Prophet Muhammad ﷺ – The Seal of the Prophets حضرت محمد ﷺ – خاتم النبیین

Muhammad ﷺ was born in Makkah, in the valley where Ibrahim (AS) had left his wife Hajar and his infant son Ismail (AS) beside the Ka'bah. His lineage runs back to Ismail through the tribe of Quraysh: Muhammad, son of Abdullah, son of Abdul-Muttalib, son of Hashim, son of Abd Manaf, son of Qusayy, and so on to Adnan, a descendant of Ismail. The Prophet ﷺ said: "Allah chose Kinanah from the descendants of Ismail, and chose Quraysh from Kinanah, and chose Banu Hashim from Quraysh, and chose me from Banu Hashim" (Sahih Muslim 2276). He was, as he put it, the answer to the prayer of Ibrahim (AS) who had asked Allah to raise a messenger among the people of Makkah (Al-Baqarah 2:129), and the glad tidings announced by Isa (AS) (As-Saff 61:6).

His grandfather Abdul-Muttalib was the chief of Banu Hashim and the custodian of the Ka'bah's water supply; the Seerah historians relate that he rediscovered the buried well of Zamzam and that, having vowed to sacrifice a son if Allah gave him ten, he was directed by lots to his youngest and favourite, Abdullah, and ransomed him with a hundred camels. These are reports of the historians, not of the Quran or sahih hadith, but they were accepted by the early scholars as the background to the Prophet's birth. Abdullah married Aminah bint Wahb of Banu Zuhrah, and died on a trading journey before his son was born. Muhammad ﷺ came into the world an orphan.

He was born on a Monday – he said so himself when asked why he fasted on Mondays: "That is the day I was born, and the day I was sent" (Sahih Muslim 1162) – in Rabi' al-Awwal of the Year of the Elephant, around 570 CE. That year Abrahah, the Abyssinian ruler of Yemen, had marched on Makkah with an army and an elephant to destroy the Ka'bah, and Allah destroyed his army with flocks of birds hurling stones (Al-Fil 105:1–5). The city still spoke of the miracle when the child was born. Following the custom of Quraysh, Aminah gave him to a wet-nurse from the desert, Halimah of Banu Sa'd, in whose tents he spent his earliest years. Halimah's family relate that their flocks and milk increased from the day they took him; these are Seerah reports.

One event of those years is confirmed in sahih hadith. Anas (RA) narrated that while the boy was playing with other children, Jibril came, took him, opened his chest, removed his heart, and took out a clot, saying: "This is the portion of Shaytan in you." He washed the heart in a gold basin with Zamzam water, restored it, and returned him. The children ran to Halimah saying that Muhammad had been killed, and they found him pale (Sahih Muslim 162). Allah had prepared him from childhood for what he would carry.

Aminah died at al-Abwa', on the road between Makkah and Madinah, when he was six, and he was taken in by Abdul-Muttalib, who loved him deeply; when the old man died two years later he passed into the care of his uncle Abu Talib. The Quran addresses him about these years: "Did He not find you an orphan and give you refuge? And He found you lost and guided you. And He found you poor and made you self-sufficient" (Ad-Duha 93:6–8). As a youth he worked as a shepherd – "Every prophet shepherded sheep," he later said, "and I shepherded the sheep of the people of Makkah for a few qirats" (Sahih al-Bukhari 2262). On a trading journey to Syria with Abu Talib, the Seerah relates that a monk named Bahira recognised the signs of the awaited prophet in him; this report is in Jami' at-Tirmidhi 3620 and has been discussed by the scholars, who accept its core while questioning some details.

Allah protected him from the idolatry and immorality of his city. He never bowed to an idol, never drank wine, and never lied. When Quraysh rebuilt the Ka'bah when he was thirty-five and the clans nearly came to blows over who should set the Black Stone in place, they agreed to accept the judgement of the first man to enter the sanctuary; it was Muhammad, and they cried, "This is al-Amin, the trustworthy; we are satisfied with him." He spread his cloak, placed the Stone on it, had each clan lift a corner, and set it in place with his own hands (Musnad Ahmad; graded hasan). He had also taken part, as a young man, in the Hilf al-Fudul, a pact of the clans to defend the wronged in Makkah, and he said after Islam: "I witnessed a pact in the house of Abdullah ibn Jud'an which I would not exchange for red camels, and if I were called to it in Islam I would respond" (Musnad Ahmad; Sunan al-Bayhaqi). Long before revelation, the people of Makkah called him al-Amin.

Khadijah bint Khuwaylid was a wealthy and respected merchant of Quraysh, twice widowed, who hired men to trade with her capital. Hearing of the honesty of Muhammad ﷺ, she sent him with her goods to Syria, accompanied by her servant Maysarah. The journey brought unusual profit, and Maysarah returned with reports of his character that impressed her. She proposed marriage through a friend, and Abu Talib concluded the marriage on his nephew's behalf. He was twenty-five; she was forty according to the best-known report, though some historians say she was younger. For the next twenty-five years she was his only wife, and he never married another woman while she lived.

Their home was blessed with children: Qasim, who died in infancy and from whom the Prophet took his kunyah Abul-Qasim; Zaynab, Ruqayyah, Umm Kulthum and Fatimah; and Abdullah, also called at-Tayyib and at-Tahir, who died young. All his children except Fatimah died in his lifetime. Years later he would say of Khadijah: "She believed in me when people disbelieved, she affirmed my truth when people called me a liar, she supported me with her wealth when people deprived me, and Allah granted me children through her and not through any other woman" (Musnad Ahmad; graded hasan). Jibril once brought her the greetings of her Lord and the good news of a house in Paradise made of hollowed pearl, in which there would be neither noise nor fatigue (Sahih al-Bukhari 3820).

As he approached forty, solitude became dear to him. He would take provisions and retreat to the cave of Hira on Jabal an-Nur, outside Makkah, to worship for nights at a time, returning to Khadijah for more food and then going back. Aisha (RA) narrated that the first form in which revelation came to him was true dreams: "He did not see a dream but it came true like the breaking of dawn" (Sahih al-Bukhari 3). Then one night in Ramadan, in the cave, the angel came to him.

The angel said: "Read!" He replied: "I am not one who reads." Jibril seized him and pressed him until he could bear it no more, then released him and said again: "Read!" Three times this happened, and then the angel recited: "Read in the name of your Lord who created – created man from a clinging substance. Read, and your Lord is the most Generous – who taught by the pen – taught man that which he knew not" (Al-Alaq 96:1–5). These were the first words of the Quran to come down to the earth. He returned to Khadijah with his heart pounding and said, "Cover me, cover me," and when the fear had left him he told her what had happened and said, "I fear for myself" (Sahih al-Bukhari 3; Sahih Muslim 160).

