Hijrah — migration and building a community

During the pilgrimage seasons the Prophet ﷺ had been meeting visitors from Yathrib, an oasis town north of Makkah worn down by long feuding between its two main Arab tribes, the Aws and the Khazraj. Groups of them accepted Islam and, over two meetings at the hill of al-’Aqabah, pledged to protect the Prophet ﷺ as they would their own families. Yathrib — soon called Madinat an-Nabi, “the city of the Prophet”, then simply Madinah — would be the new home.

The Companions emigrated in small groups, often secretly, leaving property and family behind. The Prophet ﷺ left last, with Abu Bakr, as the leaders of Quraysh met and agreed to have him killed by a group drawn from every clan so that no single family could be blamed. The two slipped out and hid for three nights in the cave of Thawr, south of Makkah, while trackers came so close that Abu Bakr feared they would be seen. The Qur’an refers to this moment: “when the two were in the cave, and he said to his companion, ‘Do not grieve; indeed Allah is with us’” (9:40). They then rode north by an unusual route and reached Madinah after a hard journey, welcomed by crowds who had waited for days.

In Madinah the Prophet ﷺ moved quickly on three fronts. He built a simple mosque of mud brick and palm trunks, which became the centre not only of worship but of teaching, consultation, the reception of delegations, and the care of the poor and travellers. He established a bond of brotherhood (mu’akhah) pairing each emigrant (Muhajir) with a Madinan supporter (Ansar); the Ansar shared homes, land, tools and income with people who had arrived with nothing, and the reports describe a generosity that later generations found hard to imagine. And he set down a written agreement, often called the Charter of Madinah, which treated the city’s groups — the Muslims and the Jewish tribes living among them — as one community (ummah) for the purposes of mutual defence, with each free to follow its own religion and law, and each bound to contribute to the common security.

The first year was spent settling the emigrants, learning to live as neighbours across old divides, and organising the daily rhythm of the five prayers, the call to prayer, the Friday gathering and the fast of Ramadan, which was made obligatory in this period. The migration was so decisive that, years later under ’Umar, the Companions chose to date the Islamic calendar from it rather than from the Prophet’s birth or the first revelation — marking the moment the faith became a community able to order its own life.