam RA, overheard this. He told his uncle, who took him to the Prophet ﷺ. When the Prophet ﷺ confronted Abdullah ibn Ubayy, he swore oath after oath that he had said no such thing. The Prophet ﷺ chose to accept his denial. After Abdullah ibn Ubayy left, Umar ibn al-Khattab RA asked permission to kill him. The Prophet ﷺ refused, because he did not want people to say that he killed his own companions. He then ordered the army to march straight back to Madinah. They marched non-stop for about 20 hours, which kept the gossip from spreading.

Jabir ibn Abdillah RA went with the Prophet ﷺ on a military expedition. On the way, the Prophet ﷺ took Jabir along to help him while he relieved himself, by keeping watch and carrying water. The Prophet ﷺ could find nothing to screen himself with. Then he saw two shrubs standing apart in a valley. He went to one of the shrubs, took hold of it, and said, "Follow me by the permission of Allah." Jabir said the shrub began to follow him along the ground. He did the same with the second shrub. Then he brought the two together and said, "Stick together by the permission of Allah." They joined, and he relieved himself behind them. When he had finished and began walking back towards Jabir, Jabir saw the two shrubs go back to their places.

Zaynab bint Jahsh RA was a cousin of the Prophet ﷺ through her mother. She had been married to his adopted son, Zayd ibn Harithah RA, but the marriage did not work and Zayd divorced her. According to the strongest opinion, the Prophet ﷺ married her at the beginning of Dhu al-Qa'dah in the 5th year after the Hijrah. When her waiting period was over, the Prophet ﷺ sent Zayd himself to tell her of his interest. She said she would not answer until she had prayed istikhara, the prayer for guidance. While she prayed, Allah revealed verse 33:37 of the Qur'an, which says, "We married her to you." There was no guardian, no dowry and no witnesses. It was the only marriage in history contracted by Allah Himself. The same verse gives the reason. It shows that there is no wrong in marrying the former wife of an adopted son, because an adopted son is not a blood relative. The verses of hijab were revealed on the night of this wedding (see Legislation of Hijab). The wedding feast was the most generous the Prophet ﷺ ever gave for any of his wives. He sent Anas ibn Malik RA to invite people, starting with Abu Bakr, Umar, Uthman and Ali. Then Anas invited the poor who lived at the masjid, known as the People of Suffa, then anyone in the masjid or on the road, and anyone he met. Anas thought the small dish of food would feed two or three people, but more than seventy ate from it.

Several rulings of Islamic law date from the time of the campaign against Khaybar. First, eating donkey meat was forbidden, as narrated in Sahih al-Bukhari. Second, a man who had a concubine was not allowed to be intimate with her until she had gone through her monthly cycle (her waiting period, or iddah). Third, temporary marriage (zawaj al-mut'ah) was forbidden for the first time. This was a marriage contracted for a fixed period. All four major Sunni schools of law agree that it is not permitted. Fourth, riba al-fadl was forbidden. This is the bartering of certain staple goods, such as dates, in unequal amounts. The ruling came about when a man brought the Prophet ﷺ a bag of especially fine Khaybar dates. He explained that they bought one measure of these dates for three measures of ordinary dates. Fifth, sharecropping (al-muzara'ah) was allowed. This was the arrangement the Prophet ﷺ made with the people of Khaybar. They kept working the land and paid a share of its produce in return.

In Shawwal of 6 AH, a small expedition (sariyya) of 30 Companions under Muhammad ibn Maslamah RA was sent to al-Qurta' against the tribe of Banu Bakr ibn Kilab. On the way back, they came across a small convoy that seemed suspicious and brought its men back as prisoners. They did not realise who they had captured. One of them was Thumamah ibn Uthal, the chieftain of the Banu Hanifa, one of the largest tribes in Arabia. Thumamah had openly sided with the pagans and had publicly threatened to kill the Prophet ﷺ. The Prophet ﷺ had earlier prayed to Allah to give him control over Thumamah, and he recognised him at once. He ordered that Thumamah be treated with honour. Thumamah was kept tied up in the Prophet ﷺ's masjid for three days and was sent the Prophet ﷺ's own food. Each morning the Prophet ﷺ asked him what he had to say, and each time Thumamah gave the same dignified answer. On the third day the Prophet ﷺ had him released. Thumamah went out, bathed, and soon came back to declare his shahada, the testimony of faith. Thumamah then went on to Makkah to perform the umrah he had been travelling to make, and he openly announced his new faith there. When the Quraysh confronted him, he swore that no grain would reach them from his lands until they followed Islam. He then cut off the grain supply from the Najd, in central Arabia, to the Quraysh. In the end Abu Sufyan wrote to the Prophet ﷺ, appealing to him as a relative. The Prophet ﷺ then wrote to Thumamah asking him to let the supply resume.

The Prophet ﷺ was once wearing a garment with holes in it, when a companion gave him a fine new garment as a gift. He put it on. Then another companion asked the Prophet ﷺ to give him that very garment, and the Prophet ﷺ agreed at once. He went home and came back wearing his old, tattered garment. The other companions criticized the man for asking, since he knew the Prophet ﷺ would never refuse a request. The man explained that he had not asked for it to wear. He wanted to keep it as his kafan (burial shroud), so that the Prophet ﷺ's generosity would be shown before Allah.

The Prophet ﷺ once left the house of his wife Juwayriyya RA to pray Fajr. As he left, she was sitting in her prayer place doing dhikr (the remembrance of Allah). He came back later, in the middle of the day, and found her still sitting in exactly the same place. He asked her, "Have you remained in the same place since Fajr?" She said that she had. Then he said, "Should I not tell you of a dhikr that if you do it, it will give you all of the reward you have done?" He then taught her a short dhikr whose reward equals all the dhikr she had done that morning.

The Prophet ﷺ once spoke to Abu Dharr al-Ghifari RA about wealth. He said, "O Abu Dharr! I would not like to have gold equal to Mount Uhud for me, unless nothing of it, not even a single dinar remains of it with me for more than one day or three days, except that single dinar which I will keep for repaying debts. I will spend all of it among Allah's slaves like this and like this and like this. O Abu Dharr! Those who have much wealth (in this world) will be the least rewarded (in the Hereafter) except those who do like this and like this." By "like this," he meant spending freely in charity. This hadith is narrated in Sahih al-Bukhari. Abu Dharr took this teaching deeply to heart. After the Prophet ﷺ's death, money began to flow in and some companions built larger houses. Abu Dharr openly confronted them about it, and many complained about him. In the end the caliph Uthman ibn Affan RA asked him to leave Madinah. Abu Dharr agreed, and he went to live in the desert with his wife and servant.

In the 6th year of the Hijrah, the Prophet ﷺ had a dream. He saw himself doing tawaf around the Ka'bah in ihram, with his head shaved, completing the full rites of an Umrah. He understood the dream as Allah's command to go to Makkah. He announced his plan to the Muhajirun, the Ansar and the tribes around Madinah. Around 1,400 people set out with him. Most of them were Muhajirun who had not seen Makkah for six years. The Bedouin tribes around Madinah mostly refused to come, preferring to stay with their wealth and families. The Qur'an later exposed this hesitation as an excuse rather than a genuine reason (Qur'an 48:11-12). He set out in Dhu al-Qa'dah. This was one of the sacred months, in which fighting was traditionally forbidden even before Islam, in the Jahiliyyah. Travelling in this month was a deliberate signal that he came in peace. At the miqat of Dhu al-Hulayfah, he prayed two rak'ahs and entered ihram. He also dedicated seventy sacrificial camels, garlanded to mark them as offerings. Even pagan Arabs respected such animals as a sign of piety, as events would later prove. From there, he sent a single scout ahead to see how the Quraysh would react. The scout was Busr ibn Sufyan al-Khuza'i. He came from Khuza'a, a neutral tribe, and the Quraysh did not know him. At Asfan, roughly halfway to Makkah, Busr came back with his report. He said that the Quraysh had armed for war and brought their women with them, as they had at Uhud. They had also sent Khalid ibn al-Walid to block the road at Ghumaym. The Prophet ﷺ was grieved that his own people would rather fight than simply let him pass. He said, "Woe to the Quraysh, war has consumed them." He vowed that he would keep fighting with whatever Allah had sent him "until Allah grants victory or this neck of mine is cut off". At the same time, he made it clear that he did not want war or bloodshed. He asked the sahaba for their advice. Abu Bakr RA advised them to stick to their original purpose. They had come to visit the House of Allah, he said, and should not fight anyone unless they were attacked. The Prophet ﷺ agreed. He set aside his own first inclination, which had been to strike first at the tribes that were backing the Quraysh. Because Khalid was blocking the main road, one of the sahaba guided the army along another route. It ran through a valley of thorns and volcanic rock, and their feet were left bleeding. The Prophet ﷺ compared this passage to the gate that the Israelites had been commanded to enter humbly, in return for forgiveness (Qur'an 2:58). He promised that Allah would forgive everyone who passed through it, except for one man. That man had spent the whole way distracted by a camel he had lost. He replied that finding his camel mattered more to him than forgiveness. His answer showed that he was a hypocrite, marching in a caravan that was otherwise entirely sincere. As night fell, the army came out of the valley and reached the plain of Hudaybiyyah. There, the Prophet ﷺ's camel, Qaswa', suddenly knelt down and would not get up. The sahaba complained that she had turned stubborn. The Prophet ﷺ told them that this was not in her nature. "The One who stopped the Elephant has also stopped her," he said. He made camp where she had stopped. The well at the camp had almost run dry. The Prophet ﷺ rinsed his mouth with its water and returned the water to the well. After a while, the well gave enough water for the whole camp and their animals to drink their fill. This is reported by al-Bara' RA in al-Bukhari. Another report in al-Bukhari says that he sent an arrow down into the well. The Prophet ﷺ expected the terms to be hard. He told the sahaba in advance that he would accept any condition the Quraysh proposed, as long as it did not compromise the sanctity of Allah's symbols. Quraysh scouts soon found the camp, and Khalid's force pulled back toward Makkah. At one point, eighty armed men from Makkah tried to make a surprise raid on the camp from the hills of Tan'im. Ibn Ishaq's report gives their number as forty or fifty. Muslim scouts spotted them first, and they were surrounded and captured. Not a drop of blood was spilled on either side. According to Qur'an 48:24, it was Allah who held back the hands of both sides. Afterwards the Prophet ﷺ forgave all of them and sent them home. The negotiations began with Budayl ibn Warqa' of Khuza'a, a neutral tribe that was sympathetic to the Muslims. Budayl carried the Prophet ﷺ's message back to the Quraysh. The message was that he had come only to honour the House of Allah. He was willing to agree a truce with the Quraysh, and otherwise he was ready to fight. The more hot-headed Quraysh refused even to hear the message. The Quraysh as a whole still would not move. They did not want the Arabs to say that Muhammad ﷺ had got the better of them. Next, Urwah ibn Mas'ud al-Thaqafi volunteered to go. He was a leader of Thaqif with close ties to the Quraysh. He met the Prophet ﷺ in person and accused him of breaking family ties and threatening the sanctity of the Haram. As he spoke, Urwah kept taking hold of the Prophet ﷺ's beard, a customary gesture between equals. Each time, al-Mughira ibn Shu'ba RA, who was guarding the Prophet ﷺ, struck his hand away with the hilt of his sword. Al-Mughira was Urwah's own grand-nephew. Urwah then mocked the loyalty of the Prophet ﷺ's followers, calling them a rootless "hodgepodge". Abu Bakr RA answered him with a curse so sharp that Urwah said he would have replied in kind, if he had not owed Abu Bakr a personal favour. Urwah went back to the Quraysh visibly shaken. He had watched the sahaba compete to catch the Prophet ﷺ's spit and the water he washed with, and lower their voices in his presence. He told the Quraysh that he had visited the courts of Caesar, Kisra and the Najashi. He had never seen a king honoured the way this man was honoured by his own people. He urged the Quraysh to accept the Prophet ﷺ's offer. The Prophet ﷺ then sent Khirash ibn Umayyah of Khuza'a to the Quraysh. As a gesture of goodwill, he sent him riding one of his own well-known camels. The Quraysh responded by hamstringing the camel. They were about to kill Khirash when the Ahabish protected him and let him go (Ibn Ishaq). The Quraysh's own next envoy was al-Hulays ibn Alqama al-Kinani. He came from a tribe that held sacrificial animals sacred. The Prophet ﷺ knew this, so he had the sahaba parade their garlanded camels and sheep in front of him. Al-Hulays never even entered the Muslim camp, because the sight alone was enough for him. He went back to the Quraysh and declared that it was forbidden to keep pilgrims and their offerings away from the House of Allah. The Quraysh mocked him as an ignorant Bedouin. In response, he swore that his own tribal confederation, the Ahabish, would no longer support them. The neutral envoys had now all been tried, so the Prophet ﷺ decided to send a Muslim of standing. Umar ibn al-Khattab RA was famous for his fearlessness, but he asked to be excused. He was not afraid for himself. His hostility toward the Quraysh was well known, and he had no kin in Makkah to protect him. He was therefore likely to be killed before any negotiation could take place. Umar RA suggested Uthman ibn Affan RA instead. Uthman was an Umayyad, related to Abu Sufyan, and this gave him a standing the Quraysh would respect. Uthman entered Makkah under the protection of his cousin Aban ibn Sa'id. He met Abu Sufyan and the leaders of the Quraysh and delivered his message. They told Uthman that he himself could go round the Ka'bah. He refused to do so before the Prophet ﷺ had done it, and so they held him (Ibn Ishaq). Uthman was away longer than expected, and a rumour spread through the camp that he had been killed. The Prophet ﷺ was not willing to leave this unanswered. Beneath a tree at Hudaybiyyah, he called the sahaba to make a fresh pledge of allegiance. In it they committed themselves to fight the Quraysh rather than retreat. The Qur'an later honoured this oath as the moment when "Allah's Hand was over their hands" (Qur'an 48:10). It also recorded Allah's pleasure with those who made it (Qur'an 48:18). Every man present made the pledge except one hypocrite, who hid behind his camel. Uthman was away in Makkah, so the Prophet ﷺ pledged on his behalf. He raised his right hand and said, "This is the hand of Uthman." Then he struck it on his other hand and said, "This is for Uthman" (al-Bukhari). News of the pledge reached Makkah. It seems to have pushed the Quraysh to negotiate seriously at last. Uthman came back to the camp. It is related that the sahaba asked him whether he had managed to do tawaf while he was in the city. He told them that he would never do it before the Prophet ﷺ, even if he had stayed in Makkah for a year. The Quraysh first sent Mikraz ibn Hafs, but he offered nothing workable. Then they sent their most capable negotiator, Suhayl ibn Amr. Suhayl was a senior speaker of the Quraysh. After Badr he had been held as a prisoner in the home of one of the sahaba. Years earlier, Umar RA had wanted to silence him, but the Prophet ﷺ refused to allow it. He told Umar that a day might come when Suhayl would say something that pleased him. When the Prophet ﷺ saw Suhayl approaching, he said to the sahaba, "Suhayl has come; things have been made easy for you." He was reading a good omen in the meaning of Suhayl's name. Suhayl came with a grievance of his own. One of his sons, Abdullah, had already gone over to Madinah years earlier. He had slipped away from the Quraysh's own ranks at Badr. His younger son, Abu Jandal RA, had become a Muslim. Suhayl had kept him in chains and tortured him, and he was still a prisoner back in Makkah. The Prophet ﷺ called for Ali ibn Abi Talib RA to write the treaty. Ali began with "In the name of Allah, the Most Compassionate, the Most Merciful." Suhayl objected that he did not recognise "al-Rahman". He insisted on the old pagan formula, "Bismika Allahumma", instead. The Prophet ﷺ agreed, rather than let the wording block the treaty. Ali then wrote, "This is what Muhammad ﷺ, the Messenger of Allah ﷺ, has agreed with Suhayl ibn Amr." Suhayl objected again. He said that if the Quraysh had believed in that title, they would never have opposed him in the first place. He demanded "Muhammad ibn Abdillah" instead. The Prophet ﷺ told him, "I am the Messenger of Allah ﷺ even if you deny it." Even so, he agreed to the change. Ali RA refused to strike out the words "Messenger of Allah ﷺ" with his own hand. The Prophet ﷺ could not write, so he asked Ali RA to point to the words, and he erased them himself. Suhayl then set out his central condition. Any man of the Quraysh who came over to the Muslims would be sent back, even if he came as a Muslim. But no Muslim would ever be handed over in the other direction. The sahaba objected loudly. Most of them had fled Makkah themselves to find exactly this protection. Reversing it now would shut the door on every future refugee. Before the clause had even been fully written, Abu Jandal RA broke free of his chains. He stumbled into the camp crying out for help, with the marks of torture visible on his body. Suhayl pointed to him as the first person the clause would apply to. The Prophet ﷺ pointed out that the treaty had not yet been written, and asked Suhayl to let him keep Abu Jandal. Suhayl refused outright. Mikraz ibn Hafs said, "We allow you to keep him," but Suhayl would not give way (al-Bukhari). Other reports say that Mikraz took Abu Jandal under his protection so that he would not be tortured again. The Prophet ﷺ told Abu Jandal to be patient, because Allah would make a way out for him. Umar RA was standing near Abu Jandal. Rather than see him sent back, Umar gestured toward his own sword. But Suhayl was still Abu Jandal's father, and Abu Jandal did not take the sword. He was led back to Makkah in chains. After that, the remaining terms were agreed. There would be no Umrah that year, only the next year. There would be a ten-year truce, with no fighting on either side. Both sides were free to make alliances with other tribes, and those tribes would be bound by the same terms. And any Muslim who went back over to the Quraysh would not be returned, unlike in the other direction. Ibn Ishaq names the witnesses as Abu Bakr RA, Umar RA, Abd al-Rahman ibn Awf RA, Abdullah ibn Suhayl RA, Sa'd ibn Abi Waqqas RA, Mahmud ibn Maslamah RA and Mikraz, who was then still a polytheist. Ali RA was the one who wrote the document. As Suhayl left, satisfied, Umar RA confronted the Prophet ﷺ directly. He was voicing what many of the sahaba felt. He asked whether the Prophet ﷺ was not the Messenger of Allah ﷺ. He asked whether the Muslims were not on the truth and their enemies on falsehood. If so, he asked, how could they accept such humiliating terms? The Prophet ﷺ replied, "I am the Messenger of Allah ﷺ, and I will not disobey Allah, and He will help me." Umar RA then asked whether the Prophet ﷺ had not told them that they would go round the House of Allah. The Prophet ﷺ said, "Indeed, I told you. But did I say we will do it this year?" Umar RA admitted that he had not. The Prophet ﷺ told him, "You will do it next year." Umar RA was still not satisfied, so he put the same questions to Abu Bakr RA. Abu Bakr rebuked him sharply. He told Umar to hold fast to the Prophet ﷺ's stirrup rather than question him. Umar RA later said that, because of what he had said that day, he kept on giving charity, fasting, praying and freeing slaves (Ibn Ishaq). It is also reported that, when he was khalifa, he admitted that no other leader could have made him accept such a condition. Once the treaty was written, the Prophet ﷺ told the sahaba to get up, slaughter their sacrificial animals and shave their heads. He said it three times, but not a single person moved. They were too crushed by what had just happened (al-Bukhari). The Prophet ﷺ went back to his tent. He told Umm Salama RA that he had given them a command and no one had obeyed. She advised him to go out and shave his own head first, without saying another word. Once they saw him do it, she said, they would follow. He did exactly that. The sahaba were freed from their paralysis and rushed to shave each other's heads. He made du'a for those who had shaved their heads rather than only trimming their hair. He repeated this du'a three times. On the fourth time, he finally included those who had only trimmed. The sacrificial animals were slaughtered there. Among them was a camel that had belonged to Abu Jahal and had been captured at Badr. It had a silver ring in its nose, and the sight of it enraged the polytheists (Ibn Ishaq). On the march home, Umar RA was still troubled by what had passed between him and the Prophet ﷺ. He rode up hoping to make peace. His greetings went unanswered, and he feared the worst. Then a rider came to call him back. He found the Prophet ﷺ's face lit up with joy as he recited Surah al-Fath, which had been revealed on the way back. It begins, "Indeed, We have granted you a clear triumph" (Qur'an 48:1). Umar RA asked in disbelief whether this really counted as a triumph. The Prophet ﷺ confirmed that it did. Umar RA is said to have ridden the whole length of the column, announcing the victory. The Prophet ﷺ said that this surah was dearer to him than everything the sun shines upon (al-Bukhari). Not long after the return to Madinah, the treaty faced its first real test. Abu Basir was a convert from Thaqif, allied to Banu Zuhrah, and he fled to Madinah. The Prophet ﷺ did not turn him away when he arrived. But then two men of the Quraysh came to invoke the treaty's return clause. The Prophet ﷺ honoured the treaty and sent Abu Basir back with them. On the road, Abu Basir killed one of his two escorts with the man's own sword. The other escort fled back to Madinah in terror. Then Abu Basir himself came back. He insisted that the Prophet ﷺ had fulfilled his obligation, and that it was Allah who had set him free. The Prophet ﷺ did not directly help him any further. Instead, he remarked to the people near him, "What a great warrior he is. If only he had someone else to help him." Abu Basir understood the hint. He left and set up camp at al-'Is, by the sea, on the road the Quraysh used to travel to Syria (Ibn Ishaq). Abu Jandal RA heard where Abu Basir had gone. He escaped from Makkah a second time and joined him. Word spread among the Muslims of Makkah who were still being persecuted. Eventually some seventy to eighty of them gathered there. They supported themselves by raiding Quraysh caravans. Under the treaty, the Muslims had no authority to stop them, and no obligation to. In time, the raids became so costly that the Quraysh themselves appealed to the Prophet ﷺ. Invoking their ties of kinship, they asked him to take the whole band into Madinah and put an end to the raids. He did so. A later report, though, says that Abu Basir died before he reached the city. Another test came with Umm Kulthum bint Uqbah. She was the daughter of Uqbah ibn Abi Mu'ayt, the man who had once thrown animal entrails on the Prophet ﷺ in Makkah. She became a Muslim and fled to Madinah. The treaty's return clause spoke only of men. Allah revealed Qur'an 60:10, which exempted believing women from the clause entirely. So she stayed in Madinah. She is reported to have later married Zayd ibn Harithah RA. One night during the march home, everyone was exhausted. The Prophet ﷺ asked Bilal RA to stay awake and wake the camp for Fajr. Bilal fell asleep too, and the whole camp, including the Prophet ﷺ, slept past sunrise. Sahih Muslim places a night like this on the return from Khaybar instead. The Prophet ﷺ did not pray on the spot. He moved the camp on and led the late prayer at a new place, saying that Shaytan had a hand in that particular ground.

Khaybar lies 180 km north of Madinah. It was the richest farmland in Arabia, a spread of date plantations watered from an underground water table. It belonged to Jewish tribes, who had built the largest fortresses in the peninsula there. There was not one citadel but a dozen or more, with each clan behind its own walls. The fortresses were split between two halves of the oasis, a few hours' march apart. After Badr, the Banu Qaynuqa had been expelled from Madinah. Later the Banu al-Nadir were expelled too, after their attempt on the Prophet ﷺ's life. Both tribes settled in Khaybar. From there, Huyayy ibn Akhtab and Sallam ibn Abi al-Huqayq raised the alliance of tribes that besieged Madinah at Khandaq. They also persuaded the Banu Qurayza to betray the Muslims. No treaty bound Khaybar and the Muslims, and it was the one real threat left in central Arabia. The Treaty of Hudaybiyyah had just removed the threat from the Quraysh. Within weeks, the Prophet ﷺ marched on Khaybar with around 1,700 men, among them the men who had been with him at Hudaybiyyah. Ibn Ishaq dates this to Muharram 7 AH, while al-Waqidi says Safar. The two can be reconciled if the campaign began in one month and ended in the next. The army set out in high spirits. The men shouted "Allahu akbar" so loudly that the Prophet ﷺ told them to go easy on themselves. He reminded them that the One they were calling on was not deaf or far away, but nearer to them than their jugular vein. A number of women of the Ansar came along to nurse the wounded. One of them was a girl of seven or eight who had no animal of her own to ride. She rode behind the Prophet ﷺ on his own camel. On the road she found that her first period had begun. He calmed her and told her how to wash and make herself clean. After the campaign he hung a necklace around her neck, and she later asked to be buried with it. He covered the distance in two days. On the last night he camped out of sight of the oasis, and he marched on before Fajr. At dawn the people of Khaybar came out with their spades and baskets, and only then did they see the Muslim army. They fled back inside, shouting, "Muhammad ﷺ and the army!" and they barred their gates. The Prophet ﷺ then said the words that every book records. "Allahu akbar, Khaybar is destroyed. When we come down into the courtyard of a people, evil is the morning of those who were warned." The layout of the oasis was its downfall. The fortresses were built to hold off a raiding party, and they could not join together against an army. So each clan, of a few hundred men, faced the whole Muslim force alone, and the Prophet ﷺ took them one at a time. The great fortress of Na'im held out for ten days. Abu Bakr RA led the assault for a few days, and then Umar RA took over. Mahmud ibn Maslamah RA was crushed to death by a beam dropped from its wall. The Muslims had never met this kind of fighting before. On the tenth night, the Prophet ﷺ made an announcement. He said that at Fajr he would give the banner to a man whom Allah and His Messenger ﷺ loved, and through whom Allah would give them victory. Umar said that he had never in his life wished to be given command as much as he did that night. In the morning, the Prophet ﷺ asked for Ali ibn Abi Talib RA. Ali was lying in his tent with sore, inflamed eyes. The Prophet ﷺ spat into his eyes and they were cured. Then he handed Ali the banner and ordered him to go forward and not turn back. Ali set off, then stopped. Rather than turn around, he shouted over his shoulder to ask on what terms he should fight them. The Prophet ﷺ called back that he should fight until they testified that there is no god but Allah and that Muhammad ﷺ is His Messenger. He added that if Allah guided even one man through Ali, it would be better for him than a herd of red camels. Khaybar's champion, Mirhab, came out to fight in single combat. Amir ibn al-Akwa RA, a man of the Ansar, took up the challenge first and was killed in the duel. Sahih Muslim reports that Ali then killed Mirhab. Ibn Ishaq instead says that Muhammad ibn Maslamah RA killed him, to avenge his brother Mahmud. After that, the garrison came out to fight and was defeated. During this fighting, Ali's shield was knocked out of his hand. He tore the fortress door off its hinges and fought from behind it. Abu Rafi' RA said afterwards that seven of them together could not lift that door. The fortress of al-Sa'b fell next, after three days. It was full of grain and supplies, just when the Muslims' food had run out, and it fed the army for the rest of the campaign. The Castle of al-Zubayr had no well inside its walls. So the Muslims cut off its water, and its defenders came out and were beaten. Then the army crossed to the second half of the oasis and did it all again. There were at least nine sieges in all, some lasting a day and some lasting ten. Each time a fortress fell, its survivors fled into the next one. In the end only one of the largest fortresses was left, packed with everyone who had fled from the others. The Prophet ﷺ simply camped in front of it. After about two weeks, its people asked for terms. Scholars long argued over whether Khaybar ended as a conquest or a surrender. Most of them, including Ibn al-Qayyim, call it a conquest. They point out that the last fortress gave up only because all the others had been taken by force. Two stories from the fighting were told for ever after. In the first, a slave who herded his master's sheep came to ask what the Prophet ﷺ was calling people to. He accepted Islam on the spot. The Prophet ﷺ told him to return the flock to its owner, because it had been placed in his trust. The Prophet ﷺ passed his hand over the sheep, and they went home by themselves. The man then fought until an arrow killed him. As he was being buried, the Prophet ﷺ closed his eyes. He explained that the man's two wives from Paradise had come for him. In the second story, a Bedouin fought so fiercely that the Companions called him a man of Paradise. But the Prophet ﷺ said that he was a man of the Fire. A Companion followed the Bedouin. He saw him wounded in the hand, and then saw him throw himself on his own sword. The Companion came back repeating the shahada. The Prophet ﷺ then taught them a lesson. He said that a man may do the deeds of the people of Paradise until he is only an arm's length away from it, and then be overtaken by what was written for him. The people of Khaybar argued that the Muslims did not know how to farm the land. They offered to stay on as tenants, and a treaty was made. The Muslims would receive half the produce. The Jews would do all the work and bear all the costs. The arrangement would last only as long as the Muslims wished. It held until near the end of Umar's caliphate. Then they were resettled elsewhere, and the Jewish presence in central Arabia came to an end. The neighbouring lands of Wadi al-Qura accepted the same terms. No army had gone near the people of Fadak, but they wrote to accept the terms too. So Fadak came to the Prophet ﷺ without any fighting, and its income supported his household. Under the treaty, the tribes had to hand over their gold and weapons. Huyayy's relative Sa'ya claimed that the treasure Huyayy had carried out of Madinah had all been spent. Zubayr RA was given the task of questioning him. In the end Sa'ya named the valley where it was buried. After the terms had been agreed, a woman of Khaybar whose husband and family had been killed sent the Prophet ﷺ a roast lamb. She had asked which cut he liked best, and she had filled the shoulder with poison. He took one mouthful and told everyone to stop. He said that the shoulder had told him it was poisoned. But Bishr ibn al-Bara RA had already swallowed some, and he died within days. The Prophet ﷺ himself felt the effects of the poison for the rest of his life, and he spoke of it on his deathbed. The Prophet ﷺ called her clan and first showed them that he could tell when they were lying. Then he asked them whether they had poisoned the lamb, and they admitted it. They explained their reasoning. If he were lying about being a prophet, they would be rid of him. If he really was a prophet, the poison would not harm him anyway. They named the woman who had cooked it. She told him that she had done it because her husband, her uncle and others of her family had been killed in the battle. The reports differ on what happened to her. Ibn al-Qayyim brings them together. He says that the Prophet ﷺ forgave her for what she had done to him, but that when Bishr died, she was executed in retaliation for his death. The spoils were the greatest the Muslims had yet seen. There was food, weapons, armour and livestock. In land, it was the largest conquest of the whole Seerah. The men of Hudaybiyyah took their shares, as the Qur'an had promised them. The Muhajirun had lived for six years on gifts from the Ansar. Now they returned those gifts and at last had an income of their own. Ibn Umar RA said that they never ate their fill until Khaybar. On the very day the last fortress fell, Ja'far ibn Abi Talib RA arrived from Abyssinia. He came with the emigrants who had been away for more than ten years. The Prophet ﷺ kissed his forehead. He said that he did not know which made him happier, the conquest or Ja'far's return. The party from Abyssinia were given shares in Khaybar even though they had not fought. So were Abu Hurairah RA and the small group from the tribe of Daws who reached the camp at the same time. Among the captives was Safiyyah bint Huyayy. She was the daughter of Huyayy, the man who had raised the alliance against Madinah, and her husband had been killed in the fighting. The Prophet ﷺ freed her and married her on the way home, and her freedom was her dowry. Back in Madinah, Asma bint Umays RA won a ruling from the Prophet ﷺ. He ruled that the emigrants to Abyssinia had made two hijrahs, while Umar had made only one. Several rulings also date from this campaign. Eating donkey meat was forbidden, and so was temporary marriage. Exchanging dates for dates in unequal amounts was forbidden. The Khaybar treaty itself established the sharecropping contract.