Khadijah's reply is one of the finest testimonies to character ever recorded. "No, by Allah, Allah will never disgrace you. You keep the ties of kinship, you bear the burdens of the weak, you earn for the destitute, you honour the guest, and you help in every true calamity." Then she took him to her cousin Waraqah ibn Nawfal, an old man who had become a Christian and knew the Scriptures. When he heard the account he said: "This is the Namus (the keeper of secrets, Jibril) whom Allah sent to Musa. I wish I were young; I wish I could live until your people expel you." The Prophet ﷺ asked, "Will they expel me?" Waraqah replied: "Yes. No man ever came with what you have come with but he was treated with hostility. If I live to see that day I will support you strongly." Waraqah died soon afterwards (Sahih al-Bukhari 3).

Then revelation paused for a time – the fatrah – long enough that the Prophet ﷺ grieved. Jabir (RA) narrated his account of its resumption: "While I was walking, I heard a voice from the sky. I raised my eyes and there was the angel who had come to me at Hira, sitting on a throne between the heaven and the earth. I was terrified and returned home and said, 'Wrap me up, wrap me up.' Then Allah revealed: 'O you who covers himself with a garment, arise and warn. And your Lord glorify. And your clothing purify. And uncleanliness avoid'" (Al-Muddaththir 74:1–5; Sahih al-Bukhari 4922). From that moment revelation came continuously. The command was no longer only to read; it was to rise and warn. The prophethood had become a mission.

The first to believe were those who knew him best. Khadijah believed without hesitation. Ali ibn Abi Talib, a boy of about ten who lived in his household, believed; so did Zayd ibn Harithah, his freed slave and adopted son; and so did his closest friend, Abu Bakr, who the Prophet ﷺ said was the only person who never hesitated when he presented Islam to him (Seerah of Ibn Ishaq). Abu Bakr at once brought others: Uthman ibn Affan, az-Zubayr ibn al-Awwam, Abdur-Rahman ibn Awf, Sa'd ibn Abi Waqqas and Talhah ibn Ubaydillah. Bilal, an Abyssinian slave, and Ammar ibn Yasir and his parents were among the early believers from the weak and the poor. For about three years the call was private; the believers met in the house of al-Arqam near the hill of Safa to learn the Quran as it came down.

Then Allah commanded: "And warn your closest kindred" (Ash-Shu'ara 26:214) and "Then declare what you are commanded and turn away from the polytheists" (Al-Hijr 15:94). The Prophet ﷺ climbed the hill of Safa and called the clans of Quraysh by name until they gathered. "If I told you that horsemen were in the valley about to attack you, would you believe me?" They said, "Yes, we have never known you to lie." He said, "Then I am a warner to you before a severe punishment." Abu Lahab, his own uncle, said: "May you perish for the rest of the day! Is this what you gathered us for?" And Allah revealed Surah Al-Masad: "May the hands of Abu Lahab be ruined, and ruined is he" (Al-Masad 111:1; Sahih al-Bukhari 4770; Sahih Muslim 208).

Quraysh did not at first take the matter seriously. When they realised that he was attacking their gods and the religion of their fathers, they tried every means. They went to Abu Talib and demanded that he silence his nephew or hand him over. The Seerah relates the Prophet's reply to his uncle: "By Allah, if they put the sun in my right hand and the moon in my left to make me abandon this matter, I would not abandon it until Allah makes it prevail or I perish in it." This is reported by Ibn Ishaq with an incomplete chain, but its meaning is confirmed by his whole life. Utbah ibn Rabi'ah offered him wealth, leadership or kingship if he would stop; he answered by reciting Surah Fussilat until Utbah returned shaken. They called him a sorcerer, a poet, a madman and a liar – the very accusations the Quran records (Al-Hijr 15:6; Sad 38:4; At-Tur 52:29–30).

Then came the torture. The believers who had no clan to protect them suffered most. Umayyah ibn Khalaf would lay Bilal on the burning sand at noon with a boulder on his chest, and Bilal would say only, "Ahad, Ahad" – One, One – until Abu Bakr bought him and freed him. The family of Yasir were tortured in the open; the Prophet ﷺ passed by them and could only say, "Patience, family of Yasir, your appointed place is Paradise." Sumayyah, Ammar's mother, was killed by Abu Jahl with a spear, and is counted as the first martyr of Islam. These are the reports of the Seerah writers, accepted by the scholars. Khabbab ibn al-Aratt, a blacksmith, was burned on the coals of his own forge; he came to the Prophet ﷺ when he was resting in the shade of the Ka'bah and asked him to pray for victory. The Prophet sat up, red in the face, and said: "Among those before you a man would be placed in a pit and sawn in two, and combed with iron combs between flesh and bone, and it would not turn him from his religion. By Allah, Allah will complete this matter until a rider travels from San'a to Hadramawt fearing no one but Allah – but you are hasty" (Sahih al-Bukhari 3612).

The Prophet ﷺ himself was not spared. Abu Jahl threw the entrails of a camel on his back while he prostrated at the Ka'bah, and the men laughed until his daughter Fatimah ran and removed it (Sahih al-Bukhari 240). Uqbah ibn Abi Mu'ayt seized him by the cloak and tried to strangle him until Abu Bakr pushed him away, saying, "Would you kill a man because he says, 'My Lord is Allah'?" (Sahih al-Bukhari 3678). Allah consoled him: "We know that you are saddened by what they say. And indeed, they do not call you untruthful, but it is the verses of Allah that the wrongdoers reject" (Al-An'am 6:33).

Yet Islam kept growing. In the sixth year of the call, Hamzah ibn Abdul-Muttalib, the Prophet's uncle and the strongest man of Quraysh, embraced Islam after striking Abu Jahl for insulting his nephew. Days later Umar ibn al-Khattab, who had set out to kill the Prophet, heard his sister reciting Surah Ta-Ha, washed, read it, and went to the house of al-Arqam to declare his faith. The Prophet ﷺ had prayed: "O Allah, strengthen Islam with whichever of the two Umars is dearer to You" (Jami' at-Tirmidhi 3681; graded sahih). With Hamzah and Umar the Muslims prayed openly at the Ka'bah for the first time. Quraysh understood that persecution had failed, and they began to think of something larger.

In the fifth year of the call, when the suffering of the believers had become unbearable, the Prophet ﷺ told them: "If you went to the land of the Abyssinians, you would find there a king under whom no one is wronged. It is a land of truth, until Allah grants you relief from what you are in." The first group of about a dozen, including Uthman ibn Affan and his wife Ruqayyah, the Prophet's daughter, slipped away to the coast and sailed across the Red Sea. A larger group followed later, led by Ja'far ibn Abi Talib, until more than eighty Muslims were living under the protection of the Negus (an-Najashi), the Christian king of Abyssinia. The Prophet ﷺ himself remained in Makkah.

Quraysh were not prepared to let them go. They sent Amr ibn al-As and Abdullah ibn Abi Rabi'ah with gifts for the Negus and his bishops, asking that the fugitives be returned. The king refused to hand anyone over unheard, and summoned the Muslims. Ja'far spoke for them. Umm Salamah (RA), who was present, narrated his words: "O King, we were a people of ignorance, worshipping idols, eating dead animals, committing indecency, cutting the ties of kinship, and the strong among us devoured the weak. Then Allah sent us a messenger from among ourselves whose lineage, truthfulness, honesty and chastity we knew. He called us to worship Allah alone, to speak the truth, to fulfil trusts, to keep the ties of kinship, to be good to neighbours, and to refrain from bloodshed… So our people attacked us and tortured us to make us return to the worship of idols" (Musnad Ahmad; Seerah of Ibn Ishaq – graded hasan).

