Makkan Life of Holy Prophet (PBUH)

The Prophet’s Birth

Muhammad, son of Abdullah, son of Abdul Muttalib, of the tribe of

Quraysh, was born in Makkah fifty-three years before the Hijrah. His
father died before he was born, and he was protected first by Halima
Sadia

than his grandfather, Abdul Muttalib, and after his grandfather’s death,
by his uncle Abu Talib. As a young boy he traveled with his uncle in the
merchants’ caravan to Syria, and some years afterwards made the same
journey in the service of a wealthy widow named Khadijah. So faithfully
did he transact the widow’s business, and so excellent was the report of
his behavior, which she received from her old servant who had
accompanied him, that she soon afterwards married her young agent;
and the marriage proved a very happy one, though she was fifteen years
older than he was. Throughout the twenty-six years of their life together
he remained devoted to her; and after her death, when he took other
wives he always mentioned her with the greatest love and reverence.
This marriage gave him rank among the notables of Makkah, while his
conduct earned for him the surname Al-Amin, the “trustworthy.”

The First Revelation

It was his practice to retire often to a cave in the desert for meditation.
His place of retreat was Hira’, a cave in a mountain called the Mountain
of Light not far from Makkah, and his chosen month was Ramadan, the
month of heat. It was there one night toward the end of his quiet month
that the first revelation came to him when he was forty years old. He
heard a voice say: “Read!” He said: “I cannot read.” The voice again
said: “Read!” He said: “I cannot read.” A third time the voice, more
terrible, commanded: “Read!” He said: “I can’t read?” The voice said:
“Read: In the name of thy Lord who created. “Created man from a clot.
“Read: And it is thy Lord the Most Bountiful “Who teach by the pen,
“Teaches man that which he knew not.” when he returned in great
distress of mind to his wife Khadijah. She did her best to reassure him,
saying that his conduct had been such that Allah would not let a harmful
spirit come to him and that it was her hope that he was to become the
Prophet of his people. On their return to Makkah she took him to her
cousin Waraqa ibn Nawfal, a very old man, “who knew the Scriptures of
the Jews and Christians,” who declared his belief that the heavenly
messenger who came to Moses of old had come to Muhammad, and that
he was chosen as the Prophet of his people. The early biographers tell
how his wife Khadijah “tested the spirit” which came to him and proved
it to be good, and how, with the continuance of the revelations and the
conviction that they brought, he at length accepted the tremendous task
imposed on him, becoming filled with enthusiasm of obedience which
justifies his proudest title of “the Slave of Allah.”

First Converts
 For the first three years, or rather less, of his mission, the Prophet
preached to his family and his intimate friends, while the people of
Makkah as a whole regarded him as one who had become a little mad.
The first of all his converts was his wife Khadijah, the second his first
cousin Ali, son of Abu Talib, the third his servant Zaid bin Thabit, a
former slave. His old friend Abu Bakr also was among those early
converts.

Beginning of Persecution

At the end of the third year the Prophet received the command to “arise
and warn,” whereupon he began to preach in public, pointing out the
wretched folly of idolatry in face of the tremendous laws of day and
night, of life and death, of growth and decay, which manifest the power
of Allah and attest His sovereignty. It was then, when he began to speak
for worship of Allah, that Quraysh became actively hostile, persecuting
his poorer disciples, mocking and insulting him. The one consideration
which prevented them from killing him was fear of the blood-vengeance
of the clan to which his family belonged. Strong in his inspiration, the
Prophet went on warning, pleading, threatening, while Quraysh did all
they could to ridicule his teaching, and deject his followers.

The Flight to Abyssinia

Modern day Ethiopia – The converts of the first four years were mostly
humble folk unable to defend themselves against oppression. So cruel
was the persecution they endured that the Prophet advised all who could
possibly contrive to do so to immigrate to a Christian country,
Abyssinia. And still in spite of persecution and emigration the little
company of Muslims grew in number. Quraysh were seriously alarmed.
The idol worship at the Ka`bah, the holy place to which all Arabia made
pilgrimage, ranked for them, as guardians of the Ka`bah, as first among
their vested interests. At the season of the pilgrimage they posted men
on all the roads to warn the tribes against the holy prophet” who was
preaching in their midst. They tried to bring the Prophet to a
compromise offering to accept his religion if he would so modify it as to
make room for their gods as intercessors with Allah, offering to make
him their king if he would give up attacking idolatry; and, when their
efforts at negotiation failed, they went to his uncle Abu Talib offering to
give him the best of their young men in place of Muhammad, to give
him all that he desired, if only he would let them kill Muhammad and
have done with him. Abu Talib refused.