The Prophet ﷺ visited his wife Juwayriyya RA on a Friday and found her fasting. He asked whether she had fasted the day before or meant to fast the day after. She said no, she was fasting only that Friday. He then taught her not to single out Friday on its own as a day of fasting.

A man came to the Prophet ﷺ and asked him when the Day of Judgment would be. The Prophet ﷺ asked him in turn what he had prepared for it. The man admitted he had little to show in prayer, fasting, or charity, but said he had genuine love for Allah and His Messenger ﷺ. The Prophet ﷺ told him that a person will be with whoever he loves. Anas ibn Malik RA, narrating the hadith, recalled that the Sahaba were never as joyful as they were on hearing this, since they loved the Prophet ﷺ and had feared their own standing would be too far beneath his for them to be with him in Jannah.

On the very day that the Prophet ﷺ finished the negotiations that completed the conquest of Khaybar, his cousin Ja'far ibn Abi Talib RA arrived from Abyssinia. He came with around fifty Muslim men and women who had been away for over a decade. The Prophet ﷺ stood up to greet Ja'far RA and kissed him on the forehead. The emigrants from Abyssinia had not fought at Khaybar, but they were all given a share of its spoils. This honoured the hardships of their long exile. They had lived for years in a foreign land, and had even lived through a civil war there, when the nephew of the Najashi (the king of Abyssinia) made war against him.

Around the sixth or seventh year after the Hijrah, Sawda bint Zam'a RA began to fear that the Prophet ﷺ might one day divorce her. Of her own free will, she offered him an arrangement. She told him that she felt no jealousy of his other wives. She wished only to remain his wife, so that she would be raised among his wives on the Day of Judgment. She asked him to give her night with him to Aisha RA. It is said that Allah revealed Surah al-Nisa, verse 128, about this.

Ramla bint Abi Sufyan, known as Umm Habiba, was the daughter of Abu Sufyan, the leader of the Quraysh. She had emigrated to Abyssinia with her husband, Ubaydillah ibn Jahsh. He died there, leaving her a widow in a foreign land with no one to care for her. When her waiting period was over, the Prophet ﷺ sent her a proposal of marriage through the Najashi, the king of Abyssinia. The Najashi acted as her guardian and arranged the marriage. He also paid her dowry on the Prophet ﷺ's behalf, although the Prophet ﷺ had not asked him to. She later travelled to Madinah with a delegation the Najashi sent.

The Prophet ﷺ led 300 sahaba out from Madinah against the Banu Lahyan. This was the tribe that, two years earlier, had tricked a group of sahaba into coming to them and then massacred them at al-Raji. As was his tactic, the Prophet ﷺ did not at first say where they were going. But the Banu Lahyan were warned in advance and fled. When the Muslims reached their camp it was empty, and no battle took place. The Banu Lahyan had asked the Quraysh for help, and the Quraysh sent a small force under Khalid ibn al-Walid. It camped facing the Muslims, within sight of them. When the time for Zuhr came, the Muslims prayed in congregation and set aside their weapons and armor. A man in Khalid's camp said that this would be the perfect moment to attack. Khalid replied that another such chance would come at Asr. Before Asr came, Allah revealed a verse of Surah al-Nisa that set out Salat al-Khawf, the prayer of fear. It tells the Muslims to pray in groups taking turns, keeping their weapons with them, when they face an enemy.

Abu Sufyan ibn Harb, by then the senior leader of the Quraysh, offered a reward to anyone who killed the Prophet ﷺ. A Bedouin took up the offer. Abu Sufyan gave him a camel, food, and weapons and sent him to Madinah, where the man pretended that he wanted to accept Islam. When he entered the mosque, the Prophet ﷺ said, "This is a man who has treachery written on him." The companions seized him, and a dagger fell from his belt. The Prophet ﷺ told him, "If you are truthful to me, I shall let you go." The man confessed everything. The Prophet ﷺ kept his promise and let him go, and the Bedouin then accepted Islam.

According to the historian al-Tabari, the Najashi (the king of Abyssinia, whose own name was As'hama) sent his son Arha ibn As'hama to Madinah with 60 other delegates. They were to bring the Prophet ﷺ gifts and announce that the Najashi had accepted Islam. The Najashi also offered to come to Madinah himself if the Prophet ﷺ wished. But al-Tabari reports that the two boats carrying the delegation sank, and it never arrived.

After the conquest of Khaybar, the nearby Jewish community of Fadak heard of the Muslims' victory and became afraid. No army marched against them and no threat was made. Even so, they sent a letter to the Prophet ﷺ on their own initiative. In it they agreed to the same terms that had been set for Khaybar, under which half of their produce would go to the Muslims.

Some time after the Hijrah to Madinah, the Prophet ﷺ wrote a letter to the Najashi, the Christian king of Abyssinia (Ethiopia). This letter is not to be confused with the dawah that Ja'far ibn Abi Talib RA gave the Najashi more than ten years earlier, when the first Muslim emigrants lived in Abyssinia. By the time of the letter, Ja'far had most likely already left. The text of the letter reported by Ibn al-Qayyim begins, "In the Name of God, the Most Beneficent, the Most Merciful. From Muhammad ﷺ the Messenger of God ﷺ to Negus, King of Abyssinia (Ethiopia). Peace be upon him who follows true guidance." It sets out the Islamic belief about Isa (Jesus): "I bear witness that Jesus, the son of Mary, is the spirit of God and His Word which He cast into Mary, the virgin, the good, the pure, so that she conceived Jesus. God created him from His spirit and His breathing as He created Adam by His Hand." It then calls the Najashi to worship God alone and to follow the Prophet ﷺ. Other accounts of the letter add that it invited him with the words "Aslim taslam," meaning "submit to God and you will be safe." They also say it ended with the verse "O People of the Book! Let us come to common terms: that we will worship none but God, associate none with Him, nor take one another as lords instead of God" (Qur'an 3:64). The letters to Heraclius of Rome and Khosrow of Persia warned that each ruler would carry the sins of his people if he refused. The letter to the Najashi had no such warning, most likely because the Prophet ﷺ knew he was already close to Islam. According to al-Bayhaqi, the Najashi wrote back, "I am a Muslim: I believe in you and all that you say. And if you command me, O Prophet of God ﷺ, I will come to Madinah and serve you."

After the Battle of Khandaq, Amr ibn al-As became convinced that Muhammad ﷺ would soon prevail over the Quraysh. He did not want to fight any more battles, and he did not want to live under Muhammad ﷺ's rule. So he led a group of his friends to Abyssinia to live under the protection of its king, the Najashi. If the Quraysh won instead, they could always return home. While they were there, Amr ibn Umayyah al-Damri arrived as an envoy of the Prophet ﷺ. He carried a message asking the Najashi to send Ja'far ibn Abi Talib RA to Madinah. Amr ibn al-As did not know that the Najashi had secretly become a Muslim. He brought the Najashi gifts and asked permission to kill the envoy in revenge for the Quraysh nobles the Muslims had killed. The Najashi was furious, and Amr was terrified. The Najashi asked whether Amr wanted him to hand over the envoy of a man to whom the angel Jibril comes down. He told Amr to follow the Prophet ﷺ, who would be victorious over his enemies just as Musa AS was victorious over Pharaoh. Amr was overwhelmed. He asked the Najashi to accept his Islam on the Prophet ﷺ's behalf, and gave him his pledge (bay'ah) then and there.

Khalid ibn al-Walid's force was blocking the main road, so the Muslims needed another way to Makkah. The Prophet ﷺ asked whether anyone knew how to reach the other route. One of the sahaba (companions) came forward and said he knew the way, and the Prophet ﷺ made him the guide. The new path ran through a valley full of thorns and volcanic rock. It cut the companions' feet until they bled. The Prophet ﷺ encouraged them by comparing the valley to the gate that the Children of Israel were commanded to enter in humility. He announced that everyone who passed through it would have all his sins forgiven, except for "the man with the red camel." The companions looked for this man. At the back of the caravan they found a Bedouin calling out that he had lost his red camel. They urged him to come to the Prophet ﷺ so that he too might be forgiven. He replied that finding his camel mattered more to him than having his sins forgiven. His answer showed the hypocrisy in his heart. The Muslims spent the whole day crossing the valley. As night began to fall, they reached the plain of Hudaybiyyah.

After the Treaty of Hudaybiyyah, Ummi Kulthum bint Uqba ibn Abi Mu'ayt became a Muslim. Her father, Uqba, was the man who had once thrown a camel's entrails on the Prophet ﷺ. She fled persecution in Makkah and reached Madinah as an Emigrant. Her arrival raised a hard question. The treaty said that anyone who came over to the Muslims from Makkah had to be sent back. Returning a man to be tortured was painful enough, but returning a woman was far worse. Even the Prophet ﷺ did not know what to do. Then Allah revealed a verse of Surah al-Mumtahanah (Qur'an 60:10). It told the believers to test the faith of women who came to them as Emigrants. If they were found to be believers, they were not to be sent back to the disbelievers. So Ummi Kulthum was allowed to stay. This followed the exact wording of the treaty. Suhayl ibn Amr, who negotiated it for Makkah, had said that any MAN who came to the Muslims must be returned. The word was understood to cover anyone, but it did not literally name women. So the clause was ruled not to apply to them.

An elderly woman came to the Prophet ﷺ and asked him to make du'a (supplication) that Allah would let her enter Jannah (Paradise). Gently teasing her, the Prophet ﷺ told her that old women do not enter Jannah, and she began to weep. He then explained that Allah would first make her young again before she entered. He also recited the verse that describes the believing women of Jannah being created anew.

Asma bint Umays RA was one of the Muslims who had emigrated from Makkah to Abyssinia years earlier. A day or two after the Muslims came back to Madinah from Khaybar, she visited her friend Hafsa bint Umar RA, a wife of the Prophet ﷺ. The two had not seen each other for ten to fifteen years. Hafsa's father, Umar RA, was there and asked who the visitor was. When he heard it was Asma bint Umays, he half-teasingly called her "the Abyssinian." He told her that those who had emigrated to Madinah with the Prophet ﷺ had more right to him than the emigrants to Abyssinia. Asma RA was deeply hurt. She told Umar RA that he was wrong. He and the others had been with the Prophet ﷺ for these ten years, while the emigrants had suffered as strangers in a foreign land. She swore she would not eat or drink until she had told the Prophet ﷺ what Umar RA had said. She went straight to the masjid and, in front of the sahaba, repeated Umar RA's words to the Prophet ﷺ. He said, "He (Umar) does not have any more right over us than you; go back and tell him, he made one Hijrah, (but) you people made two Hijrahs." Asma RA went back with this answer. The news spread quickly, and all day the emigrants from Abyssinia came to her to hear exactly what the Prophet ﷺ had said.

After Khaybar was taken, its Jewish tribes made a treaty with the Muslims. They could stay on their lands for the time being, but they had to hand over all their gold, silver, weapons and armour. Huyayy ibn Akhtab, the former leader of Banu al-Nadir, had left Madinah with a great deal of gold. So the Prophet ﷺ asked Sa'ya, Huyayy's uncle (or, by one report, his brother), "Where is the gold of Huyayy?" Sa'ya said that it had all been spent. The Prophet ﷺ replied, "It's only been a recent time since he left Madinah, and the money is too much to have been spent in such a short period of time." Sa'ya kept insisting that he knew nothing. The Prophet ﷺ then handed him over to Zubayr ibn al-Awwam RA and said, "Extract the information from him." Before long, Sa'ya said that he had seen Huyayy go to a certain valley, and that he might have hidden the gold there. The Muslims went to that valley and found all the gold.

Khosrow, the Emperor of Persia, ordered one of his governors, Badhan, to send spies to Madinah. They were to gather information about the Prophet ﷺ and, if they could, bring him back. Badhan chose two trusted men, Babawayh and Khur Khasra. They carried a letter, but it was only a cover for their real mission. The Prophet ﷺ told them to wait and come back the next day. When they returned, he took their letter but did not open it. Instead he told them to go back and tell Badhan that Allah had killed Badhan's lord, Khosrow, and that Khosrow's son had taken over. The two men went home in shock. By the time they reached Badhan, news had arrived that Khosrow had fled his capital, Ctesiphon. His son, Kavad II, had seized power in a coup and then killed his own father. Western sources date Khosrow's death to around 28 February 628 CE, which matches Jumada al-Awwal 7 AH in the Seerah. According to a short treatise by the early scholar Abu Ubayd al-Qasim ibn Sallam, Badhan and his two emissaries then embraced Islam. The Prophet ﷺ later wrote to them about the rules of jizya, the tax paid by non-Muslims under Muslim rule.

The Prophet ﷺ sent a letter to the Muqawqis of Egypt. "Muqawqis" was a title, like "Caesar", and the man who held it was Jurayj ibn Mina. He was not an independent king but a governor appointed by Rome, since Egypt was then under Byzantine rule. He appears to be the man known in history as Cyrus of Alexandria, a Melkite Christian patriarch and the last Byzantine prefect of Egypt. No authentic narration preserves the exact text of the letter. The Muqawqis did not embrace Islam, but his reply was polite, and he sent a small fortune in gifts. There were about 1,000 mithqal (4.25 kg) of gold, fine garments, honey, and a riding animal called Duldul (a mule in one telling, a donkey in another). He also sent a servant named Ma'boor and two Coptic Christian sisters, Maria and Sirin. A man may not keep two sisters at the same time, so the Prophet ﷺ gave Sirin to the poet Hassan ibn Thabit. She and Hassan had a son, Abd al-Rahman. The Prophet ﷺ kept Maria for himself.

In the 6th year of the Hijrah, the Prophet ﷺ saw a dream. In it he was doing tawaf around the Ka'bah in a state of ihram, with his head shaved, performing the rites of Umrah. He understood it as Allah's command to go to Makkah for Umrah. He announced his intention to the Muhajirun, the Ansar and the Muslim tribes around Madinah, and invited everyone who was able to join him. The Muhajirun, who had not seen Makkah for six years, prepared eagerly. The Bedouin tribes around Madinah mostly refused to come, fearing a clash with the Quraysh. In the end about 1,400 Muslims set out with the Prophet ﷺ. The sources differ on whether they were armed. One way to reconcile the reports is that they carried weapons in their baggage as a precaution but did not wear them, since this is not allowed in ihram. The Prophet ﷺ deliberately waited to leave until the 1st of Dhu al-Qa'dah, the start of the Sacred Months, to show the Quraysh that he came in peace. At Dhu al-Hulayfah, the place where pilgrims from Madinah enter ihram, he prayed two rak'at and put on his ihram. There he also marked his camels as sacrificial offerings, a practice going back to Ibrahim AS. One report says there were 70 of them. From there he sent Busr ibn Sufyan al-Khuza'i ahead to Makkah to find out what the Quraysh were planning.

Safiyyah was a young girl in Madinah on the day the Prophet ﷺ arrived there. Her father was Huyayy ibn Akhtab, the chief of the Banu Nadir. She was his favourite child, and the favourite of her uncle Abu Yasir too. One day the two men came home from going to see the Prophet ﷺ. Safiyyah ran to greet them, but they walked straight past her with their shoulders slumped. Then she overheard them talking. Her uncle asked whether it was really him. Her father answered, "By the Lord of Moses, it is him." Her uncle asked what they would do now. Her father said they would oppose him for as long as he lived. Later Safiyyah was exiled along with her tribe. She settled in Khaybar and married there. In the fighting at Khaybar, the Banu Nadir threw themselves into the front line of its defence. More of them died than of Khaybar's own people, and her husband Kinana was among the dead. When the fighting ended, Safiyyah was a widow and a captive. When the captives were divided, she was given to Dihyah al-Kalbi. Some Companions told the Prophet ﷺ that the daughter of the chief of the Banu Nadir should be his, not left with Dihyah. So he paid Dihyah her price and took her. At first no one knew whether he had taken her as a servant or as a wife, so they watched. When it was time to leave Khaybar, he made his camel kneel. He knelt down himself and made his thigh into a step to help her mount. Out of respect, she placed her knee on it rather than her foot. Then he covered her with his cloak. At that the Companions understood, because that veil was only for his wives. Safiyyah herself did not yet know what it meant. When he went to her on the first night, she refused him, and he left her alone. When they were a night's journey from Madinah, she agreed. He asked Umm Sulaym to prepare her. Umm Sulaym hung two cloths between some trees, and the women did what they could with the little they had. They worried that they had no perfume or jewellery for her. But when they had finished, they smelt a scent finer than any they knew. When the Prophet ﷺ came in, he said the hard thing first. He said to her, "Your father Huyayy was the most open of the Jews in their animosity against me until Allah caused his death." This was a test of what was in her heart. She answered with a teaching of the Qur'an, that no soul bears the burden of another. Then he said to her, "You have a choice. If you accept Islam, I shall keep you for me; if you remain in your faith, then perhaps I will free you and you can return to your people." As she understood it, staying with him meant remaining a captive. She told him that she had been drawn to Islam even before he offered it, and had already believed in him. She said she had no people to go back to, since her father and her brother were gone. And she said that Allah and His Messenger ﷺ were dearer to her than her own family. So he freed her, made her freedom her dowry, and married her. He had noticed a bruise on her face and asked her about it. She explained that she had once told her husband about a dream. In it, the moon rose from Yathrib and fell into her lap. Her husband struck her and asked whether she expected the king of the Arabs to marry her. He had understood the dream correctly. Later she was asked why she had refused him on the first night. She said that they were still so close to Khaybar that she had feared the Jews would retaliate. The Prophet ﷺ loved her all the more for it. Abu Ayyub al-Ansari stood outside the tent all night with his sword drawn. He was afraid of what a woman whose family had died at Muslim hands might do. In the morning the Prophet ﷺ found him there. He laughed and prayed for him. The wedding feast was made of whatever anyone had. There were dates, a little clarified butter and barley, all mixed together. On the road home, the walls of Madinah came into sight. As was the custom in Madinah, the riders whipped their camels forward. The Prophet ﷺ's camel stumbled and threw both him and Safiyyah to the ground. Every Companion turned his face away. Only Abu Talha cried out to ask whether he was all right. The Prophet ﷺ replied, "I am okay; I am not hurt." He was on his feet at once and put his cloak over her. In Madinah the other wives came to look at her. Zaynab bint Jahsh said to Juwayriyya that this one would be trouble. Safiyyah belonged to neither of the groups among the wives, since she had no family of her own there. Perhaps that is why the Prophet ﷺ was so tender with her. Once Hafsa called her "the daughter of a Jew", and Safiyyah wept. The Prophet ﷺ asked her, "Why didn't you defend yourself?" She asked how. He said, "You should have said your father was a prophet (Harun), and your uncle was a prophet (Musa), and you are married to a prophet. What do they have over you?" On the Farewell Hajj, he stopped speaking to Zaynab because she refused Safiyyah a camel. In his last illness, Safiyyah said she wished she could take his fever on herself. The other wives said something unkind to her. He told them to rinse their mouths, and when they asked why, he said, "Because you have made fun of Safiyyah, and wallahi, she has spoken the truth." She died in 52 AH.

One day, as the Prophet ﷺ sat in his masjid, a camel came running in. It went straight to him, put its head in his lap, and began making noises and crying, in front of all the companions. The Prophet ﷺ said, "Go and find the owner of this camel, for it has a story to tell." The companions found the owner, who was irritated and said there was nothing wrong. They had worked the camel until it could no longer work properly, then used it to carry water. When it could not even do that, they had decided the night before to slaughter it and share out the meat. When the Prophet ﷺ heard this, he said, "Then either gift me the camel or allow me to buy it." The owner gave him the camel.

A group of the Ansar came to the Prophet ﷺ to complain that their camel had gone mad, and they begged him to help. When he went to enter its pen alone, they said, "Ya Rasulullah, this camel is as mad as a dog with rabies. We fear he will attack and harm you." The Prophet ﷺ said, "I have no danger from him." He went into the pen and walked towards the camel. When the camel saw who it was, it lowered its forehead as if it were prostrating. The Prophet ﷺ rubbed its head and led it back to where it belonged, and it was calm after that. Afterwards the companions said, "O Messenger of Allah ﷺ, this was an animal that prostrated to you who cannot even speak; surely, it is more befitting for us to prostrate to you?" The Prophet ﷺ said, "Do not do so, for it is not allowed for any human to prostrate to another human."

A boy who had lived deaf and mute for seven or eight years since birth was brought to the Prophet ﷺ, who made du'a over him; the boy was healed on the spot and became normal.

Abu Dharr al-Ghifari RA once asked the Prophet ﷺ, "O Messenger of Allah ﷺ, will you not appoint me to a public office?" The Prophet ﷺ stroked his shoulder with his hand and said, "O Abu Dharr, you are weak. And authority is a trust; and on the Day of Judgment, it is a cause of humiliation and remorse except for one who fulfills its obligations and discharges the duties attendant thereon." This hadith is reported in Sahih Muslim.

The Muslims were travelling in ihram for Umrah when news came of a group of riders near Ghayqah. The Prophet ﷺ sent a small party to find out who they were, and it turned out to be a false alarm. On the way back, the party saw a herd of zebras (one report says gazelles). Abu Qatada al-Ansari, who was in charge of the sacrificial animals, was not in ihram, for a reason the sources do not give. Everyone else was, and hunting is forbidden in ihram. None of the others even told Abu Qatada about the zebras. When he saw them himself, he asked his companions to hand him his bow and arrows, but they refused because they were in ihram. So he got down from his horse, fetched his own bow and arrows, and rode after the herd. He caught one zebra and slaughtered it. He brought the meat back, but the others would not touch it. When they reached the camp, they asked the Prophet ﷺ whether it was allowed. The Prophet ﷺ asked them, "Did any of you motion to him where the zebras were?" They said no. He asked, "Did any of you help him in hunting the zebras?" They said no. So he ﷺ said, "In that case, eat from it. And if you have any extra meat, bring it to me as well."

Sallam ibn Abi al-Huqayq was a wealthy leader of Khaybar. He was the main funder of the Battle of Khandaq, and he had paid for the mercenaries of the Ghatafan tribe who fought in it. Some time earlier, men of the Aws had killed Ka'b ibn al-Ashraf. Men of the Khazraj felt that the Aws had outdone them, and they wanted to show the same devotion. They asked the Prophet ﷺ for permission to kill Sallam. He gave it, on condition that no women or children be harmed. Five men of the Khazraj set out, led by Abdullah ibn Atik RA, who spoke the language of Khaybar well. Just before sunset, as the city gates were being closed, Abdullah slipped inside. After nightfall he opened the gate and let the others in. The five made their way to Sallam's house and killed him. His wife screamed to raise the alarm. One of the men was about to strike her, but he remembered the Prophet ﷺ's order and spared her. As they fled, Abdullah ibn Atik slipped and sprained or broke his foot, and the others carried him out. They escaped with no other injury. When they returned, the Prophet ﷺ rubbed his hand over Abdullah's foot, and it was healed.

After the truce of Hudaybiyyah, the Prophet ﷺ was free to look beyond Arabia. He wrote letters to the rulers of the world, and the most famous of them went to Caesar, the Roman emperor. The emperor at that time was Heraclius, who reigned from 610 to 641. Muslim and non-Muslim historians alike remember him kindly. Heraclius was a scholar of Christianity. He tried, and failed, to reconcile its two great factions with a theology of his own. He was also a soldier. He had just won back everything the Persians had taken from Rome, as Surah al-Rum had foretold at a time when Rome seemed finished. Dihyah al-Kalbi carried the letter. He was to hand it to the governor of Busra, a town where the Quraysh went to trade, who would send it on. As it happened, Heraclius was in Jerusalem at the time, so the letter reached him at once. Abu Sufyan, who was still a pagan, was trading in Busra at the time. A crier summoned him and his companions to Jerusalem, and he found himself standing in the emperor's palace. Through an interpreter, Heraclius asked which of them was the closest relative of the man who claimed to be a prophet. Abu Sufyan was, so he was seated in front. His companions stood behind him, with orders to signal if he lied. He said afterwards that only the fear of being called a liar by his own people made him tell the truth. The emperor asked his questions one after another. He asked about the man's family, and Abu Sufyan said it was noble. He asked whether anyone among them had made this claim before him, and Abu Sufyan said no. He asked whether any of his ancestors had been a king, and again the answer was no. He asked whether the nobles followed him or the poor. Abu Sufyan said the poor. Heraclius asked whether his followers were growing or shrinking in number. Abu Sufyan said they were growing. He asked whether anyone who had entered his religion later left it in disgust. Abu Sufyan said no. He asked whether the man had ever been accused of lying before he began his mission. Again the answer was no. Heraclius asked whether he broke his word. Abu Sufyan said no. But he added that there was a truce between them now, and no one knew what he would do. Abu Sufyan admitted later that this was the one thing he could find to say against him. Heraclius asked whether they had fought him. Abu Sufyan said yes, and that sometimes he won and sometimes they did. Finally Heraclius asked what the man commanded. Abu Sufyan told him that he commanded them to worship God alone and abandon the gods of their fathers. He also told them to pray, to speak the truth, to be chaste, and to keep the ties of kinship. Then Heraclius explained why he had asked each question. Prophets, he said, come from noble families. If someone else had made the claim before, this man might be imitating him. If his fathers had been kings, he might be trying to win back his inheritance. A man who does not lie about money does not lie about God. The poor are always the first to follow the prophets. The truth always gains followers. Faith that has entered a heart and mixed with it is not thrown off. Prophets do not betray. And what this man commanded was what the prophets had always commanded. Heraclius said that if all this was true, the man would soon rule the very ground he was standing on. He said he had known from his scriptures that someone was coming, but he had not expected him to come from the Arabs. If he could reach him, he said, he would wash his feet. Then Heraclius called for the letter and had it read aloud. It began in the name of Allah. It was from Muhammad ﷺ, the servant of Allah and His Messenger ﷺ, to Heraclius, the great one of the Romans. It sent peace to whoever follows guidance. It told him to submit and be safe, and Allah would give him a double reward. If he turned away, he would carry the sins of the Arisiyin, a word whose meaning scholars have long debated. The letter closed with the verse of Ali Imran that calls the People of the Book to a word held in common, that none be worshipped but Allah. There was uproar in the court, and the Arabs were sent out. On the way out, Abu Sufyan spoke to his companions. The Quraysh mockingly called the Prophet ﷺ "Ibn Abi Kabsha", and Abu Sufyan said that the affair of Ibn Abi Kabsha had grown so great that even the king of the Romans feared him. He said later that it was there, in Caesar's palace, that Islam first entered his heart. That was three years before he actually embraced it. Sahih al-Bukhari keeps a second story about Heraclius, told separately from the first. One morning he woke up troubled by a dream in which he had seen the king of the circumcised appear. His courtiers told him that only the Jews were circumcised, and that he need only crack down on them. Then Dihyah arrived with the Prophet ﷺ's letter. When he was examined, he was found to be circumcised, and the emperor understood whom the dream was about. Heraclius wrote to a friend of his, most likely John IV. The friend wrote back that this was indeed the one. One theory, not stated in the sources, is that this same friend supplied the three tests that Heraclius later sent the Tanukhi to carry out. At last Heraclius gathered his senators and asked them what they thought of his following Muhammad ﷺ. They rushed for the doors, so he told them he had only been testing their faith. He died a Christian, in the confusion of a coup. He lived long enough to see Jerusalem taken by the people of his dream.

After the terms of surrender at Khaybar were agreed, the Prophet ﷺ became the new ruler of the city. As was natural for a new ruler, the people sent him gifts, including a large tray of fine food with a roasted lamb. The Muslims did not know that it had been cooked by a woman whose husband, one of the leaders of Khaybar, had been killed in the fighting. She had asked which meat Muhammad ﷺ liked best, and was told the shoulder of a lamb. She poisoned the whole lamb, and the shoulder most of all. The Prophet ﷺ sat down to eat with his Companions and put a bite in his mouth. At once he said, "Everyone, stop eating. The shoulder of the lamb has told me it has been poisoned." Bishr ibn al-Bara had already swallowed some, and he died a few days later. Others spat the meat out and had to be treated. The Prophet ﷺ had not swallowed, yet he felt the pain of the poison for the rest of his life. On his deathbed four years later, he told Aisha, "I still feel the effects of the poison from the woman of Khaybar." He then called the Jews who had sent the gift. He asked whether they would tell him the truth, and they said they would. He asked who their ancestor was. They named a man, and he told them they were lying and named the right one, which they admitted. In this way he showed them that he knew when they lied. He then asked who would go to the Fire. They said they would go there for a short time before Allah saved them, while he and his people would stay there forever. He replied, "Remain humiliated and remain in the Fire of Hell. By Allah, we will not remain after you." A third time he asked whether they would tell the truth, and then asked whether they had poisoned the lamb. They admitted that they had. When he asked why, they said that if he were a liar they would be rid of him, and if he were a prophet it would not harm him. Perhaps their honesty is what saved them. They named the cook. Some books of seerah say that when the Prophet ﷺ asked her why, she said he had killed her husband, her uncle and others of her people, so she had wanted to kill him. Some Companions wanted her executed. The reports differ on what happened next. Ibn al-Qayyim reconciles them by saying that the Prophet ﷺ forgave her for what she had tried to do to him. But when Bishr died a few days later, she was executed in retaliation for him, because his blood was not the Prophet ﷺ's to forgive.