The Negus asked whether they had anything from what their Prophet had brought, and Ja'far recited the opening of Surah Maryam. The king wept until his beard was wet, and his bishops wept, and he said: "This and what Isa brought come from the same lamp." He dismissed the envoys. The next day Amr tried again, telling the king that the Muslims said something terrible about Isa. Summoned again, Ja'far said: "We say about him what our Prophet brought: he is the servant of Allah and His messenger and His spirit and His word which He cast to Maryam the virgin." The Negus picked up a stick and said: "By Allah, Isa son of Maryam does not exceed what you have said by the length of this stick." He returned the gifts and declared the Muslims safe in his land. Years later, when the Negus died, the Prophet ﷺ prayed the funeral prayer for him in absence in Madinah (Sahih al-Bukhari 1333; Sahih Muslim 951).

In Makkah, Quraysh turned to collective punishment. In the seventh year of the call they drew up a document boycotting Banu Hashim and Banu al-Muttalib – the Prophet's clan, which under Abu Talib's leadership refused to surrender him – and hung it inside the Ka'bah. No one was to marry with them, trade with them, or sell them food. The clan, Muslims and non-Muslims together, withdrew into the ravine of Abu Talib on the edge of Makkah. The boycott lasted about three years. Food was so scarce that the children's cries of hunger could be heard from outside the ravine, and Sa'd ibn Abi Waqqas relates that he once found a piece of dried skin, washed it, roasted it and ate it. Only during the sacred months could they go out and buy, and even then merchants were pressured to raise their prices beyond their reach.

The boycott ended through the conscience of a few men of Quraysh. Hisham ibn Amr, Zuhayr ibn Abi Umayyah, al-Mut'im ibn Adi and others agreed that the document was an injustice and resolved to tear it up. The Seerah relates that the Prophet ﷺ had told Abu Talib that Allah had sent termites against the document, which had eaten everything in it except the name of Allah. When Abu Talib announced this to Quraysh and challenged them to bring it out, they found it as he had said, and the boycott collapsed. This report is from Ibn Ishaq and the Seerah writers; it is not in the Sahih collections but was accepted by the early historians.

These two episodes show the Prophet ﷺ managing a persecuted community with wisdom. He sent the weak to safety while he stayed to face the danger; he chose a refuge ruled by a just man of another faith; he kept Islam's doctrine about Isa clear even when it would have been easier to blur it; and he endured a siege of three years without compromising the call. The Quran's command had been: "So be patient, as were those of determination among the messengers" (Al-Ahqaf 46:35). Yet the hardest year of all was still to come.

The boycott had barely ended when the Prophet ﷺ lost the two people who had shielded him most. In the tenth year of the call, Abu Talib fell ill and lay dying. The Prophet ﷺ went to him and found Abu Jahl and Abdullah ibn Abi Umayyah at his bedside. He said: "O uncle, say 'La ilaha illallah', a word with which I will plead for you before Allah." The two men said: "Will you abandon the religion of Abdul-Muttalib?" They kept at him until his last words were that he remained on the religion of Abdul-Muttalib. The Prophet ﷺ said, "I will keep asking forgiveness for you unless I am forbidden," and Allah revealed: "It is not for the Prophet and those who have believed to ask forgiveness for the polytheists, even if they were relatives" (At-Tawbah 9:113), and: "Indeed, you do not guide whom you like, but Allah guides whom He wills" (Al-Qasas 28:56; Sahih al-Bukhari 3884; Sahih Muslim 24).

Abu Talib had protected his nephew for over forty years, and especially for the ten years of the call, at the cost of his own standing among Quraysh; yet he died without accepting the message. The Prophet ﷺ was asked whether his uncle's support had benefited him, and he said that because of his intercession Abu Talib would be in the shallowest part of the Fire, in which the fire reaches only his ankles but makes his brain boil (Sahih al-Bukhari 3883; Sahih Muslim 209). It is a sobering reminder that kinship to a prophet does not replace faith.

A few weeks later – the historians differ on the exact interval – Khadijah died. She had been his wife for twenty-five years, the first believer, the one who had wrapped him in a cloak and told him Allah would never disgrace him, the one who had spent her fortune on the besieged community and grown thin and weak in the ravine. The Prophet ﷺ never forgot her. Years later Aisha (RA) said that she was never jealous of any of his wives as she was of Khadijah, whom she had never met, because he mentioned her so often and would send gifts to her friends (Sahih al-Bukhari 3818). The historians call this year 'Am al-Huzn, the Year of Sorrow.

With Abu Talib gone, Quraysh grew bolder, and the Prophet ﷺ decided to seek support elsewhere. He walked, with Zayd ibn Harithah, to Ta'if, a town in the mountains about seventy kilometres south-east of Makkah, home of the tribe of Thaqif. He stayed ten days, presenting Islam to the three chiefs of the town, brothers of the house of Amr ibn Umayr. They mocked him: one said he would tear the covering of the Ka'bah if Allah had sent him; another said Allah could have found someone better; the third said he would not speak to him at all. Then they set the slaves and the foolish of the town on him. They lined the road and pelted him with stones until his feet bled, Zayd shielding him with his own body. They took refuge in an orchard belonging to two Makkans, Utbah and Shaybah, the sons of Rabi'ah, who sent a Christian slave named Addas with a bunch of grapes. These details are from Ibn Ishaq's Seerah.

What happened then is told by the Prophet ﷺ himself in a hadith narrated by Aisha (RA). She asked him whether any day had ever been harder for him than Uhud. He said: "I suffered from your people, and the hardest was the day of Aqabah, when I presented myself to Ibn Abd Yalil ibn Abd Kulal and he did not respond as I wished. I went off, grief-stricken, and did not recover until I was at Qarn ath-Tha'alib. I raised my head and saw a cloud shading me. I looked and there was Jibril. He called to me and said: Allah has heard what your people said to you and how they replied, and He has sent you the angel of the mountains for you to command as you wish. The angel of the mountains greeted me and said: O Muhammad, if you wish I will bring the two mountains down upon them." The Prophet ﷺ replied: "No. Rather, I hope that Allah will bring forth from their loins people who will worship Allah alone and associate nothing with Him" (Sahih al-Bukhari 3231; Sahih Muslim 1795).

A famous supplication is attributed to him in the orchard, beginning "O Allah, to You I complain of my weakness, my lack of resources and my lowliness before men…"; it is recorded by at-Tabarani with a weak chain, and while its words are beautiful and consistent with his state, it is not established as his. What is established is the answer he gave the angel. Offered the destruction of the city that had just stoned him, he chose its future. Within a generation the people of Ta'if were Muslims. On the road back, at Nakhlah, a group of jinn heard him reciting the Quran in the night prayer and believed (Al-Ahqaf 46:29–32; Al-Jinn 72:1–2). He could not enter Makkah without protection, and after two Qurayshi chiefs refused, al-Mut'im ibn Adi – a polytheist who had helped end the boycott – took him under his protection and brought him home. The Prophet ﷺ never forgot that debt either.

