Sirah
The Letters to the Kings
The scribes and envoys in the courtyard of the Madinan mosque, c. 6-7 AH
c. 6-7 AH / c. 628 CE
Educational historical reconstructionWhere
The courtyard of the Prophet's Mosque (Masjid an-Nabawi), Madinah
24.4672, 39.6111 · View on OpenStreetMap
Background
After the truce of Hudaybiyyah in the sixth year after the Hijra (628 CE) secured a respite from war with Quraysh, the Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) turned outward, sending letters to the rulers of the surrounding empires and kingdoms inviting them to Islam. The Sunni tradition records that, because foreign chanceries would not act on an unsealed document, a silver signet ring was engraved with three lines, 'Muhammad Rasul Allah', and used to seal the letters (Sahih al-Bukhari, the reports on the seal and on the letter to Heraclius). Envoys carried the letters to Heraclius, the Eastern Roman emperor (whose exchange with Abu Sufyan, then still a Qurashi leader, is preserved at length in Sahih al-Bukhari 7); to Khosrow II (Kisra) of Sasanian Persia, who by the famous account tore the letter; to the Negus of Abyssinia; to the Muqawqis, the Byzantine governor of Egypt, who sent gifts in reply; and to various Arab kings such as the rulers of Ghassan, Yamama, and 'Uman. The responses varied from courtesy to contempt, but the episode marks the moment the community's message was formally addressed to the wider world, beyond the tribes of Arabia. This scene depicts the diplomatic workshop of that outreach, the scribes at their parchments in the courtyard of the simple Prophet's Mosque, the silver seal by the letters, the envoys riding out, without depicting the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) or any Companion, in the Sirah tier. The architecture is deliberately the first, austere mosque: palm-trunk columns and a frond roof, no minaret or dome, generations before the great mosque that stands there today.
What you see
A plain courtyard enclosed by low mud-brick walls with a shaded portico of palm-trunk columns roofed in palm fronds, the first Prophet's Mosque, a simple unadorned enclosure, not the vast galleried sanctuary of later centuries. No minaret, no dome, no marble.
At a low writing-place sit scribes with reed pens, inkwells, and sheets of parchment and treated hide, a scribal setting, the labour of correspondence rather than prayer or assembly.
A small silver signet ring rests by the documents, the seal engraved, by the report, in three lines, 'Muhammad / Rasul / Allah', made to stamp letters because foreign chanceries would not honour an unsealed document. It is the diplomatic instrument of the scene.
Envoys are departing the courtyard for the road, each carrying a sealed letter, riders setting out in different directions, to the great courts beyond Arabia. The scene is an outward dispatch, a moment of diplomacy reaching past the peninsula.
This is the outreach after the truce of Hudaybiyyah freed the community to look beyond its borders: letters carried to Heraclius the Roman emperor, to Khosrow of Persia, to the Negus of Abyssinia, to the Muqawqis of Egypt, and to Arab kings, inviting them to Islam.
The oasis setting, date palms beyond the walls, the mud-brick town of Madinah around, places this in the Hijaz, at the community's own centre, from which the roads run north to Syria, north-east to Persia, and west to the sea and Egypt and Abyssinia.
Primary sources
Sahih al-Bukhari (the seal; the letter to Heraclius, hadith 7): The making of the silver seal so letters would be honoured, and the long narration of the letter to Heraclius and his exchange with Abu Sufyan. The primary Sunni frame.
Ibn Hisham, al-Sira al-Nabawiyya (Ibn Ishaq recension): The list of the envoys and the kings written to after Hudaybiyyah, and the texts of several letters.
Ibn Sa'd, al-Tabaqat al-Kubra (9th c.): Detailed Sunni record of the named envoys, their destinations, and the responses; the standard catalogue of the diplomatic mission.
al-Tabari, Tarikh al-Rusul wa-al-Muluk (9th-10th c.): Sunni historical synthesis of the outreach and the dating around 6-7 AH.
Further reading & cross-references
Safi al-Rahman al-Mubarakpuri, al-Rahiq al-Makhtum (20th c.): Modern Sunni synthesis collecting the letters, the seal, and the recipients.
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