EVERYBODY IN MECCA was immediately aware of Muhammad’s new vulnerability. Abu Lahab did not repudiate Muhammad: a chief was expected to give all his clansmen a measure of protection and to fail in this duty at the very start of his office would have been a sign of weakness. But it was obvious that he extended his patronage very grudgingly. Muhammad’s neighbors played disgusting tricks with a sheep’s uterus, thwacking him with it while he was at prayer, and once even dropping it into the family cooking pot. One day, a young Qurayshi threw filth all over Muhammad while he was walking in the city. When his daughter Fatimah saw him in this state, she burst into tears. “Don’t cry, my little girl,” Muhammad reassured her tenderly, while she tried to clean him up. “God will protect your father.” But to himself, he added grimly: “Quraysh never treated me thus while Abu Talib was alive.”1
His weakness probably affected the position of some of the more vulnerable Muslims. Abu Bakr, for example, had been almost ruined by the boycott. He lived in the district of the Jumah clan, and its chief, the corpulent Ummayah ibn Khalaf who used to expose Bilal to the sun, now felt free to do the same to Abu Bakr, tying him to his young cousin and leaving them, parched and sick, in this humiliating position in the sweltering heat. Taym, their clan, was too weak to protect them, so, realizing that he had no future in Mecca, Abu Bakr set off to join the Muslim emigrant community in Abyssinia. But on the road, he met Ibn Dughunnah, one of the Bedouin allies of the Quraysh, who was horrified to hear what had happened. He insisted on returning to Mecca, and formally took Abu Bakr under his own protection. Since the Qurayshan establishment was anxious to cultivate Ibn Dughunnah, they agreed to this arrangement, but asked him to make sure that Abu Bakr did not pray or recite the Qur’an in public. He was so popular and charismatic, they explained, that he would lure the young men away from the official religion. So Abu Bakr worshipped alone, making a little masjid, a place for prostration, in front of his house.
But the situation was clearly unsatisfactory. Muhammad tried to find a new protector for himself in the pleasant, fertile oasis of Ta’if, but it was a hopeless venture, which revealed the measure of his desperation, because the tribe of Thaqif had been greatly offended by Muhammad’s repudiation of their goddess Al-Lat. Muhammad visited three of the leaders of Thaqif, asking them to accept his religion and extend their protection to him, but they were so enraged by his effrontery that they had their slaves chase him through the streets. He was only able to escape by diving into the garden of ‘Utbah ibn Rabi‘ah, one of the chief Meccan kafirun, who had a summer home in Ta’if. ‘Utbah and his brother Shaybah saw Muhammad’s humiliating flight, but did not wish to hand a fellow-tribesman over to the Thaqif. So instead of reporting Muhammad, they sent a slave to him with a platter of grapes.
Crouching ignominiously behind a tree, Muhammad was close to despair. It was customary for Arabs to “take refuge” with a god or a jinni in times of crisis, so now Muhammad took refuge with Allah.
Oh God, to Thee I complain of my weakness, my little resource and lowliness before men. O Most Merciful, Thou art lord of the weak and Thou art my lord. To whom wilt Thou confide me? To one afar, who will misuse me? Or an enemy to whom Thou hast given power over me? If Thou art not angry with me, I care not. Thy favor is more wide for me. I take refuge in the light of Thy countenance by which the darkness is illumined, and the things of this world and the next are rightly ordered, lest Thy anger descend upon me or Thy wrath light upon me. It is for Thee to be satisfied until Thou art well-pleased. There is no power and no might save in Thee.2
It is unusual for Ibn Ishaq to give such an intimate account of Muhammad’s state of mind. It indicates a moment of spiritual truth. In this act of islam, Muhammad realized more fully than ever before that he had no security and no true protector but Allah.
God seemed to answer his prayer, because no sooner had he finished speaking, than ‘Addas, ‘Utbah’s slave boy, arrived with the grapes. He was a Christian, and Muhammad was delighted to learn that he came from Nineveh, the city of the prophet Jonah. He told ‘Addas that Jonah was his brother, because he was a prophet, too. ‘Addas was so overwhelmed that, to the disgust of ‘Utbah, who was watching the encounter, he kissed Muhammad’s head, hands, and feet. After this unexpected encounter with one of the People of the Book, Muhammad felt less isolated. It reminded him that, even though the Arabs had rejected him, there was a multitude of worshippers in the great world outside Arabia who would understand his mission. He felt cheered as he began his homeward journey, and stopped to pray in the small oasis of Nakhlah, where he was overheard by a group of “unseen beings” (jinn). The word jinn did not always refer to the whimsical sprites of Arabia; it could also be used for “strangers,” people who had hitherto been unseen. The Qur’an indicates that the travellers, who lurked out of sight in Nakhlah, listening to Muhammad’s recitation, may have been Jews. They were so overcome by the beauty and felicity of the Arabic scripture that when they returned home, they told their people that they had heard “a revelation bestowed from on high, after [that of ] Moses,” which confirmed the truth of the Torah and would guide human beings to the right path.3
Muhammad’s horizons were beginning to expand. He had been certain that he had been sent simply as a “warner” (nadhir) to his own tribe and that Islam was only for the people of Mecca. But now he was beginning to look further afield to the People of the Book, who had received earlier revelations. Despite the confidence that this gave him, he was now desperate. Once the kafirun had learned of his attempt to find support in Ta’if, his position would be even more precarious, so before entering Mecca, he sent word to three clan chiefs, asking for their patronage. Two refused, but the third—Mu’tim, chief of Nawfal, who had been one of those who had campaigned to end the boycott—promised to protect Muhammad, and he was now able to return home.