Boycott of Muslims

The exasperation of the idolaters was increased by the conversion of

Omar, one of their stalwarts. They grew more and more embittered, till
things came to such a pass that they decided to ostracize the Prophet’s
whole clan, idolaters who protected him as well as Muslims who
believed in him. Their chief men caused a document to be drawn up to
the effect that none of them or those belonging to them would hold any
intercourse with that clan or sell to them or buy from them. This they all
signed, and it was deposited in the Ka`bah. Then for three years, the
Prophet was shut up with all his kinsfolk in their stronghold which was
situated in one of the gorges which run down to Makkah. Only at the
time of pilgrimage could he go out and preach, or did any of his kinsfolk
dare to go into the city. Destruction of the Document At length some
kinder hearts among Quraysh grew weary of the boycott of old friends
and neighbors. They managed to have the document which had been
placed in the Ka`bah brought out for reconsideration; when it was found
that all the writing had been destroyed by white ants, except the words
Bismik Allahumma (“In thy name, O Allah”). When the elders saw that
marvel the ban was removed, and the Prophet was again free to go about
the city. But meanwhile the opposition to his preaching had grown rigid.
He had little success among the Makkans, and an attempt which he made
to preach in the city of Ta’if was a failure. His mission was a failure,
judged by worldly standards, when, at the season of the yearly
pilgrimage he came upon a little group of men who heard him gladly.

The Men from Yathrib

They came from Yathrib, a city more than two hundred miles away,
which has since become world-famous as al-Madinah, “the City” par
excellence. At Yathrib there were Jewish tribes with learned rabbis, who
had often spoken to the pagans of a Prophet soon to come among the
Arabs, with whom, when he came, the Jews would destroy the pagans.
When the men from Yathrib saw Muhammad they recognized him as the
Prophet whom the Jewish rabbis had described to them. On their return
to Yathrib they told what they had seen and heard, with the result that
the next season of pilgrimage a deputation came from Yathrib purposely
to meet the Prophet. Quraysh dreaded what the Prophet might become if
he escaped from them and so plotted to kill him.

First Pact of al-‘Aqabah

These swore allegiance to him in the first pact of al-‘Aqabah. They then
returned to Yathrib with a Muslim teacher in their, company and soon
“there was not a house in Yathrib wherein there was not mention of the
messenger of Allah.”

Second pact of al-‘Aqabah

In the following year, at the time of pilgrimage, seventy-three Muslims

from Yathrib came to Makkah to vow allegiance to the Prophet and
invite him to their city. At al-‘Aqabah, by night, they swore to defend
him as they would defend their own wives and children. It was then that
the Hijrah, the flight to Yathrib, was decided. Plot to Murder the Prophet
Soon the Muslims who were in a position to do so, began to sell their
property and to leave Makkah unobtrusively. Quraysh had wind of what
was going on. They hated Muhammad in their midst, but dreaded what
he might become if he escaped from them. It would be better, they
considered, to destroy him now. The death of Abu Talib had removed
his chief protector; but still they had to reckon with the vengeance of his
clan upon the clan of the murderer. They cast lot and chose a slayer out
of every clan. All these were to attack the Prophet simultaneously and
strike together, as one man. Thus his murder would be blamed on all
Quraysh.

The Hijrah

The last of the able Muslims to remain in Makkah were Abu Bakr, Ali
and the Prophet himself. Abu Bakr, a man of wealth, had bought two
riding camels and retained a guide in readiness for the flight. The
Prophet only waited for God’s command. It came at last. It was the night
appointed for his murder. The slayers were before his house. He gave his
cloak to Ali, bidding him lie down on the bed so that anyone looking in
might think Muhammad lay there. The slayers were to strike him as he
came out of the house, whether in the night or early morning. He knew
they would not injure Ali. Then he left the house and, it is said,
blindness fell upon the would-be murderers so that he put dust on their
heads as he passed by-without their knowing it. The Hijrah counts as the
beginning of the Muslim era. He went to Abu Bakr’s house and called to
him, and they two went together to a cavern in the desert hill and hid
there till the hue and cry was past, Abu Bakr’s son and daughter and his
herdsman bringing them food and tidings after nightfall. Once a search
party came quite near them in their hiding-place, and Abu Bakr was
afraid; but the Prophet said: “Fear not! Allah is with us.” Then, when the
coast was clear, Abu Bakr had the riding-camels and the guide brought
to the cave one night, and they set out on the long ride to Yathrib. After
traveling for many days of unfrequented paths, the fugitives reached a
suburb of Yathrib, for weeks past, the people of the city had been going
every morning, watching for the Prophet till he reached. Such was the
Hijrah, the Flight from Makkah to Yathrib, which counts as the
beginning of the Muslim era. The thirteen years of humiliation, of
persecution, of seeming failure, of prophecy still unfulfilled were over.