Sirah

The Plain of Trial

The persecution of the vulnerable early Muslims of Makkah, c. 613-615 CE

c. 613-615 CE (c. 9-7 BH)

Imagined 360° reconstruction of The Plain of Trial

Educational historical reconstruction

Where

The open ground outside Makkah where the persecuted were taken

21.4225, 39.8260 · View on OpenStreetMap

Background

As the Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) moved from private to open preaching at Makkah, roughly from the fourth year of the mission onward (about 613 CE), the leadership of the Quraysh turned to active persecution of his followers. Those who could be protected by a powerful clan were largely shielded from the worst; the fiercest cruelty fell on the most vulnerable, the enslaved, the freed clients, and the clanless poor who had no one to take vengeance for them. The Sira of Ibn Ishaq and the Tabaqat of Ibn Sa'd preserve the names and the manner of their trials: Bilal ibn Rabah (radiyallahu 'anhu), staked out on the burning ground of Makkah at noon with a heavy rock laid on his chest by his master Umayya ibn Khalaf, repeating 'ahad, ahad' (One, One); the family of Yasir, Yasir, his wife Sumayya, and their son 'Ammar (radiyallahu 'anhum), tortured on the open plain, where Sumayya (RA) was killed, remembered in the Sunni tradition as the first martyr of Islam; and others such as Khabbab ibn al-Aratt and the freedman of Abu Bakr, whom Abu Bakr (RA) bought and freed from their tormentors. The persecution of these years is the direct background to the first emigration to Abyssinia (about 615 CE), undertaken so that the vulnerable might worship 'under a king with whom none is wronged.' This scene conveys that persecution without depicting any act of harm: a bare, sun-blasted plain at the edge of the town under the noon sun, with the ropes and the heavy stone of the trial lying on the empty ground. In keeping with the strictest visual ethics, and with particular care, since those who suffered here are revered Companions and martyrs, no person is depicted and no violence is shown. The place and its harshness carry the whole.

What you see

A bare, sun-blasted open plain of sand and dark stone on the outskirts of a valley town in the Hijaz, under a punishing midday sun, open ground deliberately used away from shelter, where the heat itself was the instrument.

Ropes, a heavy stone, and the marks of a body having been staked out on the burning ground, the implements of the trial by sun and thirst inflicted on the powerless, shown as objects left on the empty plain rather than as any act in progress.

The crowded mud-brick houses of the town stand back at the edge of the plain; the persecution was carried out at the margin, in sight of the town but on open ground beyond its lanes.

The empty, harsh plain is the subject: a place of trial conveyed through the terrain, the midday glare, and the discarded ropes and stone, never through depicting harm to any person.

The scene is the early persecution at Makkah of the most vulnerable believers, the enslaved and the clientless, who had no clan to shield them, in the years before any refuge had been found.

The dating is the early-to-middle Makkan years, roughly 613-615 CE, as the open preaching of the message provoked mounting hostility from the leadership of the Quraysh.

The light is the vertical white glare of an Arabian noon; there is no shade on the plain, and the heat is the point of the place.

Primary sources

Ibn Ishaq / Ibn Hisham, Sirat Rasul Allah (compiled 8th-9th c.): The narrative of the persecution of the weak at Makkah, including Bilal, the family of Yasir, and Abu Bakr's buying and freeing of the tortured. The principal source.

Ibn Sa'd, al-Tabaqat al-Kubra (9th c.): The biographical entries on the early persecuted Muslims, Bilal, Sumayya, 'Ammar, Khabbab (RA), and the detail of their trials.

Sahih al-Bukhari (3rd c. AH): Reports of the early hardship, including Khabbab ibn al-Aratt's account of the sufferings of the believers and the patience enjoined upon them (e.g. the chapters on the merits of the early Muslims). Establishes the persecution in the canonical tradition.

al-Tabari, Tarikh al-Rusul wa-al-Muluk (early 10th c.): Places the intensifying persecution in the early-middle Makkan years and as the background to the emigration to Abyssinia.

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