But this could not be a long-term solution. Somehow Muhammad had to win over the Quraysh. In 619, he began to preach to the pilgrims and merchants who attended the trade fairs that culminated in the hajj. Perhaps, like Abu Bakr, he would find a Bedouin protector, and if the Qurayshan establishment saw that he was respected by their Bedouin confederates, they might learn to accommodate him. But the Bedouin pilgrims were hostile and insulting. The last thing they wanted was a religion that preached submission and humility. Muhammad must have felt that he had come to the end of his resources. He was still grieving for Khadijah; his position in Mecca was desperately precarious; and after preaching for seven years, he had made no real headway. Yet at this low point of his career, he had the greatest personal mystical experience of his life.
He had been visiting one of his cousins who lived near the Haram, so he decided to spend the night in prayer beside the Kabah, as he loved to do. Eventually he went to sleep for a while in the enclosed area to the northwest of the shrine, which housed the tombs of Ishmael and Hagar. Then, it seemed to him that he was awakened by Gabriel and conveyed miraculously to Jerusalem, the holy city of the Jews and Christians—an experience that may have been recorded by this oblique verse of the Qur’an:
Limitless in His glory is He who transported His servant by night from the Inviolable House of Worship (al masjid al-haram) to the Remote House of Worship (al-masjid al-aqsa)—the environs of which We had blessed—so that We might show him some of Our symbols (ayat).4
Jerusalem is not mentioned by name, but later tradition associated the “Remote House” with the holy city of the People of the Book, the Jews and the Christians. According to the historian Tabari, Muhammad told his companions that he had once been taken by the angels Gabriel and Michael to meet his “fathers”: Adam (in the first heaven) and Abraham (in the seventh), and that he also saw his “brothers”: Jesus, Enoch, Aaron, Moses, and Joseph.5 The Qur’an also claimed that Muhammad had a vision beside the “lote tree” which marked the limit of human knowledge:
He saw it descending another time
at the lote tree of the furthest limit
There was the garden of sanctuary
When something came down over the lote tree enfolding
His gaze did not turn aside nor go too far
He had seen the sight of his lord, great signs (ayat)6
The Qur’an is reticent about this vision. He saw only God’s signs and symbols—not God himself, and later mystics emphasized the paradox of this transcendent insight, in which Muhammad both saw and did not see the divine essence.
Later Muslims began to piece together these fragmentary references to create a coherent narrative. Influenced perhaps by the stories told by Jewish mystics of their ascent through the seven heavens to the throne of God, they imagined their prophet making a similar spiritual flight. The first account of this “night journey” (‘isra) is found in the eighth-century biography by Ibn Ishaq. In this extended story, Gabriel lifted the Prophet onto a heavenly steed and together they flew through the night to Jerusalem, where they alighted on the site of the ancient Jewish Temple, the “Remote House” of the Qur’an. There they were greeted by Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and all the great prophets of the past, who welcomed Muhammad into their fellowship and invited him to preach to them. Afterwards the prophets all prayed together. Then a ladder was brought and Muhammad and Gabriel climbed to the first of the seven heavens and began their ascent to the divine throne. At each stage, Muhammad met and conversed with some of the greatest of the prophets. Adam presided over the first heaven, where Muhammad was shown a vision of Hell; Jesus and John the Baptist were in the second heaven; Joseph in the third; Enoch in the fourth; Moses and Aaron in the fifth and sixth, and finally Muhammad met Abraham in the seventh, on the threshold of the divine realm.
Most writers leave the final vision of God in reverent obscurity, because it was literally ineffable, lying beyond the reach of speech. Muhammad had to abandon ordinary human concepts, going beyond the lote tree, the boundary of mundane knowledge. Even Gabriel could not accompany him on this last stage of his journey. He had to leave everybody and—the later mystics insisted—even himself behind to lose himself in God. The story of the night journey and the heavenly ascent is an event that—in some sense—happened once, but which also happens all the time. It represented a perfect act of islam, a self-surrender that was also a return to the source of being. The story became the paradigm of Muslim spirituality, outlining the path that all human beings must take, away from their preconceptions, their prejudices, and the limitations of egotism.
The vision did not result in a Qur’anic revelation; it was a personal experience for the Prophet himself. But placed as it is by the early biographers at this particular moment of Muhammad’s life, it is a wonderful commentary on the deeper subtext of these external events. Muhammad was being compelled by circumstances over which he had little control to leave Mecca and everything that was dear and familiar to him—at least for a while. He had to move beyond his original expectations, and transcend the received ideas of his time. In the traditional Arabian ode, the poet usually began with a dhikr, a “remembrance” of his lost beloved, who was travelling with her tribe further and further away from him. In the next section, the bard embarked on a “night journey,” breaking out of his nostalgic reverie, and setting off alone across the steppes on his camel—a fearful trek during which he had to confront his own mortality. Finally, the poet was reunited with his tribe. In the final section of the ode, he proudly boasted of the heroic values of his people, their prowess in battle, and their ceaseless war against all strangers who threatened their survival.7 In Muhammad’s night journey, these old muruwah values were reversed. Instead of returning to his tribe, the prophet travelled far away from it to Jerusalem; instead of asserting his tribal identity with the arrogant chauvinism of jahiliyyah, Muhammad surrendered his ego. Instead of rejoicing in fighting and warfare, Muhammad’s journey celebrated harmony, transcendence of the blood group, and integration with the rest of humanity.
