Sirah
The Cave on Jabal Thawr
Three nights of concealment at the start of the Hijrah
1 BH (Rabi al-Awwal, year 0 AH) / 622 CE
Educational historical reconstructionWhere
Jabal Thawr, south of Makkah
21.3866, 39.8487 · View on OpenStreetMap
Background
At the start of the Hijrah, the migration of the Prophet Muhammad and his closest companion Abu Bakr al-Siddiq from Makkah to Yathrib (Madinah), traditionally placed in Rabi al-Awwal of the year corresponding to September 622 CE, the two are said to have concealed themselves for three nights in a cave on Jabal Thawr, a basalt mountain immediately south of Makkah, while Quraysh search parties combed the area for them. The episode is referenced directly in the Qur'an (9:40: 'When the two of them were in the cave'), and elaborated in detail by Ibn Ishaq, Ibn Hisham, al-Tabari, and the hadith collections, especially the long narrative report transmitted from Abu Bakr's daughter 'A'isha. The early sources include two well-known visual motifs that became central to the literary memory of the event: a spider weaving a web across the entrance and a rock dove nesting on a ledge above it, both taken by searchers as signs that no one had recently entered. After the three-day concealment, a guide led the two travelers on an indirect route north, avoiding the main caravan trail, eventually arriving at Yathrib, thereafter known as al-Madinah al-Munawwara, and inaugurating the Hijri calendar from that year. This scene depicts the mountain face and the cave entrance at the moment of concealment, with the Quraysh search party visible withdrawing across the plain below.
What you see
A jagged dark basalt mountain face rising abruptly above an arid plain, Hijazi volcanic terrain typical of the mountains immediately south of Makkah. The slope is steep, the rock dark, no green growth, quite distinct from the rocky-but-pale terrain north of the city or the date palm oasis of Madinah.
In the middle distance below the mountain, the unwalled town of pre-Hijra Makkah is visible, a cluster of low stone houses around a small dark cubic shrine. The angle indicates the mountain is south of the town, looking back northward toward the Ka'ba, placing this on Jabal Thawr rather than Jabal Nur to the north.
An opening in the rock face, a natural cave mouth, low and modest. No carved doorway, no architecture, no shrine: the cave is a hiding place, not a destination. The vegetation immediately around it is sparse and dry.
Stretched across most of the cave mouth, an intact spider web, the literary motif that the early Sirah tradition records as the sign concealing the entrance from pursuers. The web is whole, not broken, suggesting the entrance has not been disturbed by passers-by.
On a small ledge just above the entrance, a wild rock dove rests on a low improvised nest, the second motif of the concealment tradition, taken to suggest the cave has been undisturbed long enough for the bird to settle.
On the open ground a few hundred metres below the cave, a small mounted party of armed men is visible, five or six riders with shields and spears moving away from the mountain back toward the town. They are searchers from Quraysh; the tradition records they came close to the cave mouth and did not enter, because of the visible undisturbed web and bird.
There is no encampment, no fire, no settled trace at the cave. Two figures, if they are within at all, are not in view: this is concealment, not occupation. The whole composition is about presence concealed by the everyday traces of small animals and an unbroken web.
Low, slanting late-day Hijazi sun casts long shadows across the mountain face. The temperature is cool but the rock holds its heat, the season is recorded in the sources as the start of autumn (Rabi al-Awwal), the journey north toward Madinah about to begin.
Primary sources
Qur'an 9:40 (Surat al-Tawba): Direct scriptural reference: 'When the two of them were in the cave, when he said to his companion: do not grieve, surely Allah is with us.' The textual anchor for the concealment episode and its central pair.
Sahih al-Bukhari, Kitab Manaqib al-Ansar (Bab Hijrat al-Nabi), long report from 'A'isha (9th c.): The principal hadith narrative of the cave episode. Source for the three-day duration, the role of Asma bint Abi Bakr in bringing food, the role of Abdullah ibn Urayqit as guide, and the route taken on departing.
Ibn Ishaq / Ibn Hisham, Sirat Rasul Allah (compiled 8th-9th c.): Foundational biographical compilation. Source for the broader sequence, the night of departure from Makkah, the Quraysh search, the three-day concealment, the route through the western Hijaz toward Quba and then into Madinah.
al-Tabari, Tarikh al-Rusul wa-al-Muluk (early 10th c.): Cross-references the earlier transmitted material and establishes the Rabi al-Awwal / September 622 CE dating that anchors the Hijri calendar.
Further reading & cross-references
The spider and dove motifs: The web-across-the-entrance and nesting-dove motifs appear in several late-classical sources and in some isnads of intermediate strength. Modern Sirah scholarship treats them as part of the early literary tradition of the episode rather than as forensic biological observations. They are depicted in this scene as a recognized historiographical motif, with the scene labeled as an educational reconstruction.
Martin Lings, Muhammad: His Life Based on the Earliest Sources (1983): Accessible English narrative drawn from Ibn Ishaq, the Bukhari report, and al-Tabari.
W. Montgomery Watt, Muhammad at Mecca (Oxford, 1953): Used for the political context, the immediate trigger of the departure (the Quraysh plot recorded in Ibn Ishaq), the timing relative to the pledges of the Yathribi tribes, and the strategic choice of the southern route to throw off pursuit before turning north.
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