Sirah
The Year of Sorrow
The graves of Khadijah (RA) and Abu Talib above Makkah, c. 619 CE
c. 619 CE
Educational historical reconstructionWhere
The al-Hajun burial ground (later al-Ma'la) on the heights above Makkah
21.4317, 39.8283 · View on OpenStreetMap
Background
The tenth year of the mission, traditionally placed about 619 CE, is remembered in the Sira as 'Am al-Huzn, the Year of Sorrow, for two bereavements that fell within a short span of one another. Khadijah bint Khuwaylid (radiyallahu 'anha), the first wife of the Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him), the first person to believe in his message, and for twenty-five years his support and comfort, died at Makkah; and within the same period his uncle Abu Talib, the head of the Banu Hashim who had sheltered and protected him through the years of Quraysh hostility despite not himself accepting the message, also died. The two losses, falling together, stripped the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) of his closest personal support and of the clan protection that had kept his enemies in check, and the Quraysh grew bolder against him, the difficult sequence that includes the rejection at Ta'if shortly afterward. Khadijah (RA) was buried, according to the Sira and the topographers of Makkah, in the burial ground of al-Hajun on the heights above the town, the cemetery later known as al-Ma'la. The graves of the period were utterly plain, heaped stones without monument or enclosure, in keeping with the burial custom of the early Hijaz. The Sunni tradition treats 'Am al-Huzn as the darkest point of the Makkan years, immediately before the consolation of the Night Journey and the first pledges of the people of Yathrib that opened the way to the Hijrah. This scene depicts the place of mourning: the stony hillside cemetery of al-Hajun above Makkah, the valley town below, and two recently made plain graves. It shows no person and no remains. In keeping with the strictest visual ethics, neither the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) nor any Companion is depicted, and the tone is sober and restrained.
What you see
A stony burial ground on a slope of bare dark hills above a valley town, looking down over the crowded houses of the settlement below, a hillside cemetery on the heights, not a graveyard within the town.
Among the older graves, two are freshly made: low mounds of stones and earth, unmarked by any monument, recently raised, the plain unadorned burials of the early Hijaz, not tombs or shrines.
Below the cemetery the valley-sanctuary town is visible, the houses pressed around an open precinct at its heart, the bare Makkan valley seen from the burial heights above it.
The subject is grief and loss given a place: a hillside of graves above the town, with two new burials, shown soberly. The scene is a place of mourning, not an event of action.
The two new graves stand for the two deaths, within a short span, that gave the year its name in the Sira, the loss of the wife who first believed and the uncle who long protected the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him).
The burials are utterly plain, no built tomb, no dome, no inscription, no enclosure, the simple early-Islamic grave of heaped stones, in keeping with the burial custom of the time and place.
The dating is the tenth year of the mission, traditionally about 619 CE, the year before the Night Journey and the first steps toward the migration to Yathrib.
Primary sources
Ibn Ishaq / Ibn Hisham, Sirat Rasul Allah (compiled 8th-9th c.): The narrative of the Year of Sorrow, the deaths of Khadijah (RA) and Abu Talib within a short span and the emboldening of the Quraysh that followed. The principal source.
Ibn Sa'd, al-Tabaqat al-Kubra (9th c.): The biographical entries on Khadijah (RA) and Abu Talib, the timing of their deaths, and the burial of Khadijah (RA) at al-Hajun.
al-Tabari, Tarikh al-Rusul wa-al-Muluk (early 10th c.): Places the two deaths in the tenth year of the mission and in the sequence leading to Ta'if, the Night Journey, and the Hijrah.
Further reading & cross-references
al-Azraqi, Akhbar Makka (9th c.): The standard early Sunni topography of Makkah; used for the al-Hajun / al-Ma'la burial ground on the heights above the town and the plain form of early Makkan graves.
Safi al-Rahman al-Mubarakpuri, al-Rahiq al-Makhtum (20th c.): Modern Sunni synthesis for the dating (~10th year of the mission) and the framing of 'Am al-Huzn within the late Makkan arc.
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