In Dhu al-Qa'dah of 6 AH, the Prophet ﷺ set out from Madinah with about 1,400 companions toward Makkah, intending to perform Umrah. On the way, he heard that a group of riders had been seen near Ghayqah. Thinking they might be from the Quraysh, he sent a small party to find out, but it proved to be a false alarm. When the Muslims reached Asfan, about midway between Madinah and Makkah, a scout returned with news. He was Busr ibn Sufyan al-Khuza'i, whom the Prophet ﷺ had sent ahead to Makkah posing as an ordinary pilgrim. He reported that the Quraysh had armed themselves and put on their leopard skins, a sign of war. They had even brought their women with them, as they had at Uhud. They had also sent Khalid ibn al-Walid to camp at Ghumaym, a plain outside Makkah, to block the Muslims' path. The Prophet ﷺ halted the caravan, camped in a shaded spot and addressed the companions. He first gave his own view, that they should attack the surrounding tribes who had sent men to join the Quraysh. Then he asked what they thought. Abu Bakr RA said that they had left home intending only to visit the House of Allah, not to fight. He advised that they continue toward Makkah, and fight only if they were attacked. The Prophet ﷺ liked this advice and accepted it, and the caravan moved on.

The people of Madinah had suffered a drought for many months. In the middle of a Friday khutbah, a man stood up and spoke to the Prophet ﷺ. He said their crops were withering, their animals were dying and their children were starving, and he asked him to pray to Allah for rain. Anas ibn Malik RA said that they had not seen a wisp of cloud for months. But as soon as the Prophet ﷺ raised his hands, a dense cloud came racing out from behind the mountain of Madinah. Before he had lowered his hands, they heard rain on the roof. They did not see the sun for a whole week. The next Friday, a man came during the khutbah again. The narrations differ on whether it was the same man or another. This time he said their crops were flooded, their children were drowning and their animals were swimming, and he asked the Prophet ﷺ to pray for the rain to stop. The Prophet ﷺ said, "O Allah, send the rain around and not on us," and pointed at the sky. Wherever he pointed, the clouds parted and the sun came out.

Abu Hurairah, whose name was Abd al-Rahman ibn Sakhr, came from the tribe of Daws in Yemen. He had set out to emigrate to Madinah. On the way he heard that the Prophet ﷺ was at Khaybar, so he went there instead with two or three other Muslims of Daws. They arrived after Khaybar had been conquered. The Muslims returning from Abyssinia also arrived after the fighting was over. Neither group had fought at Khaybar. Even so, the Prophet ﷺ gave the emigrants from Abyssinia a share of the spoils. He also asked the Companions whether the men of Daws could have a share, and they agreed. The emigration from Daws was led by Tufayl ibn Amr al-Dawsi RA, the chief of the tribe, at whose hands Abu Hurairah had become Muslim. Tufayl gave up his position as chief and left his tribe to settle in Madinah for good. Many of his people, moved by the strength of his faith, emigrated with him.

The Prophet ﷺ sent Abdullah ibn Hudhafah al-Sahmi with a letter to the ruler of Bahrain, to be passed on to Khosrow (Kisra), Emperor of Persia, inviting him to Islam. Khosrow mocked the messenger and tore up the letter in front of him.

Hafsa bint Umar RA once called Safiyyah bint Huyayy RA "bint al-Yahudi" (daughter of a Jew) as an insult, and Safiyyah was left in tears. The Prophet ﷺ came to visit her and found her crying. He asked, "What is the matter?" She told him what Hafsa had said. He asked, "Why didn't you defend yourself?" She asked him how. He told her, "You should have said your father was a prophet, and your uncle was a prophet, and you are married to a prophet. What do they have over you?" By her father and her uncle, he meant the prophets Harun (Aaron) and Musa (Moses).

Maria al-Qibtiyya RA came to Madinah as a gift to the Prophet ﷺ from the ruler of Egypt. With her came a servant named Ma'boor, who by some reports was a distant relative of hers. Before Maria had embraced Islam, rumours began to spread that Ma'boor was "visiting" her. According to a hadith in Sahih Muslim, the Prophet ﷺ told Ali ibn Abi Talib RA to take his sword and find Ma'boor. Matters touching the Prophet ﷺ's own household were usually given to Ali RA, who was himself of the household (Ahl al-Bayt). Ali RA asked whether he should go simply to carry out the order, or as someone who would see and hear for himself what was going on. The Prophet ﷺ said, "No; go as somebody who hears and sees." So Ali RA went to investigate. He found Ma'boor in a date grove. When Ma'boor saw Ali coming, he was terrified, and his private parts became exposed. One report says he fell while trying to climb a tree, and another says he exposed himself on purpose. Either way, it was plain that he had been castrated. This was sometimes done to slaves before Islam, which later forbade mutilating any slave or any human being. The rumours clearly could not be true. Ali RA returned and told the Prophet ﷺ.

As the Muslims were leaving Makkah after Umrah al-Qada, a young girl ran after them. She was Umara, the daughter of Hamzah ibn Abdul Muttalib RA. She called out to the Prophet ﷺ not to leave her behind in Makkah. Three senior companions each claimed the right to look after her. Ali ibn Abi Talib RA and Ja'far ibn Abi Talib RA were her first cousins. Zayd ibn Harithah RA said she was his niece, because the Prophet ﷺ had made him a brother of her father Hamzah RA in the pact of brotherhood. Ja'far added that his wife, Asma bint Umays RA, was Umara's khala (maternal aunt). The Prophet ﷺ began by praising each of the three men in turn. He then ruled that Ja'far should take her, saying, "the khala is the same as the mother."

Al-Harith ibn Umayr al-Azdi was an envoy sent by the Prophet ﷺ with a letter for Heraclius, the Roman emperor. On the way he passed through the lands of the Ghassanids. They were the largest Arab Christian tribe, and they served the Romans as their Arab vassals. The Ghassanids captured al-Harith and took him to their chieftain, Shurahbil ibn Amr. Al-Harith told him that he was the envoy of the Prophet ﷺ, carrying a letter to Heraclius, and asked to be let go. Instead, Shurahbil mocked him and tortured him. Then he killed al-Harith with his own hands, thrusting a spear into him. This was a grave crime, because envoys and messengers were never to be harmed.

Around 7 or 8 AH, the Prophet ﷺ sent letters to the kings and rulers around Arabia. Among the replies was one from the ruler of the province of Bahrain. He wrote back sympathetically and sent the Prophet ﷺ a robe as a gift. It was one of the finest garments the Prophet ﷺ ever wore, and it is said to have been decorated with gold. The companions gathered around the Prophet ﷺ to look at it, amazed at its quality.

Abu Hurairah RA came from Yemen. After he emigrated to Madinah, he sent for his mother so that he could look after her. She came, but she was deeply hurt that her son had left the religion of their forefathers. She often cursed Islam and said bad things about the Prophet ﷺ in front of him. One day Abu Hurairah RA came to the Prophet ﷺ in tears. He said that he could no longer bear what his mother was saying, and he asked the Prophet ﷺ to make du'a that Allah would guide her. The Prophet ﷺ raised his hands right then and said, "O Allah, guide the mother of Abu Hurairah." Abu Hurairah RA went home. Before he could enter, his mother called out that he should not come in because she was bathing. It was the ritual bath (ghusl) of someone entering Islam. As soon as he came into the house, she declared the shahada, the testimony of faith.

Maymunah bint al-Harith was the sister of Umm al-Fadl, the wife of the Prophet ﷺ's uncle al-Abbas. She had been widowed when her husband Abu Rahm ibn Abd al-Uzza died, and she did not want to stay among the Quraysh of Makkah. She asked her sister to find her a husband. During Umrah al-Qada, al-Abbas went to the Prophet ﷺ. He said that he was Maymunah's guardian, and he praised her highly. The Prophet ﷺ had known of her from his days in Makkah, and he agreed to marry her. Al-Abbas arranged the marriage, and the contract was made on the third day of the Umrah. The Quraysh then came to say that the agreed three days were up. The Prophet ﷺ asked whether he might stay a little longer as a newly married man, and invited them to a wedding feast. They refused, so he kept to the treaty and left. The marriage began only after they had left Makkah, at a place called Sarif. Maymunah RA was the last woman the Prophet ﷺ married, and she was also the last of his wives to die. She died at Sarif in 51 AH and is buried there to this day.

News of the massacre at al-Watir reached Amr ibn Salim al-Khuza'i, the chieftain of the Khuza'a. He set out at once for Madinah with a delegation of 40 men to ask the Prophet ﷺ for help. Before the Prophet ﷺ, Amr recited a moving poem about a page long, recorded by Ibn Ishaq and Ibn Hisham. In it he reminded the Prophet ﷺ that the two tribes shared an ancestress, a woman of the Khuza'a who had married Qusayy ibn Kilab, the Prophet ﷺ's forefather. He recalled the old alliance (Hilf) that the Prophet ﷺ's grandfather Abdul Muttalib had made with Amr's own grandfather. Under it the two tribes would stand as one against anyone who harmed the other, "as long as the generations proceed". He reminded him that the Khuza'a were on the Muslims' side in the Treaty of Hudaybiyyah. Only then did he describe how the Banu Bakr had attacked his people while they were bowing and prostrating in prayer. The Prophet ﷺ was moved, and he promised that they would be helped. Later, seeing a cloud on the horizon, he took it as a good sign of victory for the Khuza'a, who were also called the Banu Ka'b. Scholars differ over what happened next. Most hold that the Prophet ﷺ treated the Banu Bakr's attack as an automatic breach of the Treaty of Hudaybiyyah. On this view he began preparing to march on Makkah without negotiating any further with the Quraysh, which was his right since the Quraysh had knowingly broken the treaty. Another report, which Ibn Hajar and others grade as mursal sahih (sound, but with one link missing from its chain), says he first sent the Quraysh an ultimatum. They were to cut their ties with the Banu Bakr and pay the blood money for the twenty dead, which came to 2,000 camels, or face war. According to this report the Quraysh refused both demands. The blood money alone would have ruined them, and they said the Banu Bakr were the only tribe nearby still following their religion.

Khalid ibn al-Walid was the son of al-Walid ibn al-Mughira, chieftain of the Banu Makhzum clan. He was the most effective battlefield commander of the Quraysh. Over the years he grew more and more convinced that the Prophet ﷺ was telling the truth. In every battle he fought against him, at Uhud and at Khandaq, Khalid sensed that he was being turned away. The final straw came during the journey to Hudaybiyyah. Khalid had planned to ambush the Muslims at Asfan, but the Prophet ﷺ outmaneuvered him. Then the Prophet ﷺ came to Makkah for Umrah al-Qada and asked where Khalid was. Khalid's brother, al-Walid ibn al-Walid RA, had become a Muslim as a prisoner after Badr. He wrote Khalid a letter urging him to embrace Islam. In it he passed on the praise the Prophet ﷺ had given Khalid while Khalid was not there. After reading the letter, Khalid decided to become a Muslim. Khalid looked for someone to go with him. He first asked Safwan ibn Umayyah, who flatly refused. He then asked his childhood friend Ikrimah ibn Abi Jahal. Ikrimah panicked and called Abu Sufyan ibn Harb and other elders of the Quraysh to his house. According to one report, swords were drawn in front of Khalid. Ikrimah himself was shocked by this, and he calmed the situation down. Khalid realised he could no longer stay in Makkah. That same night he left for Madinah with Uthman ibn Talha. On the road they met Amr ibn al-As, who was also on his way to accept Islam, and the three travelled on together. They were the last group of Quraysh leaders to accept Islam before the Conquest of Makkah. In Madinah, Khalid was the first of the three to accept Islam in front of the Prophet ﷺ. When it was Amr's turn, he held back from the Prophet ﷺ's outstretched hand. He said he would only accept Islam on condition that his past sins be forgiven. The Prophet ﷺ reminded him that embracing Islam, migration (hijrah) and Hajj each wipe away all the sins that came before them.

The tribe of Banu Amir ibn Sa'sa'ah had been responsible for the massacre of Muslims at Bi'r Ma'una. They sent a delegation to Madinah, probably in the 7th or 8th year of the Hijrah, before the Conquest of Makkah. With them came Amir ibn al-Tufayl, one of the chief instigators of that massacre. He had no intention of becoming a Muslim. Amir made a plan with his henchman Arbad ibn Qays to kill the Prophet ﷺ. Amir would distract him with questions, and when Amir gave a secret signal, Arbad would stab him, most likely with a poisoned dagger. Amir asked the Prophet ﷺ for a private audience, but the Prophet ﷺ refused unless Amir first embraced Islam. Amir gave the signal three times, and each time Arbad did nothing. Arbad later explained that whenever the signal came, he could see only Amir and not the Prophet ﷺ. When Amir saw that the plot had failed, he offered the Prophet ﷺ three choices. The first was to split the leadership, with the Prophet ﷺ ruling the townspeople and Amir ruling the Bedouins. The second was to name Amir as his successor. Otherwise, Amir would bring an army of a thousand male and a thousand female camels against him. The Prophet ﷺ refused all three. He said, "O Allah, I put You in charge of being sufficient for me against Amir ibn al-Tufayl. O Allah, take care of him and guide his people." Both men met a grim end. On the way home, Amir spent the night at the house of a prostitute and was struck there by a fatal illness. Not wanting to die in such a house, he rode off on his horse into the darkness and was never seen again. Arbad returned to his tribe and said something blasphemous about Allah. The next day, in front of his people, lightning struck and killed both him and his camel. It is said that Qur'an 13:11-13 refers to his fate.

Soon after the Muslims returned from Hudaybiyyah, a man named Abu Basir left Makkah and came to Madinah. He was of Thaqif, an ally of Banu Zuhrah, and he was the first person to make hijrah after the treaty was signed. One clause of the treaty said that any man who came to the Muslims from Makkah had to be returned. The Prophet ﷺ did not send Abu Basir away on his own initiative. But after two or three days, two men of the Quraysh came from Makkah to take him back. The Prophet ﷺ called Abu Basir and said to him, "These two men have come to take you, and you came knowing the treaty that we signed, and I will not be treacherous. So return to your people." Abu Basir asked whether he was really being sent back after Allah had saved him. He was told that Allah would make a way out for him. On the road, Abu Basir chatted with the two men and praised one man's sword. He asked to see it, and the man handed it over. Abu Basir killed him with it. The second man ran all the way back to Madinah and begged the Prophet ﷺ for protection. Abu Basir arrived soon after. He told the Prophet ﷺ that he had fulfilled his duty under the treaty, but Allah had let him escape. The Prophet ﷺ did not answer him directly. Abu Basir understood that the treaty did not allow him to stay in Madinah, and he left. He could not go back to Makkah either. So he set up a small camp on his own near what is now Jeddah, and sent word of where he was. Abu Jandal ibn Suhayl RA, another Muslim who had been sent back to Makkah under the treaty, heard about it. He escaped again and joined him. News then spread among the Muslims still trapped in Makkah, and others came. First there were 10, then 15, then 60, and eventually about 80 people at the camp.

The Musnad of Imam Ahmad reports that the Prophet ﷺ was once sitting with the angel Jibril AS when another angel came down from the heavens. Jibril told him that Allah had allowed this angel to come down for the first time since the beginning of creation. The angel greeted the Prophet ﷺ and said that his Lord had sent him with a question. Did he want to be a malikan-rasula, a messenger who is also a king, or an abdan-rasula, a messenger who is a humble servant of Allah? Jibril AS signaled to him to humble himself before Allah. The Prophet ﷺ said, "I choose to be an abdan-rasula (messenger-slave)." The narrator of the hadith adds that after this, the Prophet ﷺ was never again seen eating while leaning back against a wall. Leaning back to enjoy a meal is the simplest sign of comfort, and he gave up even that because he had chosen to be a servant before Allah. A slightly weaker narration has the Prophet ﷺ telling Aisha RA about the same encounter himself. He said, "O Aisha, if I desired, then all of these mountains would be turned to gold for me. An angel came to me (his clasp was bigger than the Ka'bah itself) and he asked me, 'Do you want to be a nabiyan-malika or a nabiyan-abda?' and I chose to be a nabiyan-abda." A nabiyan-malika is a king-prophet, and a nabiyan-abda is a slave-prophet.

In Dhu al-Qa'dah 7 AH, the Prophet ﷺ left Madinah with around 2,000 Muslims. They were going to make up the Umrah (the lesser pilgrimage) that they had been prevented from performing the year before at Hudaybiyyah. This time they brought all their weapons. A Quraysh delegation led by Mikraz ibn Hafs came out to ask why, since the agreement allowed them to enter only with swords in their sheaths. The Prophet ﷺ assured them that the Muslims would enter Makkah only as they had agreed. The weapons were left outside the Haram, the sacred area, under a guard of 200 men. The guards took turns, so that everyone could perform tawaf (circling the Ka'bah). The Quraysh of Makkah split into three groups during the visit, and none of them wanted contact with the Muslims. Some stayed in their houses. Some gathered in Dar al-Nadwa, their council house. Others camped in the hills outside the city. One of the Quraysh spread a rumor that the diseases of Madinah had worn the Muslims down, and that they had come back as weaklings. When the Prophet ﷺ heard this, he told the Muslims to raise their voices in the talbiyah, the chant of the pilgrims. He told them to uncover their right shoulders and to perform raml, a brisk walk that is almost a run, for the first three rounds of tawaf. This is how these practices of the Sunnah began. The Quraysh were struck by the Muslims' energy, and the sight of 2,000 Muslims around the Ka'bah left a deep impression on them. The Prophet ﷺ stayed for three days, and the Quraysh kept to the treaty without any incident.

A few weeks after the Battle of Mu'tah, around Jumada of 8 AH, the Prophet ﷺ sent an expedition against the tribe of Quda'a. Quda'a lived to the northeast of Madinah, between it and the Ghassanids, and had helped the Ghassanids at Mu'tah. The expedition takes its name from a pond in the area called Dhat al-Salasil. The Prophet ﷺ called for Amr ibn al-As, who had been a Muslim for only about three months, and told him to come in his armour. Amr later described the meeting. The Prophet ﷺ looked him up and down and said, "I wish to appoint you as a leader of an army, and Allah will protect you and give you much ghanima. And I am optimistic for you that you will get much wealth." Ghanima means the spoils of war. Amr felt hurt, as if the Prophet ﷺ thought he had become Muslim for money. He said that he had accepted Islam only to be a Muslim and to be with the Prophet ﷺ. The Prophet ﷺ replied, "O Amr, how beautiful is pure money for the righteous man." Amr was then given 300 men and told to launch a surprise attack on Quda'a. It was winter. Amr marched only by night, so that the enemy would not hear of his coming. Despite the bitter cold, he refused to let the army light any fire for the whole journey, and threatened to push into it anyone who did. He later explained that he did not want the enemy to see how few they were. When he reached the edge of Quda'a's lands, he decided that 300 men were not enough, and sent word to Madinah asking for more. The Prophet ﷺ sent 200 more men, bringing the force to 500. They were led by Abu Ubaydah Amir ibn al-Jarrah, and among them were Abu Bakr and Umar RA. The Prophet ﷺ told Abu Ubaydah to make sure that he and Amr agreed and did not disagree. When the reinforcements arrived, it was time to pray, and Abu Ubaydah stepped forward to lead the prayer. At that time, whoever led the prayer was understood to be the leader of the army. Amr objected that he was the appointed leader and that the 200 were only reinforcements. Some of Abu Ubaydah's men took his side. Abu Ubaydah was senior to Amr in every way, but he chose to step aside rather than divide the army. He reminded Amr of the Prophet ﷺ's instruction, and let Amr lead both the prayer and the army. Amr then led the whole force in a surprise attack. When Quda'a saw 500 armed men appear without warning, they dropped everything and fled. The tribe was too large for the Muslims to subdue entirely, but they took a great deal of booty and suffered no major casualties. On one night of the expedition, Amr woke in a state of major ritual impurity (janaba) after a wet dream. Normally this requires a full bath (ghusl) before prayer. But the desert night was freezing, and he feared that the cold water would kill him. So he performed tayammum, the dry ablution with clean earth, and led his companions in the Fajr prayer. When they returned, some of the companions complained to the Prophet ﷺ that Amr had led them while in janaba. The Prophet ﷺ asked Amr about it. Amr explained that he had remembered the verse "Do not kill yourselves. Surely, Allah is ever Merciful to you" (Qur'an 4:29), and feared that the bath would do exactly that. The Prophet ﷺ laughed and did not rebuke him.

The Khuza'a and the Banu Bakr were two tribes living on the outskirts of Makkah. For about a hundred years they had fought on and off, much like the Aws and the Khazraj of Madinah before Islam. The Treaty of Hudaybiyyah allowed other tribes to join either the Muslims or the Quraysh. Many of the Khuza'a had become Muslim, so they joined the Muslims' side. The Banu Bakr, the only pagan tribe left near Makkah, joined the Quraysh. The treaty forced the old feud to pause, but the Banu Bakr still wanted revenge for their dead. In 8 AH their noblemen asked the Quraysh for permission to carry out just one raid. The Quraysh agreed, even though they knew it broke the treaty. Some of their leaders, including Suhayl ibn Amr and Safwan ibn Umayyah, even supplied weapons, most likely for a share of the plunder. One of them assured the raiders that if they attacked in the middle of the night, the Muslims would never find out. The Banu Bakr attacked the Khuza'a at night while they were camped at al-Watir, a small pond outside the boundary of the Haram, the sacred area around Makkah. They expected to take some camels and plunder and slip away. Instead someone raised the alarm, and a real fight broke out. More than twenty of the Khuza'a were killed, including women and children. One man of the Khuza'a fled into the Haram, where even the pagan Arabs held that fighting was forbidden. He turned to his pursuer and called on him to fear his God. The man from the Banu Bakr replied, "There is no God today," and killed him inside the Haram.

Before the Conquest of Makkah, the Prophet ﷺ sent a small expedition (sariyya) against a tribe that was threatening the Muslims. The lecture does not name the tribe. On the way, the Muslims passed Amir ibn al-Adbat al-Ashja'i. He was secretly a Muslim, although his tribe had not accepted Islam. He was happy to see them and greeted them with the Islamic greeting of peace, "Assalamu alaykum". One of the Muslims, Muhallim ibn Juthama, had a personal feud with Amir from the days before Islam. The rest of the group accepted Amir's greeting and welcomed him. Muhallim refused, saying Amir was only pretending to be a Muslim. He attacked and killed Amir on his own, and took his belongings as spoils of war. When the news reached the Prophet ﷺ, Allah revealed verse 94 of Surah al-Nisa. It rebukes believers who reject someone's greeting of peace because they want worldly gain. A bitter dispute followed between the tribe of Muhallim and the tribe of Amir. Both tribes later accepted Islam. After the Battle of Hunayn, their chieftains came angrily to the Prophet ﷺ and demanded that the killing be settled. The Prophet ﷺ calmed them down. As the leader who had sent Muhallim, he paid 100 camels in blood money himself. Muhallim's tribe then asked him to pray for Allah to forgive Muhallim. The Prophet ﷺ refused, one of the very few times in his life that he did so, because of Muhallim's character and what was in his heart. Ibn Ishaq reports that Muhallim died a few days later. His tribe buried him, but the next morning they found his body lying face down on top of the ground. They buried him again, and the same thing happened, and then a third time. In the end they laid his body in a valley and covered it with stones. The Prophet ﷺ then said, "Verily, the earth covers up people worse than him, but Allah wanted to warn you through him by showing you the sanctity of life between you."

The Prophet ﷺ stayed longer than usual at the house of his wife Zaynab bint Jahsh RA, where he had eaten a type of honey. Two of his other wives, Aisha RA and Hafsa RA, made a plan between them. When he next came in to either of them, she would tell him that there was a bad smell coming from him, meaning the smell of the honey. When he came in, they both said this to him. The Prophet ﷺ said, "I won't eat at Zaynab's house again."

The Banu Bakr, allies of the Quraysh, had attacked the Khuza'a, who were allied to the Muslims, and the Treaty of Hudaybiyyah was close to collapse. With the approval of the Quraysh, Abu Sufyan travelled alone to Madinah to try to renegotiate it. The reports differ on the order of his visits. Ibn Ishaq says he went first to the Prophet ﷺ, who gave him no response at all. Only then did he go to Abu Bakr, Umar ibn al-Khattab, and Ali ibn Abi Talib in turn. Ibn Sa'd says he visited Abu Bakr, Umar, and Ali first, and the Prophet ﷺ last. Sh. Yasir Qadhi leans toward Ibn Ishaq's version. Abu Bakr, his friend from before Islam, told him plainly that he could not help. Umar, his former business partner, refused even more bluntly. Ali was his third cousin and his closest relative in Madinah. Ali heard him out, but told him that once the Prophet ﷺ had decided a matter, they would not try to change it. Abu Sufyan then turned to Fatima, who was there with her little son Hasan. He asked her to have the boy seek protection for him. Fatima replied that her son was too young to grant protection, and that no one could give protection against the Prophet ﷺ. As a last resort, Ali advised Abu Sufyan to stand in the mosque and publicly ask for protection. Under Arab custom, any member of a tribe could grant protection, and Islam kept this rule for any Muslim, male or female, old or young. Abu Sufyan made the plea, but no one came forward, since the Prophet ﷺ himself had said nothing. Before leaving Madinah, Abu Sufyan visited his daughter Umm Habiba, a wife of the Prophet ﷺ. He had not seen her in over 13 years, since she emigrated to Abyssinia. When he went to sit down, she quickly folded away the bedding. She told him it was the bed of the Prophet ﷺ, and that he, as an idolater, would not sit on it. Abu Sufyan returned to Makkah empty-handed. When he told the Quraysh that he had begged for protection in the mosque, they told him he had been made a fool of.

According to a report in al-Tabari, Hafsa bint Umar RA was once away from home, and the Prophet ﷺ called Maria al-Qibtiyya RA to Hafsa's house. Maria was a Coptic woman who had been sent to the Prophet ﷺ as a gift from Egypt. Hafsa came back earlier than expected and saw Maria leaving. She was angry, and asked the Prophet ﷺ whether that was how much respect he had for her, in her own house and on her own day. He kept trying to calm her, until she made him promise never to see Maria again. He said, "I have made Maria haram for myself," and told Hafsa to keep this between the two of them. He said, "Do not tell Aisha." But Hafsa did tell Aisha RA, boasting that she had made the Prophet ﷺ give up Maria. Hafsa and Aisha were sometimes the best of friends and at other times rivals, and both were jealous of Maria's beauty. It is said that this jealousy was also why the Prophet ﷺ moved Maria to al-Awali, an area far from the Masjid. When the Prophet ﷺ asked Hafsa, "Why did you tell Aisha?", she asked who had told him, thinking it was Aisha. In fact, Allah had informed him. Allah then revealed the opening verses of Surah al-Tahrim (66:1-5). They told the Prophet ﷺ to free himself from his oath, warned Hafsa and Aisha against plotting against him, and warned the Prophet ﷺ's wives in general. The Prophet ﷺ paid the kaffarah (the expiation for breaking an oath), and Maria returned to him.

