Hijrah — Flight to Madinah & the First State

The Hijrah was forced by a murder-conspiracy. In Dar an-Nadwa, Quraysh debated: imprison him (Banu Hashim will free him), exile him (he will seduce the tribes) — then Abu Jahl’s plan, seconded by a “Najdi elder” who was Satan in disguise: pick one strong youth from every clan, strike as one man — his blood scatters among tribes, Banu Hashim must accept blood-money. Jibril exposed it; the Prophet ﷺ told Ali: sleep in my bed tonight in my green cloak — no harm will touch you. At night he stepped through the ring of swordsmen, scattering dust and reciting “We placed a barrier before them and behind them, and covered them so they do not see” (36:9) — blind to him, they guarded an empty bed till dawn broke on Ali. The assassins found a cousin, not a victim.

With Abu Bakr — who had kept two camels ready for months — he slipped south (decoy direction) to Thawr’s cave. For three nights the underground railroad ran: Abdullah ibn Abi Bakr brought Makkah’s gossip by night and vanished before dawn; Asma (pregnant, earning Dhat an-Nitaqayn tearing her girdle for provisions) carried food; Amir ibn Fuhayrah grazed the flock over their tracks. On the third day trackers stood at the cave’s mouth — Abu Bakr whispered in terror — and the Prophet ﷺ stilled him: “What of two, whose third is Allah? Grieve not — indeed Allah is with us.” Then the Quran’s verdict: Allah sent tranquillity, aided him with unseen hosts (9:40). The searchers — seeing (by Allah’s leave) a spider’s web and nesting doves at a mouth no man could have entered — turned away.

The coastal road north ran eight days under Abdullah ibn Urayqit, a pagan guide trusted for skill. At Umm Mabad’s tent the tale all children learn: a rain-starved goat, dry udders — the Prophet ﷺ stroked, named Allah, and milked till the vessel overflowed, drinking last after all (“the server of the people drinks last”). Her husband returned to a miracle and poetry. Then Suraqah ibn Malik, chasing the hundred-camel bounty, thrice spurred — thrice his mare sank to the knees in solid ground, smoke rising — till he cried quarter, begged a writ of protection, and rode back turning away every pursuer: “I have sufficed you this road.” The hunter became the rear-guard.

Quba dawned on Monday, 12 Rabi al-Awwal (most-reported), after thirteen years of Makkah: Islam’s first mosque rose (whose foundation is “on piety from the first day,” 9:108), Ali arrived after three nights settling trusts — feet bleeding, embraced. Friday prayer was held at Banu Salim’s valley; then the entry: Madinah’s rooftops black with welcomers, Abyssinian loin-clothed swordsmen of joy, girls chanting the song every Muslim generation sings — “The full moon rose upon us from Thaniyyat al-Wada…” Every clan seized the rein; the Prophet ﷺ smiled: “Leave her — she is commanded.” She knelt, rose, circled, knelt again on the Banu Najjar plot of two orphan boys — purchased for ten dinars Abu Bakr paid — where mosque and humble mud rooms rose, the migrants’ blistered hands laying every brick while the Prophet ﷺ laboured and sang with them. Abu Ayyub al-Ansari hosted him till the rooms dried.

Then statecraft at revelation-speed. First Muakhah: pairing each Muhajir with an Ansari brother — inheritance at first, hearts forever; Abdur Rahman ibn Awf with Sad ibn Rabi, who offered half his wealth and divorce of one wife — Abdur Rahman blessed him (“show me the market”) and was rich within a year. Second, the Sahifah — the Charter of Madinah: “the believers are one ummah to the exclusion of others,” blood-money and ransom shared, the Jews of Awf, Najjar, Harith and others “one community with the believers” in religion, mutual defence of Yathrib, Allah and His Messenger the final arbiter — the first written constitution in history, binding pagans, Jews and Muslims in one polity. Third, symbols of sovereignty: sixteen months facing Bayt al-Maqdis, the Prophet ﷺ longing heavenward — then “We see you turning your face to the sky; We shall turn you to a qibla that pleases you — turn to Al-Masjid al-Haram” (2:144); Bilal’s and Abdullah ibn Zayd’s convergent dreams fixed the adhan; and the long-forbidden sword was permitted: “Permission is given to those fought, for they were wronged — and Allah is able to aid them” (22:39). The persecuted had become a polity; the preacher, a head of state.