The story of the night journey reveals Muhammad’s longing to bring the Arabs of the Hijaz, who had felt that they had been left out of the divine plan, into the heart of the monotheistic family. This is a story of pluralism. Muhammad was abandoning the pagan pluralism of Mecca, because it had degenerated into the self-destructive arrogance and violence of jahiliyyah, but he was beginning to embrace monotheistic pluralism. In Jerusalem, he discovered that all the prophets, sent by God to all peoples, are “brothers.” Muhammad’s prophetic predecessors do not spurn him as a pretender, but welcome him into their family. The prophets do not revile or try to convert each other; instead they listen to each other’s insights. They invite the new prophet to preach to them, and, in one version of the story, Muhammad asks Moses for advice about how frequently Muslims should pray. Originally, God wanted salat fifty times a day, but Moses kept sending Muhammad back to God until the number of prescribed prayers had been reduced to five (which Moses still found excessive).8 The fact that this appreciation of other traditions is written into the archetypal myth of Muslim spirituality shows how central this pluralism was to early Islam.
From this point, the Qur’an began to emphasize this shared vision. In one remarkable passage, Allah makes it clear that the faithful must believe indiscriminately in the revelations of every single one of God’s messengers:
Say: We believe in God, and in that which has been bestowed from on high upon us, and that which has been bestowed upon Abraham and Ishmael and Isaac and Jacob and their descendents, and that which has been vouchsafed by their Sustainer unto Moses and Jesus and all the [other] prophets: we make no distinction between any of them. And unto Him do we surrender ourselves (lahu muslimun).9
You could not be a muslim unless you also revered Moses and Jesus. True faith required surrender to God, not to an established faith. Indeed, exclusive loyalty to only one tradition could become shirk, an idolatry which puts a human institution on the same level as God. This is one of the first passages in the Qur’an to emphasize the words “islam” and “muslim,” which both derive from the verb aslama: “surrendering oneself entirely to someone else’s will.”10 The verse continues:
For if one goes in search of a religion other than self-surrender (islam) unto God, it will never be accepted from him, and in the life to come, he shall be among the lost.11
This verse is often quoted to “prove” that the Qur’an claims that Islam is the one, true faith and that only Muslims will be saved. But “Islam” was not yet the official name for Muhammad’s religion, and when this verse is read correctly in its pluralistic context, it clearly means the exact opposite.
The Qur’an depicts one prophet handing on the revelation to another. The message passes from Abraham to Ishmael and Isaac to Moses, and so on, in a continuous narrative. The Qur’an is simply a “confirmation” of the previous scriptures,12 and the Torah, the Gospel, and the Qur’an are simply moments in God’s continuous self-disclosure: “Verily, those who have attained to faith [in this divine writ], as well as those who follow the Jewish faith, and the Sabians,* and the Christians—all who believe in God and the Last Day and do righteous deeds—no fear need they have, and neither shall they grieve.”13 There was no thought of forcing everybody into the Muslim ummah. Each of the revealed traditions had its own din, its own practices, and insights. “Unto every one of you have We appointed a [different] law and way of life,” God told Muhammad:
And if God had so willed, He could surely have made you all one single community: but [He willed it otherwise] in order to test you by means of what he has vouchsafed unto you. Vie, then, with one another in doing good works! Unto God you must all return; and then He will make you truly understand all that on which you were wont to differ.14
God was not the exclusive property of one tradition, but was the source of all human knowledge: “God is the light of the heavens and the earth,” Allah explained in one of the most mystical verses in the Qur’an. The divine light could not be confined to any individual lamp, but was common to them all, enshrined in every one of them:
The parable (ayah) of this light is, as it were, that of a niche containing a lamp; the lamp is [enclosed in glass], the glass [shining] like a radiant star: [a lamp] lit from a blessed tree—an olive tree that is neither of the east nor the west—the oil whereof [is so bright that it] would well-nigh give light [of itself ], even though fire had not touched it—light upon light.15
The olive tree signifies the continuity of revelation, which springs from one root but branches into a multitudinous variety of religious experience that cannot be confined to a single faith or locality, and is neither of the east nor the west.
Muhammad’s position in Mecca remained dangerously insecure. During the hajj of 620, he again visited the pilgrims who were camping in the valley of Mina, going from tent to tent in the hope of attracting support and protection. This time, instead of wholesale rejection, he met a group of six Arabs from Yathrib, who had camped in the gully of ‘Aqabah. As usual, Muhammad sat with them, explained his mission and recited the Qur’an, but this time, he noticed that the pilgrims were attentive and excited. When he had finished, they turned to one another and said that this must be the prophet expected by their Jewish and hanifi neighbors. If Muhammad really was the messenger of Allah, he might be just the person to solve the seemingly insuperable problems of Yathrib.
Yathrib was not a city like Mecca, but a series of hamlets, each occupied by a different tribal group, and each heavily fortified.16 The settlement was situated in an oasis, a fertile island of about twenty square miles, surrounded by volcanic rocks and uncultivable stony ground. Some of its inhabitants engaged in trade, but most were farmers, making a living out of their dates, palm orchards, and arable fields. Unlike the Quraysh, they were not wholly dependent upon commerce, and had retained more of the old badawah values, including, unfortunately, an entrenched hostility to other tribal groups. As a result, the oasis was engulfed in an escalating series of apparently unstoppable wars. The area had originally been cultivated by pioneering Jewish settlers and by the sixth century there were about twenty Jewish tribes in Yathrib, many of whose members may have been Arabs who had assimilated to Judaism.17 They preserved a separate religious identity, but otherwise were almost indistinguishable from their pagan neighbors. Clan and tribal loyalty came first, and there was no united “Jewish community.” The Jewish tribes formed separate allegiances with Arab groups and were often at war with one another. Their date crop had made them rich, but they were also skilled jewellers, manufacturers of weapons, and craftsmen. The five largest Jewish clans—Thalabah, Hudl, Qurayzah, Nadir, and Qaynuqa‘, the last of which controlled the only market in Yathrib—had achieved an almost complete monopoly of the economy that they had pioneered.