Mu'tah is a village between Amman and al-Karak, in what is now Jordan. The Arabs call it al-Mazar, meaning "the shrine", because the three commanders of this battle are buried there. It was the only battle the Muslims fought against the Romans in the Prophet ﷺ's lifetime. It was also the largest battle they fought in the north. Three thousand men marched, which was more than on most of the expeditions that the Prophet ﷺ led himself. For that reason the early scholars called it a ghazwa, a campaign of the Prophet ﷺ, even though he was not there. The Companions called it Jaysh al-Umara, the Army of Commanders. This was because it was the only time, before or after, that he named three commanders, each to take over from the one before. Why the battle was fought is less certain than what happened in it. The earliest account is al-Waqidi's. He says that the Prophet ﷺ's envoy, al-Harith ibn Umayr al-Azdi RA, was carrying a letter north. On the way he was seized by the Ghassanids, a Christian Arab people who served Rome. Their chief, Shurahbil ibn Amr, tortured him and speared him to death with his own hands. Everywhere, an envoy was held to be untouchable. A chief who killed one himself was announcing that no one could reach him. Ibn Kathir does not give a cause, but he points to a wisdom in it. Mu'tah was the first domino to fall. It taught the Companions that Islam would have to spread beyond Arabia. Tabuk followed the next year. After the Prophet ﷺ's death, al-Sham was the first land to be opened. In Jumada al-Awwal 8 AH, the Prophet ﷺ announced the target openly, because it was a month's march away. Around 3,000 men volunteered. That was ten times the size of the army at Badr six years before. He named Zayd ibn Harithah RA as commander. If Zayd fell, Ja'far ibn Abi Talib RA was to take over. After Ja'far, it was to be Abdullah ibn Rawahah RA. By one report, he said that after that the army should choose a leader for itself. All three men were among the people dearest to him. Zayd had once been his adopted son. Aisha RA said that Zayd was never sent out except as a commander. She also said that if Zayd had outlived the Prophet ﷺ, he would have been chosen over anyone. Ja'far had been back from Abyssinia for barely a year. Ibn Rawahah was a poet of the Ansar and had been at Aqaba. He was the one who had carried the news of Badr into Madinah. The army left on a Friday. Ibn Rawahah RA stayed behind to pray Jumu'ah with the Prophet ﷺ first. The Prophet ﷺ told him that even if he gave all the wealth of the world in charity, it would not buy back the reward of having set out with the others at dawn. The Prophet ﷺ handed the army a white banner. He walked with them to Thaniyat al-Wada', the place where travellers said their goodbyes. Ibn Rawahah was seen weeping. He said that he was not weeping for this world. He was weeping because of the verse that says every soul must pass over the Fire. On the road, he rode with Zayd ibn Arqam RA, an orphan boy whom he had raised. Ibn Rawahah sang about dying as a martyr until the boy cried. Then he teased the boy that, if he died, the boy would have the camel to himself on the way home. They marched to Ma'an. There they heard that the Ghassanids had taken alarm and called in the Christian tribes of Lakhm, Judham, al-Qayn, Bahra and Bali. A Roman force had also joined them. It was led by an officer called Theodore, who was said to be the brother of the emperor Heraclius. The books say the enemy numbered a hundred thousand. In fact, all the Arab tribes together did not number that many. A realistic figure is perhaps ten thousand, a thousand of them Roman. But Roman soldiers were in a different class in their weapons, horses and training, and the Muslims knew it. For two days the army halted and argued about what to do. Some wanted to send to the Prophet ﷺ for orders, though that meant a fortnight's journey each way. Some wanted to go home, since they had already shown their strength. Others wanted to go on. Zayd asked Ibn Rawahah for his opinion. He already knew what Ibn Rawahah would say, and he knew that Ibn Rawahah had the words to win the others over. Ibn Rawahah told them that the thing they feared was exactly what they had come out for. He said that Allah does not give help through numbers or weapons, but through this religion. He reminded them that one of two good things was waiting for them, either victory or martyrdom. So they went on. On the way, the people of a village showered the back of the army with arrows and killed a man. Zayd refused to be drawn into a fight there, because the enemy was ahead of them. It was the Muslims who chose where to fight. They chose the plain of Mu'tah, which had water and, as it turned out, a way to retreat. Abu Hurairah RA was fighting in his first battle. He stared at the huge army across the plain. Then a Companion who had fought at Badr told him that they had not won Badr by numbers either. Zayd charged with the banner in his hand. He was surrounded and killed. Ja'far took the banner, and fought harder than any Companion is recorded to have fought alone. His horse was crippled beneath him, so he fought on foot inside a ring of enemies. His right hand was cut off, and he caught the banner in his left. Then his left hand was cut off, and he held the banner to his chest with what was left of his arms. In the end a Roman soldier cut him in two from behind. Ibn Umar RA helped find Ja'far's body afterwards under a heap of the dead. He counted more than ninety stabs, wounds and cuts on it. For the rest of his life, Ibn Umar greeted Ja'far's sons as "the sons of the man with two wings". This was because the Prophet ﷺ said that he had seen Ja'far in Paradise with wings in place of his hands. Ibn Rawahah took the banner. For a moment he hesitated. Then he spoke to his own soul in verse. He told it that it would go forward, willingly or not, and that what it had longed for was here. Then he charged and was killed. Thabit ibn Arqam RA caught the banner as it fell and carried it out of the crush. He shouted for the Muslims to choose a leader, but he refused the post himself. Every eye turned to one man. He had been a Muslim for barely two months, and at Uhud he had done them more harm than anyone alive. This was Khalid ibn al-Walid RA. Khalid saw that the battle could not be won. The only victory left was to bring the army home. He posted archers to slow the Roman advance. One of them was the old man Waqid ibn Abdillah al-Tamimi RA. His eyesight had failed, so he had two younger men lift him up on a shield and point him at the enemy. Khalid himself led charge after charge. He later said that nine swords broke in his hand that day, and only a Yemeni blade survived. By nightfall the two armies had pulled apart, out of range of each other's arrows. Behind a hill, the Muslims buried their dead. The three commanders were buried in one grave. The early books do not say what happened the next morning. A later account says that Khalid sent men to raise dust in the distance, so that it looked as if more troops were coming from Madinah. He then used the pause to march the army away. However it was done, no more than twenty of the three thousand had been killed. On the way home, they punished the village that had shot at them. A volunteer from Yemen, protected only by armour he had made from an animal's skin, had killed a Roman officer in gilded armour. He claimed the officer's horse and weapons for himself, under a rule the Prophet ﷺ himself had laid down. Khalid did not know of that rule and held back part of the prize. In Madinah, the Prophet ﷺ had already told the Companions what was happening while it was happening. He wept as he spoke. He told them that Zayd took the banner and was killed, then Ja'far, then Ibn Rawahah. Then, he said, a sword from the swords of Allah took it, and Allah gave victory at his hands. When a messenger arrived with the news, he sat down. Aisha was watching from a corner of the house and saw the grief on his face. A man came to him three times to say that the women of Ja'far's family were wailing and could not be stopped. The third time, the Prophet ﷺ told him to throw dust in their mouths. This was a common Arab expression of exasperation. Aisha told the man that he had neither stopped the women nor spared the Prophet ﷺ the trouble. The Prophet ﷺ ordered food to be cooked for Ja'far's family, because their grief had left them unable to cook. After three days he went to see them himself. He told them that no one should weep for his brother after that day. He had the tangled hair of Ja'far's boys cut. He told Muhammad ibn Ja'far RA that he looked like their grandfather Abu Talib. He told Abdullah ibn Ja'far RA that he looked and behaved like the Prophet ﷺ himself. He prayed three times for Ja'far's descendants, and he prayed for blessing in Abdullah's business dealings. Asma bint Umays RA said that the children were orphans now. The Prophet ﷺ asked her whether she feared poverty for them, when he himself would be their guardian in this world and the next. Afterwards, whenever he saw Usama ibn Zayd RA, his eyes filled with tears. Some Companions were weeping in the mosque because the best of them were gone. He told them that his community was like a garden whose owner prunes it, so that each year's crop is better than the last. He also told them that Allah would not disgrace a community that had him at its beginning and the Messiah at its end. Within days, people began whispering against the men who had come back. They said that the soldiers had run away from the path of Allah. Salama ibn Hisham RA would not leave his house because of the taunts. The Prophet ﷺ answered the whispers from the mosque by changing a single letter. He said they were not furrar, deserters, but kurrar, men who would return to the attack. The man from Yemen came to complain about Khalid. The Prophet ﷺ ordered that the whole prize be given back to him. But then the man gloated over Khalid, and the Prophet ﷺ changed his decision. He told the man to leave his commanders to him, to take the good from them and overlook the rest. The Roman side remembered the battle too. The Byzantine historian Theophanes wrote about the Arab attack near Mu'tah. He recorded that the commanders were killed and that one escaped, "Khalid, whom they call the Sword of God". This was the very title the Prophet ﷺ had given him. Ibn Kathir and later scholars said that no one could break the Sword of Allah in battle. Only the One who had drawn it could put it back in its sheath. That, they said, is why Khalid died in his bed.

In the lead-up to the Conquest of Makkah, the Prophet ﷺ called the Muslims to prepare for a large expedition but kept its destination secret. He did not tell even Abu Bakr RA or Aisha RA. According to Ibn Sa'd, he also sent a small scouting party of eight men north to Batn Idam. This gave the impression that the army would march north toward Syria, when in fact it would march south toward Makkah. Only on the day before the army set out did the Prophet ﷺ announce that they were going to Makkah.

The Muslim army set out from Madinah for the Conquest of Makkah. Barely two days into the march, at the valley of Juhfa, they met al-Abbas ibn Abdul Muttalib RA, the uncle of the Prophet ﷺ, travelling the other way. He had left Makkah with his family to make hijrah to Madinah, with no idea that the conquest was already under way.

The Treaty of Hudaybiyyah allowed either side to make alliances with outside tribes. Any tribe that joined a side was automatically covered by the terms agreed at Hudaybiyyah. The Khuza'a took the side of the Muslims. They were kin to the Prophet ﷺ through his great-great-great-grandmother, and they were bound to Banu Hashim by an old alliance made by Abdul Muttalib. The Banu Bakr took the side of the Quraysh. In the 8th year of the Hijrah, the Banu Bakr raided the Khuza'a by night at the pond of al-Watir, just outside the boundary of the Haram. The Banu Bakr had old blood feuds to settle. The Quraysh knew the raid would break the treaty, yet they approved it. Some of their leaders, such as Suhayl ibn Amr and Safwan ibn Umayyah, gave the Banu Bakr weapons, and some men of Quraysh are reported to have fought beside them in the dark. In his verses, Hassan ibn Thabit later laid the blame on these two men. The raid turned into a massacre. More than twenty people of Khuza'a were killed, including women and children. One man of Khuza'a fled into the Haram and called on his pursuer from Banu Bakr to fear his God. The pursuer answered, "There is no God today," and killed him inside the sanctuary. The chieftain of Khuza'a, Amr ibn Salim al-Khuza'i, went to Madinah. There he recited a poem that called on the old treaty and described the massacre in the same breath. The Prophet ﷺ was moved, and he promised, "You shall be helped, O Amr ibn Salim." The Quraysh sent Abu Sufyan ibn Harb to Madinah to negotiate the treaty again, but he found every door closed to him. Abu Bakr and Umar ibn al-Khattab RA both refused to speak for him. Ali ibn Abi Talib RA and his infant son Hasan could offer him nothing. Even his own daughter, Umm Habiba RA, would not let him sit on the Prophet ﷺ's bedding. He went back to Makkah having achieved nothing. The Prophet ﷺ called for a full mobilization, but he did not say where the army was going. He told no one, not even Abu Bakr RA or Aisha RA. By some reports, he also sent a small decoy party of eight men north toward Batn Idam, to make it look as if Syria was the target. Then he told the people that he was going to Makkah. He prayed, "O Allah, take eyes and ears from the Quraysh so that we may take them by surprise in their land." It was at this point that Hatib ibn Abi Balta'ah RA tried to warn the Quraysh. Hatib had fought at Badr. By the strongest opinion he was a mawla, a client member of a tribe, from Yemen, and his family in Makkah had no tribe to protect them. He paid a mawla woman of Banu Hashim to smuggle a warning letter to the Quraysh, hidden in the braids of her hair. News of this came to the Prophet ﷺ from heaven, and he told his men where to find her. Ali ibn Abi Talib RA and Zubayr ibn al-Awwam RA caught up with her caravan at Rawdatu Khakh, outside Madinah. At first she denied carrying anything. Ali swore that neither the Prophet ﷺ nor Jibril AS could have been mistaken, and he threatened to search her by force. At that, she asked them to turn around out of modesty. Then she untied her hair and handed over the letter. When Hatib was confronted, he confessed. He explained that his loyalty to Allah and His Messenger ﷺ had never wavered. He had acted only out of fear for his unprotected family, not out of love for the Quraysh. Umar ibn al-Khattab RA had asked at once to execute him. But the Prophet ﷺ declared, "Hatib has spoken the truth. Nobody should say anything about Hatib anymore except good." Umar asked a second time, saying that Hatib had betrayed Allah and His Messenger ﷺ. The Prophet ﷺ refused again. He reminded Umar that Hatib had fought at Badr, and told him that Allah may already have forgiven everyone who took part in Badr. Umar was moved to tears. After this, Allah revealed the opening of Surah al-Mumtahanah (Qur'an 60:1), which tells the believers not to take His enemies as allies. The army moved remarkably fast. It left Madinah on the 10th of Ramadan and reached the outskirts of Makkah on the 19th, a march of nine days. By then the force had grown to more than 10,000. Every man of the Muhajirun and the Ansar marched, and allied tribes such as the Muzayna and Banu Sulaym joined along the way. Barely six years earlier, only 300 Muslims had fought at Badr. When the army reached Qudaid, the Prophet ﷺ broke his Ramadan fast, and the army broke theirs with him. At the valley of Juhfa, the army met al-Abbas ibn Abdul Muttalib RA, the Prophet ﷺ's uncle. He was riding out of Makkah with his family to make his own Hijrah, and he did not know that the Conquest was already under way. By a weak report, the Prophet ﷺ called him the last of the Muhajirun. At Niq al-Uqab, between Makkah and Madinah, two of the Prophet ﷺ's first cousins came out to ask to see him. Both had long mocked and opposed him. One was the poet Abu Sufyan ibn al-Harith ibn Abdul Muttalib RA. The other was Abdullah ibn Abi Umayyah RA, the brother of Umm Salama RA. At first the Prophet ﷺ refused to see them. He said that one had wounded his pride and the other had insulted him in Makkah. Then Abu Sufyan ibn al-Harith, with his young son at his side, threatened to go and die in the desert rather than be turned away. Only then was the Prophet ﷺ moved to give way. Both men accepted Islam. The army's last camp was at Marr al-Zahran, later known as Wadi Fatima. There its campfires lit up the plain. Al-Abbas RA had just joined the army, and he was anxious to spare his people needless bloodshed. That night he went out, hoping to persuade the Quraysh to surrender peacefully. On the way he came across three leaders of Quraysh and Khuza'a who were out looking for news. They were Abu Sufyan ibn Harb, Hakim ibn Hizam and Budayl ibn Warqa'. Al-Abbas brought Abu Sufyan into the camp on the Prophet ﷺ's own white mule. On the way they passed Umar ibn al-Khattab RA, who wanted Abu Sufyan executed on the spot. The Prophet ﷺ had Abu Sufyan spend the night in al-Abbas's tent. The next morning, pressed by both men, Abu Sufyan reluctantly testified to the shahada. The Prophet ﷺ then declared that anyone who entered the Haram, stayed in their own home, or entered the house of Abu Sufyan would be safe. He also had al-Abbas show Abu Sufyan the army as it marched past, tribe by tribe. Abu Sufyan marveled at its size and said to al-Abbas, "The kingdom of your nephew has become great." Al-Abbas corrected him, "It is not a kingdom. It is prophethood." The final entry came on the morning of the 20th of Ramadan. The people of Makkah still did not know what was coming. The secret had been kept so completely, over a force of more than 10,000, that it was remembered as nothing short of a miracle. At Dhu Tuwa, the Prophet ﷺ divided the army. According to Ibn Ishaq, Zubayr ibn al-Awwam RA took the left and Sa'd ibn Ubadah RA led the Ansar. Khalid ibn al-Walid RA took the right, with Aslam, Sulaym, Ghifar, Muzayna, Juhayna and other Arab tribes. Abu Ubaydah ibn al-Jarrah RA led the troops ahead of the Prophet ﷺ. As Sa'd ibn Ubadah passed Abu Sufyan, he called out, "Today is the day of a great battle, and today the Ka'bah will be made lawful!" Abu Sufyan reported this to the Prophet ﷺ. According to al-Bukhari, the Prophet ﷺ said that Sa'd was wrong. Today, he said, Allah would honour the Ka'bah, and today it would be covered. In Ibn Ishaq's account, the Prophet ﷺ had the banner taken from Sa'd and given to Ali RA. In al-Bukhari's account, Zubayr RA carried the Prophet ﷺ's own flag. Al-Abbas RA then sent Abu Sufyan back into the city to warn the Quraysh not to fight. Abu Sufyan ran through the streets calling, "Come to my house and you will be safe!" His wife, Hind bint Utbah, was still a pagan, and she was furious. She seized him by the moustache and called for him to be killed as a wretched protector of his people. But Abu Sufyan held his ground. When people pressed him on what one house could do for the whole city, he spelled out the full terms of safety. They would be safe in the Haram, in their own homes, or in his house. The army entered Makkah from the east and the west. The Prophet ﷺ ordered that no one be killed unless they attacked first. He named only a small number of people who were left out of this general amnesty. A handful of Quraysh made a brief, hopeless stand in the alleys of the city. They were led by Ikrimah ibn Abi Jahal, Safwan ibn Umayyah and Suhayl ibn Amr. The books report that around 13 to 20 men of Quraysh were killed. Only two Muslims were killed, both in the flank of Khalid ibn al-Walid RA. The resistance soon collapsed. The Prophet ﷺ then entered the city on his camel, wearing armour. His head was bowed so low that it nearly touched the camel's back, and he was reciting Surah al-Fath (Qur'an 48:1). He rode to the Ka'bah and performed tawaf on his camel. There were more than 350 idols around it, and some say 360. As he passed each one, he pointed his staff at it, and it fell. All the while he was reciting, "Truth has come, and falsehood has departed" (Qur'an 17:81). He then had Uthman ibn Talha bring the key, and he cleared the idols and images out of the Ka'bah. One image showed Ibrahim AS with divination arrows. The Prophet ﷺ said, "May Allah curse them! By Allah, neither Ibrahim nor Isma'il practised divination by arrows." A report in Ibn Sa'd also mentions a picture of Mary and Jesus, but that report is very weak. The Prophet ﷺ is also reported to have prayed inside the Ka'bah, with Bilal RA beside him. Bilal RA said that he prayed two rak'ahs between the pillars, but Ibn Abbas RA reported that he did not pray inside. He once told Aisha RA that he would have rebuilt the Ka'bah on Ibrahim AS's original foundations, and lowered its door to the ground, if the Quraysh had not been so new to Islam. Even now, he chose not to force that renovation through. Speaking from the door of the Ka'bah, the Prophet ﷺ declared, "There is no God but Allah alone. He has fulfilled His promise, and He has aided His servant, and He has destroyed all the enemies by Himself." He abolished every claim of the Jahiliyyah, the age of ignorance before Islam, except two. These were the custodianship of the Ka'bah and the feeding of pilgrims. He also recited Qur'an 49:13, on the equality of all mankind before Allah. He asked the assembled Quraysh what they thought he would do with them. They answered, "Good. You are a noble brother, son of a noble brother." The Prophet ﷺ said, "Go your way, for you are the freed ones" (Ibn Ishaq). Some tellings add the words of Yusuf AS, "No blame on you today" (Qur'an 12:92). Ali ibn Abi Talib RA asked whether both the custodianship of the Ka'bah (sadana) and the feeding of pilgrims (siqaya) could be given to Banu Hashim. Instead, the Prophet ﷺ called for Uthman ibn Talha and said, "Here is your key; today is a day of good faith" (Ibn Ishaq). Other reports link this to Qur'an 4:58. The custodianship has stayed with Uthman's clan, the Banu Abd al-Dar, ever since. In the immediate aftermath of the conquest, by one report, the Prophet ﷺ allowed the Khuza'a to take revenge on the Banu Bakr until the time of Asr. After that he forbade any more bloodshed in the Haram. The next day, men of Khuza'a killed Ibn al-Athwa' of Hudhayl. The Prophet ﷺ told them to stop, and he paid the blood money himself. He ruled that from then on a victim's family could choose either retaliation or blood money. He stressed that Allah alone had allowed him to fight inside the sanctuary, and only for a short time. Unusually among the conquests of human history, no war booty, prisoners or land were taken. Almost no fighting took place at all. Out of the whole city, only a small number of people were denied the amnesty by name, and the lists differ. Ikrimah ibn Abi Jahal fled to Yemen, meaning to sail for Abyssinia. He turned to Islam at the sea. In Ibn Ishaq's account this was because the ship's master demanded belief in one God, while other tellings say it happened during a storm. He came back under the protection that his wife, Umm Hakim, obtained for him. He later died a martyr fighting the Romans. Abdullah ibn Khatal had killed the Muslim freedman who served him, and he had turned murtad, leaving Islam. He clung to the curtain of the Ka'bah for protection, but he was executed. Miqyas ibn Subaba was executed for assassinating a sahabi in revenge for his brother's accidental death at al-Muraysi'. Abdullah ibn Sa'd ibn Abi al-Sarh had once been the Prophet ﷺ's scribe. He had turned murtad and slandered the revelation of the Qur'an. His foster brother, Uthman ibn Affan RA, pleaded for him, and he was pardoned. Ibn Khatal had two singing girls, Fartanah and her companion. One of them was killed, and the other fled and was later pardoned. Sarah had insulted the Prophet ﷺ in Makkah, and she too was later pardoned. Habbar ibn al-Aswad had caused the miscarriage of Zaynab bint Muhammad ﷺ. He later repented and was forgiven. Al-Huwayrith ibn Nuqaydh was one of those who had insulted the Prophet ﷺ in Makkah, and he was executed by Ali ibn Abi Talib RA. By another report, he had attacked Fatima and Umm Kulthum RA on their journey to Madinah. Wahshi, who had killed Hamzah ibn Abdul Muttalib RA, fled to Ta'if and converted about a year later. In the end, four of those named were killed. They were Ibn Khatal, Miqyas, al-Huwayrith and one of the singing girls. After the khutbah, the Prophet ﷺ had Bilal ibn Rabah RA climb onto the Ka'bah and give the first adhan ever called in Makkah. Bilal was an Abyssinian former slave. Now he was raised, literally and symbolically, above the Quraysh who had once tortured him. As Bilal gave the adhan, Abu Sufyan ibn Harb was standing with two leading men of Quraysh, al-Harith ibn Hisham and Itab ibn Asid. Itab said that his late father had been spared the humiliation of seeing Bilal raised above them. Al-Harith said that if he thought this man was on the truth, he would follow him. Abu Sufyan, a new Muslim, would not say anything. He said that if he spoke, even the stones would tell the Prophet ﷺ. Later, as the Prophet ﷺ left the Haram, he repeated to each of the three, word for word, what they had said. Al-Harith accepted Islam on the spot, and Itab accepted it later. Al-Harith is the Companion who asked the Prophet ﷺ how revelation came to him. Al-Bukhari reports this without saying when it happened. By one report, al-Harith died a martyr at the Battle of Yarmouk in 15 AH. Water meant for him was passed on twice. He gave it to Ikrimah ibn Abi Jahal RA, who passed it to Ayyash ibn Abi Rabi'ah RA. All three died before it could be drunk. The Prophet ﷺ then sat at Mount Safa, where the public call to Islam had begun two decades earlier. There he took the bay'ah, the pledge of allegiance, from the men of Quraysh, fulfilling Qur'an 110:2. Mujashi' ibn Mas'ud RA brought his brother to pledge to make the Hijrah. The Prophet ﷺ said that there was no migration after the Conquest, but that he would take his pledge for Islam. In Ibn Abbas RA's report, he said, "There is no emigration after the Conquest, but jihad and intention." He then took the pledge of the women of Quraysh, following Qur'an 60:12. Umar ibn al-Khattab RA administered it in person, since the Prophet ﷺ never touched the hand of a woman who was not related to him. Hind bint Utbah came veiled, and at first she was not recognized. She argued with each condition in turn. She objected that women were being asked for more than men. She admitted that she had secretly taken some of Abu Sufyan's wealth, and he forgave her on the spot. She protested that a free woman would never commit zina. When the pledge forbade killing children, Hind retorted that the Muslims had killed the sons of Quraysh as grown men at Badr. Umar laughed uncontrollably at that reply. The Prophet ﷺ had recognized her when Abu Sufyan spoke, and he asked, "Then you are Hind bint Utbah?" She asked him to forgive what was past, and he went on with the pledge. Meanwhile, some of the Ansar worried among themselves. They feared that now the Prophet ﷺ had returned to his own people, he had grown soft toward them. Revelation came to him, and he told the Ansar, "I migrated towards Allah and towards you. I will live with you and will die with you." They wept (Muslim). The Prophet ﷺ stayed in Makkah for 19 days. During that time, several notable figures held out for a while before finally accepting Islam. By a weak report, a young man named Fudala ibn Umayr was enraged at the defeat. He hid a dagger, meaning to kill the Prophet ﷺ during tawaf. The Prophet ﷺ confronted him by name, and Fudala lied about what he intended. The Prophet ﷺ laughed, asked Allah's forgiveness, and placed a hand on his chest. Fudala later said that from then on no one was more beloved to him. He accepted Islam on the spot. Safwan ibn Umayyah had joined the hopeless resistance. He fled to Jeddah, intending to drown himself. Umayr ibn Wahb RA begged the Prophet ﷺ to grant Safwan protection. Then he caught up with Safwan, carrying the Prophet ﷺ's own turban as proof. He talked him out of boarding the ship and brought him back toward Makkah. Safwan asked for two months to decide, and he was given four. He accepted Islam later, after Hunayn. By some reports, this was after he had lent the Muslims armour and had been given a large share of the spoils of Hunayn. Suhayl ibn Amr had been the Quraysh's negotiator at Hudaybiyyah. By a report not found in Ibn Ishaq, he locked himself in his house in terror. He sent his Muslim son, Abdullah ibn Suhayl RA, to beg for protection on his behalf. The Prophet ﷺ granted it at once. He told the sahaba to receive Suhayl with respect, since "he is too intelligent to be ignorant of Islam". Suhayl accepted Islam about a month later, after Hunayn and the Siege of Ta'if. Abu Quhafa was the blind, elderly father of Abu Bakr RA, and he had long opposed Islam. His granddaughter, Asma bint Abi Bakr RA, led him by the hand to the Prophet ﷺ, who was sitting with Abu Bakr. The Prophet ﷺ asked Abu Bakr why he had not left the old man at home, so that he could go to him there. Abu Bakr answered that it was more fitting for his father to come. The Prophet ﷺ stroked Abu Quhafa's chest and invited him to Islam. He told them to change the whiteness of his hair, but to avoid black. Umm Hani' bint Abi Talib RA also embraced Islam during this time. She was a daughter of Abu Talib, a full sister of Ali ibn Abi Talib RA, and a cousin of the Prophet ﷺ. She had kept her old faith right up until the Conquest. Two of her in-laws from Banu Makhzum fled to her, and Ali RA swore that he would kill them. She bolted her door on them and went to the Prophet ﷺ. She found him bathing, screened by his daughter Fatima RA. He welcomed her and said, "O Umm Hani', we grant protection to whomever you have granted protection." The right to grant protection belongs to any Muslim, man or woman. Umm Hani' RA also narrated that she saw the Prophet ﷺ pray eight rak'ahs of Salat al-Duha that morning. It is the only surviving report of how many rak'ahs he himself prayed of that prayer. One of the last holdouts was Abdullah ibn al-Zab'ari of Banu Sahm, the official poet of the Quraysh. For years he had traded stinging verses with Hassan ibn Thabit RA. At the Conquest he fled to Najran rather than face the Muslims. Then a single verse that Hassan RA aimed at him stung him, and he resolved to return and embrace Islam. In some tellings his cousin objected, and he answered him, "Why should I not convert? ... Should I not go back to my own kith and kin, my own cousin? He is the best of all mankind." By reports not found in Ibn Ishaq, the Prophet ﷺ saw him approaching the Ka'bah from a distance. He remarked to the sahaba, "That is Ibn al-Zab'ari; and I see from him the nur of Iman." Ibn al-Zab'ari then gave the shahada and made a moving declaration of repentance for his years of hostile poetry. The Prophet ﷺ told him, "Islam wipes away all that you have done in the past." He spent the rest of his life writing poetry in praise of Islam. By one report, the Prophet ﷺ gave him his cloak for it. The Prophet ﷺ no longer had a house of his own in Makkah. Abu Talib had died a mushrik. Under the ruling that a Muslim does not inherit from a disbeliever, his house passed instead to his non-Muslim sons, Talib and Aqil, and Aqil later sold it. So the Prophet ﷺ set up a tent at al-Hujun for his 19 days in the city. Ali RA asked whether they would go back to their old family house, and the Prophet ﷺ replied, "And did Aqil leave any property for us to live in?" In al-Bukhari's report it was Usama ibn Zayd RA who asked where they would stay, and the reply is given as "Has Aqil left for us any house to lodge in?" He shortened his prayers throughout the stay. Ibn Abbas RA put the stay at nineteen days, and Ibn Ishaq at fifteen nights. During these 19 days, the Prophet ﷺ gave short sermons teaching the new Muslims the basics of the religion. He reaffirmed that Makkah would always be sacred. He declared, "Allah has made Makkah sacred the day that He created the heavens and the earth, and it shall remain sacred until the Day of Judgment ... Makkah was never halal before me, nor shall it be halal after me. And even for me, it was made halal just for an hour of the day." He forbade the sale of alcohol, carcasses, pigs and idols. This ended the Makkans' profitable trade in carving idols. It also established the fiqh principle that whatever is unlawful to use is also unlawful to sell. Scholars differ on when zawaj al-mut'ah was prohibited, but most place its final prohibition at the Conquest. Sa'd ibn Abi Waqqas RA fell ill in Makkah. In al-Bukhari's main report, this happened in the year of the Farewell Hajj. His only heir was one daughter, and he asked the Prophet ﷺ whether he could leave two-thirds of his wealth by will. The Prophet ﷺ said, "No, too much." Sa'd asked about half, and got the same answer. Then Sa'd proposed a third. This led to a ruling still followed in Islamic inheritance law. A bequest to anyone outside the Qur'anic heirs may not be more than one-third. A noblewoman of Banu Makhzum was caught stealing, and Usama ibn Zayd RA, who was beloved of the Prophet ﷺ, pleaded for her. The Prophet ﷺ became angry and answered, "Do you intercede in a case connected with Allah's prescribed punishments?" Then in a sermon he said that if Fatima, the daughter of Muhammad ﷺ, were to steal, he would cut off her hand. The woman later visited Aisha RA regularly, and Aisha passed on her requests to the Prophet ﷺ. This shows that a punishment does not brand a person a criminal for life. Sa'd ibn Abi Waqqas RA and Abd ibn Zam'ah RA also had a dispute over a boy born to the slave-girl of Zam'ah. Sa'd claimed the boy for his brother Utbah. Abd ibn Zam'ah claimed him as his own brother, born on his father's bed. The Prophet ﷺ settled the case with his verdict, "The boy is for the bed, and the stone is for the adulterer" (al-Bukhari). The Prophet ﷺ also sent small expeditions to destroy the remaining centres of idol worship. He commanded every household to destroy its own idols. He sent Khalid ibn al-Walid RA to destroy the great idol al-Uzza, which is mentioned in Qur'an 53:19. By other reports, he sent another party to destroy Manat (Qur'an 53:20). At Nakhla, al-Uzza's guardian, a man of Sulaym, hung his sword on the idol and climbed the mountain. He called on al-Uzza to strike Khalid down. Khalid destroyed the idol and returned (Ibn Ishaq). This success was spoiled by a mistake of Khalid ibn al-Walid RA, who was a very recent convert and did not yet know fiqh well. He was sent to invite the Banu Jadhimah to Islam, a tribe that had killed his uncle in the Jahiliyyah. They took up their weapons, and he told them to lay them down, since everyone had accepted Islam. They did so, saying "Saba'na, saba'na", because they could not say "Aslamna". Khalid then had them tied up, and he killed a number of them (Ibn Ishaq; al-Bukhari). Abdullah ibn Umar RA and his companions refused Khalid's order to kill their captives. Abd al-Rahman ibn Awf RA told Khalid that he had committed a pagan act in Islam. The two men quarrelled, and Khalid insulted him. When the Prophet ﷺ heard the news, he stood facing the Ka'bah, raised his hands, and declared, "O Allah, I am free from what Khalid has done." He then sent Ali ibn Abi Talib RA with money to pay blood money and to apologize to the grieving families on his behalf. When he heard about the quarrel, the Prophet ﷺ said, "None should revile my Companions, for if one among you were to spend as much gold as Uhud, it would not amount to one mudd of one of them, or half of it" (Muslim). The 19 days secured only the area immediately around Makkah. Ta'if, the fortified city on a plateau that had once driven out and stoned the Prophet ﷺ, was still beyond the army's reach. It would be dealt with in the campaigns that followed.