After the Year of Sorrow, Allah honoured His Messenger with a journey no human being had ever made. "Exalted is He who took His Servant by night from al-Masjid al-Haram to al-Masjid al-Aqsa, whose surroundings We have blessed, to show him of Our signs. Indeed, He is the Hearing, the Seeing" (Al-Isra 17:1). The journey had two parts: the Isra, from Makkah to Bayt al-Maqdis in Jerusalem, and the Mi'raj, the ascent from there through the heavens. It took place in a single night, about a year before the Hijrah; the historians differ on the exact date.

The Prophet ﷺ described it in detail. While he was in the Hijr beside the Ka'bah, Jibril came and opened his chest, washed his heart with Zamzam, and filled it with faith and wisdom. Then a white mount, smaller than a mule and larger than a donkey, called al-Buraq, was brought; its stride reached as far as its eye could see. He rode to Bayt al-Maqdis, tied the Buraq to the ring where the prophets tied their mounts, entered the mosque and prayed two rak'ahs. Jibril then brought him two vessels, one of wine and one of milk; he chose the milk, and Jibril said, "You have chosen the fitrah" – the natural way (Sahih Muslim 162; Sahih al-Bukhari 3887). In the mosque the prophets were gathered, and he led them in prayer – the imam of all the messengers.

Then they ascended. At each heaven Jibril asked for the gate to be opened and was asked, "Who is with you?" – "Muhammad." – "Has he been sent for?" – "Yes." – "Welcome to him; what an excellent coming." In the first heaven he met Adam, who greeted him: "Welcome, O righteous son and righteous prophet." In the second were Isa and Yahya, the two maternal cousins; in the third Yusuf, who had been given half of all beauty; in the fourth Idris, whom Allah "raised to a high station" (Maryam 19:57); in the fifth Harun; in the sixth Musa, who wept as the Prophet passed on and said: "I weep because a young man sent after me will have more of his nation enter Paradise than mine"; and in the seventh Ibrahim, leaning against al-Bayt al-Ma'mur, the Frequented House, which seventy thousand angels enter every day never to return (Sahih al-Bukhari 3207, 349; Sahih Muslim 162).

Then he was taken to Sidrat al-Muntaha, the Lote Tree of the Utmost Boundary, whose fruits were like the jars of Hajar and whose leaves were like the ears of elephants, and which was covered by colours he could not describe. Four rivers flowed from its base: two hidden, in Paradise, and two visible, the Nile and the Euphrates. He was shown Paradise and the Fire. He saw Jibril in his true form with six hundred wings. The Quran refers to this: "And he certainly saw him in another descent, at the Lote Tree of the Utmost Boundary, near which is the Garden of Refuge, when there covered the Lote Tree that which covered it. The sight did not swerve, nor did it transgress. He certainly saw of the greatest signs of his Lord" (An-Najm 53:13–18). Aisha (RA) and Ibn Abbas differed on whether he saw his Lord; the established position is that he saw a light and did not see Allah with his eyes (Sahih Muslim 178).

It was there that Allah made the prayer obligatory: fifty prayers a day. On the way down, Musa asked him what had been commanded and said: "Your nation will not be able to bear it; I tested the Children of Israel before you. Go back to your Lord and ask Him to lighten it." He went back, and Allah reduced it by five; Musa sent him back again, and again, until five prayers remained. Then Allah said: "They are five, and they are fifty; My word does not change" – five in practice, rewarded as fifty (Sahih al-Bukhari 349; Sahih Muslim 162). The daily prayer is the only act of worship that was legislated in the heavens, in the presence of Allah, without an intermediary. The Prophet ﷺ was then brought back to Makkah before dawn.

In the morning he told the people, and Quraysh seized on it as proof that he had lost his mind: a journey of a month's travel in one night! Some who had seen Bayt al-Maqdis demanded that he describe it. He said: "I stood in the Hijr and Allah displayed Bayt al-Maqdis before me, and I began describing it to them while I looked at it" (Sahih al-Bukhari 3886; Sahih Muslim 170). Some people went to Abu Bakr expecting him to waver. He said: "If he said it, then he has told the truth. I believe him in something far stranger than that: that news comes to him from heaven in the morning and the evening." From that day he was called as-Siddiq, the great affirmer of truth (al-Hakim, al-Mustadrak; graded hasan). The journey had answered the Year of Sorrow. The earth had rejected him; the heavens had welcomed him.

Rejected by Makkah and Ta'if, the Prophet ﷺ kept presenting Islam to the tribes who came for the pilgrimage season. In the eleventh year of the call he met six men of the Khazraj from Yathrib, a date-growing oasis about 450 kilometres to the north. They had heard from the Jewish tribes of their town that a prophet was soon to appear, and they said to one another: "This is the prophet the Jews warn us about; let them not reach him before us." They accepted Islam and returned home. The next year twelve men came and gave him the First Pledge of Aqabah, at a hollow near Mina: not to associate anything with Allah, not to steal, not to commit adultery, not to kill their children, not to slander, and not to disobey him in what is right (Sahih al-Bukhari 18). He sent Mus'ab ibn Umayr back with them to teach the Quran, and within a year Islam had entered almost every household of Yathrib.

In the thirteenth year, seventy-three men and two women came secretly by night to the same place and gave the Second Pledge of Aqabah. This time they pledged to protect him as they protected their own wives and children, and to fight for him if he came to them. Al-Abbas, the Prophet's uncle, who was not yet a Muslim, spoke first and warned them to be sure of what they were taking on. They asked what they would receive in return, and the Prophet ﷺ said: "Paradise." They said: "A profitable sale; we will not cancel it or ask for it to be cancelled" (Musnad Ahmad; graded sahih). The way to a new home was open.

The Prophet ﷺ gave permission to the Muslims of Makkah to migrate, and they left in small groups, often by night, many leaving their homes and property behind. Suhayb ar-Rumi was stopped by Quraysh and bought his freedom to leave with all his wealth; when the Prophet ﷺ heard, he said, "The trade has profited, Abu Yahya." Umm Salamah was separated from her husband and child for a year. Within weeks almost no Muslims remained in Makkah but the Prophet ﷺ, Abu Bakr, Ali and those who were imprisoned or unable to leave.

Quraysh met in the Dar an-Nadwah, their council house, to decide what to do. Imprisonment and exile were proposed and rejected. Abu Jahl proposed that a young man from every clan strike him together with their swords, so that his blood would be spread among all the tribes and Banu Hashim could not take revenge on everyone. Allah revealed what happened: "And when those who disbelieved plotted against you to restrain you or kill you or expel you. But they plan, and Allah plans. And Allah is the best of planners" (Al-Anfal 8:30). Jibril informed the Prophet ﷺ, who told Ali to sleep in his bed wrapped in his green cloak and to return to their owners the deposits that the people of Makkah – even his enemies – had entrusted to him. The young men surrounded the house; the Prophet ﷺ walked out among them and, according to the Seerah, threw dust over them reciting the opening of Surah Ya-Sin, and they did not see him.