But during the sixth century, the Arab tribe of the Bani Qaylah had emigrated from South Arabia and settled in the oasis, alongside the Jews. They then formed two distinct clans—Aws and Khazraj—which eventually became two separate tribes. Gradually the Arabs acquired their own land, built their own fortresses, and by the early seventh century were in a slightly stronger position than the Jews. But despite the inevitable competition over resources, Jews and pagans were able to coexist. The Jews often employed the Arabs to transport their dates, while the Arabs respected the skills and heritage of the Jews, seeing them as “a people of high lineage and properties, whereas we were but an Arab tribe, who did not possess any palm trees nor vineyards, being people of only sheep and camels.”18
But by the time of the pilgrims’ meeting with Muhammad in 620, the situation had deteriorated. The engrained tribal rivalry had surfaced, and Aws and Khazraj were now engaged in a bloody conflict with one another. The Jewish clans had become involved in their struggle, Nadir and Qurayzah supporting Aws, while Qaynuqa‘ was allied to Khazraj. By 617, there was stalemate: neither side could gain ascendancy. Everybody was exhausted by the violence. At certain key moments, ‘Abdullah ibn Ubayy, a chief of Khazraj, had stood aloof from the fighting and thus acquired a reputation for impartiality. Some saw him as a possible king or supreme chief, who could enforce law and order. But the Arabs were averse to monarchy, and this type of experiment had never worked well in the peninsula. The Aws were naturally reluctant to hand the leadership to a member of Khazraj, while the other chiefs of Khazraj were equally unwilling to relinquish their power to Ibn Ubayy.
The six pilgrims immediately realized that, as the spokesman of Allah, Muhammad would be a far more effective arbitrator (hakam) than Ibn Ubayy. They had no problems with his religious message, because for some time the Arabs of Yathrib had been drifting towards monotheism. The Aws and Khazraj had long felt inferior to the Jews because they had no scripture of their own, and the pilgrims were thrilled to hear that God had finally sent a prophet to the Arabs. They made their formal surrender to God on the spot, with high hopes. “We have left our people, for no tribe is so divided by hatred and rancor as they. Perhaps God will unite them through you. So let us go to them and invite them to this religion of yours; and if God unites them in it, then no man will be mightier than you.”19 But they admitted that they had little influence in the oasis, and needed to consult their chiefs and wise men. If he was to be an effective hakam, it was essential that he have wide support. They promised to report back to Muhammad in a year’s time. It was a decisive moment. Circumstances had forced Muhammad to look beyond Mecca and even to entertain the extraordinary idea of abandoning his tribe to take up permanent residence with another.
While awaiting developments in Yathrib, Muhammad made some changes in his household. He needed a wife, and it was suggested that he should marry Sawdah, the cousin and sister-in-law of Suhayl, the devout pagan chief of the Qurayshan clan of Amir. She had been married to one of the Muslims who had migrated to Abyssinia in 616, but was now a widow and this was a good match for her. Abu Bakr was also anxious to forge a closer link with the Prophet, and proposed that he should marry his daughter ‘A’isha, who was then six years old. ‘A’isha was formally betrothed to Muhammad in a ceremony at which the little girl was not present. In later years, she recalled that the first inkling she had of her new status was when her mother explained to her that she could no longer play in the streets, but must invite her friends into the family home.
Muhammad’s harem has excited a good deal of prurient and ill-natured speculation in the West, but in Arabia, where polygamy was more common than the monogamous marriage that Muhammad had enjoyed with Khadijah, it would have been commonplace. These marriages were not romantic or sexual love affairs but were under-taken largely for practical ends. Sawdah seems to have been a rather homely woman, who was past her first youth; but she could take care of Muhammad’s domestic needs. Muhammad may also have hoped to win over Suhayl, who was still undecided about the revelations. There was no impropriety in Muhammad’s betrothal to ‘A’isha. Marriages conducted in absentia to seal an alliance were often contracted at this time between adults and minors who were even younger than ‘A’isha. This practice continued in Europe well into the early modern period. There was no question of consummating the marriage until ‘A’isha reached puberty, when she would have been married off like any other girl. Muhammad’s marriages usually had a political aim. He was starting to establish an entirely different kind of clan, based on ideology rather than kinship, but the blood tie was still a sacred value and helped to cement this experimental community.
During the hajj of 621, the six converts from Yathrib duly returned to Mecca, bringing seven others with them. Again, they met Muhammad in the gully of ‘Aqabah and, in what would become known as the Pledge of ‘Aqabah, promised to worship Allah alone, to refrain from stealing, lying, and infanticide, and pledged to obey Muhammad’s directives concerning social justice. In return, Muhammad promised them Paradise.20 In this first pact, the emphasis was on religion and ethics and there was as yet no political commitment. When the pilgrims returned to Yathrib, they took with them Mus‘ab ibn ‘Umayr, a trusted Muslim, to instruct the people of Yathrib in their new faith.
This was a wise move. Tribal hatred was so intense in the oasis, that neither Aws nor Khazraj could bear to hear a rival leading the prayers or reciting the Qur’an, so it was important that these offices were performed by a neutral outsider. At first, the Aws were antagonistic to the faith, but gradually the power of the Qur’an broke down their reserves. One day, Sa‘d ibn Mu‘adh, chief of one of the leading Aws clans, was horrified to hear that Mus‘ab was preaching in his territory, so he dispatched his second-in-command to drive him away, who bore down on the little group, brandishing his lance, and asked the Muslim how he had the temerity to spread these lies among weak, foolish people. But instead of retaliating with jahili rage, Mus‘ab quietly asked him to sit down and judge for himself. The deputy agreed, stuck his lance in the ground, and, as he listened to the recitation, his face changed. “What wonderful and beautiful discourse this is!” he cried, “What does one do to enter this religion?” After he had proclaimed his faith in Allah and prostrated himself in prayer, he went back to report to his chief. Sa‘d was furious, grasped his own lance, and marched off to confront Mus‘ab himself, only to be overwhelmed in his turn by the Qur’an. He then summoned his people and asked them to follow him; trusting his leadership implicitly, the entire clan converted en masse.21 The news of Sa‘d’s dramatic about-face made a great impression on other chiefs, who began to take Mus‘ab more seriously.