After about fifty to sixty days away, and perhaps as long as three months, the Prophet ﷺ returned to Madinah from Tabuk. A companion named al-Sa'ib RA was a child at the time. He later recalled, in a report in Sahih al-Bukhari, that he was among the children who ran out to Thaniyat al-Wada' to welcome the Prophet ﷺ home. The name means "the hill of farewell." The hill lay to the north of Madinah, and families walked travelers there to say goodbye. Other reports add that the women and children came out singing a famous poem, Tala'a al-badru alayna ("The full moon has risen over us, from Thaniyat al-Wada'"). Al-Bayhaqi records it in his Dala'il al-Nubuwwah. He places it under this return from Tabuk and also under the Hijrah, noting that scholars usually mention it at the Hijrah. A report from Ibn Aisha that mentions the poem has a broken chain. Ibn al-Qayyim held that the poem belongs to this return, because Thaniyat al-Wada' lies on the road to Syria. On arriving, the Prophet ﷺ went to his masjid and prayed two rak'at (units of prayer). Almost immediately he began receiving the people who had stayed behind from the expedition. Among them was Ka'b ibn Malik RA.

After the Siege of Ta'if, the Prophet ﷺ returned to Ji'ranah. The ghanima, the spoils of war, and the prisoners taken at Hunayn had been kept there under guard. He camped there for over a week. He was waiting for the tribe of Hawazin to come and accept Islam, so that their families and property could be returned to them. The same thing had happened before with the Banu al-Mustaliq. Nearly a month after Hunayn, the Hawazin still had not come, so the Prophet ﷺ began to distribute the ghanima. Spoils left behind by a fleeing enemy, rather than taken from the slain, are given out at the ruler's discretion. So the soldiers had no guaranteed share of them. One by one, the Prophet ﷺ gave the largest gifts that had ever been seen in Islam up to that point. Most went to leading men of the Quraysh who were new Muslims or not yet Muslim at all. These were the muallafati qulubuhum, "those whose hearts needed reconciling to Islam". Among those who received 100 camels each were four men. The first was Abu Sufyan ibn Harb RA. The second was Safwan ibn Umayyah RA, who was still not a Muslim and was moved to accept Islam by this generosity. The third was Uyaynah ibn Hisn of the Ghatafan tribe, and the fourth was al-Aqra' ibn Habis of the Tamim tribe. He also gave large gifts to Muawiyah ibn Abi Sufyan and to al-Harith ibn Hisham RA, the full brother of Abu Jahal. Perhaps 60 to 70 people received gifts in total. Smaller shares were also given to the Muhajirun. The Ansar received nothing from this particular large share. Some of the younger Ansar began to grumble. Their swords were still dripping with the enemy's blood, they said, and yet they had earned nothing, while the Quraysh went home with fortunes. Sa'd ibn Ubadah RA, the chief of the Ansar, told the Prophet ﷺ about this. The Prophet ﷺ gathered the Ansar alone in a tent. There he gave one of the most moving speeches of his life, in praise of them. He said, "I give to some people because I fear for their greed and desires; and I don't give to others because I trust what Allah has given in their hearts is more than what I can give them." Then he asked them a question. Others would go home with sheep and camels. Were they not content to go home with the Messenger of Allah ﷺ himself? The Ansar wept, and said that they were content with Islam and with him. As word of the Prophet ﷺ's generosity spread, Bedouins flocked in asking for money. One chieftain grabbed the Prophet ﷺ's collar and demanded a share. The Prophet ﷺ only smiled and told those handing out the wealth to give him some. On another occasion, Bedouins crowded around him begging, so closely that his garment caught on a thorn bush. When the money was gone, he told them that if he had as many camels as there were shrubs around them, he would give them all away. He would never be found to be miserly. It was also here that a man with a straggly beard accused the Prophet ﷺ of being unjust in the distribution. This was the beginning of what would become the mindset of the Khawarij. Umar ibn al-Khattab RA asked permission to execute him for it. The Prophet ﷺ refused, for the sake of the community's wellbeing. He foretold that from this man's kind would come people who recite the Qur'an without it going beyond their throats, and who leave Islam as an arrow passes through its target. Eventually the Hawazin came and accepted Islam. They hoped their property could still be returned. The Prophet ﷺ told them it was too late for their property. He let them choose between their property and their families, and they chose their families. The next day, after the Zuhr prayer, the Prophet ﷺ gave up his own tribe's share of the prisoners first. This led the other Quraysh leaders to follow his example and release their captives freely. A few Bedouin tribes who had newly become Muslim asked to be paid for their captives instead. The Prophet ﷺ promised to compensate them from future revenue. In this way, all of the Hawazin's families were restored to them, though not their property. Before leaving Ji'ranah for Makkah, the Prophet ﷺ entered ihram there and performed an Umrah. It was the third of the four Umrahs he performed in his lifetime. Among the Hawazin who came to Ji'ranah, the Prophet ﷺ asked in particular about their chieftain, Malik ibn Awf al-Nasri. Malik had fled into Ta'if with the Thaqif tribe rather than surrender. The Prophet ﷺ sent word to him with an offer. If Malik came to him as a Muslim, his family and property would be restored to him, along with a hundred camels besides. Malik was unwilling to live on without his tribe, his family and his wealth. So he accepted, came to the Prophet ﷺ and embraced Islam. He was made chieftain over his own people again. Malik then composed verses declaring that the Prophet ﷺ was a true prophet. The Tamimi chieftain al-Aqra' ibn Habis also reflected on how vast the Prophet ﷺ's generosity had been. He said, "I have just come from a man who doesn't care about poverty! Wallahi, this man is a prophet, for no king would do what he has done!"

No one knows the year this happened. Ibn Sayyid al-Nas says it was the ninth year of the Hijrah. Others say the fourth, fifth or sixth. Some clues point to a late date. By then the Prophet ﷺ was married to all nine of his wives: Sawda, Aisha, Hafsa, Umm Salama, Juwayriyya, Zaynab bint Jahsh, Umm Habiba, Safiyyah and Maymunah. Also, Umar was worried at the time about an attack by the Ghassanids, and that fear ended after Tabuk. On the other hand, Umar went in to see Aisha, which points to a time before the verses of hijab. The verses revealed about the episode are in Surah al-Ahzab, but that proves nothing about the date, because the verses of a surah did not have to come down together. The cause is easier to state than the date. The Prophet ﷺ had never lived in comfort. As a boy he worked as a shepherd for pennies. He lived as a lodger in Abu Talib's crowded house. He had no riding animal of his own until the Hijrah. When wealth came, it went to the community rather than to him. It came in the ransoms of Badr, the fields of Khaybar, and the gift of Fadak, which fed his household. Greatest of all were the spoils of Hunayn. He kept none of them for himself, even though the law allowed a ruler his share. This was his own choice. An angel who had never come down before had once brought him an offer from his Lord. He could be a king and messenger, or a slave and messenger. Jibril signalled to him to humble himself, and he chose to be a slave. The narrator says that after that day he was never seen eating while leaning back against a wall. His wives saw the standard of living rising all around them in Madinah, but not in their own rooms. At some point, most likely in the eighth or ninth year, they went to him together and asked for more. No book records exactly what they asked for, and that is right, because it was a private household matter. What is clear is that they asked together, that Aisha and Hafsa led them, and that what they wanted was lawful. He answered with an ila'. This is an oath before Allah to stay away from one's wives. The law allows it for up to four months, when a marriage needs time to cool down. He swore it for one month. Then he withdrew to a small loft near the mosque, which was reached by a ladder. Umar later told the story to Ibn Abbas. Ibn Abbas had waited more than a year for a chance to ask him about the two wives addressed in Surah al-Tahrim. Umar began with the affair of Maria. He explained that the men of the Quraysh had been used to ruling over their women. In Madinah they found people whose women ruled over them, and their own wives began to learn the same ways. One day, at his house in al-Awali, Umar's wife answered him back. When he scolded her, she told him that the Prophet ﷺ's own wives answered him back. Some of them even stayed away from him for a whole day when they were angry. Umar went straight to his daughter Hafsa and asked if this was true. She said it was. He told her that any woman who did that had lost everything. He warned her never to answer the Prophet ﷺ back again, and never to trouble him for anything. If she needed something, she should bring it to her father. He also told her not to be misled by what her co-wife could get away with. Aisha was more graceful than Hafsa and dearer to the Prophet ﷺ, he said, and she would be forgiven things that Hafsa would not. Umar and a neighbour of his from the Ansar used to take turns. One would work the land while the other spent the day with the Prophet ﷺ and brought back the news. In those days everyone was talking about a Ghassanid army that was said to be shoeing its horses to march on them. One night after Isha, the neighbour hammered on Umar's door. Umar asked whether the Ghassanids had come. The neighbour said no, it was something worse. He said the Prophet ﷺ had divorced his wives. Umar went at first light. He found the mosque full of men sitting in silence, turning pebbles over in their hands. In one telling, he went first to Aisha. He asked whether the daughter of Abu Bakr had troubled the Prophet ﷺ so much that he had left all of them. She told him to mind his own business. Then he went to Hafsa and found her weeping. He reminded her that he had warned her. He told her she knew the Prophet ﷺ did not love her, and that if she were not his daughter, the Prophet ﷺ would have divorced her long ago. Hafsa did not know whether they had been divorced. She only knew that he had gone up to the loft. A servant stood at the foot of the ladder. One version says it was Bilal. Umar asked him to ask permission for him to come in. The servant came back and said he had mentioned Umar, but the Prophet ﷺ had said nothing. Umar went and sat by the minbar. Then he came back and was refused a second time. The third time, Umar called up loudly. He said he thought the Prophet ﷺ believed he had come on Hafsa's behalf. He swore by Allah that if he were told to strike off her head, he would do it. Then he was let in. Inside, he found a room with some barley, a half-tanned water-skin, a chamber pot and a few animal hides. The Prophet ﷺ was lying on a mat of palm fibre, and its weave had left marks on his side. Umar asked whether he had divorced his wives. The Prophet ﷺ said he had not. Umar said "Allahu akbar." He could see the tension, so he told the Prophet ﷺ the whole story about the women of Madinah. He also told him how he had warned Hafsa not to compare herself with Aisha. The Prophet ﷺ smiled, then smiled again, and invited Umar to sit. Umar looked around the room and could see nothing else in it. He asked why the Prophet ﷺ did not pray for his people to be given wealth, as Persia and Rome had been, when those nations did not even worship Allah. Then Umar began to cry. When the Prophet ﷺ asked him why, Umar said it was because the mat had marked the side of Allah's chosen one, while Kisra and Caesar lay in silk. The Prophet ﷺ sat up. He said, "O son of al-Khattab, are you in doubt? Are you not content that Allah has chosen us over them for the Next world and given them this world?" Umar asked him to pray for Allah's forgiveness for him. Another version adds something Umar said. He told the Prophet ﷺ that if he wished to divorce any of his wives, then Allah, Jibril and Mika'il, Abu Bakr, Umar himself and all the believers were with him. Umar used to say that he hoped Allah would confirm what he had said. Allah did, in the fourth verse of Surah al-Tahrim. It was one of three times the Qur'an came down in agreement with Umar. After twenty-nine days the Prophet ﷺ came back down. Aisha reminded him that he had sworn to stay away for a month, and it had only been twenty-nine days. He said, "The month may be 29 days as well." He went to her room first. He told her he was going to put something to her. He asked her not to answer in haste, and to consult her parents before she replied. Then he recited the verses Allah had sent down: "O Prophet ﷺ, say to your wives, if you desire the life of this world and its adornment, come and I will provide for you and release you graciously. But if you desire Allah and His Messenger ﷺ and the Home of the Hereafter, then Allah has prepared for those of you who do good a great reward." Aisha understood why he had told her to consult her parents. He knew they would never tell her to leave him. She asked what there was to consult about. She said she chose Allah and His Messenger ﷺ and the Hereafter. Then she asked him not to tell the other wives what she had chosen. He refused. He said Allah had sent him to convey the message, not to make things hard. He put the same choice to each of his wives in turn, and every one of them chose as Aisha had. The whole city had known about the quarrel, and Allah put it into the Qur'an. The problem it revealed did not lie with the wives. It lay in a standard of living that a messenger who had chosen to be a slave could not share with them. The episode is the source of the law of ila'. It is also the source of the husband's right to give his wife the choice of divorce. And it gives the plainest picture the Companions left of how the Prophet ﷺ chose to live.

Hatim al-Ta'i was famous among the Arabs for his generosity. His son Adi became chief of the Tayy tribe after him. Adi was a Christian, with friends at the Roman court, but he had none of his father's courage. When he heard that the Muslims were conquering one tribe after another, he kept camels ready. When his lookouts told him that Ali was coming, he abandoned his people. He fled north with his wife, his children and his wealth, to a place near Roman territory. Ali's expedition broke the idol of Tayy and brought back prisoners. Among them was a woman who demanded to see the Prophet ﷺ. She told him she was the daughter of Hatim. She asked him to be generous to her, as Allah would be generous to him. He freed her, gave her a camel and supplies, and let her go wherever she liked. She found her brother in the north and scolded him for running away. She told him to go down to Muhammad ﷺ. If he was a prophet, she said, Adi should follow him. If he was a king, Adi should win his favour. The fact that she allowed for the first possibility shows what she already thought. Adi told the story himself, to a student in Kufa, where he died at the age of a hundred and twenty. He said that no one on earth had been more hateful to him than the Prophet ﷺ. But he decided that if the man spoke the truth, he would hear it from him, and if not, it would do him no harm. He walked into Madinah at the end of the eighth year or the start of the ninth. He came without protection and without fear, because no one would harm the son of Hatim. Men who recognised him shouted his name and took him to the Prophet ﷺ. The Prophet ﷺ told him to accept Islam and he would be safe. Adi replied that he already had a religion, and a better one than the pagans had. The Prophet ﷺ repeated the invitation, and Adi refused again. The Prophet ﷺ repeated it once more. Then the Prophet ﷺ said that he knew Adi's religion better than Adi did himself. He asked Adi whether he was not the chief of his people, and Adi said he was. He asked whether Adi did not take a quarter of their income, and Adi said he did. Then he asked whether Adi did not know that his own religion forbade it. Adi said he felt ashamed, and he knew then that this man was a prophet. The Prophet ﷺ took him by the hand and walked him to his house. On the way, an old woman with a small child stopped the Prophet ﷺ to ask about something she needed. He stood and talked with her until it was settled, while the chief of Tayy waited beside him. Adi said to himself that this was not a king. In the house there was a single worn mat. The Prophet ﷺ spread it out and told Adi to sit on it. Adi protested that this would leave nothing for his host. The Prophet ﷺ insisted, and sat on the ground himself. Then he asked Adi whether he knew of any god but Allah. Adi said no. He asked whether Adi knew of anyone mightier than Allah. Again Adi said no. The Prophet ﷺ told him that the Jews had earned Allah's anger, and the Christians had gone astray. Then the Prophet ﷺ named the thing that was holding Adi back. Perhaps, he said, it was the state of the people around him, their poverty and their weakness. Adi was a man who lived well, among a great civilisation, and this was how they looked to him. The Prophet ﷺ asked whether he had heard of al-Hirah. He told him that soon a woman would ride from al-Hirah to circle the Ka'bah alone, fearing nothing but Allah. He told him that the treasures of Kisra ibn Hormuz would be divided among the Muslims. Adi asked in surprise whether he really meant Kisra ibn Hormuz, and the Prophet ﷺ said yes, Kisra ibn Hormuz. And he said that a day would come when a man would walk the streets of Madinah with charity in his hand, and find no one to take it. Adi became a Muslim there in the house. In later life, when Adi told the story, he would say that he had seen two of the three things with his own eyes. The woman had ridden in safety. And he himself had been among those who opened the treasury of Kisra. As for the third, he knew it would come. It came in the reign of Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz. Later, Adi asked the Prophet ﷺ about his father, who had been so generous to relatives and strangers alike. He asked whether his father would be rewarded for it. He was told that his father had wanted something, and had got what he wanted.

After the Battle of Badr, Safwan ibn Umayyah had promised to pay his cousin's debts and support his family if the cousin, Umayr ibn Wahab, would go to Madinah and kill the Prophet ﷺ. Instead, Umayr accepted Islam there. Safwan vowed never to have anything to do with him again, and the two did not speak for years. At the Conquest of Makkah in 8 AH, Safwan was still a pagan. He was sure the Prophet ﷺ would never forgive him for the plot, so he fled the city. Umayr looked for him and learned that he had gone. He asked the Prophet ﷺ to grant Safwan aman, a guarantee of protection, and the Prophet ﷺ granted it. Umayr then found where Safwan was hiding and persuaded him to come back. Safwan returned and declared the shahada, the testimony of faith, before the Prophet ﷺ.

Umm Salama RA had a daughter named Barrah, meaning "the righteous one" (a self-praising name the Prophet ﷺ disliked). He changed her name to Zaynab.

After the Conquest of Makkah, Khalid ibn al-Walid RA was sent out on several expeditions to invite the surrounding tribes to Islam. He was a very new Muslim at the time. One of the tribes on his list was Banu Jadhimah. Khalid had a personal history with this tribe, because before Islam they had killed his uncle. When Khalid arrived with an army behind him, some of the Banu Jadhimah assumed he had come for revenge. They drew their swords and attacked, and Khalid's men fought back. Other members of the tribe understood that Khalid had not come for revenge, and they announced that they had accepted Islam. But they did not use the usual phrase "Aslamna" (we have embraced Islam). Instead they said "Saba'na" (we have become Sabians), because the Arabs used to call the new religion Sabianism. The senior Companions understood what they meant, but Khalid did not. He kept fighting in the merciless way of the days before Islam, and many innocent people were killed. Khalid ordered the other Companions to join the attack, but some refused. Among them were Abdullah ibn Umar RA and Abd al-Rahman ibn Awf RA. Khalid reminded Abd al-Rahman that he was his commander, but Abd al-Rahman would not move. Khalid then cursed him harshly.

While the Prophet ﷺ was in sajdah during prayer, Hasan RA crawled onto his back to play. The Prophet ﷺ did not get up, allowing the child to stay.

While the Prophet ﷺ was giving a khutbah, Hasan and Husayn RA came in from Fatima RA's house wearing long red thobes, tripped over the garments and each other, and fell in the masjid. The Prophet ﷺ stopped the khutbah, went to them, and carried them both.

The Prophet ﷺ intentionally held Hasan RA throughout a khutbah and said of him, "This son of mine is a sayyid, and a day will come when he shall cause reconciliation between two large groups of Muslims."

An old woman came to the Prophet ﷺ and gave her name, which meant something unpleasant. As was his sunnah of changing bad names to good ones, he renamed her Hasanah (Beautiful).

During the twenty days the army camped at Tabuk, a companion named Abdullah Dhu al-Bijadayn RA died. His nickname means "the one with the two coarse garments." When he became Muslim, his tribe threw him out with only one garment. On reaching Madinah he was so embarrassed that he tore it in two, so that it would look as if he had two garments. Ibn Mas'ud RA reports that he woke one night and saw a fire in the distance. Around it were the Prophet ﷺ, Abu Bakr RA and Umar RA. He went over and found that Abdullah had died, and that the three of them were preparing to bury him. The Prophet ﷺ himself went down into the grave and asked Abu Bakr and Umar to hand him the body. As he filled the grave, he said, "O Allah, I am pleased with this servant of Yours, so You as well be pleased with him." Ibn Mas'ud RA said afterwards how much he wished he had been the one lying in that grave.

Zaynab RA was the eldest daughter of the Prophet ﷺ. She was born about ten years before he began calling people to Islam, and she died in the 8th year of the Hijrah, at around 31 years of age. Years earlier, while she was emigrating from Makkah to Madinah, she fell from her camel. She suffered bleeding from which she never fully recovered, and she remained in pain for the next eight years until her death. Her husband, Abu al-As ibn al-Rabi', stayed outside Islam for years after she emigrated. When his caravan was captured by the Muslims, Zaynab famously called out at the Fajr prayer, "I have given him protection!" He was later returned to her under safe conduct, and he eventually accepted Islam himself.

After the Conquest of Makkah, the Prophet ﷺ sent Amr ibn al-As to Oman to call its people to Islam. The Prophet ﷺ's letter to the people of Oman included the instruction, "Take jizya from the Majus." The Majus were the Zoroastrians living there.

Amr ibn al-As RA found the Prophet ﷺ so gentle and kind toward him that he believed he was the Prophet ﷺ's favorite. So one day he asked the Prophet ﷺ who he loved most. The Prophet ﷺ answered at once, "Aisha." Amr said he meant among the men. The Prophet ﷺ said, "Her father." Amr asked who came after him, and the Prophet ﷺ said, "Umar." Amr kept asking until he understood that his own name was not coming, and then he stopped.

Al-Abbas ibn Abdul Muttalib RA was the uncle of the Prophet ﷺ. Once, when someone irritated al-Abbas, the Prophet ﷺ gave a khutbah (sermon) in his defence. Speaking to the Muhajirun (the emigrants from Makkah) and the Ansar (the Muslims of Madinah), he said, "O Muhajirun and Ansar, verily, the uncle of a man is like his father. Do not irritate my uncle."

While traveling at night on the return from Tabuk, the Prophet ﷺ separated from the rest of the army and rode up onto the top of a cliff, with only his camel and two or three companions (among them Ammar ibn Yasir RA and Hudhayfah ibn al-Yaman RA) nearby. In the middle of the night, around fourteen or fifteen men with their faces covered charged toward the Prophet ﷺ's camel. He took evasive action and went quickly down into the valley, and the men fled. He then told Ammar RA that they were hypocrites who had wanted to throw him off the edge of the cliff, but that Allah had protected him. Most of the sahaba never heard of the incident at the time, and the Prophet ﷺ simply moved on.

Ka'b ibn Zuhayr was the most renowned poet in the Arabian Peninsula. He had written satirical poetry against the Muslims, and it had become vulgar, even attacking Muslim women. After the Conquest of Makkah, his brother, who had become Muslim, wrote urging him to repent. Ka'b thought it over and decided that he did want to accept Islam. About two weeks after the Prophet ﷺ returned to Madinah from the conquest, Ka'b came to the city in secret. People there knew his name but not his face. He spent the night at the house of a relative and asked him to keep it quiet. After the Fajr prayer, Ka'b went up to the Prophet ﷺ without saying who he was. He put his hand in the Prophet ﷺ's hand and asked whether he would accept Ka'b ibn Zuhayr if he came seeking protection, repenting and accepting Islam. The Prophet ﷺ said yes. Ka'b then revealed that he was Ka'b ibn Zuhayr. One of the Ansar rose to strike him down, but the Prophet ﷺ stopped him, because Ka'b had come in repentance. Ka'b then asked to recite a poem, and the Prophet ﷺ allowed him. The classical books call it Banat Su'ad, and later scholars named it the Qasidat al-Burda, the Poem of the Cloak. It is the original poem of that name. It is different from the later and more famous Qasidat al-Burda of al-Busiri, a poet of the 7th century after the Hijrah who claimed to have seen the Prophet ﷺ in a dream.

This is the story of a second letter between the Prophet ﷺ and Heraclius, the Roman emperor. Unlike the first, it is not in al-Bukhari. It is found in the Musnad of Imam Ahmad. It was told by the Tanukhi himself, a Christian Arab of the tribe of Tanukh whose name was never recorded. In his old age, at nearly a hundred, he lived in Hims, and a neighbor of his there, Sa'id ibn Abi Rashid, asked him about the letters. The Tanukhi said that when the Prophet ﷺ came to Tabuk, he sent Dihyah al-Kalbi to Heraclius with a letter. Heraclius had seen how much this man had achieved since the first letter. He locked himself in his palace with his patriarchs and priests, and suggested that they follow the Prophet ﷺ, or at least make peace with him. The priests were outraged and rushed for the door. Heraclius then told them he had only been testing how firm they were. After this, Heraclius asked for an Arabic speaker who could carry a message and remember what was said, and the Tanukhi was brought to him. Heraclius gave him a letter and told him to check three things. Would the Prophet ﷺ mention the letters he had written? Would he say anything about night when he read Heraclius's letter? And was there a mark on his back? The Tanukhi found the Prophet ﷺ sitting with his Companions by the well at Tabuk, and handed him the letter. The Prophet ﷺ put it aside and asked where he was from. Then he invited him to Islam, the hanifiyyah, the religion of his father Ibrahim. The Tanukhi replied that he was an ambassador for a people with their own religion, and would not change it while on their mission. He would go home and think about it. The Prophet ﷺ laughed and recited the verse, "You do not guide those whom you love, rather, Allah guides those whom He pleases" (28:56). Then the Prophet ﷺ said, "O you person of Tanukh, I wrote a letter to Kisra of Persia, and he ripped it apart, so Allah will rip his kingdom apart. And I wrote a letter to the Najashi, and he ripped it apart, so Allah will rip his kingdom apart. And I wrote my letter to your companion, and he kept it safe, so people will continue to see his strength as long as there is some good to life." This Najashi was not the righteous king who had sheltered the Muslims, but his son, who ruled after him. That was the first sign, and the Tanukhi scratched a mark on his parchment with an arrow from his quiver. He asked who could read the letter to the Prophet ﷺ, and Mu'awiyah was called to read it. In it, Heraclius asked where Hell could be, if the Prophet ﷺ was inviting him to a Garden as wide as the heavens and the earth. The Prophet ﷺ answered, "Subhan'Allah, where does the night go when the day comes?" That was the second sign, and the Tanukhi marked it down. The Prophet ﷺ then said that an ambassador had a right to a gift, but that they were traveling and had nothing to give. Uthman stood up and gave the Tanukhi a yellow robe, and an Ansari took him home as his guest for the night. The next day, when the Tanukhi stood up to leave, the third sign was still unchecked. The Prophet ﷺ called him, "Come here, O person of Tanukh." When he stood in front of him, the Prophet ﷺ pulled back his garment and said, "Come and look at what your master has told you to look at." The Tanukhi saw the Seal of Prophethood between his shoulder blades, and said it looked like a large cupping mark. He went back to Heraclius with all three signs confirmed. Some say he later became a Muslim, and others say he remained a Christian.

As the Prophet ﷺ prepared for the expedition to Tabuk, he asked the Muslims to give money for the army, known as the Jaysh al-Usrah, the Army of Hardship. The hypocrites of Madinah gave nothing and made excuses to stay behind. The Prophet ﷺ accepted their excuses, and Allah gently rebuked him for it in verse 9:43 of the Qur'an. At this same time, the hypocrites collected money and built a masjid of their own, within walking distance of Masjid Quba. The books of tafsir, such as those of Ibn Kathir and al-Tabari, give the real story behind it. The man behind the plan was Abu Amir al-Rahib, "the Monk", a leading elder of the Aws who had become a Christian before Islam. He rejected Islam, and after Badr he fled to Makkah. Before Uhud he promised the Quraysh that the Aws would listen to him, but none of them did. He finally made his way to the circle of the Roman emperor. From there Abu Amir wrote to his friend Abdullah ibn Ubayy ibn Salul, the leader of the hypocrites. He asked him to set up a base in Madinah, so that the Romans could later be brought in to take the city. Ibn Ubayy built this masjid to be that headquarters. In public, the hypocrites said the masjid was for their weak people, so they would have somewhere close to pray when it rained, even though Masjid Quba was nearby. As an insult, Ibn Ubayy invited the Prophet ﷺ to come and pray two rak'at in it. The Prophet ﷺ was uneasy that a masjid was being built when the Muslims badly needed funds. He asked them why they had built it, and then said, "We are busy now preparing for travel. Insha'Allah, when I come back." He made no promise. The masjid was used for about a month, and the Prophet ﷺ never prayed in it. On the way back from Tabuk, Allah revealed verses 9:107 to 109. They exposed it as a masjid built to cause harm, to spread disbelief, to divide the believers, and to serve as a lookout for a man who had already fought against Allah and His Messenger ﷺ, meaning Abu Amir. The verses forbade the Prophet ﷺ ever to stand in it. He sent Ammar ibn Yasir and other companions to tear it down and burn it to the ground. Abu Amir never came back. The Prophet ﷺ had prayed against him, "May you die a stranger," and he died in Rome with no family or friends around him. Verse 9:108 praises "the masjid that was built upon taqwa from the very first day." Scholars have differed on which masjid this means. Some say Masjid Quba, and an authentic hadith has the Prophet ﷺ swear that it was his own masjid in Madinah. Sheikh Yasir Qadhi holds that the correct view takes in both. The verse describes every masjid built on sincere taqwa, or God-consciousness.

The Prophet ﷺ sent a letter to Musaylimah al-Kadhdhab of Banu Hanifa calling him to Islam. Musaylimah replied that he would only accept if he were given a share of power.