He went to Abu Bakr, who had been preparing two camels for months. Aisha (RA) narrated that her father wept with joy when he learned he would be the Prophet's companion (Sahih al-Bukhari 3905). They went not north towards Madinah but south, to the cave of Thawr, where they hid for three nights. Abdullah, Abu Bakr's son, brought them the news of Makkah each night; Asma', his daughter, brought food, tying it with her waistband torn in two, which earned her the name Dhat an-Nitaqayn. Quraysh offered a hundred camels for either of them, and search parties reached the mouth of the cave. Abu Bakr said: "If one of them looked down at his feet he would see us." The Prophet ﷺ replied: "What do you think of two, O Abu Bakr, when Allah is their third?" (Sahih al-Bukhari 3653; Sahih Muslim 2381). Allah recorded the moment: "When he said to his companion, 'Do not grieve; indeed Allah is with us.' And Allah sent down His tranquillity upon him" (At-Tawbah 9:40).

They then travelled along the coastal route with a guide, Abdullah ibn Urayqit. Suraqah ibn Malik, hoping for the reward, caught up with them on horseback, but his horse's legs sank into the ground three times, and he asked for safety and turned back, keeping others away (Sahih al-Bukhari 3906). At Quba, on the outskirts of Yathrib, the Muslims who had been waiting on the lava fields every morning saw them arrive, in Rabi' al-Awwal of the year that would become 1 AH (622 CE). The Prophet ﷺ founded there the first mosque built in Islam (At-Tawbah 9:108), then entered the town amid cries of "Allahu akbar". Everyone wanted him as a guest; he let his camel go, saying, "Leave her, she is commanded," and she knelt at a plot belonging to two orphans, which he bought for his mosque. He stayed meanwhile with Abu Ayyub al-Ansari. Yathrib became Madinat an-Nabi, the City of the Prophet. Umar later made the Hijrah the start of the Islamic calendar, because it marked the birth of the Muslim community.

The Prophet ﷺ began at once to build a community. The first structure was the mosque: walls of mud brick, pillars of palm trunks, a roof of palm fronds, and the Prophet himself carrying bricks alongside his companions while they chanted, "O Allah, there is no life but the life of the Hereafter, so forgive the Ansar and the Muhajirun" (Sahih al-Bukhari 428). Beside it were simple rooms for his family, and a shaded platform, the Suffah, where the poorest Muslims lived and studied. The mosque was a place of prayer, a school, a court and a council chamber at once. Bilal was appointed to give the adhan, whose words had been shown in a dream to Abdullah ibn Zayd (Sunan Abi Dawud 499).

Next he joined the emigrants of Makkah (the Muhajirun) to the believers of Madinah (the Ansar, "the Helpers") in pairs of brotherhood. Each Ansari took a Muhajir as a brother, sharing his home and wealth. Sa'd ibn ar-Rabi' offered Abdur-Rahman ibn Awf half his property and one of his two wives in marriage after divorce; Abdur-Rahman thanked him and said, "Show me the way to the market," and was soon a merchant again (Sahih al-Bukhari 2048). Allah praised the Ansar: "They love those who emigrated to them and find not any want in their breasts of what the emigrants were given, but give them preference over themselves, even though they are in privation" (Al-Hashr 59:9).

He also drew up a written covenant, known as the Constitution of Madinah, recorded by Ibn Ishaq, which defined the town as one community under his arbitration, set out the rights and duties of the Muslim clans and the Jewish tribes of Banu Qaynuqa', Banu an-Nadir and Banu Qurayzah, and bound all parties to defend Madinah together. In the second year the qiblah was changed from Bayt al-Maqdis to the Ka'bah: "So turn your face toward al-Masjid al-Haram" (Al-Baqarah 2:144). Fasting in Ramadan and zakah were made obligatory the same year. Permission to fight had now been given: "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 – those who have been evicted from their homes without right, only because they say, 'Our Lord is Allah'" (Al-Hajj 22:39–40).

In Ramadan of 2 AH, a great Qurayshi caravan returning from Syria under Abu Sufyan passed near Madinah, carrying much of the wealth of Makkah. The Prophet ﷺ set out with about 313 men, two horses and seventy camels to intercept it. Abu Sufyan changed course to the coast and escaped, but he had sent for help, and Quraysh marched out with about a thousand well-armed men, determined to crush the Muslims. The Prophet consulted his companions. The Muhajirun spoke in support, and then Sa'd ibn Mu'adh of the Ansar said: "If you were to cross this sea with us, we would plunge into it with you. Not one of us would stay behind" (Sahih Muslim 1779). Al-Miqdad said: "We will not say as the people of Musa said, 'Go, you and your Lord, and fight.' We will fight on your right and your left, in front of you and behind you." The Prophet's face lit up (Sahih al-Bukhari 3952).

The two armies met at the wells of Badr on 17 Ramadan. The night before, rain fell, firming the sand under the Muslims and calming their hearts (Al-Anfal 8:11). The Prophet ﷺ spent the night in prayer in a small shelter, raising his hands until his cloak fell from his shoulders: "O Allah, fulfil what You promised me. O Allah, if this small band is destroyed, You will not be worshipped on earth." Abu Bakr put the cloak back and said, "That is enough, O Messenger of Allah; your Lord will fulfil what He promised you" (Sahih Muslim 1763). Allah answered: "I will reinforce you with a thousand of the angels, following one another" (Al-Anfal 8:9). After single combats in which Hamzah, Ali and Ubaydah ibn al-Harith defeated the champions of Quraysh, the battle became general, and the Quraysh broke and fled.

Seventy of Quraysh were killed, among them Abu Jahl, Umayyah ibn Khalaf and Utbah ibn Rabi'ah – the men who had tortured the believers – and seventy were captured. Fourteen Muslims were martyred. The Quran calls the day Yawm al-Furqan, the Day of the Criterion, when truth was separated from falsehood (Al-Anfal 8:41), and reminds the believers: "And already had Allah given you victory at Badr while you were few. Then fear Allah; perhaps you will be grateful" (Al-Imran 3:123). The prisoners were treated kindly; some were ransomed, and those who were literate could earn their freedom by teaching ten Muslim children to read. Surah Al-Anfal was revealed about the battle, its spoils and its lessons. The Prophet ﷺ said that Allah had looked upon the people of Badr and said, "Do what you will, I have forgiven you" (Sahih al-Bukhari 3007). Madinah, which had been a refuge, had become a power.

Quraysh spent a year preparing revenge for Badr. In Shawwal of 3 AH, about three thousand men under Abu Sufyan marched on Madinah and camped beneath the mountain of Uhud. The Prophet ﷺ had preferred to defend the town from within, but many of the younger companions, especially those who had missed Badr, urged him to go out. He put on his armour, and when they then regretted pressing him he said: "It is not fitting for a prophet, once he has put on his armour, to take it off until Allah judges between him and his enemy." He marched out with about a thousand men; on the way Abdullah ibn Ubayy, the leader of the hypocrites, turned back with a third of the army, leaving about seven hundred.