It was not long before there were Muslims in almost every family in the oasis. In Mecca, Muhammad’s preaching mission had stalled largely because the Quraysh could not believe that such an ordinary person could become the messenger of Allah. But conditions in Yathrib were different.22 Muhammad was no commonplace fellow, who could be seen strolling around the marketplace and eating and drinking like anybody else, but a remote, mysterious figure, whose coming was eagerly anticipated. In Mecca, Muhammad’s teaching threatened to damage the cult of the Haram, which was crucial to the economy, but there was no sanctuary full of idols in Yathrib. Not everybody was enamored of the new faith, however. Ibn Ubayy naturally feared that his position was being undermined; others were still committed either to the old paganism or to the hanifiyyah, but at this stage the opposition was muted. If the new prophet really could solve the problems of Yathrib, there might be some material advantage to be gained from him. The Jewish tribes were also prepared to give Muhammad the benefit of the doubt, especially since the Muslims honored their prophets and had adopted some of their own customs.
Muhammad had recently introduced some new practices. As a result of the night journey, perhaps, Muslims now prayed facing the direction (qiblah) of Jerusalem, reaching out to the holy city of the People of the Book. Muhammad had also instructed Mus‘ab to hold a special prayer meeting on Friday afternoon while the Jews were preparing for their Sabbath, and to fast with the Jews on Yom Kippur. Muslims would now pray in the middle of the day, as the Jews did, and observe a modified version of the Jewish dietary laws, similar to those adopted by the early Christians.23 Scholars used to think that Muhammad introduced these new devotions in order to appeal to the Jews of Yathrib, but this view has recently been challenged. Muhammad would not have expected the Jews to convert to his religion, because they had their own revealed din. God had decreed that each community should have its own messenger.24 But it was natural for Muslims to pray and fast in the same way as the other members of the Abrahamic family.
In 622 a large party of pilgrims left Yathrib for the hajj. Some were pagans, but seventy-three of the men and two of the women were Muslims. Yet again, Muhammad went out to greet them at ‘Aqabah, but this time the meeting took place at dead of night. On this occasion, there was a sense of menace and of bridges being irrevocably burned. The Qur’an speaks of the “scheming” of the Quraysh: perhaps Muhammad had reason to believe that the kafirun were plotting to expel him and bar the Muslims from the Haram.25 At all events, Muhammad was now taking practical steps to leave his tribe. Ibn Ishaq claims that this was a positive decision on his part, but the Qur’an repeatedly claims that the Muslims were “expelled” or “driven out” of Mecca.26 The meeting was conducted in deadly secrecy. The Muslims from Yathrib did not even mention it to the pagans in their party, in case they gossiped and alerted the Quraysh to what was afoot.
Muhammad was about to do something absolutely unprecedented.27 He was asking the Muslims of Mecca to make a hijrah (migration) to Yathrib. This did not merely involve a change of address. The Muslims were about to abandon their kinsfolk and accept the permanent protection of strangers. In Arabia, where the tribe was the most sacred value of all, this amounted to blasphemy; it was far more shocking than the Qur’anic rejection of the goddesses. There had always been a system of confederation, whereby an individual or an entire group could become honorary members of another tribe, but these were usually temporary arrangements and had never entailed alienation from one’s own people. The very word hijrah suggests a painful severance. The root HJR has been translated: “he cut himself off from friendly or loving communication or intercourse . . . he ceased . . . to associate with them.”28 Henceforth the Muslims who made the hijrah to Yathrib would be called the Muhajirah, the Emigrants: this traumatic dislocation was central to their new identity.
The Muslims of Yathrib were also embarking on a dangerous experiment. Even if a foreigner was adopted by a tribe, he always remained a zalim (“outsider”), a word which carried the connotation “base, ignoble, evil.”29 Poets described the zalim as a useless, super-fluous accretion. Tribal loyalty was experienced as burning love of kinsfolk and harsh contempt for the alien. Anybody who put a despised zalim before his own people invited passionate scorn and revulsion. But now the Aws and Khazraj were about to swear allegiance to the Qurayshi Muhammad, and promising to give protection and help (nasr) to a large group of outsiders who would inevitably put a strain on the limited resources of the oasis. Henceforth the Muslims of Yathrib would be known as the Ansar. This is usually translated “the Helpers,” but this gives a somewhat anemic impression of what was involved. Nasr meant that you had to be ready to back up your aid with force. When they met Muhammad that night in ‘Aqabah, the Helpers had decided to make a second pact with Muhammad, which would be known as the Pledge of War.