After the Conquest of Makkah, the tribe of Thaqif decided to fight. Thaqif was the tribe of the city of Ta'if, whose idol was al-Lat. They understood that the conquest meant the end of idol worship in Arabia unless they acted. With the Quraysh now defeated, they also wanted to take control of the Ka'bah for themselves. Thaqif sent messengers to every pagan tribe in the region. More than 20,000 pagan fighters gathered under their banner, the largest gathering of pagan Arabs in Arabian history. The two largest groups were Thaqif and the Bedouin tribe of Hawazin, who together made up about 10,000. The Prophet ﷺ sent Abdullah ibn Abi Hadrat RA, a new convert, to scout the forces of Ta'if. He came back and reported that he had never seen such a large gathering. Umar ibn al-Khattab RA doubted the report. Abdullah rebuked him, reminding him that Umar had once disbelieved the Prophet ﷺ himself. The Prophet ﷺ then gathered about 12,000 men. Of these, 10,000 had come with him from Madinah. The other 2,000 were new converts from Makkah, and some of them were not yet even Muslim. One of these was Safwan ibn Umayyah RA. The Prophet ﷺ borrowed a hundred coats of mail, with their weapons, from Safwan, as a loan to be returned. The Muslims left Makkah on the 6th of Shawwal, 8 AH. According to Sahih al-Bukhari they had stayed there about 19 days, though other reports give shorter periods. They reached the valley of Hunayn on the 10th. They camped there rather than at Ta'if itself, because Thaqif had already gathered their forces in that area. On the pagan side, the young chieftain Malik ibn Awf al-Nasri had just been chosen as leader. An old, blind nobleman named Durayd ibn al-Sima gave him advice. He urged Malik to send the tribe's women, children and livestock back to safety, and not to bring them onto the battlefield. He warned that having them there would not help the men fight. Malik refused. He even threatened to kill himself rather than be overruled. So the families and flocks stayed on the field. Thaqif and Hawazin had set a trap. They placed a small decoy force at the mouth of the valley that the Muslims had to cross. The main part of their army, with hundreds of archers, hid in the mountains on both sides. As the Muslims advanced, the decoy force ran away and drew the Muslim army deep into the pass. Then the hidden archers above let fly volleys of arrows, and the main pagan army charged. Many in the Muslim army were inexperienced new converts without proper armour. They panicked and fled in every direction. The Prophet ﷺ was left almost alone on his mule. Among the small group who stayed near him was Umm Sulaym, a woman of the Ansar. She jumped down from her mount and drew a small dagger. She told the Companions she would use it on anyone who reached her. The Prophet ﷺ called out, "Come to me! I am the Messenger of Allah ﷺ! I am Muhammad ﷺ, the son of Abdullah!" He also declared, "I am the Prophet ﷺ, there is no lie about this! I am the son of Abdul Muttalib." In this way he called on both his prophethood and his family line. His uncle, al-Abbas ibn Abdul Muttalib RA, was known for his powerful voice. The Prophet ﷺ asked him to call the fleeing Muhajirun and Ansar back, by name and by tribe. Al-Abbas stood up on his mount and called on them to return. As they came back fighting, the Prophet ﷺ declared, "Now the real fight begins!" This is the first recorded use of that Arabic expression. Then he took a handful of dust and threw it towards Thaqif. He said, "May the faces be disfigured." After that the battle turned, and the Muslims surged forward. Allah then sent down His sakina, or tranquillity, upon the Prophet ﷺ and the believers. As Surah al-Tawbah 9:25-26 relates, He also sent unseen forces to help them. A number of people, both Muslims and non-Muslims, reported seeing these angels come down. One of them was Jubayr ibn Mut'im RA. He described a thick black cloud coming down from the sky and spreading out among the people like ants. In the middle of the chaos, there was another danger. Shayba ibn Uthman was a distant cousin of the Prophet ﷺ from the Banu Abd al-Dar, and he had only recently converted. His father, Uthman ibn Abi Talha, had been killed at Uhud fighting against the Muslims. Shayba rode at the Prophet ﷺ's unguarded back, meaning to avenge his father. A blinding light stopped him. The Prophet ﷺ turned, sensed what was happening, and made du'a for Shayba to be guided. Iman entered Shayba's heart at once. He turned and fought alongside the Muslims for the rest of the battle. Thaqif and Hawazin had relied completely on the ambush, and they had no backup plan. Once the Muslims regrouped and charged, the pagan coalition fled in every direction. The Prophet ﷺ ordered the Companions to chase them into the surrounding valleys and mountains before the scattered tribesmen could regroup. A long series of small expeditions followed. Several sahaba were wounded or killed in them. One of those killed was Abu Amir RA, the uncle of Abu Musa al-Ash'ari RA, who was fatally struck by a javelin. Afterwards, the Prophet ﷺ walked across the battlefield. He came upon the body of a woman who had been killed, and he said it was not right that she had been killed. He learned that Khalid ibn al-Walid RA had killed her. The Prophet ﷺ sent word to Khalid, forbidding him to kill any more women, children or other non-combatants. A second large part of the fleeing coalition regrouped at a place called Awtas. Another skirmish took place there. Some Muslims were killed or wounded before the Muslims won. Only four Muslims were killed in the Battle of Hunayn itself, though many were wounded. Famously, the wounded included all four of the future Khulafa al-Rashidun: Abu Bakr, Umar, Uthman and Ali RA. All four stood with the Prophet ﷺ, and all four were wounded that day.

The Prophet ﷺ said, "Hasan and Husayn are the leaders of the young men of Jannah, and their father is better than them."

On the march to Hunayn, the Muslims passed a magnificent, lush green tree called Dhat Anwat, "the Hanging Tree". Every year the pagan Quraysh held a festival there. They sacrificed animals at it and hung their weapons on it for good luck in battle. Abu Waqid al-Laythi RA had accepted Islam only about a week earlier. He asked the Prophet ﷺ, "O Messenger of Allah ﷺ! Why don't you make for us a hanging tree just as they have the Hanging Tree?" He wanted a good-luck charm of their own. The Prophet ﷺ replied, "Subhan'Allah! I swear by the One in whose Hands is my soul, you have said exactly like the Children of Israel said to Moses when they said, 'O Moses, make for us a god just as they have gods'" (Qur'an 7:138). Then he said, "Wallahi, this is the custom that you will follow the pathways of those before you."

The Battle of Tabuk has two names, and the sahaba used both. The first is Ghazwa Tabuk, because the Muslim army was saved at Tabuk. On the march the sahaba had run out of water. Mu'adh ibn Jabal RA reports that the Prophet ﷺ told them they would reach the spring of Tabuk the next day, at the hottest part of the day. He warned them not to touch its water until he arrived. Two men touched it before he came, and they were rebuked. The Prophet ﷺ then washed his hands and face in what water remained, and the water gushed out until the whole army drank from it. The army is traditionally reported as 20,000 men, though figures like this in the sources were often inflated. The second name is Jaysh al-Usrah, the Army of Difficulty. Imam al-Bukhari records this name alongside Ghazwa Tabuk in his own chapter heading. The army earned the name because this campaign was harsher than any other. Managing so large an army strained food, water and supplies. The march took place in the hottest part of the year, with temperatures around 110°F. It was also the longest distance any army led by the Prophet ﷺ ever marched, roughly 650 km northwest of Madinah. Finally, it fell during Madinah's August harvest. This was a farming society with no idea of a steady salary, so leaving meant giving up the year's main income. The expedition took place in the month of Rajab, 9 AH, exactly six months after the Siege of Ta'if. It was the Prophet ﷺ's final ghazwa, or military campaign. After it he made his Farewell Hajj and fell ill, and from there the seerah moves toward his death and the khilafa. No swords actually clashed at Tabuk. The difficulty was the march itself. Every able-bodied man was called to take part, even men from as far away as Makkah. The most famous story of the expedition, however, is not about the march. It is about the people who missed it. Ka'b ibn Malik RA was one of the earliest Ansari converts, from Banu Salama, and he had taken part in the Bay'at al-Aqaba. He owned two camels and was healthier and wealthier than he had ever been. Even so, he kept putting off his preparations day after day, until the army had gone too far to catch. Ka'b was not alone. Apart from the hypocrites and those with a genuine excuse, the whole city had marched. When the Prophet ﷺ returned, more than eighty of the men who had stayed behind came to him, swore oaths and offered excuses. He accepted what they said at face value and left their true intentions to Allah. Qur'an 9:43 later mildly rebuked him for this. Only three men refused to lie and told the Prophet ﷺ the plain truth. They were Ka'b, Murara ibn al-Rabi' al-Amri RA and Hilal ibn Umayyah al-Waqifi RA. Murara and Hilal were both veterans of Badr. The Prophet ﷺ forbade the whole community to speak to the three of them. For fifty nights everyone shunned them. In Ka'b's case, this included his own cousin Abu Qatada RA. During this time the King of Ghassan sent Ka'b a letter to lure him away. Ka'b burned it, seeing it as a test. Forty days in, the three men were also ordered to separate from their wives. On the fiftieth morning, Ka'b was praying Fajr on his rooftop. A man of the Aslam tribe climbed Jabal Sal', the mountain you can see as you leave the Masjid al-Nabawi. He called out that Allah had accepted their repentance. His voice reached Ka'b before a horseman who had been sent to bring the news in person. Ka'b gave that horseman the only clothes he owned. He then had to borrow a garment from a neighbour so that he could go to the Prophet ﷺ. The repentance of Ka'b and his two companions was announced across Madinah. It was the occasion for Qur'an 9:117-119, which speaks of Allah turning in mercy to "the three who were left behind." Of all the Muhajirun, only Talha ibn Ubaydillah RA stood up to congratulate Ka'b. From that day on, Ka'b resolved never again to knowingly tell a lie. Before the army set out, the Prophet ﷺ called for donations from the minbar, and the sahaba raced to give. Umar ibn al-Khattab RA thought he could finally outdo Abu Bakr RA. He brought half his wealth and told the Prophet ﷺ that he had left an equal amount for his family. This is narrated in Sunan al-Tirmidhi. Then Abu Bakr RA brought everything he owned. He said he had left his family only "Allah and His Messenger ﷺ." Umar admitted that he could never compete with him again. Abd al-Rahman ibn Awf RA had arrived in Madinah with nothing but the clothes on his back. Now he gave 200 uqiyas of grain. Uthman ibn Affan RA gave on two occasions that are remembered. The first was during the Prophet ﷺ's khutbah. Uthman pledged a hundred camels, then raised it to two hundred, and finally to three hundred with everything they carried. At that, the Prophet ﷺ came down from the minbar and declared, "Uthman has no sin after what he has done today." The second came when one of Uthman's trading caravans returned from Syria around the same time. He sold the whole caravan for roughly a thousand gold coins and poured the coins out before the Prophet ﷺ. The Prophet ﷺ said, "Whatever Uthman does after today, it will not harm him." Years later, when the neo-Kharijites turned against Uthman, Ibn Abbas RA reminded them of this promise in his defence. The hypocrites, by contrast, gave nothing and mocked those who did. A poor Ansari man had earned two handfuls of dates by drawing water all night, and he brought one of them. Two hypocrites jeered at him. They said that Allah had no need of so little, and that the man needed it more than anyone. This prompted Qur'an 9:79. Other hypocrites made excuses to avoid marching at all. Al-Jad ibn Qays asked to be let off, claiming he feared he would lose self-control around Roman women. The Prophet ﷺ simply turned away from him, and Qur'an 9:49 is tied to this. Qur'an 9:81-82 and 9:42 rebuke the wider group of hypocrites for rejoicing at staying behind and for finding the journey too far. On the other side were the Bakka'un, "the Criers." They were roughly seven men, including relatives of Abu Ayyub al-Ansari and Irbad ibn Sariya RA. They wanted to march but had no mount. When the Prophet ﷺ told them so, they wept (Qur'an 9:92). Later, at Tabuk, the Prophet ﷺ told the sahaba that sincere companions like these, back in Madinah, shared fully in the army's reward. Ulba ibn Zayd RA had no wealth to give. Instead, he pledged to defend the Prophet ﷺ with his own honour against the hypocrites' taunts. The Prophet ﷺ accepted this as charity. Wathila ibn al-Asqa' RA also had no money and no mount. Every day he went to the marketplace and offered his future share of the ghanima, the spoils of war, to anyone who would take him along. In the end, an elder of the Ansar agreed to share a camel and meals with him. Later, Wathila tried to hand over the very camels he had won as booty in payment, but the elder refused to accept them. Two other companions also put off their preparations, as Ka'b ibn Malik RA had, and nearly missed the expedition. But they recovered themselves at the last moment. Abu Khaythama al-Ansari RA delayed just as Ka'b did. Then he came home and found that his wife had prepared a shaded, watered rug and food for him. He rebuked himself for enjoying comfort while the Prophet ﷺ endured the heat, and he rushed out alone to catch up. The Prophet ﷺ spotted a lone rider in the distance and said, "Let it be Abu Khaythama." When he arrived, the Prophet ﷺ asked him why he had been delayed. Once he heard the story, he gently rebuked him, saying, "Woe to you, Abu Khaythama!" Abu Dharr al-Ghifari RA fell behind because his camel was unfit to travel. So he loaded its burden onto his own back and walked the whole distance alone. The Prophet ﷺ saw a solitary figure approaching on foot and said, "Let it be Abu Dharr!" Then he remarked, "May Allah have mercy upon Abu Dharr. He is walking by himself, he will die by himself, and he will be resurrected by himself." Years later, this was fulfilled almost exactly when Abu Dharr died alone in the desert. Ibn Sa'd places his death in the khilafa of Ali ibn Abi Talib RA. His exile and death have their own separate event. The hypocrites also organised opposition during this same period. This included building Masjid al-Dirar as a rival headquarters. That story is treated as its own event (see Masjid al-Dirar), because it unfolded on a separate track at the same time as the march. Before leaving Madinah, the Prophet ﷺ put Muhammad ibn Maslamah RA in charge of the city's affairs. He always appointed someone to run the city whenever he left it. He told Ali ibn Abi Talib RA to stay behind and take charge of his household, the Mother of the Believers and the Ahl al-Bayt, since the journey would take more than a month. The munafiqun, the hypocrites, mocked Ali RA for staying behind and called him unfit to fight. Ali RA was well known for his bravery, but the taunt stung him. He armed himself and caught up with the army to protest. The Prophet ﷺ reassured him with what is known as the hadith of manzila. He said, "Are you not content to be with me like Harun was with Musa, except that there is no prophet after me?" Ali RA was left in charge only of the Prophet ﷺ's family, not of Madinah itself. Madinah was Muhammad ibn Maslamah RA's responsibility. Sunni scholars point to this detail against the Shia reading of the hadith, which takes it as evidence of a designated political succession. The army left by way of Thaniyat al-Wada'. This is the hill north of the Haram where Madinan families traditionally gathered to say farewell to travellers. There the Prophet ﷺ paused to organise the army into battalions by tribe, each with its own leader and flag. It was the largest army ever assembled under him. He had no military training, yet this organisation showed his skill. On the march, the sahaba began falling asleep on their mounts after Fajr, and their camels scattered. Mu'adh ibn Jabal RA found himself riding alone, close to the Prophet ﷺ. He took the chance to ask him privately what deed would gain him Jannah. This conversation is preserved at length in Musnad Imam Ahmad (see the Sayings & Actions below). The army camped at Tabuk for twenty days, and the Prophet ﷺ prayed qasr, the shortened prayer of a traveller, throughout. Later fiqh discussions cite this when asking how long a traveller (musafir) praying qasr may stay in one place. The morning after they arrived, he ﷺ also delivered a khutbah, which Uqba ibn Amir al-Juhani RA preserved (see the separate Khutbah at Tabuk event). During the twenty days at Tabuk, the Prophet ﷺ also sent Khalid ibn al-Walid RA to Dawmat al-Jandal. There Khalid captured Ukaydir ibn Abd al-Malik, the Kindah chieftain. Through treaties, he sealed the whole northern frontier against Rome (see the separate Dawmat al-Jandal expedition). Over the twenty days at Tabuk, the Prophet ﷺ gave many short khutbahs and khatirahs, or brief talks. Several of them are preserved in the books of hadith and seerah. In one, he ﷺ said that Allah had given him five things granted to no prophet before him. First, he ﷺ was sent to all of mankind, not to one people alone. Second, Allah made him victorious through the awe his enemies felt a month's journey away. Third, ghanima was made lawful for him ﷺ, though it had not been for earlier nations. Fourth, the whole earth was made a place of purification and prayer, so his ﷺ ummah could pray anywhere, not only in a house of worship. Fifth, he ﷺ had saved his own personal request to Allah for the Day of Judgment, and he promised it to whoever testifies la ilaha illallah. This is understood as the Great Intercession. In another talk, narrated by Awf ibn Malik RA, he ﷺ foretold six signs before the Day of Judgment. The last of them are a truce and then a betrayal by the Bani al-Asfar, the Romans. The stay also saw repeated miracles in which food and water increased when supplies ran low. These were reported four or five times on this expedition alone. There was also a karamah, in which a companion who was lost in the dark found his way back to camp by the light of his own glowing fingers. One Fajr, the Prophet ﷺ was delayed while performing wudu, so Abd al-Rahman ibn Awf RA led the salah. Al-Mughira ibn Shu'ba RA helped the Prophet ﷺ with his wudu and narrated what happened. His account includes the Prophet ﷺ's instruction to leave his khuff, his leather socks, on rather than take them off for washing. The Prophet ﷺ then prayed the rak'ah he had missed behind Abd al-Rahman. It was the only time in his life ﷺ that he prayed a full rak'ah led by a companion. During these days the companion Abdullah Dhu al-Bijadayn RA also died, and the Prophet ﷺ buried him with his own hands (see the separate event on his death and burial). The hadith literature also dates several fiqh rulings to Tabuk. One is that washing each limb once in wudu is enough when water is scarce. Another is that the Prophet ﷺ prayed with a sutrah roughly the size of a camel's saddle. A third is that he ﷺ combined salahs only while actually on the move, and not once he had settled, even briefly. He had done the same at the Conquest of Makkah the year before. At Tabuk he still prayed qasr for the whole twenty days, but he did not combine. The last is that the skin of a dead animal becomes pure, and so usable, once it is tanned. On the return march, the army passed through al-Hijr. These are the rock-carved dwellings of the ancient people of Thamud and of Prophet Saleh AS (see the separate event on passing by al-Hijr). At one point the animals grew too weak to carry the army. The Prophet ﷺ made a du'a over them, and they were strengthened. Decades later, at the Muslim conquest of Cyprus in 28 AH, the companion Fudala RA recognised that this du'a had been fulfilled. When water ran short, the Prophet ﷺ prayed for rain. After a night of rain, he gave a khutbah. In it he contrasted the believers, who credited the rain to Allah, with the hypocrites, who credited it to a star. Then the Prophet ﷺ's own camel went missing. A hypocrite mocked him ﷺ, saying that he claimed revelation from heaven yet did not know where his own camel was. The Prophet ﷺ then announced, through revelation, exactly where the camel was, and it was found there. A companion who learned who had made the mocking remark expelled the man from his unit. Elsewhere on the march, some hypocrites mocked the Prophet ﷺ's prophecies that Rome and Persia would be conquered. They were exposed when Qur'an 9:64-66 was revealed. The verses quoted the mocker's excuse before he could even finish giving it (see the separate event on the munafiqun's mockery). Separately, a group of some fourteen or fifteen hypocrites made a sudden, unplanned attempt to throw the Prophet ﷺ off a cliff at night. His own evasive action foiled them. Ammar ibn Yasir RA and Hudhayfah ibn al-Yaman RA were watching, but did not realise what was happening (see the separate event on the assassination attempt). The army finally returned to Madinah after some fifty to sixty days away. The city's women and children came out to greet it at Thaniyat al-Wada'. Among them was the companion al-Sa'ib RA, who was then a child. This welcome is popularly linked to the Hijrah, but Sh. Yasir Qadhi and others hold that it belongs here instead (see the separate event on the return to Madinah). Also on the return march, one of the munafiqs was reported to have said that if Islam were true, it would mean that they themselves were more misguided than donkeys. He then swore under oath that he had never said it. Allah exposed the lie in Surat al-Tawba (Qur'an 9:74). Other hypocrites, who had stayed behind, told one another, "Do not march forth in the heat." The same surah replied that the Fire of Hell is far hotter (Qur'an 9:81-82). There is also a popular story that is widely repeated as the reason Qur'an 9:75-77 was revealed. In it, a named sahabi begs the Prophet ﷺ for wealth and promises to become generous. Once Allah grants him riches, he turns stingy. Later he repents, but his charity is refused. Sh. Yasir Qadhi rejects this story as unreliable. Its chain is weak, and it also has the Prophet ﷺ refusing the charity of a man who had repented. That contradicts the Qur'an's own teaching that Allah accepts repentance. The verses instead describe the hypocrites in general. Some of them vowed to give charity if they were made wealthy, then grew stingy once Allah provided for them.

On the march back from Tabuk, the army passed by al-Hijr. This was the home of the ancient people of Thamud, to whom Allah had sent the prophet Saleh AS. Their houses were carved straight into the mountain, and they still stand today, along with the well that their famous she-camel drank from. Some of the sahaba began rushing in to look inside the houses. The Prophet ﷺ had the call "al-salatu jami'ah" ("the prayer is gathering") made to bring the army back together. He asked them, "Why would you want to enter in upon a people whom Allah's wrath has come down upon?" They said they were amazed by the place. He replied, "Should I not tell you something more amazing than that? A man from amongst you who is informing you about what happened, and what will happen." He also said, "Do not enter in upon a people who have wronged themselves and were punished, unless you are crying as you go in, lest you will be punished how they were punished." Then he covered his face with his turban, lowered his head and hurried through the valley without stopping. Some of the army had drawn water from the wells of Thamud, and some had mixed it into dough for bread. When the Prophet ﷺ heard of this, he told them to give the water and the bread to the animals and not to eat it. He also said, "Do not ask Allah for miracles, because the people of Saleh asked, but they hamstrung it." Saleh AS's people had asked for a miracle, a she-camel brought out of solid rock. Then they hamstrung her, ignoring the warning never to harm her, and a swift punishment destroyed them. After leaving the valley, the army camped for the night. The Prophet ﷺ told them not to leave their tents at night unless someone was with them. Two men disobeyed. It is said that one of them lost his mind and was cured when the Prophet ﷺ prayed for him. The wind is said to have carried the other to a distant mountain, and he had to find his own way back to Madinah.

On the march back from Tabuk, a group of hypocrites began laughing and joking far beyond what was decent. One of them mocked the Prophet ﷺ for promising that the Muslims would conquer Rome and Persia. Nobody could see it yet, but both prophecies came true within a few years of his death ﷺ. Another hypocrite sneered at the Muslims around them, saying they recited the Qur'an but were cowards who only fattened their bellies. One of the companions overheard them. He told the speaker that he was lying and was an enemy of Allah, and said he would report him to the Prophet ﷺ. He galloped to the front of the army, but when he arrived the Prophet ﷺ was already receiving revelation. The hypocrite, afraid that he had already been reported, rushed up behind. He jumped off his camel to look humble and sorry, and blurted out his excuse that they had only been talking idly and joking. At that very moment the Prophet ﷺ began reciting the newly revealed verses, and the Qur'an quoted the man's excuse word for word as he spoke it. Without even looking at him, the Prophet ﷺ kept reciting that he had committed kufr (disbelief) after his Iman (faith). The companion later described the man running beside the Prophet ﷺ's camel, holding on to the stirrup and being dragged along.

As part of the same campaign to rid Arabia of idolatry, the Prophet ﷺ sent Jarir ibn Abdillah al-Bajali RA to destroy another idol worshipped in Yemen, Dhi al-Khalasa, asking him, "Will you not get rid of Dhi al-Khalasa for me?" The Prophet ﷺ was not at peace knowing idols were still being worshipped in the Peninsula. This period is connected to the early verses of Surah al-Tawba, revealed a few months later, which established that no mushrikin should remain in the Arabian Peninsula.

The Prophet ﷺ sent Ali ibn Abi Talib RA to the tribe of Tayy (in the area of present-day Ha'il, Saudi Arabia), the tribe of the legendary pre-Islamic figure of generosity, Hatim al-Ta'i. Hatim's son Adi ibn Hatim, chieftain of Tayy after him, had already converted to Christianity and fled north toward Roman territory with his family and wealth rather than face the advancing Muslims. Ali ibn Abi Talib RA conquered the tribe, destroyed its great idol, and brought back prisoners of war, among them one of Hatim al-Ta'i's daughters. She requested an audience with the Prophet ﷺ in Madinah and asked to be freed, appealing to her father's famed generosity.

In the 8th year of the Hijrah, a son, Ibrahim RA, was born to the Prophet ﷺ.

Abdullah ibn Ja'far ibn Abi Talib RA was once riding with the Prophet ﷺ on a camel, and they entered one of the gardens of the Ansar. Another camel there came up to the Prophet ﷺ, making noises, with tears coming from its eyes. The Prophet ﷺ said, "Where is the master of this camel?" A young man of the Ansar came forward and said that he was its owner. The Prophet ﷺ said, "Do you not fear Allah with regards to these creatures that do not speak? For verily, it has complained to me that you do not feed it properly, and you beat it and overwork it."

On the morning the army arrived at Tabuk, after the dawn prayer (Salat al-Fajr), the Prophet ﷺ stood up and gave a khutbah (sermon). The companion Uqba ibn Amir al-Juhani RA narrated it. The Prophet ﷺ first praised Allah and then said, "O people, amma ba'd." The Arabic phrase amma ba'd means "to proceed", and it marks the move from praise to the sermon itself. The khutbah was a series of short, deep sayings. They spoke of the Book of Allah, the path of Ibrahim AS, the Sunnah, sincerity in deeds, the guidance of the prophets and the death of a martyr. Others praised giving in charity and taqwa (mindfulness of Allah). Others warned against a lying tongue, riba (interest), and blindness of the heart. He ended by asking Allah three times to forgive him and his ummah (community). Then he closed with the customary words, "Astaghfirullaha li wa lakum", meaning that he asked Allah's forgiveness for himself and for them.

After the Conquest of Makkah, the Prophet ﷺ sent expeditions to destroy the smaller idols that some tribes across Arabia still worshipped, since the larger idols had already been destroyed. One of these idols, Dhi al-Kaffayn, belonged to the tribe of Daws in Yemen, the tribe of Abu Hurairah RA. It was a huge idol, and they had even built a structure they called a ka'bah, to rival the Ka'bah in Makkah. The Prophet ﷺ sent Tufayl ibn Amr RA with 400 men to remove it. Before setting out, Tufayl told the Prophet ﷺ that he always fell off when riding a horse. The Prophet ﷺ made du'a for him, "Ya Allah, make him firm," and Tufayl never fell from a horse again.

The Muslim army's final camp before the Conquest of Makkah was at Marr al-Zahran, now known as Wadi Fatima. There the ten thousand men lit their campfires. Al-Abbas RA, the Prophet ﷺ's uncle and a new Muslim, feared that the Quraysh would be destroyed if Makkah were taken by force. He asked permission to go and persuade them to submit. The Prophet ﷺ gave him his own mule, Duldul, to ride. That night al-Abbas came across three leaders of the Quraysh and Khuza'a, who had been coming out each night to look for the Muslim army. Among them was Abu Sufyan ibn Harb, the last senior chief left in Makkah. Al-Abbas told him to come along and promised to ask the Prophet ﷺ to forgive and protect him. He brought Abu Sufyan into the camp on the Prophet ﷺ's mule. Umar ibn al-Khattab RA saw them and followed them to the Prophet ﷺ's tent. He asked for Abu Sufyan to be executed, while al-Abbas insisted that Abu Sufyan was under his protection. The Prophet ﷺ told al-Abbas to keep Abu Sufyan in his tent overnight and bring him back in the morning. The next morning Abu Sufyan, after much hesitation, accepted Islam. The Prophet ﷺ then announced that whoever entered the Haram, stayed in his own house, or entered the house of Abu Sufyan would be safe. He also had al-Abbas show Abu Sufyan the army marching past, tribe by tribe, and Abu Sufyan was astonished at its size.

After the Battle of Hunayn, the Prophet ﷺ left the spoils of war (ghanima) and the prisoners under guard at Ji'ranah. He then marched on Ta'if, where the defeated tribe of Thaqif had taken refuge behind the city's massive walls. Scholars of seerah usually treat Hunayn and Ta'if together, because they happened back to back against the same enemy. They were still two separate incidents, since Hunayn was a battle while Ta'if was a siege. The Muslims arrived in the last week of Shawwal, 8 AH. Ta'if was a green, well-watered city in the mountains, quite unlike the barren valley of Makkah. It had no Ka'bah, but its people had made it strong in other ways. Thaqif had surrounded it with massive walls. On top of the walls they had built devices for pouring burning oil and shooting arrows down on attackers. They had also stored enough supplies for nearly a year, because they expected a long siege. The Prophet ﷺ had foreseen this. While he was still in Makkah, even before Hunayn, he sent a few Companions to the tribe of Jurash, among them Urwah ibn Mas'ud and Ghaylan ibn Salama. Their task was to learn methods of siege warfare that the Muslims had never used before. They learned to build a catapult and a battering ram, and to form a testudo, in which soldiers advance toward a wall under a roof of large shields. They came back with this knowledge before the army reached Ta'if, and so for the first time Muslims built and used a catapult. The Muslims first camped near the city, but they were showered with arrows. The Prophet ﷺ moved them to another site, which later became the location of the first mosque in Ta'if. On one occasion the Muslims used the testudo to approach the walls. Burning oil poured from above still got through and burned many of them. When they ran out from under the shields, a fresh volley of arrows killed a number of them. The battering rams did not work, and the catapults did some damage but could not break open the gates. The Prophet ﷺ suggested leaving Ta'if for now and coming back another time. Some of the Companions did not want to go. They had just won at Makkah and Hunayn, and they did not want to leave when victory seemed so close. When the Prophet ﷺ saw that they wanted to stay, he let them stay. The city still held. After another deadly volley of arrows the Companions lost heart, and when the Prophet ﷺ told them a second time that they should move on, they quietly agreed. Before they left, the Companions asked him to make du'a (supplication) against Thaqif. Instead he prayed that Allah would guide them. The army then returned to Ji'ranah, where the spoils were waiting.

At the Battle of Hunayn, the Muslims fought and defeated several tribes. Among them was Banu Sa'd ibn Bakr, the desert tribe that had fostered the Prophet ﷺ when he was a baby. After the battle, the prisoners of war were led to Ji'ranah. One of the women began to shout, asking how they dared treat her this way when she was the sister of their own companion. She was Shayma, the daughter of the Prophet ﷺ's wet-nurse, Halimah al-Sa'diyah, and so his foster sister. She had helped care for him as a baby, some 56 years earlier. The astonished companions told the Prophet ﷺ, and he asked them to bring her to him.

Halimah al-Sa'diyah and her husband had not been present at Hunayn, and only came to visit afterward. When the Prophet ﷺ saw her, he recognized her instantly, stood to greet her, and took off his own shawl to spread on the ground for her to sit on.