The Prophet ﷺ placed fifty archers under Abdullah ibn Jubayr on a small hill, Jabal ar-Rumat, to protect the Muslims' rear from the Qurayshi cavalry, and ordered: "Even if you see birds snatching us, do not leave your place until I send for you" (Sahih al-Bukhari 3039). The battle began well. The Muslims drove back Quraysh until their camp lay open. Seeing the enemy flee, most of the archers came down to gather the spoils, despite their commander's pleading. Khalid ibn al-Walid, then still a polytheist and commanding the Qurayshi cavalry, saw the gap, swept round the hill and fell on the Muslims from behind. The rout became chaos.

The Prophet ﷺ was wounded: his helmet was driven into his cheek, a tooth was broken, and he fell into a pit. A cry went up that Muhammad had been killed, and many Muslims lost heart. A small group fought around him – Talhah shielded him until his hand was paralysed, and Nusaybah bint Ka'b, Umm Umarah, fought with a sword in his defence. Wiping the blood from his face, he said: "How can a people prosper who wound their prophet?" – and then he prayed: "O Allah, forgive my people, for they do not know" (Sahih Muslim 1791; Sahih al-Bukhari 3477). Hamzah, his uncle, the "Lion of Allah", was killed by a spear thrown by Wahshi, an Abyssinian slave promised his freedom, and his body was mutilated. Seventy Muslims were martyred. The Prophet ﷺ gathered the survivors on the slopes of the mountain, and Quraysh, content with their revenge, withdrew.

Allah revealed sixty ayahs of Al-Imran about the battle, explaining its lessons without hiding the Muslims' error: "And Allah had certainly fulfilled His promise to you when you were killing the enemy by His permission until you lost courage and fell to disputing about the order and disobeyed after He had shown you that which you love" (Al-Imran 3:152). The rumour of the Prophet's death drew a lasting warning: "Muhammad is not but a messenger; other messengers have passed on before him. So if he was to die or be killed, would you turn back on your heels?" (Al-Imran 3:144). And the Prophet ﷺ was commanded to be gentle with those who had failed: "So by mercy from Allah you were lenient with them. And if you had been rude and harsh in heart, they would have disbanded from about you. So pardon them and ask forgiveness for them and consult them in the matter" (Al-Imran 3:159). He loved Uhud, saying, "Uhud is a mountain that loves us and we love it" (Sahih al-Bukhari 4422).

In the following two years Madinah faced repeated threats: treachery by tribes who killed Muslim teachers at ar-Raji' and Bi'r Ma'unah, and the expulsion of Banu an-Nadir after they plotted to drop a stone on the Prophet ﷺ (Al-Hashr 59:2). Leaders of Banu an-Nadir then went to Makkah and the tribes of Najd and assembled a vast coalition, the Ahzab: about ten thousand men under Abu Sufyan. In Shawwal of 5 AH they marched on Madinah. On the advice of Salman al-Farisi, who knew Persian methods of war, the Prophet ﷺ had a trench dug across the open northern approach to the city. He dug with his companions in the bitter cold, hungry, a stone tied to his stomach; when they hit a rock that no one could break, he struck it three times, and with each blow he announced that he had been shown the palaces of Syria, Persia and Yemen opened to the Muslims (Sunan an-Nasa'i 3176; Sahih al-Bukhari 4101).

The coalition arrived to find a trench they could not cross. They besieged Madinah for nearly a month. Then the Jewish tribe of Banu Qurayzah, inside the city's southern side, broke its covenant with the Prophet ﷺ and joined the enemy, putting the women and children of Madinah in danger. The Quran describes the fear of those days: "When they came at you from above you and from below you, and when eyes shifted in fear and hearts reached the throats, and you assumed about Allah various assumptions. There the believers were tested and shaken with a severe shaking" (Al-Ahzab 33:10–11). The hypocrites said, "Allah and His Messenger did not promise us except delusion" (Al-Ahzab 33:12); the believers said, "This is what Allah and His Messenger had promised us" (Al-Ahzab 33:22).

Relief came from Allah. Nu'aym ibn Mas'ud, a man of Ghatafan who had secretly become Muslim, sowed distrust between Quraysh and Banu Qurayzah. Then a bitterly cold wind blew for nights, overturning the pots, putting out the fires and tearing down the tents of the confederates, and they withdrew in the darkness. "And Allah repelled those who disbelieved, in their rage, not having obtained any good. And sufficient was Allah for the believers in battle" (Al-Ahzab 33:25). The Prophet ﷺ said: "Now we will attack them and they will not attack us" (Sahih al-Bukhari 4110). Banu Qurayzah were besieged for their treason and surrendered to the judgement of Sa'd ibn Mu'adh, their former ally, who judged them by the law of the Tawrah on traitors. The Trench was the last time Quraysh would march on Madinah.

In Dhul-Qa'dah of 6 AH the Prophet ﷺ saw in a dream that he and his companions entered the Sacred Mosque in safety, shaving their heads (Al-Fath 48:27). He set out with about 1,400 Muslims in the garb of pilgrims, intending only to perform 'Umrah, driving sacrificial camels before them and carrying no weapons but sheathed swords. Quraysh resolved to stop them. The Prophet ﷺ turned aside and camped at al-Hudaybiyyah, on the edge of the sacred precinct, where his camel knelt and refused to go on; he said: "The One who held back the elephant has held her back. By Him in whose hand is my soul, if they ask me for any plan that honours the sanctities of Allah, I will grant it to them" (Sahih al-Bukhari 2731).

He sent Uthman ibn Affan to Makkah to explain that the Muslims had come for worship, not war. When Uthman was delayed and a rumour spread that he had been killed, the Prophet ﷺ called the companions to pledge, under a tree, that they would not flee. This was Bay'at ar-Ridwan, the Pledge of Pleasure, of which Allah said: "Certainly was Allah pleased with the believers when they pledged allegiance to you under the tree, and He knew what was in their hearts, so He sent down tranquillity upon them and rewarded them with an imminent conquest" (Al-Fath 48:18). The Prophet ﷺ said: "None of those who pledged under the tree will enter the Fire" (Sahih Muslim 2496).

Uthman returned, and Quraysh sent Suhayl ibn Amr to negotiate. The terms seemed humiliating: no 'Umrah that year, but they could return the next year for three days; a truce of ten years; any Makkan who came to the Muslims without his guardian's permission was to be returned, but any Muslim who went to Makkah would not be; and any tribe could ally with either side. Suhayl objected even to "In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful" and to "Muhammad, the Messenger of Allah", and the Prophet ﷺ had "Muhammad son of Abdullah" written instead. As they finished, Abu Jandal, Suhayl's own son, staggered into the camp in chains, having escaped from Makkah, and the Prophet ﷺ had to return him under the treaty (Sahih al-Bukhari 2731–2732).