When the time came, the Ansar left their pagan companions sleeping in their tents and stole “softly like sandgrouse” to ‘Aqabah, where they met Muhammad and his uncle ‘Abbas, who acted as his spokesman. ‘Abbas had not converted to Islam and he must have been shocked by Muhammad’s decision to leave Mecca, but he wanted to make sure that he would be safe in Yathrib. Muhammad, he said, was protected by the Hashim in Mecca, but was ready to forgo this security in order to join the Ansar. If they had the smallest doubt about his safety, they should give up the entire project immediately. But the Ansar stood firm. Bara’ Ibn Mar‘ur, a chief of Khazraj, took Muhammad by the hand, and swore that Aws and Khazraj would both extend to Muhammad exactly the same protection as they gave to their own women and children. But while he was speaking, another Helper interrupted. What if Muhammad went back to Mecca and abandoned Yathrib to the wrath of the Quraysh? Muhammad smiled and replied: “I am of you and you are of me. I will war against them that war against you and be at peace with those at peace with you.”30 And so the Ansar made this solemn oath: “We pledged ourselves to war in complete obedience to the apostle, in weal or woe, in ease and hardship and evil circumstances; that we would not wrong anyone; that we would speak the truth at all times; and that in God’s service we would fear the censure of none.”31
The pact was couched in tribal terminology, and concentrated on mutual defense.32 There was as yet no thought of a single, united ummah. Aws, Khazraj, and Quraysh would still operate separately. Muhammad would not go to Yathrib as head of state, but simply as the arbitrator (hakam) of disputes between Aws and Khazraj and as the chief of the Emigrants from Mecca. The Ansar would be ruled by twelve “overseers” from the various clans. Even though Islam had made great strides in Yathrib—after a single year, the Muslim community there was almost as large as the beleaguered ummah in Mecca—the fact remained that even after the hijrah, the Muslims would remain a tiny minority in the oasis, dwarfed in size by the aloof, appraising pagans, hanifs, and Jews.33 The Pledge of War marked a major expansion of Islam: the new religion had spread to other tribal groups, but it had not yet transcended the tribal ethos. The hijrah was a risky enterprise, an irrevocable, frightening step. Nobody knew how it would work out, because nothing quite like it had ever happened in Arabia before.
After the hajj, the Ansar returned to Yathrib to await the arrival of the Muslim fugitives. The Qur’an now adopted the Aramaic name that the Jews gave to the settlement of Yathrib: medinta (“the city”). Yathrib was about to become al-Madinat, the city of the Prophet. In Mecca, Muhammad began to persuade Muslims to make the hijrah, but he did not command it. Anybody who felt it to be beyond his or her strength was free to remain behind. But during July and August 622, about seventy Muslims set off with their families to Medina, where they were lodged in the houses of the Ansar until they could set up their own homes. The Quraysh do not seem to have made a concerted effort to detain them though some women and children were forcibly prevented from leaving, and one man was carted back in triumph, tied to his camel. For their part, the Muslims were careful not to draw attention to their flight, and usually agreed to meet up outside the city limits and to travel in small, unobtrusive groups. ‘Umar left with his family; ‘Uthman ibn ‘Affan and Ruqayyah made the journey with Zayd and Hamzah, but Muhammad and Abu Bakr stayed behind until nearly everybody had left. But it was not long before this major defection left disturbing gaps in the city, revealing the open wound that Muhammad had inflicted on his tribe. The big houses in the middle of Mecca looked desolate and portentous to passers by, “doors blowing to and fro, empty of inhabitants.”34
In August, shortly before he was due to leave, Mu‘tim, Muhammad’s Meccan protector, died. Muhammad’s position in Mecca was now untenable, because he was fair game for assassination. There was a special meeting to discuss his fate in the assembly, from which Abu Lahab pointedly absented himself. Some of the elders simply wanted to throw Muhammad out of Mecca, but they were overruled by those who felt that to allow him to join those unprincipled renegades in Yathrib would be dangerous. Abu Jahl came up with a plan: each clan would select a strong and well-protected young man. Collectively, they would represent the entire tribe, and would kill Muhammad together. There would be no vendetta, because the Hashim could not take on the whole of Quraysh.
So that night a band of carefully chosen youths gathered outside Muhammad’s home, but were disturbed to hear the voices of Sawdah and some of the Prophet’s daughters through the window. It would be shameful to kill a man in the presence of his women, so they decided to wait until he left the house the following morning. One of them peered in and saw a figure lying in bed, wrapped in Muhammad’s cloak. Unbeknownst to them, Muhammad had already escaped through a back window, leaving ‘Ali lying apparently asleep, wearing his clothes. When ‘Ali strolled outside the next morning, the young men realized that they had been tricked, and the Quraysh offered a reward of a hundred camel mares to anybody who would bring Muhammad back, dead or alive.
By this time, Muhammad and Abu Bakr were hiding in a mountain cave just outside the city. They stayed there for three days, and from time to time, their supporters slipped out to bring them news and provisions. At one point, it was said, a search party actually passed the cave, but did not bother to look inside because an enormous spider’s web covered the entrance and a rock dove, who had clearly been sitting on her eggs for some time, had her nest in an acacia tree in exactly the place where a man would have to put his foot when climbing into the cave. All the while, Muhammad experienced a deep calm and a strong sense of God’s presence. The Qur’an recalls how he comforted Abu Bakr: “ ‘grieve not: verily God is with us.’ And thereupon God bestowed upon him from on high His [gift of ] inner peace.”35 Increasingly the Qur’an would insist that when Muslims found themselves in frightening or disturbing circumstances, they should be serene and tranquil, and should never fall prey to the impetuous rage and vengeful fury of jahiliyyah.
When the hue and cry had died down, Muhammad and Abu Bakr climbed out of the cave, taking care not to disturb the rock dove, and mounted the two camels that Abu Bakr had prepared for their journey. Abu Bakr wanted to give the better camel to Muhammad, but he insisted on paying for her. This was his personal hijrah, his sacrifice to Allah, and it was important to make the whole event entirely his own. Muhammad called the camel mare Qaswa’, and she remained his favorite mount for the rest of his life. It was a dangerous trip, because while he was on the road, Muhammad did not enjoy anybody’s protection, so their guide took them by a circuitous route, and they zigzagged back and forth to throw any pursuers off the scent.