The Prophet ﷺ proposed to and married Fatima bint al-Dahhak of the tribe of Kulab. On the night he went in to her, she said, "I seek Allah's refuge from you." The Prophet ﷺ replied, "You have sought refuge in One who is very great. Go back to your family." He did not use the word "divorce". He used indirect language, known as kinaya, and that ended the marriage. It was never consummated. No one recorded why she said what she did. Ibn Hajar suggests she was mentally unwell. Others say jealous relatives had told her to say it, and she did not understand what it meant.

Umar ibn al-Khattab RA once came in to see the Prophet ﷺ, who was lying in his small room attached to the mosque in Madinah. The room held nothing but a jug of water and a small bed made from the branches of a date palm. By this time, the seventh or eighth year of the Hijrah, the Prophet ﷺ was the undisputed leader of a large part of Arabia. When Umar RA came in, the Prophet ﷺ sat up to greet him. Umar RA saw that the palm branches had pressed a red mark into his side. Umar RA began to weep. He said they could not let the Prophet ﷺ live like this, when the kings of Rome and Persia lived in such luxury. The Prophet ﷺ replied, "O Umar, are you not happy that they have the dunya, and we have the akhira?" The dunya is this world, and the akhira is the Hereafter.

The wives of the Prophet ﷺ once talked among themselves about which of them would be the first to die after him. The Prophet ﷺ said, "The one amongst you with the longest hand will be the first to meet me." For several years after his death, the wives would stand against a wall and measure whose hand was longest. Then Zaynab bint Jahsh RA became the first of them to die. She was the most generous of the wives, known as the Mother of the Poor. They understood that by "the longest hand" he had meant the one who gave the most for the sake of Allah.

While reciting the Qur'an, the Prophet ﷺ came to the du'a (supplication) of Ibrahim AS for those who would follow him, and the du'a of Isa AS asking Allah to forgive his people. He began to think of his own ummah (community). He raised his hands and wept, saying, "O Allah, my ummah! O Allah, my ummah!" Allah sent Jibril AS to ask him why he was weeping, though Allah already knew. The Prophet ﷺ said he was thinking of his ummah and of what their fate would be. Jibril AS took this answer back to Allah. He then returned with Allah's reply, that Allah would please the Prophet ﷺ regarding his ummah and would not displease him.

While the Prophet ﷺ was camped at Tabuk, he sent Khalid ibn al-Walid RA with a few hundred sahaba (companions) on a small expedition to Dawmat al-Jandal. This was the home of the Christian Arab tribe of Kindah, which had close ties with the Roman emperor. Their chieftain, Ukaydir ibn Abd al-Malik, was called a king (malik). The Prophet ﷺ told Khalid that he would find Ukaydir away from his entourage, in the middle of some cows. That is exactly what happened. One night Ukaydir's herd of cows kept barging against the door of his palace. His wife grew fed up and told him to deal with it, so he went out himself with a few servants. Khalid found him there in the open and captured him. Ukaydir was brought before the Prophet ﷺ. He did not embrace Islam at that time. He did agree to break off his ties with the Romans, to pay the jizya (a tax paid by non-Muslims under Muslim protection), and not to attack the Muslims. To show his loyalty, he later sent gifts to the Muslim camp. Among them was a hulla, a fine two-piece garment with gold thread, more beautiful than anything the companions had seen. The Prophet ﷺ wore it, and the companions gathered around it in awe.

At a time when not a single Muslim knew how to build ships, the Prophet ﷺ foretold that there would be a Muslim naval force within the lifetime of his companions. Ummi Haram bint Milhan RA, the aunt of Anas ibn Malik RA, said, "Ya Rasulullah, make du'a that I am in that force and I die in it." He said, "You will be amongst them." Decades later, in the reign of Muawiyah RA, Muslim fleets were sent out on expeditions, and Ummi Haram took part. On one of the distant islands they reached, she fell from her horse, cracked her skull and died. The companions buried her there. Later a masjid was built beside her grave. It still stands in Cyprus today and bears her name.

Imran ibn Husayn RA narrated this hadith. He was sitting in the mosque when a delegation of Banu Tamim arrived to announce that they had become Muslims. Banu Tamim were Bedouins from Najd, known for being rough and harsh, and most of the Confederate army at the Battle of the Trench had come from that region. The Prophet ﷺ said to them, "I give you good news, O people of Tamim." He meant the good news of Paradise. They misunderstood him and thought he was offering them something of this world, so they said, "You are giving us good news, so give us then the money." Out of good manners, the Prophet ﷺ stayed silent. Then a delegation from Himyar in Yemen arrived and announced that they too had become Muslims. The Prophet ﷺ said, "O people of Himyar, accept the good news since the people of Banu Tamim did not accept it." They replied, "We accept the good news! And we have come all the way from Yemen asking you about the creation, how did Allah create it, and how did it all begin?" The Prophet ﷺ answered, "There was Allah, and there was nothing before Him. And He then created the heavens and the earth while His Throne was on the water." Just then, someone called out to Imran that his camel had run off. He ran after it into the desert, but he neither caught the camel nor heard the rest of the hadith. He later wished he had let the camel go. Imran was the only one to report this hadith. The men of Himyar went back to Yemen and did not pass it on, so the rest of what the Prophet ﷺ said that day has not come down to us.

Wa'il ibn Hujr was a nobleman from Hadhramaut in Yemen. He was of royal blood, since his great-grandfather had been one of the kings of the region. In the 9th year of the Hijrah, before he arrived, the Prophet ﷺ told the Companions, "There shall come to you Wa'il ibn Hujr, one of the ashraf of Yemen. And he is coming wanting to embrace Islam without any pressure being put on him." The ashraf were the noblemen. Wa'il reached Madinah three days later. The Prophet ﷺ honored him as he honored hardly anyone else. He brought Wa'il up onto the minbar beside him, and seated him on his own cloak, an Arab custom for honoring a guest. He also made du'a for Wa'il and his children. Wa'il complained that his family had taken his right to the throne away from him. The Prophet ﷺ replied, "I will give you better than that," meaning that Islam would bring him more than any kingdom. The Prophet ﷺ then made Wa'il governor of a small area of Yemen. He sent the young Muawiyah ibn Abi Sufyan RA, who was very poor at the time, with him as an escort. Wa'il rode his camel while Muawiyah walked. Muawiyah asked to ride with him, but Wa'il said it was not fitting for someone like him to ride with kings. Muawiyah then asked at least to wear Wa'il's shoes, because the stones were hot. Wa'il refused again and told him to shelter in the shadow of the camel. He was a Muslim, but a brand new one who had not yet left his old manners behind.

Towards the end of the Prophet ﷺ's life, a Companion named Fudayk came to Madinah with a worry. People were telling him that anyone who did not emigrate (make Hijrah) to Madinah would be destroyed. His own people still worshipped idols, and in one version of the report he said he had been told to leave them and emigrate. The Prophet ﷺ replied, "O Fudayk, establish the salah, avoid the sins, and live with your people wherever you like."

Fatima bint Qays RA was married to Ibn al-Mughira, one of the best young men of the Quraysh, who fell as a martyr early in the fighting alongside the Prophet ﷺ. When she was widowed, Abd al-Rahman ibn Awf RA and a group of other Companions proposed marriage to her. The Prophet ﷺ also proposed to her on behalf of his freed slave, Usama ibn Zayd RA. She told the Prophet ﷺ that her affairs were in his hands, and that he could marry her to whomever he wished. He first told her to spend her 'iddah, the waiting period of a widow, with Ummi Sharik, a wealthy woman of the Ansar who spent much in the cause of Allah. Then he changed his mind. Ummi Sharik had many guests, and he did not want Fatima's head-covering or clothing to slip in front of them. Instead, he sent her to her cousin, Abdullah ibn Umm Maktum RA, the blind Companion. He was a man of Banu Fihr of the Quraysh, the same clan as hers. When her 'iddah ended, she heard the call gathering people to prayer. At that gathering, the Prophet ﷺ told the people about Tamim al-Dari.

Toward the end of the 9th year after the Hijrah, the Prophet ﷺ sent many sahaba (companions) out across Arabia as governors and teachers of Islam, especially to the north and the south. Among them were Mu'adh ibn Jabal RA, who was sent to Yemen, and Abu Musa al-Ash'ari RA, who was sent to another province of Yemen. At the start of the 10th year, the Prophet ﷺ sent Khalid ibn al-Walid RA to the province of Najran, just north of Yemen. He told Khalid not to attack until he had given the people three days to choose. They could accept Islam, or pay jizya (a tax on non-Muslim subjects) if they were Christians or Jews, or leave. Khalid RA sent out criers with this message, and the whole province of Najran accepted Islam without any fighting. Khalid RA had brought an army but now had no one to fight, and he was unsure what to do. He wrote to the Prophet ﷺ to report that the people had all become Muslim and to ask for instructions. The Prophet ﷺ told him to send a delegation to Madinah, so that he could test them himself. When the delegation arrived, the Prophet ﷺ did not recognise them. It is reported that he remarked that they looked like the people of Hind (India). They told him they were from Najran. The Prophet ﷺ then questioned them, at times sharply, to test whether their faith was genuine, and they passed the test. He then asked them the secret of how they always defeated anyone who attacked them. They gave two reasons. Once they made a decision, they never fought among themselves, and they never wronged other people.

After his conversion, Adi ibn Hatim RA visited the Prophet ﷺ several times. On one of these visits he asked about his late father, Hatim al-Ta'i, who was famed among the Arabs for his generosity but had died outside Islam. Adi said that his father used to be good to his relatives and generous to his people, and asked whether he would be rewarded for it. The Prophet ﷺ replied, "Your father desired something and he got what he desired."

When the siege of Ta'if was lifted, the Prophet ﷺ told his Companions to leave the Thaqif alone. He said, "Let them be, they will come to us." Less than a year later, they came. By then they were the last pagan tribe in the Hejaz. What brought them was fear as much as faith. Urwah ibn Mas'ud had been the greatest of their chiefs. The Qur'an pairs him with al-Walid ibn al-Mughira as one of the two great men of the two cities. Urwah had embraced Islam on the road home from the siege, and gone back to call his people to it. But they shot him from the dark as he gave the adhan from his roof. His blood was on their hands, and they knew what that meant. Ibn Ishaq records the long argument that followed. No chief would go to Madinah alone to answer for the killing. In the end they agreed that all six or seven of them would go together, with their followers. They set out in Ramadan of the ninth year. Their kinsman al-Mughira ibn Shu'ba met them outside the city. He ran towards the mosque to tell the Prophet ﷺ. On the way, Abu Bakr stopped him. He begged Mughira, by Allah, to let him be the one to carry the good news. Every Companion wanted to be the man who made the Prophet ﷺ happy. Mughira went back to the delegation. He taught them how to greet the Prophet ﷺ and what to call him. They ignored all of it. They greeted him in the way of the days of ignorance before Islam, and called him by his name. There was no faith in them yet. The Prophet ﷺ overlooked every discourtesy. He had a tent put up for them inside the mosque, and treated them as honoured guests. By Arab custom, the two leaders would not meet until talks had been held through a go-between. Theirs was Khalid ibn Sa'id ibn al-As, a distant cousin of the Prophet ﷺ. The delegates were so afraid because of what they had done that they would not touch the food until Khalid had eaten first. Through him the bargaining went on for ten days. They asked whether they could have a treaty at all. They were told they could, if they became Muslims. They had heard that riba, the taking of interest, was forbidden, and all their wealth came from riba. The answer was that they would keep their principal. They asked whether they could keep zina, sex outside marriage, since they were merchants and often away from home. They were told that Allah had forbidden it. They asked whether they could at least keep wine. Ta'if was a city of vineyards and cold nights. Again they were told that Allah had forbidden it. The delegates talked it over among themselves. None of them could go home and tell Ta'if that riba, zina and wine were all gone. But if they went home without an agreement and another army came, they would be finished within a month. Then one of them pointed out that the people around this man had given up all three. If they could do it, he said, so could the Thaqif. Next came the question of al-Lat, their idol. It was the second greatest idol in Arabia after Hubal, and it was to be destroyed. They asked for it to be left for three years. Then they asked for two years, then one, and then fewer and fewer months. Every time the answer was no. Then they said they could not be the ones to destroy it. The Prophet ﷺ said, "You don't have to. We will take charge of that." Then they turned to the prayer. They asked to be excused from bowing, because of the cold. The Prophet ﷺ said, "There is no good in any religion that has no salah in it." They asked to be excused from wudu, because Ta'if gets very cold, and again the answer was no. Finally they asked to be excused from zakat and jihad. This time the Prophet ﷺ said, "Okay, you are forgiven from zakat and jihad." But a few days later, when they were leaving, he said, "They shall give zakat and they shall go for jihad." In time they did both. Scholars differ on what this means. Some say the Prophet ﷺ knew that faith would enter their hearts and lead them to both, so this was special to him. Others take it as a precedent for a Muslim leader to accept imperfect conditions from new Muslims for a time. Around the tenth day they became Muslims. They fasted the last five days of Ramadan with him. They were very anxious to get it right. When Bilal brought them their suhur, they said the sun had already risen. He told them the Prophet ﷺ was still eating. When he brought their iftar, they said the sun had not yet set. He told them he had come only after the Prophet ﷺ had broken his own fast. The youngest of them was Uthman ibn Abi al-As. He had believed before the rest of them. He spent the fortnight away from the elders' tent, learning the Qur'an from the Prophet ﷺ and the religion from Abu Bakr. When they left, Abu Bakr proposed him as their leader, and the Prophet ﷺ appointed him. They went home and told Ta'if that it must accept Islam. Mughira and Abu Sufyan were sent to break al-Lat. At the first blow, Mughira pretended to drop dead, to show the people how foolish they were. A mosque was built where the idol had stood. Wahshi, the man who had killed Hamzah, had fled to Ta'if before the conquest of Makkah. He became a Muslim at about the same time.

Quss ibn Sa'ida was a preacher of the tribe of Banu Iyad. He was a hanif, one of the few Arabs before Islam who turned away from idols to worship Allah alone. The Prophet ﷺ had heard him preach when the Prophet ﷺ was a young man in his twenties. About 40 years later, in the 9th year of the Hijrah, a delegation of Banu Iyad came to Madinah to accept Islam. The Prophet ﷺ asked them, "Where is Quss ibn Sa'ida?" They told him that Quss had died long before. The Prophet ﷺ said, "I remember him on a red camel and he had a mesmerizing speech. Can anybody amongst you remind me of it?" The tribesmen recited the words they remembered, and the Prophet ﷺ approved of what Quss had said.

Musaylimah al-Kadhdhab, "Musaylimah the Liar", was an elderly and highly respected leader of Banu Hanifa in al-Yamamah. He watched his tribe split as Islam spread. The nobleman Thumamah ibn Uthal RA and his followers became Muslims, while others held to the old ways. Musaylimah told his people that he would follow the Prophet ﷺ on two conditions. The Prophet ﷺ must give him power after his death, and must share prophethood with him "like Musa shared with his brother Harun." He then travelled to Madinah to negotiate. His followers brought him into the mosque shielded with fine cloth, as if he were a king. He put his conditions to the Prophet ﷺ directly. The Prophet ﷺ was holding a tree branch, and he said, "Wallahi, if you asked me for this stick, I wouldn't even give this to you." After returning home, Musaylimah wrote to the Prophet ﷺ, calling himself a Messenger of Allah alongside him. He claimed that the Quraysh had half of "the matter" and he had the other half. The Prophet ﷺ asked the two men who delivered the letter what they said about Musaylimah, and they said they agreed with the letter. The Prophet ﷺ told them that, were it not that envoys are never harmed, he would have had them executed, because their claim was open disbelief. Musaylimah also composed imitations of the Qur'an. One was a reworking of Surah al-Kawthar. Another, which he called Surah al-Difda', "the Chapter of the Frog", was addressed to a frog. When he recited his own version of Surah al-Fil to a passing Arab who was not even a Muslim, the man told him, "Wallahi, you know that I know that you are a liar."

Ibrahim was the infant son of the Prophet ﷺ and Maria al-Qibtiyya RA. He fell ill and died in the first quarter of the 10th year of the Hijrah. He had lived a year and four months, or by other reports a year and six months. It was the age when a child is walking, laughing and recognising the people around him. When word came that Ibrahim was dying, the Prophet ﷺ went with some of the companions to Maria's home in al-Awali, a part of Madinah. He held Ibrahim, who was wheezing and coughing as the pangs of death began. The Prophet ﷺ's tears began to fall. One of the companions asked whether he too cried. The Prophet ﷺ replied, "The eyes cry and the heart is sad, but we only say that which pleases our Lord."

Urwah ibn Mas'ud al-Thaqafi was one of the most respected leaders of the tribe of Thaqif in Ta'if. Some time after the Conquest of Makkah, he embraced Islam at the hands of the Prophet ﷺ. He wanted to go back and call his own people to Islam. The Prophet ﷺ warned him, "I am scared for you," fearing how his tribe would treat him. Urwah was sure of his standing. He said that his people respected him so much that if they found him asleep, they would not even wake him. He insisted, and the Prophet ﷺ let him go. When Urwah began preaching Islam in Ta'if, his own people answered him with vile abuse. He went home saddened. The next morning at Fajr he climbed onto his roof, gave the adhan and began to pray. Someone who saw him took a bow and shot him with an arrow. He fell and died a martyr. As he lay dying, his family asked whether they should seek revenge or blood money. Urwah told them not to. He said this martyrdom was a gift with which Allah had honoured him. He asked to be buried with the Muslims who had been martyred at Hunayn rather than in his family's graveyard, and that was done.

Najran was a province whose people were almost all Christian, with close ties to the Roman emperor. A few months earlier, the Prophet ﷺ had written to them "in the name of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob." He invited them to Islam. If they refused, they could pay the jizya, a yearly tax paid by non-Muslims living under Muslim rule. If they refused both, there would be war. The people of Najran consulted one another. One of them said that a prophet had been foretold among the descendants of Isma'il, and this might be him. Another said that even if he was not a prophet, they should find out how strong he was. Ibn Ishaq says they sent sixty men, at a time when most delegations had between one and ten. Twenty-four of them were nobles, including three bishops and a patriarch. They wanted both to impress the Muslims and to judge the situation for themselves. The Christians of Najran arrived at the mosque at the time of the Asr prayer. They were dressed in a style closer to Rome than to Arabia, and the Companions said they had never seen a delegation like them. When it was time for their own prayer, they asked permission to pray. The Companions wanted to refuse, but the Prophet ﷺ allowed it. The Christians faced east, as Christians of that time did in prayer. This meant they faced one of the mosque's side walls rather than the qibla. The talks lasted perhaps three or four days. On the first day the delegates asked many questions about Isa, Jesus son of Maryam. Finally they asked, "If you agree with us that Isa was born of a virgin, then who is his father?" The Prophet ﷺ said, "I don't have an answer for you now. Let Allah answer you." The next day, Allah revealed the first sixty verses of Surah Ali Imran. One of them says that the example of Isa with Allah is like that of Adam, whom He created from dust and then said to him "Be," and he was (3:59). The delegates also claimed that Ibrahim was a Christian. The surah answered that Ibrahim was neither a Jew nor a Christian, but a hanif who submitted to Allah and was no idolater (3:67). At the end of the second day came the Verse of Mubahala (3:61). In a mubahala, two sides who cannot settle a dispute call down Allah's curse on whichever of them is lying. The verse tells the Prophet ﷺ to say, "Come, let us call our sons and your sons, our women and your women, ourselves and yourselves," and then to pray that Allah's curse falls on the liars. A mubahala is a last resort at the end of an argument, never the way to begin one. The verse names children and women first because seeing a curse fall on loved ones is harder than suffering it oneself. The next morning, the Prophet ﷺ came out ready for the mubahala with his family. With him were his daughter Fatima, her husband Ali, and their sons Hasan and Husayn. Meanwhile the Christians had talked among themselves. They reasoned that if he really was a prophet and they went through with the curse, they would be wiped from the face of the earth. So they declined the mubahala and agreed to pay the jizya instead. The Prophet ﷺ set a reasonable amount of cloth and silver each year, "for as long as Allah wills." The delegates also asked for a judge to settle disputes among themselves, because they had found the Muslims honest. The Prophet ﷺ sent Abu Ubaydah ibn al-Jarrah to be their judge for a while. Al-Bayhaqi records what happened on the way home. The younger brother of one of the most senior men said something insulting about the Prophet ﷺ. His older brother, the patriarch, told him not to curse him. When the younger man asked why, the patriarch said it was because he was the prophet foretold in their scripture. The younger man asked why, then, he had not followed him, since everyone else was following the patriarch. The patriarch asked whether he wanted them to give up all the honor, wealth and ties that the Roman emperor had given them. The younger brother was so shocked that he went back to Madinah and became a Muslim. Most of the others simply followed their leaders home.

By the end of the 9th year of the Hijrah, Thaqif had accepted Islam, the expedition to Tabuk was over, and the matter of Najran had been settled. The Prophet ﷺ then sent Abu Bakr al-Siddiq RA from Madinah to Makkah at the head of an official delegation of 300 Muslims. Their task was to prepare the way for the Prophet ﷺ's own Hajj the following year, Hajjat al-Wada', the only Hajj he ever performed. The Prophet ﷺ did not go himself. He explained to Abu Bakr RA that the mushrikun (idol-worshippers) still performed tawaf around the Ka'bah naked, and that he did not wish to perform Hajj until that was ended. This was the only year in which pagans and an official Muslim delegation performed Hajj and tawaf side by side. Since the Prophet ﷺ had not yet shown the correct rites of Hajj, Abu Bakr RA performed them in the old way. Soon after the delegation left, the opening verses of Surat al-Tawba were revealed. Ali ibn Abi Talib RA caught up with the delegation at Dhu al-Hulayfah, riding the Prophet ﷺ's own camel. Abu Bakr RA asked him whether he had been sent to take command over him. Ali RA replied that Abu Bakr RA was still the amir (leader), and that he had come only to recite Surat al-Tawba. At Mina, Ali RA and Abu Hurairah RA recited the opening of Surat al-Tawba to the pagans and Muslims gathered there. They then made four announcements. No one but a believer would enter Jannah. No one would ever again perform tawaf naked. After this year, no mushrik would perform Hajj again. And any existing treaty with the pagans would last four more months and then end, unless it already had its own fixed term.

Fatima bint Qays RA, one of the early women emigrants, narrated this event. When her 'iddah, the waiting period after the end of a marriage, was over, she heard the call "Come to the prayer" and went to the Masjid. She prayed in the women's row closest to the men. When the Prophet ﷺ finished the prayer, he went up onto the minbar, smiling, and told everyone to stay where they were. He said he had not called them together for a lecture, but to tell them the story of Tamim al-Dari. Tamim was a Christian who had recently become a Muslim, and his story agreed with what the Prophet ﷺ had been teaching them about the Dajjal, the false messiah. Tamim had sailed with 30 men from the tribes of Lakhm and Judham. The waves tossed them about for a month until they landed on an island. There they met a beast so hairy that they could not tell its front from its back. It called itself al-Jassasah, and it directed them to a monastery. Inside they found a giant man bound in chains. He questioned them about the date palms of Baysan, the Lake of Tabariyyah and the spring of Zughar. He also asked about "the unlettered prophet," and whether the Arabs had submitted to him. The chained man then revealed that he was al-Masih al-Dajjal. He said he would soon be allowed to come out, and that for 40 nights he would spare no town except Makkah and Taybah, another name for Madinah. Angels guard both cities on every route. After telling the story, the Prophet ﷺ struck the minbar with his staff and said three times, "This is Taybah." He then said that the Dajjal is in the east.

The Banu Sa'd ibn Bakr were the tribe of Halimah, who had cared for the Prophet ﷺ in the desert when he was an infant. They were a branch of the Hawazin, who had fought the Muslims at Hunayn. Unlike the Thaqif, who lived in the town of Ta'if, the Hawazin were Bedouins, and their manners were rough. In the ninth year of the Hijrah, shortly before the Thaqif came, the tribe sent one of its elders to Madinah to negotiate a peace treaty. He was not yet a Muslim. His name was Dimam ibn Tha'laba. He was a hairy, unkempt man who wore his hair in two ponytails, as Bedouins often did. He rode his camel right up to the door of the mosque, sat it down there, and walked in. "Where is the son of Abdul Muttalib?" he asked. He could not read or write, but he knew the Prophet ﷺ's famous grandfather, and for a man like him lineage mattered a great deal. The Prophet ﷺ said, "I am the son of Abdul Muttalib." Dimam asked whether he was Muhammad ﷺ, and he said that he was. Dimam said, "I will ask you, and I will be very tough with you, but don't get angry with me." The Prophet ﷺ said, "Go ahead." Dimam said, "Your envoy came to us, and he told us that Allah has sent you." The Prophet ﷺ said, "He has spoken the truth." Dimam then asked who created the heavens, who created the earth, who created the mountains, and who put everything in its place. Each time, the Prophet ﷺ answered, "Allah." Then Dimam asked him, by the One who had created all of these, to swear whether Allah had sent him to them. The Prophet ﷺ said, "I swear by Allah, I have been sent by Allah." Dimam went on in the same way. He said the envoy had told them they must pray five times a day, and asked, by the One who had sent him, whether Allah had commanded this. The Prophet ﷺ said, "Yes." Dimam asked the same about zakat, fasting and Hajj. The mention of Hajj fits the ninth year of the Hijrah. According to some narrations, Dimam is the man in a well-known hadith who asked whether he had to do anything more than these duties. The Prophet ﷺ told him, "No, unless you want to." The man then swore by the One who had sent the Prophet ﷺ with the truth that he would do exactly this, adding nothing and leaving nothing out. As he left, the Prophet ﷺ remarked to the Companions, "If he is true, then he shall enter Jannah." Dimam went home and preached to his people. Ibn Ishaq reports that he was so respected that the whole tribe accepted Islam on the day he returned. That same day he destroyed the idol they used to worship. It is said that no delegate was ever a greater blessing to his people than Dimam.

On the day that Ibrahim, the young son of the Prophet ﷺ, died, a solar eclipse occurred within a few hours of his death. People in Madinah began to say that the sun was grieving and crying at the Prophet ﷺ's sorrow. When the Prophet ﷺ heard this, he gathered the people and gave a khutbah (sermon) to correct this mistaken belief.

Ten men of Banu Asad ibn Khuzaymah came loudly into the mosque in Madinah and declared that they were Muslims. They pointed out that they had come without anyone being sent to invite them, and had accepted Islam without being fought, unlike other Arabs. They added that they had travelled through the darkness and the cold to get there. Allah then revealed Qur'an 49:17 about them. The verse tells the Prophet ﷺ to say to them that their Islam is not a favor they have done him. Rather, Allah has done them a favor by guiding them to faith.

The tribe of Abd al-Qays sent a second delegation to the Prophet ﷺ in the 9th year of the Hijrah, the Year of Delegations, following up on their first delegation of the 5th year.

The entire tribe of Muzayna, roughly 400 people, came to Madinah in the Year of Delegations to embrace Islam. When they prepared to return home, the Prophet ﷺ instructed Umar ibn al-Khattab RA to provide them food for the journey. Umar had only one bag of dates at home, but obeyed anyway, and found his room filled with dates to the ceiling. All 400 delegates filled their sacks from it, and the pile was reported unchanged when the last of them left.

Tamim al-Dari, a man of a Christian tribe from the north, came to Madinah as a delegate in the Year of Delegations (9 AH), swore allegiance, and became a Muslim.

Muawiyah ibn Haydah RA came from Yemen as one of the delegates to the Prophet ﷺ, and he saw him only this once in his life. He asked the Prophet ﷺ which parts of the awrah, the parts of the body that must be kept covered, may be shown and which may not. The Prophet ﷺ told him to cover his awrah from everyone but his spouse. Muawiyah RA then asked what to do when he was alone. The Prophet ﷺ replied that Allah has more right that one be shy of Him. This is the only hadith that speaks explicitly about the awrah.

About nine men of Banu Kulf came to the Prophet ﷺ. They told him, "We have come to you so that you may pray for us for all good." The Prophet ﷺ made du'a for them, hosted them and fed them. They stayed in Madinah for a few days and prayed the Friday prayer with him. One of them, al-Hakam ibn Hazn RA, saw the Prophet ﷺ only this once. He remembered him giving the Friday sermon while holding up a staff or a bow, and he remembered one phrase from it. The Prophet ﷺ said, "O people, do what you can, and know that you will never be able to do everything you have been commanded to do, so cover up, and come as close as you can to what you are supposed to do."

The Najashi was the king of Abyssinia who had given shelter to the Muslim emigrants, and who had secretly become a Muslim. A number of years later, he died there. The Prophet ﷺ told the sahaba (companions) in Madinah, "Jibril has come and informed me that a pious brother of yours has died in a neighboring land." He then led them in Salat al-Janazah ala al-Gha'ib, the funeral prayer in absentia. It was the only time in his life that the Prophet ﷺ prayed a funeral prayer over someone whose body was not present.

Abd al-Rahman ibn Abi Aqil RA is known only through this one hadith. He came to the Prophet ﷺ as part of a delegation that his tribe had forced to go and negotiate with him. He recalled that when they arrived, there was no one in the world they despised more than the man they had been sent to see. But when they left, there was no one in the world more beloved to them. During the visit, one of the young men in the group asked the Prophet ﷺ why he did not ask his Lord for a kingdom like that of Sulayman AS. The Prophet ﷺ laughed and said, "Maybe your companion has been given a kingdom better than the kingdom of Sulayman." Then he said, "Allah has never sent any prophet except that He has given him one request. Some of those prophets asked for something of this world; some asked for punishments against their people; and as for me, Allah has given me a request that I have kept with myself between me and my Lord: It shall be my shafa'a for my ummah on the Day of Judgment." Shafa'a means intercession. He had saved his one request to plead for his followers on the Last Day.