The companions were devastated. Umar came to the Prophet ﷺ and asked: "Are we not on the truth and they on falsehood? Then why should we accept humiliation in our religion?" The Prophet ﷺ said: "I am the Messenger of Allah, and I will not disobey Him, and He will help me." When he told the companions to sacrifice their animals and shave their heads, no one moved, three times. He went to his wife Umm Salamah, who advised him to go out and sacrifice and shave without speaking to anyone. He did so, and they rushed to follow him (Sahih al-Bukhari 2731). On the way home Allah revealed Surah Al-Fath: "Indeed, We have given you a clear conquest" (Al-Fath 48:1). Umar asked, "Is it a conquest, O Messenger of Allah?" and he said, "Yes" (Sahih Muslim 1785).

It was. In the two years of peace that followed, more people entered Islam than in all the years before, because people could now meet Muslims, travel freely and hear the Quran without fear. Az-Zuhri said that the number who came to Islam in those two years equalled or exceeded all who had come before. The Prophet ﷺ sent letters to the rulers of the world – Heraclius of Byzantium, Khosrow of Persia, the Muqawqis of Egypt, the Negus of Abyssinia and others – inviting them to Islam. Heraclius questioned Abu Sufyan about him at length and concluded: "If what you say is true, he will soon rule the place beneath these two feet of mine" (Sahih al-Bukhari 7). The returning-refugee clause, which had seemed so unjust, worked against Quraysh: Muslims who escaped from Makkah, like Abu Basir, formed a band on the coast that harassed Qurayshi caravans until Quraysh themselves asked for the clause to be dropped.

In Muharram of 7 AH the Prophet ﷺ marched on Khaybar, a group of fortified Jewish settlements north of Madinah that had been the base of the Ahzab conspiracy. The forts fell one by one, but the strongest, al-Qamus, held out. The Prophet ﷺ said: "Tomorrow I will give the banner to a man who loves Allah and His Messenger and whom Allah and His Messenger love; Allah will grant victory through him." The companions spent the night wondering who it would be. In the morning he called for Ali, whose eyes were inflamed; the Prophet ﷺ applied his saliva and they were healed, and Ali took the banner and the fort was conquered (Sahih al-Bukhari 4210; Sahih Muslim 2406). The people of Khaybar were allowed to stay and farm their land in return for half the harvest. During that campaign a Jewish woman, Zaynab bint al-Harith, offered the Prophet ﷺ a poisoned lamb; he spat out the morsel, but a companion who ate with him died, and the Prophet ﷺ felt the effect of that poison until his final illness (Sahih al-Bukhari 4428). That year, as the treaty allowed, he performed the 'Umrah al-Qada' with two thousand Muslims, and Makkah watched them circle the Ka'bah. Soon afterwards Khalid ibn al-Walid and Amr ibn al-As came to Madinah as Muslims.

In Sha'ban of 8 AH the truce of Hudaybiyyah was broken. Banu Bakr, allies of Quraysh, attacked Banu Khuza'ah, allies of the Prophet ﷺ, at night, and men of Quraysh helped them with weapons and fighters, even pursuing their victims into the sacred precinct. A delegation of Khuza'ah rode to Madinah to ask for help. Abu Sufyan came to Madinah to try to renew the treaty, but no one would intercede for him. In Ramadan the Prophet ﷺ set out with ten thousand men – the largest army Arabia had seen – keeping his destination secret so that Makkah would have no time to prepare for war, and praying that blood would not be shed in the sacred city.

The army camped at Marr az-Zahran, a short distance from Makkah, and the Prophet ﷺ ordered every man to light a fire, so that the hills blazed. Abu Sufyan came out to investigate and was brought to the Prophet ﷺ by al-Abbas. After a night in the camp he accepted Islam. The Prophet ﷺ, knowing his love of honour, announced: "Whoever enters the house of Abu Sufyan is safe; whoever shuts his door is safe; whoever enters the Sacred Mosque is safe" (Sahih Muslim 1780). The Muslim army entered Makkah from four directions on 20 Ramadan with almost no fighting; only a small group under Ikrimah ibn Abi Jahl resisted Khalid's column briefly. The Prophet ﷺ entered riding his camel, his head bowed so low in humility that his beard nearly touched the saddle, reciting Surah Al-Fath.

He went to the Ka'bah and circled it on his camel. Around it stood 360 idols. He struck them one by one with a stick, reciting: "Truth has come, and falsehood has departed. Indeed, falsehood is ever bound to depart" (Al-Isra 17:81), and they toppled over (Sahih al-Bukhari 4287). He had the images inside the Ka'bah wiped out, including pictures of Ibrahim and Ismail holding divining arrows, and said: "May Allah fight them; they knew that the two never cast lots" (Sahih al-Bukhari 1601). Then he prayed inside the House his ancestor had built. Bilal, the Abyssinian slave who had once been crushed under a boulder on the sands of this city for saying "One, One", climbed onto the roof of the Ka'bah and gave the adhan.

The people of Makkah gathered in the mosque, waiting to hear their fate – the people who had mocked him, beaten him, starved his family, driven him out, killed his uncle and fought him for twenty years. The Seerah relates that he asked: "O Quraysh, what do you think I will do with you?" They said: "Good. You are a noble brother, son of a noble brother." He said: "I say to you what Yusuf said to his brothers: 'No blame will there be upon you today'" (Yusuf 12:92). "Go, for you are free." This famous scene is reported by Ibn Ishaq and others; its chains are discussed, but the general amnesty itself is established. Only a handful of people guilty of particular crimes were excluded, and most of them were pardoned when they came seeking it – among them Ikrimah ibn Abi Jahl, Wahshi the killer of Hamzah, and Hind, the wife of Abu Sufyan.

The Prophet ﷺ declared the sanctity of Makkah: "Allah made Makkah sacred on the day He created the heavens and the earth… It was made lawful for me for an hour of a day, and then its sanctity returned as it was" (Sahih al-Bukhari 1834). He gave the key of the Ka'bah back to Uthman ibn Talhah, from whose family it had been taken, saying: "Take it forever, and no one will take it from you except a wrongdoer" – the Banu Shaybah hold it to this day. The Ansar feared that he would now stay in his homeland; he told them: "Life is your life and death is your death" (Sahih Muslim 1780). He would return to Madinah.

Two weeks later the great tribe of Hawazin and the people of Thaqif of Ta'if gathered an army in the valley of Hunayn. The Muslims marched out twelve thousand strong, and some said, "We will not be defeated today because of our numbers." In the dawn, as they entered the narrow valley, the enemy archers ambushed them from the slopes and the army broke and fled. The Prophet ﷺ stood firm on his white mule, saying: "I am the Prophet, no lie; I am the son of Abdul-Muttalib" (Sahih al-Bukhari 2864). Al-Abbas, who had a powerful voice, called the companions of the Tree, and they returned crying "Labbayk!" until the battle turned. Allah said: "And on the day of Hunayn, when your great number pleased you, but it did not avail you at all, and the earth was confining for you with its vastness; then you turned back, fleeing. Then Allah sent down His tranquillity upon His Messenger and upon the believers and sent down soldiers you did not see" (At-Tawbah 9:25–26).