In the meantime, the Muslims were anxiously awaiting their arrival in Medina. Several of the Emigrants from Mecca were living in Quba’, the southernmost point of the oasis, and every day after morning prayers they used to climb the volcanic rocks and scan the barren terrain outside the settlement. On the morning of September 4, 622, one of the Jews spotted a cloud of dust on the horizon and called out to the Ansar: “Sons of Qaylah! He is come! He is come!” At once men, women, and children surged out to meet the travellers and found them resting under a palm tree.
Muhammad and Abu Bakr stayed in Quba’ for three days, but the Muslims in the “city” (as the most densely populated part of the oasis was called) were impatient to see him, so he set off to meet them and decide where he was going to live. Along the way, several people begged him to alight and make his home with them, but Muhammad courteously refused because he was anxious to remain independent of the warring groups within Medina. Instead, he gave Qaswa’ her head, and asked God to guide her. Eventually, she fell to her knees outside a mirbad, a place for drying dates, which belonged to one of the Ansar. Muhammad got down, allowed his luggage to be carried into the nearest house and then began to negotiate with the owner for the sale of the land. Once the price was agreed upon, all the Muslims got to work to build the Prophet’s residence, which would also serve as a place for prayer. This was hard for the Emigrants, because the Quraysh were not used to manual labor, and the stylish ‘Uthman found the work particularly grueling.
The first Muslim building was not imposing but it became the model for all future mosques. It was primarily a masjid, “a place of prostration,” an open space roomy enough for the entire community to perform the salat together, and it expressed the austerity of the early Islamic ideal. The roof was supported by tree trunks, and there was no elaborate pulpit; Muhammad stood on a simple stool to address the congregation. Muhammad and his wives lived in little huts round the edge of the big courtyard in front of the mosque. This was a place for public and political meetings; the poor of Medina were also invited to congregate there for alms, food and care.
This humble building in Medina expressed the ideal of tawhid.36 Muhammad wanted to show that the sexual, the sacred, and the domestic could—and, indeed, must—be integrated. Similarly politics, welfare, and the ordering of social life must be brought into the ambit of holiness. In housing his wives within a stone’s throw of the mosque, Muhammad was tacitly proclaiming that there must be no distinction between public and private life, and no discrimination between the sexes. Holiness in Islam was inclusive rather than exclusive. If they wished, Jews and Christians could worship in the mosque, because they too were part of God’s family.
The building was completed in April, 623, about seven months after the hijrah. In the northern wall, a stone marked the qiblah, the direction of prayer, orienting the people towards Jerusalem. At first there was no official summons to salat, but this was obviously unsatisfactory, as everybody came at different times. Muhammad thought of using a ram’s horn, like the Jews, or a wooden clapper, like the local Christians, but one of the Emigrants had an important dream. A man, clad in a green cloak, had told him that somebody with a loud, resonant voice should announce the service, crying Allahu Akhbar (“God is greater”) as a reminder of a Muslim’s first priority. Muhammad liked the idea and Bilal, the former Abyssinian slave with the big voice, was an obvious choice. Every morning he climbed to the top of the tallest house in the vicinity of the mosque, and sat on the rooftop waiting for dawn. Then he would stretch out his arms, and before beginning the call, would pray: “O God, I praise Thee and ask Thy help for Quraysh that they may accept Thy religion.”37 The Muslims may have changed their qiblah to Jerusalem, but they had not forgotten Mecca. When Muhammad learned that many of the Emigrants were deeply homesick, he prayed: “Lord, make us love this town as much as you made us love Mecca, and even more so.”38
The immense uprooting of the hijrah meant that even though they still used the old tribal terminology, the Muslims had to create an entirely different type of community. One of the first things Muhammad did was set up a system of “brothering” whereby each Meccan was assigned an Ansar “brother” to help Muslims to bond across the lines of kinship. The political separation of Emigrants and Helpers was soon dropped: when the first of the twelve Ansari “overseers” died, Muhammad simply took over his position.39 The Muslims were gradually creating a “neo-tribe,” which interpreted the old kinship relationships differently. Those who had made the hijrah were to regard themselves as distinct from the Muslims who had remained behind in Mecca, even though they all belonged to the same blood group. Whatever their tribe or clan, Muslims must never fight one another. Emigrants and Helpers must become as solidly united as any conventional tribe.40 Like the tribe, the ummah was “one community to the exclusion of all men,” and would make “confederates” of non-Muslim allies in the usual way.41
As chieftain of the ummah, Muhammad could now implement his moral and social reforms in a way that had been impossible in Mecca. His goal was to create a society of hilm. Those who kept the faith (mu’min) were not simply “believers.” Their faith must be expressed in practical actions: they must pray, share their wealth, and in matters that concerned the community, “consult among themselves” to preserve the unity of the ummah. If attacked, they could defend themselves, but instead of lashing out in the old, uncontrolled jahili way, they must always be prepared to forgive an injury. Automatic, vengeful retaliation—the cardinal duty of muruwah—could be a great evil. “Hence, whoever pardons [his foe] and makes peace, his reward rests with God,” the Qur’an insisted tirelessly. “If one is patient in adversity and forgives—this, behold, is indeed something to set one’s heart upon.”42
But this transformation could not be achieved overnight, because the old spirit of jahiliyyah still lurked in Muslim hearts. Shortly after the hijrah, one of the pagan Arabs noticed a crowd of Muslims, which included members of both Aws and Khazraj, chatting together amicably as though their tribes had never been sworn enemies. He was furious. Clearly Islam was making them soft and feeble! He ordered a young Jewish man to sit near the group and recite poems that reminded them of the old bitter feuds. It was not long before the engrained tribal chauvinism flared up, and the Muslims were soon at one another’s throats. Muhammad hurried to the scene in great distress. “Are you still tempted by the call of jahiliyyah when I am here among you?” he demanded, “when God has guided you . . . honored you, and cut off thereby the bond of jahiliyyah from you, delivered you from a state of defiant ingratitude (kufr), and made you friends of each other?” Deeply ashamed, the Ansar wept and embraced.43