Abdullah ibn Ubayy ibn Salul was the leader of the munafiqun (hypocrites) of Madinah. He was the last surviving senior leader of Yathrib from before Islam. The other chiefs of the Aws and Khazraj had either died in the Wars of Bu'ath or left the city within a year or two of the Prophet ﷺ arriving. Ibn Ubayy accepted Islam only hesitantly after Badr, under social pressure. He soon showed where his loyalty really lay. At Uhud he turned back with a third of the army. At the Battle of the Trench he went around trying to terrify the Muslims. After the expedition against the Banu al-Mustaliq, he said that the honourable would drive the lowly out of Madinah, meaning the Muhajirun, the emigrants from Makkah. Surah al-Munafiqun was revealed about this. He also started the Slander of Aisha RA. More than once, Umar ibn al-Khattab RA asked the Prophet ﷺ for permission to execute him. The Prophet ﷺ always refused. He did not want people to say that Muhammad ﷺ killed his own followers. Around a month after the return from Tabuk, Ibn Ubayy fell fatally ill. He asked the Prophet ﷺ to visit him on his deathbed, and even asked him ﷺ to seek forgiveness for him. Umar RA asked why the Prophet ﷺ would visit such an enemy of Allah. The Prophet ﷺ replied that he hoped Allah would use the visit to bring other people to Islam. Soon afterwards, Ibn Ubayy died. There are two reports about who asked the Prophet ﷺ for a shirt to use as a shroud. One says Ibn Ubayy asked for it himself before he died. The more authentic report says his son, Abdullah ibn Abdullah ibn Ubayy RA, a sincere believer, asked for it after his death. Both may be true. The Prophet ﷺ did give his shirt, and the son also asked him ﷺ to lead the funeral prayer. The body was brought to the masjid. As the Prophet ﷺ stood up to pray, Umar RA held on to his lower garment. He listed Ibn Ubayy's many wrongs and asked whether Allah had not already forbidden praying for the hypocrites. The Prophet ﷺ replied that Allah had given him a choice rather than a prohibition. He was referring to the verse which says that even if he asked forgiveness for them seventy times, Allah would not forgive them [Quran, 9:80]. He said that if he knew asking seventy-one times would win forgiveness, he would ask seventy-one times. The Prophet ﷺ then prayed over him and went with the body to the grave. According to Tarikh al-Tabari, he ﷺ went down into the grave himself and helped to bury him.

The tribe of Azd, one of the large tribes of Yemen, came to Madinah and accepted Islam. The Prophet ﷺ put a Companion, Surad ibn Abdillah al-Azdi RA, in charge of them. He gave Surad the task of subduing a neighboring tribe that was still pagan, the people of Jurash. Meanwhile, Jurash sent two envoys to Madinah to sound out the Prophet ﷺ and see whether he would accept a truce. While they were on the road, the Prophet ﷺ had already ordered Azd to attack. On the very day the envoys reached Madinah, Surad besieged Jurash and began to overcome them. The envoys knew nothing of this. The Prophet ﷺ asked the two men which tribe they were from, and they said Jurash. He said, "Verily, Allah's camel is being sacrificed at Jurash as we speak." He meant that the slaughter was happening at that very moment, but they did not understand. Then Abu Bakr RA, or in another account Uthman ibn Affan RA, explained it to them. He told them that the Prophet ﷺ was informing them of the calamity falling on their people, and that their only hope was to ask him to pray for them. They asked, and the Prophet ﷺ made du'a for the people of Jurash to be guided.

Within a few hours of Abu Bakr RA leaving Madinah to lead the Muslims on Hajj, Allah revealed the opening two and a half pages of Surat al-Tawba. These verses were addressed to the pagans of Arabia. Someone suggested to the Prophet ﷺ that he simply send the verses on to Abu Bakr. The Prophet ﷺ replied that no one would convey these verses on his behalf except someone from his own household. So he chose Ali ibn Abi Talib RA, who had not been part of the original group. Ali RA was to ride out, catch up with Abu Bakr RA, and announce the verses to the people during the Hajj. Surat al-Tawba was one of the very last surahs to be revealed, and it opens without the Basmala ("In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful"). Its first verse declares a bara'ah, a complete disassociation of Allah and His Messenger ﷺ from the pagans with whom the Muslims had made treaties. With this, those treaties were cancelled. Verse 2 gives the pagans four months in which they may travel freely and settle their affairs. Verse 3 names the Day of the Greater Hajj (10 Dhul Hijjah) as the day this disassociation would be announced publicly. It also tells the pagans that repenting is the better path. Verse 4 makes an exception. If a pagan group had a treaty with a fixed end date and had never broken faith with the Muslims, their treaty was to be honoured until it ran out. Verse 5 is often called the "Verse of the Sword." It says that once the sacred months have passed, the pagans are to be fought, captured and besieged wherever they are found. But if they repent, establish prayer and give zakat, they are to be let go. Verse 6 follows straight after. It says that any pagan who asks for protection must be given it, allowed to hear the Qur'an, and then escorted safely to a place where he is secure.

This was the Prophet ﷺ's only Hajj after the Hijrah, and his last. He undertook it in the 10th year of the Hijrah. Once word went out that he intended to go, tens of thousands of people flocked to Madinah. They swelled the caravan the whole way to Makkah. The sahaba said they could see nothing but riders and people on foot in every direction. It was the largest gathering the Prophet ﷺ ever addressed, and most of those present are not known to us by name. He ﷺ left Madinah on 25 Dhu al-Qa'dah. He prayed and entered ihram at Dhu al-Hulayfah. He reached Makkah ten days later, on the 4th of Dhu al-Hijjah. He camped outside the city overnight and entered it the next morning. Just as the caravan was setting out from Dhu al-Hulayfah, Asma bint Umays RA gave birth to Muhammad ibn Abi Bakr there. The Prophet ﷺ told her to bathe, bandage herself, and enter ihram all the same. After performing tawaf and the sa'i, the Prophet ﷺ made an announcement at Marwah. Anyone who had not brought an animal for sacrifice, he said, should end their ihram and treat their pilgrimage as an Umrah. This was a new and startling instruction. The pilgrims had set out with different intentions. Some had come for Hajj alone, some for Hajj and Umrah together, and some for Umrah. Between them, they performed all three recognised forms of Hajj, known as Ifrad, Qiran and Tamattu'. The Prophet ﷺ had asked Ali RA to bring one hundred sacrificial camels from Yemen, and Ali RA now arrived with them. Ali RA found that Fatima RA had already come out of ihram on the Prophet ﷺ's instruction. But Ali RA had entered ihram intending to match whatever intention the Prophet ﷺ held, which was Qiran. So he stayed in ihram until the sacrifice. On the 8th of Dhu al-Hijjah, called Yawm al-Tarwiyah, the company moved to Mina. On the 9th, the Prophet ﷺ went on to Namirah and then to Arafah. On the way he passed by al-Mash'ar al-Haram at Muzdalifah. In pre-Islamic times the Quraysh had stopped there, so as not to go outside the sanctuary. The Prophet ﷺ went past it to stand on the open plain of Arafah itself, which is the essence of the Hajj. He stood there making du'a from just after Zuhr until sunset. Then he moved on, slowly and deliberately, to Muzdalifah. There he prayed Maghrib and Isha together and rested until Fajr. Sawda bint Zam'a RA was elderly and slow-moving. She asked permission to leave Muzdalifah early to avoid the crowds, and it was given. The Prophet ﷺ also sent the weak members of his family ahead during the night, and Ibn Abbas RA was among them. This is the basis for the ruling in fiqh that the elderly and the weak may leave before everyone else. From Muzdalifah the Prophet ﷺ went to Mina and stoned Jamrah al-Kubra. He sacrificed 63 camels with his own hand. Ibn al-Qayyim observes that this number matched the years of his life. Then he had Ali RA sacrifice the remaining 37 of the 100. After that he returned to Makkah for tawaf al-ifadah. There he drank from the Zamzam water that the Banu Abdul Muttalib drew for him. The Prophet ﷺ stayed in Mina through the days of Tashriq. He spent three nights there, one more than most pilgrims do, and left on the 13th. Aisha RA had begun her menses just before entering Makkah. She was told to perform every rite except tawaf. Once she was pure again and had completed her Hajj, she asked to perform an Umrah as well, like the Prophet ﷺ's other wives. So she was sent with her brother, Abd al-Rahman ibn Abi Bakr RA, to enter ihram at Tan'im for it. Then she rejoined the caravan back to Madinah. The name "Hajjat al-Wada'", the Farewell Hajj, was already in use during the Prophet ﷺ's own lifetime. On Yawm al-Nahr, while he was addressing the people, he asked Allah again and again to bear witness. The sahaba sensed that he was saying goodbye to them, though they did not yet fully grasp it. Later writers estimated the crowd at a round 100,000, but this figure is a guess. Every hadith on the fiqh of Hajj in the books goes back in the end to this one pilgrimage. That is because it was the only Hajj he performed after the Hijrah. On the night of the 13th, the last day of Hajj, the Prophet ﷺ performed Tawaf al-Wada', the Farewell Tawaf. Then he set out on the journey back to Madinah, and he arrived there in Dhu al-Hijjah, 10 AH. This was his final journey. Once he entered Madinah, he never left it again before his death.

The Prophet ﷺ's final illness began with a fever, around the 1st or 2nd of Rabi' al-Awwal, 11 AH. He was in the house of Maymunah RA when it started. For the first few days he kept to his usual practice of staying at each wife's house in turn. When he grew too weak for this, he asked his wives for permission to stay in the house of Aisha RA for the rest of his illness, and they agreed. In Aisha RA's house, she often recited ruqya over him and poured water on him to bring the fever down. Once Aisha RA complained that she had a headache. Even though he was in pain himself, the Prophet ﷺ gently teased her. He said that his own pain was worse, and that he would outlive her so that he could wash her body and pray over her. She teased him back, saying he would only enjoy that because it would leave him free for his other wives. As the illness got worse, he asked for buckets of cool water from a particular well to be poured over his head, to ease the throbbing pain, so that he could go out and advise the people. He came out with a cloth tied around his head. The Prophet ﷺ had never been this ill before. People heard that he was leading only shortened prayers and leaving quickly afterwards. Out of concern, Umar RA, Abd al-Rahman ibn Awf RA and other sahaba who had no houses nearby began camping in the Masjid. It grew crowded with people waiting for news. Al-Abbas RA and Ali ibn Abi Talib RA, the closest of his Ahl al-Bayt, carried the Prophet ﷺ to the Masjid on their shoulders. He spoke to the people from the minbar, probably on a Friday. He ordered that all the private doors opening from houses straight into the Masjid be closed. He made only one exception, the door of Abu Bakr RA. This honour was understood to mark Abu Bakr RA out above the rest of the sahaba. One night, traditionally dated to that same Thursday or Friday, the Prophet ﷺ was too weak to get up and lead Salat al-Isha. He fainted several times as he tried. He told Aisha RA to have Abu Bakr RA lead the prayer in his place. Aisha RA did not want her father to be linked with what she feared might be the Prophet ﷺ's death. Twice she tried to have Umar RA, the father of Hafsa RA, lead instead. The Prophet ﷺ saw through the plan. He compared the two women to the women around Yusuf AS, and insisted on Abu Bakr RA. From then until the Prophet ﷺ's death, Abu Bakr RA led the congregational prayers. In ten years in Madinah, this was the first time anyone other than the Prophet ﷺ had led them as a standing arrangement. A day or two before his death, the Prophet ﷺ found enough strength to be carried out to a Zuhr prayer that had already begun. He signalled to Abu Bakr RA to stay where he was. Out of respect, Abu Bakr RA insisted that the Prophet ﷺ take the imam's place instead. The Prophet ﷺ then led the prayer sitting down, while Abu Bakr RA stood beside him and repeated his takbirs aloud for the people. Sunni scholars read this moment as the clearest sign of whom the Prophet ﷺ wanted the ummah to follow after him. He gave that sign without ever naming a successor outright. After that Zuhr prayer, he stood on the minbar for the last time. He urged the people to take care of the Ansar, because they had fulfilled what they owed. In those last days he also gave orders from his sickbed. He ordered that the polytheists be expelled from the Arabian Peninsula. He ordered that delegations be honoured with gifts, as he had honoured them. Three days before his death, he told the people that none of them should die except while thinking well of Allah. Ali RA reports that among his very last words were "The prayer, the prayer, and fear Allah regarding those whom your right hands possess." On the Sunday before he died, the Prophet ﷺ asked Aisha RA how much money was left in the house. She brought him the seven silver coins (dirhams) that remained. He insisted that they be given away at once. He asked what he could expect from Allah if he met Him with those coins still in his possession. When he died he owned no gold or silver at all. He left only some barley in a small cup, his mule, and a plot of land he had already given to the poor. His armour was pledged to a Jewish creditor in Madinah for 30 sa' of barley. At Fajr on Monday, 12 Rabi' al-Awwal, he was too weak to lead the prayer himself, so Abu Bakr RA led it as usual. The Prophet ﷺ asked to be sat up so that he could lift the curtain between his room and the Masjid. When he saw his ummah praying in rows, his joy was plain to see. The sahaba were so happy that they nearly broke off their own prayer. It was the last time they ever saw his face. In those final days Fatimah RA, the last of his children still alive, came to see him. He told her privately that his time had come. He also told her that she would be the first of his family to join him, and that she would be the leader of the women of Jannah. She kept this news secret until after his death, and then she told Aisha RA. As the pangs of death grew stronger, he was heard repeating, "There is no god but Allah. Verily, death has its pangs." He also made du'a, asking Allah to help him bear it. Usama ibn Zayd RA had turned his expedition back when he heard of the illness, and he came to visit. The Prophet ﷺ could no longer speak. He could only make a weak gesture towards the sky, again and again, in silent blessing. Aisha RA held him against her chest. Later she gave him a miswak she had borrowed from her brother, Abd al-Rahman ibn Abi Bakr RA, and he used it with unusual vigour. At midday on Monday, 12 Rabi' al-Awwal, 11 AH, in the heat of the day, his gaze was lifted upward. Aisha RA leaned in to listen. She heard him ask to be joined with the prophets, the truthful, the martyrs and the righteous. Three times he repeated, "O Allah, forgive me, have mercy on me, and let me be with al-Rafiq al-A'la." These were his last words. He passed away in her house, on her day, in her lap. The news of his death threw Madinah into shock. Umar RA could not accept it. He threatened to strike anyone who repeated the claim. He insisted that the Prophet ﷺ had only gone to Allah, as Musa AS once had for forty days. That morning, Abu Bakr RA had seen the Prophet ﷺ smile and assumed he was recovering, so he had gone home to Awali. Now he rode back at once. He confirmed the death at Aisha RA's house and kissed the Prophet ﷺ's forehead. Then he spoke to the people in the Masjid from the lower step of the minbar. He did not stand on its top step, and every khalifa and khatib after him kept to the same restraint. Abu Bakr RA declared that whoever worshipped Muhammad ﷺ should know that Muhammad ﷺ had died. But whoever worshipped Allah should know that Allah is ever-living and does not die. Then he recited Qur'an 3:144. When Umar RA heard the verse, he collapsed. He said it was as if he had never heard it before. Several sahaba composed elegies (ritha') for the Prophet ﷺ. The most famous were by his poet, Hassan ibn Thabit RA. On Tuesday, his household gathered to wash his body. Ibn Ishaq names them as al-Abbas RA, al-Abbas RA's sons al-Fadl RA and Qutham RA, Ali ibn Abi Talib RA, Usama ibn Zayd RA, and the freed slave Shuqran. It is reported that an unseen voice guided them to wash him with his clothes still on. He was shrouded in three plain white cloths from Yemen, without a shirt or turban. The sahaba disagreed about where to bury him. Abu Bakr RA remembered that the Prophet ﷺ had said a prophet is buried wherever his soul is taken. So a grave was dug under the very spot in Aisha RA's room where he had died. No one led the funeral prayer. Instead, the people of Madinah came in and prayed over him in groups, first the men, then the women, then the children. He was buried in the middle of the night between Tuesday and Wednesday. Fatimah RA saw the fresh grave where his bed had been, and she could not hold back her grief. Anas ibn Malik RA had served the Prophet ﷺ for ten years. He remembered that on the day the Prophet ﷺ entered Madinah, everything in it was lit up. On the day he died, everything in it went dark. Anas RA said they had hardly dusted the earth off their hands from burying him before they felt their hearts had changed.

Toward the end of Safar in the 11th year after the Hijrah, a few weeks before his death, the Prophet ﷺ ordered an expedition into the lands of the Romans (the Byzantine Empire). Its target was al-Sham, the region of Greater Syria, and in particular Palestine. He told the Companions to gather their weapons, including Abu Bakr RA, Umar RA and many other senior Companions. He chose Usama ibn Zayd RA to lead them. Usama was only 17 or 18 years old. He was the son of Zayd ibn Harithah RA, the freed slave whom the Prophet ﷺ had once adopted. Usama had been born and raised in the Prophet ﷺ's household, and his father Zayd had been killed by the Romans at Mu'tah. Some people in Madinah murmured about the choice. They said Usama was too young, that he was not from the Quraysh, and that his father had been a freed slave. None of the senior Companions objected, but the talk spread in the city. The Prophet ﷺ gathered the people and answered the criticism. He said, "If you dislike his leadership, then remember that you also criticized the leadership of his father before him." He swore that Usama was worthy to lead, and said that he was the most beloved of people to him after his father. Usama set out from Madinah on the last day of Safar. When the army was one or two days away, a messenger came to tell him that the Prophet ﷺ had fallen ill. Usama camped outside the city for a few days. He came back into Madinah and visited the Prophet ﷺ on the day of his death, one of the last people to see him.

Toward the end of Safar in 11 AH, shortly before he fell ill, the Prophet ﷺ visited the site of the Battle of Uhud. There he made a special du'a (supplication) for the Muslims who had been killed in the battle. Foremost among those martyrs was his beloved uncle Hamzah ibn Abdul Muttalib RA. The Prophet ﷺ said to the martyrs, "Wait for me at the Hawd. I will be the one there before you come." The Hawd is the Prophet ﷺ's pool in the Hereafter.

One of the main kings of Yemen, from the tribe of Himyar, accepted Islam. A few months after the Hajj of 9 AH, the Prophet ﷺ sent Mu'adh ibn Jabal RA to Yemen as his deputy and judge. The Prophet ﷺ went with Mu'adh RA for part of the way south of Madinah. Mu'adh RA rode while the Prophet ﷺ walked beside him, which was a great honour. On the way, the Prophet ﷺ gave him advice. Mu'adh RA would be going to People of the Book. He was to call them first to tawhid, the worship of Allah alone. If they accepted, he was to teach them the prayer, and after that the zakat, taken from their rich and given to their poor. The Prophet ﷺ also sent Abu Musa al-Ash'ari RA to another province of Yemen. As he said farewell to Mu'adh RA, the Prophet ﷺ told him it was possible that he would not see him again. So it proved, for the Prophet ﷺ passed away before Mu'adh RA returned from Yemen.

Near the very end of his life, on the last day of Safar or perhaps the first day of Rabi' al-Awwal, 11 AH, the Prophet ﷺ woke in the middle of the night. He knocked on the door of Abu Muwayhiba RA, a freed slave of his. He told him that Jibril had commanded him to go to Baqi' al-Gharqad, the graveyard of Madinah. The two of them went there together in the night, and the Prophet ﷺ made a beautiful du'a (supplication) for the people buried there. It was the last time he ﷺ ever visited Baqi'.

On the 9th of Dhu al-Hijjah, 10 AH, the Prophet ﷺ stood in the Valley of Aranah at Arafah and addressed the huge crowd of pilgrims. That year the day fell on a Friday, and he called it the Day of al-Hajj al-Akbar (the Great Hajj). He asked his uncle Abbas RA and his cousin Ali RA to quieten the crowd so that his words could carry. Some sahaba reported that they could hear him even from their tents, which is counted among his miracles. It was on this occasion that Allah revealed the verse, "This day, I have perfected for you your religion and completed My favor upon you and have approved for you Islam as religion" [Qur'an, 5:3]. It was one of the last verses to be revealed, though not the very last. The Prophet ﷺ opened by saying, "O people, listen to me, for I know not whether I shall meet you again after this year." He declared that the blood, wealth and honour of every Muslim were sacred, as sacred as that day, that month and that land. He abolished the customs of the days before Islam (Jahiliyyah), and he began with his own family. First he cancelled the unpaid blood money his family was owed by the tribe of Hudhayl. Then he cancelled the riba (interest) still owed to his uncle al-Abbas RA. He told the people to fear Allah in how they treated women, and he set out the rights that husbands and wives have over each other. He told them that he had left them the Book of Allah, and that as long as they held to it they would never go astray. He then told them that they would soon be asked about him, and asked what they would say. The people replied that they would testify he had conveyed the message, done his duty and been sincere with them. He raised his hands and said three times, "O Allah, bear witness."

During the Farewell Hajj, the Prophet ﷺ gave several sermons. Besides the Sermon of Arafah on the 9th of Dhu al-Hijjah, he gave sermons at Mina on the 10th, the 11th and, most likely, the 12th. On the 10th, Yawm al-Nahr (the Day of Sacrifice), he declared that the calendar had returned to its rightful order, as it was on the day Allah created the heavens and the earth. A year has twelve months, and four of them are sacred. Three of these come one after another, Dhu al-Qa'dah, Dhu al-Hijjah and Muharram, and the fourth is the Rajab of Mudar, between Jumada and Sha'ban. For a long time the Quraysh had swapped the months around whenever they wanted to fight in a sacred month, and this had jumbled the calendar. That year, by the decree of Allah, the months happened to fall in their proper order. The Prophet ﷺ was telling the people to keep the calendar as it was from then on. He then asked the people, "What month is this?" They answered, "Allah and His Messenger ﷺ know best." He stayed silent until they thought he might give it another name. Then he said, "Isn't this the month of Dhu al-Hijjah?" He asked about the city and the day in the same way, and confirmed that it was Makkah and Yawm al-Nahr. Then he said, "Verily, your lives, money, and honor, are haram upon you just as sacred as this month is upon you, this place is upon you, and this day is upon you." He warned them, "Woe to you. Do not return to being kuffar, killing one another." He told those present to pass his words on to those who were absent, since the absent might understand them better than the people listening. In one version, recorded by al-Tirmidhi, he said that Shaytan had given up hope of being worshipped in this land, but still hoped to be obeyed in matters the people thought trivial. In another version, he said that what Shaytan hoped for was to stir them up to fight one another. Other hadiths from these Mina sermons define the Muslim as the one from whose hands and tongue other Muslims are safe, and the Mu'min as the one whom people trust with their wealth. They define the muhajir as the one who has left sins behind, and the mujahid as the one who strives in the path of Allah. Another promises Jannah to whoever fears Allah, prays the five prayers, fasts Ramadan, gives zakat and obeys the rulers. Another declares that all people have one Lord and one father, Adam, and that no Arab is better than a non-Arab, and no skin color better than another, except by taqwa. Sh. Yasir Qadhi notes that no thinker before him had ever declared that all humans are equal. The name of this pilgrimage, Hajjat al-Wada', the Farewell Hajj, comes from this day. Ibn Umar RA reported that on Yawm al-Nahr the Prophet ﷺ kept saying, "O Allah, bear witness," and was bidding the people farewell. So the people began to call it the Farewell Hajj.

After Najran accepted Islam, the Prophet ﷺ appointed Amr ibn Hazm al-Ansari RA as governor and religious teacher over the province. About a month before his own death, the Prophet ﷺ dictated to Amr RA a letter over a page long, full of wasiyyat (instructions) on how to teach the people, among the very last things he ﷺ ever dictated. One clause of the letter states that no one should touch the Qur'an except one who is tahir (in a state of purity).

During the Farewell Hajj, Ali RA came from Yemen to join the Prophet ﷺ in Makkah. He brought the zakat and charity of the people of Yemen, along with 100 camels for the Prophet ﷺ. Eager to see the Prophet ﷺ, Ali RA rushed ahead and left someone else in charge of his party. That man handed out new clothes to the whole party, paid for from the charity of the people of Yemen. This was not allowed. When Ali RA came back and found out, he was angry and made them return the clothes, which upset his party. As soon as the Hajj was over, they complained to the Prophet ﷺ about Ali RA. The next day, at a pond outside Makkah called Ghadir Khumm, the Prophet ﷺ stopped and addressed the people in Ali RA's defence.

Musaylimah, whose real name was Maslamah ibn Habib, was a leader of the Banu Hanifa. He was an old man who had studied Christianity in Jerusalem in his youth, and he was respected across the whole region of al-Yamama. In the Year of Delegations he came to Madinah. His followers carried him into the mosque shielded by fine cloth, as if he were a king. He offered to follow the Prophet ﷺ on two conditions: that he be made the Prophet ﷺ's successor, and that he be given a share in prophethood. The Prophet ﷺ was holding a palm branch at the time. He told Musaylimah that he would not give him even that stick, and that Allah would deal with him. He added that he was certain Musaylimah was what Allah had shown him in a dream. In that dream the Prophet ﷺ saw two gold bracelets on his arms, blew on them, and they flew away. He understood them to be two liars who would appear after him, al-Aswad al-Ansi and Musaylimah of al-Yamama. When Musaylimah returned home, he wrote a letter to the Prophet ﷺ. He wrote it as one messenger of Allah to another, and claimed that the matter was shared between them, half for the Quraysh and half for him. The Prophet ﷺ asked the two men who brought the letter what they themselves believed, and they said they agreed with it. He told them that, were it not for the rule that envoys are never harmed, he would have had them executed. Musaylimah also made up verses in imitation of the Qur'an, including one about a frog and another about an elephant. One passing Arab told him to his face that they both knew he was a liar. After the Prophet ﷺ died, many tribes abandoned Islam, and the Muslims fought them in what are called the Ridda (apostasy) wars. The Banu Hanifa were the largest and the worst of these tribes, and they rose behind Musaylimah. In 12 AH the caliph Abu Bakr sent Khalid ibn al-Walid against them. The battle at Yamama was the bloodiest of the Ridda wars. Among the Muslims who marched was Wahshi, the man who had killed Hamzah at Uhud before he became Muslim. When he heard of the false prophet, he asked Allah to let him take Musaylimah's life in exchange for Hamzah's. He carried the same javelin and threw it at Musaylimah as he had once thrown it at Hamzah. At the same moment, a man of the Ansar struck Musaylimah with a sword from the other side. Wahshi said that only Allah knew which of them had killed Musaylimah. Many Companions died in the battle. One was Abu Hudhayfah ibn Utbah, who had spoken a sentence at Badr that he regretted for the rest of his life. He used to say he would never feel safe from it unless Allah accepted him as a martyr. Another was Ukasha ibn Mihsan. His sword had broken at Badr, and a stick the Prophet ﷺ handed him became a sword in his hand. He fought with it in every battle until he fell at Yamama.

During his caliphate, Umar ibn al-Khattab once heard Hassan ibn Thabit reciting poetry in the Prophet ﷺ's mosque, and he struck him with his stick. Hassan asked why he was hitting him. Umar replied that he was reciting poetry in the Prophet ﷺ's mosque. Hassan answered that he had recited poetry in that very mosque when someone far better than Umar was present. He then turned to Abu Hurairah and asked him, by Allah, whether he had not heard the Prophet ﷺ say, "Stand up, O Hassan, and write poetry, and the angel Jibril will help you." Abu Hurairah confirmed that he had.

In the 18th year of the Hijrah there was a great drought, and people were dying of thirst. Umar ibn al-Khattab RA gathered the Muslims to perform Salat al-Istisqa', the prayer for rain. At the end of his khutbah (sermon), he called on al-Abbas ibn Abdul Muttalib RA, the uncle of the Prophet ﷺ. Umar RA said that they used to approach Allah through the Prophet ﷺ, and now they would do so through his uncle. He asked al-Abbas to stand and make du'a (supplication) for rain on behalf of the whole community. This was tawassul, which here means asking a righteous person to make du'a for you.

In 35 AH, long after the expedition to Tabuk, a group of rebels later called the neo-Kharijites raised fabricated complaints against the caliph Uthman ibn Affan RA. Ibn Abbas RA answered them with a hadith from the time of Tabuk. When the army for Tabuk, known as the Jaysh al-Usrah ("the Army of Difficulty"), was being equipped, Uthman RA had donated thousands of gold coins. Turning the coins over in his hands, the Prophet ﷺ had said, "Wallahi, whatever Uthman does after today, it will not harm him." Ibn Abbas RA reminded the rebels of these words. If the Messenger of Allah ﷺ had said this about Uthman RA, he asked, then who were they to complain?

In the years after the Prophet ﷺ's death, wealth began to flow into Madinah and some Companions built larger houses. Abu Dharr al-Ghifari RA confronted them about this again and again, and many complained. In the end the caliph, Uthman ibn Affan RA, asked him to leave Madinah. Abu Dharr agreed. He went to live in the desert with only his wife and a young servant. The rest of the story is reported by Ibn Sa'd. Many years later, during the caliphate of Ali ibn Abi Talib RA, Abu Dharr lay dying. His wife wept, because she had no cloth to shroud him and no strength to bury him. He told her not to cry. He reminded her that he had once been sitting with a group of Companions when the Prophet ﷺ said, "One of you will die all alone, yet a group of believers will pray over him." Every other man in that gathering had already died, and none of them had died alone. He was the only one left in the wilderness, so he knew someone would come. He told her to take his body to the roadside after he died. She asked why anyone would come by, since it was not the season of Hajj. He insisted, swearing that he was not lying and had not been lied to. Abu Dharr passed away, and his wife did as he had said. Almost at once, a large caravan appeared on the road. Among the travelers were Abdullah ibn Mas'ud RA and Ammar ibn Yasir RA. The servant called out to them to stop and help bury a Muslim. When they learned it was Abu Dharr, Ibn Mas'ud wept and said, "The Prophet ﷺ has spoken the truth." The travelers gave their own clothes for his shroud, prayed the funeral prayer over him in the desert, and buried him.

During the fitna (civil strife) in the khilafah (caliphate) of Ali RA, Ammar ibn Yasir RA chose to fight on Ali RA's side against the forces of Muawiyah ibn Abi Sufyan RA. This was at the Battle of Siffin in 37 AH. Ammar drank a last glass of milk, went out to fight, and was killed by an arrow. His death fulfilled what the Prophet ﷺ had told him decades earlier, while they were building Masjid al-Nabawi. The Prophet ﷺ had said that Ammar would be killed by al-Fiat al-Baghiyah, "the Group That Has Gone Beyond the Bounds." He had also said that the last thing Ammar would drink in this world would be a glass of milk.