The Night of the Hijrah

A narrow stone-paved lane in the heart of the shrine valley of Makkah, by night. The houses are close-packed Makkan vernacular, dressed sandstone walls, flat roofs, small high windows. The Ka'ba is a short walk to the west; the silhouette of Jabal Abu Qubays rises behind.

At the centre, a modest two-storey courtyard house. The front door is closed; a green cloak is folded over a bedstead visible through the open inner doorway. The Sunni Sirah preserves that 'Ali ibn Abi Talib (radiyallahu 'anhu) is sleeping in the Prophet's (peace and blessings be upon him) bed, wrapped in the green cloak, to deceive the Quraysh assassins who have gathered outside.

In the lane outside the front door, several Quraysh men from different clans wait with drawn swords, the multi-clan assassination party agreed at Dar al-Nadwa, so that the blood-debt of killing the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) would be shared and Banu Hashim could not exact retribution from any single clan.

On the dusty ground of the lane, the Sunni tradition (Ibn Hisham, al-Tabari, Ibn Kathir) records the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) recited Surat Ya Sin (Q 36:1-9) on emerging from the house and scattered dust over the heads of the watching Quraysh, who did not see him pass. He set out for the cave on Jabal Thawr where Abu Bakr al-Siddiq (radiyallahu 'anhu) waited.

The foundational night of the Muslim calendar, the moment of the Hijrah, the start of the Muslim era. The Qur'an refers to the night in Q 8:30, 'when the disbelievers schemed against you, to imprison you, kill you, or expel you; they schemed and Allah schemed, and Allah is the best of schemers.' Strict Sunni visual ethics: the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) is not depicted.

The light is the cool starlit light of a Hijazi late-summer night. The conventional Sunni dating places the departure at the end of Safar / beginning of Rabi' al-Awwal in the first year of the Hijrah, corresponding to c. 12-13 September 622 CE. The Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) would spend three nights in the cave before continuing to al-Madinah.

The Hijrah is preserved in the Sunni Sirah (Ibn Hisham, Ibn Sa'd, al-Tabari, Ibn Kathir, al-Mubarakpuri) and in the hadith corpus (Sahih al-Bukhari 3905, the long hadith of 'A'isha (radiyallahu 'anha) on the planning of the Hijrah). The Qur'an refers to the night in Q 8:30 and Q 9:40.

The Qur'an, Surat al-Anfal 8:30: idh yamkuru bika alladhina kafaru li-yuthbituka aw yaqtuluka aw yukhrijuka, the Qur'anic reference to the Quraysh assassination plot.

The Qur'an, Surat al-Tawba 9:40: The Qur'anic reference to the cave: 'when the two were in the cave, when he said to his companion, do not grieve, surely Allah is with us.'

Sahih al-Bukhari 3905: The long hadith of 'A'isha (radiyallahu 'anha) preserving the planning of the Hijrah, the role of Abu Bakr (RA), the meeting at his house, and the journey.

Ibn Hisham, al-Sira al-Nabawiyya (early 9th c.): The principal early Sunni biography. Preserves the Quraysh plot at Dar al-Nadwa, the substitution of 'Ali (RA), and the journey to the cave.

Ibn Sa'd, al-Tabaqat al-Kubra (early 9th c.): Sunni biographical compendium.

al-Tabari, Tarikh al-Rusul wa-al-Muluk (early 10th c.): Cross-reference on chronology.

Ibn Kathir, al-Bidaya wa al-Nihaya (14th c.): Standard Sunni history.