Not all the Muslims of Medina were committed to change. Some had embraced Islam purely for material gain, and they were sitting on the fence, waiting to see how this new venture would turn out. The Qur’an called these people the “waverers” or the “Hypocrites,” (munafiqun) because they were not sincere and kept changing their minds.44 When they were with devout Muslims, they cried: “We believe [as you believe],” but in the company of other doubters, they assured them: “Verily, we are with you; we were only mocking!”45 Their leader was Ibn Ubayy, who had become a Muslim but remained resentful and critical of the new faith. Muhammad always behaved respectfully to him, and allowed him to address the community every week during the Friday prayers, but from time to time his buried hostility came to the surface. “Don’t be hard on him,” one of the Helpers begged Muhammad after a particularly unpleasant incident, “for before God sent you to us we were making a diadem to crown him, and by God, he thinks you have robbed him of a kingdom.”46
Some of the Jews were also becoming hostile to the newcomers. Muhammad did not expect them to convert to Islam, and their quarrel with him was not primarily religious but political and economic. The Jews’ position in the oasis had deteriorated, and if Muhammad succeeded in uniting Aws and Khazraj, they would have no chance of regaining their former supremacy. Hence three of the larger Jewish tribes thought it wiser to support Ibn Ubbay and the pagan Arabs in the oasis who remained opposed to Muhammad.47 The early Muslim historians tell us that they mounted a scholarly polemic against the theology of the Qur’an, but this probably reflected Jewish-Muslim debate during the eighth and ninth centuries.48 The Jews of seventh century Medina had only a limited knowledge of Torah and Talmud, were not strictly observant, and most were used to seeing their faith as a variant of Arabian religion.49 The idea of an Arabian prophet was not a strange idea to them: they had a prophet of their own called Ibn Sayyad, who, like Muhammad, wrapped himself in a cloak, recited inspired verses, and claimed to be the apostle of God.50
But if there were no learned rabbinical debates, the Muslims probably encountered a good deal of populist religious chauvinism in Medina. Ibn Ishaq tells us that when they came to the mosque, some of the Jews would “laugh and scoff ” at the Qur’an.51 Many Jews were friendly and Muhammad probably learned a great deal from them, but some of the People of the Book had ideas that he found very strange indeed. The idea of an exclusive religion was alien to Muhammad; he hated sectarian quarrels,52 and was offended by the idea of a “chosen people” or the conviction that only Jews or Christians could get to Paradise.53 He was also bewildered to learn that some Christians believed that God was a trinity and that Jesus was the son of Allah.54 But he remained convinced that these peculiar notions were the heretical deviations of a deluded minority.55 The Qur’an reminded Muslims that many of the People of the Book were “upright people,” who
recite God’s messages throughout the night and prostrate themselves [before him]. They believe in God and the Last Day, and enjoin the doing of what is right and forbid the doing of what is wrong, and vie with one another in doing God’s works; and these are among the righteous.56
Muslims must remember that every community had its own specially revealed din, so they must not take part in these pointless squabbles; if the People of the Book attacked their faith, Muslims must behave with hilm, and courteously reply: “God knows best what you are doing.”57
To avoid this sterile controversy, Muhammad, like the hanifs, decided to return to the “religion of Abraham,” who was neither a “Jew” nor a “Christian,” because he had lived long before either the Torah or the Gospel.58 After the hijrah, the Qur’an started to apply the words “hanif ” and “hanifiyyah” to the Muslims and Islam, but gave them a new interpretation. For Muhammad, hanifiyyah simply meant total submission to God; this had been the original, unadulterated message of the prophets, before it had been corrupted by sectarian chauvinism. Abraham, for example, had not belonged to an exclusive cult. He had simply been a muslim, “one who surrendered himself ” and a “man of pure faith” (hanif ).59
When Abraham and Ishmael had rebuilt the Kabah together, they had not developed an exclusive theology, but had simply wanted to give their lives entirely to Allah. “O our Sustainer!” they had prayed, “Make us surrender ourselves unto Thee, and show us our ways of worship.” Muslims had been driven out of Mecca because of religious intolerance, so they must avoid all exclusivity.60 Instead of stridently insisting that they alone had the monopoly of truth, the true Muslims merely said: “Behold, my prayer, and [all] my acts of worship and my living and my dying are for God [alone], the Sustainer of all the worlds.”61 It was idolatry to take pride in belonging to a particular religious tradition rather than concentrating upon Allah himself.
Towards the end of January 624, Muhammad received a revelation while he was leading the Friday prayers, and made the congregation turn around and pray in the direction of Mecca instead of Jerusalem. They would now face the house built by Abraham, the man of pure faith.
We have seen thee [O Prophet] often turn thy face towards heaven [for guidance], and now We shall indeed make thee turn too in prayer in a direction which will fulfil thy desire. Turn then thy face towards the Inviolable House of Worship; and wherever you all may be, turn your faces towards it [in prayer].62
It was a reminder that they were not following any of the established religions, but God himself. It was a declaration of independence. Muslims need no longer feel that they were following lamely in the footsteps of the older faiths. “Hold them not in awe,” God said, “but stand in awe of me and [obey me].”63 The new qiblah delighted both the Emigrants and the Helpers, and would bind them more closely together. They all loved the Kabah, which was more deeply rooted in Arab tradition than the distant city of Jerusalem. But there was a problem. The Kabah was in Mecca, and relations with the Quraysh had recently become more strained than ever before.