The spoils of Hunayn were enormous, and the Prophet ﷺ gave large shares to the new Muslims of Quraysh, "to reconcile their hearts", while the Ansar received nothing. Some of the young men of the Ansar were hurt. He gathered them and said: "Did I not come to you when you were astray, and Allah guided you through me; divided, and Allah united you through me; poor, and Allah enriched you through me?… Are you not pleased that the people go away with sheep and camels, while you go back with the Messenger of Allah to your homes? If the people took one valley and the Ansar another, I would take the valley of the Ansar." They wept until their beards were wet and said: "We are pleased with the Messenger of Allah as our share" (Sahih al-Bukhari 4330; Sahih Muslim 1061). The next year, in 9 AH, the Prophet ﷺ led the expedition to Tabuk against the Byzantines, and the "Year of Delegations" followed, as tribes from all over Arabia came to accept Islam, among them Thaqif of Ta'if – fulfilling the hope he had expressed when they stoned him.

In Dhul-Qa'dah of 10 AH the Prophet ﷺ announced that he would perform the Hajj, and people poured into Madinah from every part of Arabia to accompany him; the companions estimated that over a hundred thousand performed it with him. It was the only Hajj he performed after the Hijrah, and he taught the rites by doing them, saying: "Take your rites from me, for I do not know whether I will perform Hajj after this year of mine" (Sahih Muslim 1297). Jabir ibn Abdullah's long narration of this Hajj, step by step, is the foundation of the Muslims' knowledge of the pilgrimage (Sahih Muslim 1218).

On the Day of Arafah, at the valley of Uranah, he addressed the people from his camel. "Your blood and your property are sacred to you, as sacred as this day of yours, in this month of yours, in this land of yours. Every matter of the Jahiliyyah is abolished under my feet. The blood-feuds of the Jahiliyyah are abolished, and the first I abolish is that of Ibn Rabi'ah ibn al-Harith. The usury of the Jahiliyyah is abolished, and the first usury I abolish is that of al-Abbas ibn Abdul-Muttalib. Fear Allah concerning women, for you have taken them by the trust of Allah… I have left among you that which, if you hold fast to it, you will never go astray: the Book of Allah." Then he asked: "You will be asked about me; what will you say?" They said: "We bear witness that you have conveyed, fulfilled and advised." He raised his finger to the sky and pointed it at the people, saying: "O Allah, bear witness. O Allah, bear witness," three times (Sahih Muslim 1218).

In other sermons of the same Hajj he said: "O people, your Lord is one and your father is one. There is no superiority of an Arab over a non-Arab, nor of a non-Arab over an Arab, nor of a white over a black, nor of a black over a white, except by taqwa" (Musnad Ahmad 23489; graded sahih). And: "Do not return to disbelief after me, striking one another's necks" (Sahih al-Bukhari 1739). And: "Let those who are present convey it to those who are absent" (Sahih al-Bukhari 67). On that day, at Arafah, Allah revealed: "This day I have perfected for you your religion and completed My favour upon you and have approved for you Islam as religion" (Al-Ma'idah 5:3; Sahih al-Bukhari 45). Umar later said that he knew the day and the place it was revealed; some companions wept on hearing it, understanding that when something is complete, only decline can follow.

Surah An-Nasr, revealed around this time, carried the same message: "When the victory of Allah has come and the conquest, and you see the people entering into the religion of Allah in multitudes, then exalt with praise of your Lord and ask forgiveness of Him. Indeed, He is ever Accepting of repentance" (An-Nasr 110:1–3). Ibn Abbas explained to Umar that it was the announcement of the Prophet's approaching death (Sahih al-Bukhari 4970). The Prophet ﷺ returned to Madinah. In Safar of 11 AH he went by night to the graveyard of al-Baqi' to pray for its dead, and soon afterwards he fell ill with a fever and a severe headache.

He asked his wives' permission to be nursed in the room of Aisha, and they agreed. As the illness worsened he could no longer lead the prayer and said, "Tell Abu Bakr to lead the people in prayer" (Sahih al-Bukhari 664). In one of his last addresses he said: "Allah gave a servant the choice between this world and what is with Him, and he chose what is with Allah." Abu Bakr wept, realising that the servant was the Prophet ﷺ himself (Sahih al-Bukhari 466). He freed his slaves, gave away the few coins he had, and his armour was in pawn with a Jewish man of Madinah for thirty measures of barley (Sahih al-Bukhari 2916). His last instructions included: "The prayer, the prayer, and those whom your right hands possess" (Sunan Abi Dawud 5156), and he warned against taking the graves of prophets as places of worship (Sahih al-Bukhari 435).

On Monday, 12 Rabi' al-Awwal 11 AH (June 632 CE), at dawn, he lifted the curtain of his room and looked at the Muslims standing in rows behind Abu Bakr, and smiled; they almost broke their prayer with joy, thinking he had recovered (Sahih al-Bukhari 680). Later that morning, with his head resting on Aisha's chest, he used a fresh tooth-stick she had softened for him, dipped his hand in water and wiped his face, saying, "La ilaha illallah – indeed death has its agonies." Then he raised his hand and his eyes towards the ceiling and said: "With the highest companion (ar-Rafiq al-A'la)," and his hand fell (Sahih al-Bukhari 4449, 4463). He was sixty-three years old.

Madinah was stunned. Umar stood in the mosque declaring that the Prophet had not died. Abu Bakr came from his house at as-Sunh, went in, uncovered the Prophet's face and kissed him, and said: "May my father and mother be ransomed for you; you are pure in life and in death." Then he went out and said: "Whoever worshipped Muhammad, Muhammad has died. Whoever worshipped Allah, Allah is Ever-Living and does not die." And he recited: "Muhammad is not but a messenger; other messengers have passed on before him. So if he was to die or be killed, would you turn back on your heels?" (Al-Imran 3:144). Umar said that when he heard it his legs gave way, as if he had never heard the ayah before (Sahih al-Bukhari 3667–3668, 4454). The Prophet ﷺ was buried in Aisha's room, where he died, as prophets are buried where they pass away; today that room lies within his mosque in Madinah.

Of himself he had said: "I have been sent only to perfect good character" (Musnad Ahmad; al-Muwatta). Allah said: "And We have not sent you except as a mercy to the worlds" (Al-Anbiya 21:107), and: "There has certainly been for you in the Messenger of Allah an excellent pattern for anyone whose hope is in Allah and the Last Day" (Al-Ahzab 33:21), and: "Muhammad is not the father of any of your men, but he is the Messenger of Allah and the Seal of the Prophets" (Al-Ahzab 33:40). He left no wealth – "We prophets are not inherited from; what we leave is charity" (Sahih al-Bukhari 3093) – but he left the Quran, his Sunnah and a community that within a century stretched from Spain to China. Asked about his character, Aisha said: "His character was the Quran" (Sahih Muslim 746). The chain of prophethood that began with Adam ended with him, and the story of every prophet before him is, in the end, the story of the message he completed. "Indeed, Allah and His angels send blessings upon the Prophet. O you who have believed, send blessings upon him and ask for peace for him" (Al-Ahzab 33:56). ﷺ