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The cause of the Hijra of Prophet Mohamed: the verse of entering in truth, the council of Dar an-Nadwa, the three views and that of Abu Jahl, the night Ali slept upon his bed, the dust upon their heads and the verses of al-Anfal and at-Tur, from Ibn Ishaq and Ibn Abbas.
Updated on 07 September 2026 at 11:07 PM
Allah the Most High said: “Say: My Lord, make me enter by an entry of truth, and make me exit by an exit of truth, and grant me from Yourself a supporting power.” Allah guided him and inspired him to invoke with this supplication, that He make of his situation a near relief and a swift exit: the Most High permitted him to emigrate to Medina the prophetic, wherein were the Ansar and the beloved; it became for him home and abode, and its people helpers for him.
Ahmad ibn Hanbal and Uthman ibn Abi Shayba related, from Jarir, the chain of Qabous ibn Abi Dhabyan, from his father, from Ibn Abbas: the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) was in Mecca when he was ordered to emigrate and there was revealed to him: “Say: My Lord, make me enter by an entry of truth, and make me exit by an exit of truth, and grant me from Yourself a supporting power.” Qatada said: “Make me enter by an entry of truth”: Medina; “and make me exit by an exit of truth”: the emigration from Mecca; “and grant me from Yourself a supporting power”: Allah’s Book, His obligations and His limits.
Ibn Ishaq said: the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) remained in Mecca after his Emigrant companions, awaiting that emigration be permitted him; none remained with him in Mecca but the detained or the tried, except Ali ibn Abi Talib and Abu Bakr ibn Abi Quhafa (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him). Abu Bakr often sought from the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) permission to emigrate, and he said to him: “Do not hasten: perhaps Allah will make for you the companion.” And Abu Bakr hoped to be it.
Seeing that the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) had gained partisans and Companions outside their town, and seeing his Emigrant companions departing toward them, purchasing an abode and finding with them protection, Quraysh feared the Messenger of Allah’s (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) exit toward them, understood he had resolved war upon them, and gathered for him in Dar an-Nadwa : the house of Qusayy ibn Kilab wherein Quraysh decided no affair but it was decided there : to deliberate on what they would do with him when they feared him.
Ibn Ishaq said: related to me one I do not suspect of our scholars, from Abdallah ibn Abi Najih, from Mujahid ibn Jabr, from Abdallah ibn Abbas, and others whom I suspect none, from Abdallah ibn Abbas: when they gathered for that and appointed to enter Dar an-Nadwa to deliberate therein on the Messenger of Allah’s (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) affair, they came on the appointed day, called the day of the throng (yawm az-zahma). Iblis, Allah curse him, barred their way in the form of a venerable elder draped in a cloak; he stood at the house’s door. Seeing him standing at its door, they said: “Who is this elder?” He said: “An elder of Najd, who heard what you promised yourselves: he came to you to hear your words, and perhaps he will bring you view and counsel.” They said: “Indeed, enter.” He entered with them. Gathered therein were the nobles of Quraysh: Utba, Shayba, Abu Soufyan, Tu’ayma ibn Adi, Jubayr ibn Mut’im ibn Adi, al-Harith ibn Amir ibn Nawfal, an-Nadr ibn al-Harith, Abu al-Bakhtari ibn Hisham, Zam’a ibn al-Aswad, Hakim ibn Hizam, Abu Jahl ibn Hisham, Nubayh and Munabbih, sons of al-Hajjaj, Umayya ibn Khalaf, and those of them and others, uncounted of Quraysh.
One of them said to another: “This man has known of his affair what you have seen, and by Allah we hold him not secure from leaping upon us with those of our folk who followed him: unite then your views about him.” They deliberated, then one of them spoke : said to be Abu al-Bakhtari ibn Hisham: “Let us imprison him in iron, close a door upon him, and await the like fate as befell his likes among the poets who preceded him: Zuhayr and an-Nabigha and those of them who went: he will die as they died.” The Najdi elder said: “By Allah, this is no view for you: were you to imprison him as you say, his affair will issue from behind the door you closed toward his Companions: they will leap upon you, wrest him from your hands, multiply with him until they prevail over you in your affair. This is no view for you: deliberate again.”
They deliberated, then one of them said: “Let us expel him from our midst out of our land: once he is gone from us, by Allah, little matters where he goes nor what befalls, once absent from us and rid of him: we shall restore our affair and our union as they were.” The Najdi elder said: “By Allah, this is no view for you! Have you not seen the beauty of his speech, the sweetness of his logic and his conquest of men’s hearts by what he brings? By Allah, were you to do that, I am not assured that some clan of the Arabs would not receive him, and that he would not prevail over them by his words and narrations, until they follow him and march with him toward you, trample you with them, take your affair from your hands and do with you what he wills. Seek then another view than this one.
Abu Jahl ibn Hisham said: “By Allah, I have upon him a view you have not yet touched.” They said: “Which, O Abu al-Hakam?” He said: “I propose we take from each tribe a young, vigorous man, of noble descent, of the elite among us; then we give each young man a sharp sword; they will set upon him and strike him one blow of one man, and kill him: we shall be rid of him. When they have done that, his blood will have dispersed among all the tribes, and the Banu Abd Manat cannot war their people entire: they will accept from us the blood price, and we shall pay it them.” The Najdi elder said: “The word is what this man said: no view other than this.” The people dispersed upon that, all agreed.
Ibn Ishaq said: Ya’qoub ibn Outba ibn al-Mughira related to me that Quraysh, after these words to Abu Talib, the latter sent to the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) and said to him: “O son of my brother, your people came to me and said such and such: spare me and spare yourself, and burden me not with what I cannot bear.” The Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) thought his uncle would abandon him and withhold his support, that he had weakened in aiding him and standing with him: he said to him: “O my uncle, by Allah, were they to place the sun in my right hand and the moon in my left, on condition that I abandon this affair until Allah makes it triumph, or that I perish therein, I would not abandon it.” Then the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) burst into tears, rose and departed. When he turned away, Abu Talib called him: “Return, O son of my brother.” The Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) returned to him, and he said: “Go, O son of my brother, say what you will: by Allah, never shall I surrender you for anything.”
Jibril came to the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) and said to him: “Sleep not tonight upon the bed wherein you used to sleep.” At the end of the night, they gathered at his door, watching him to leap upon him once he slept. The Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him), seeing their position, said to Ali ibn Abi Talib: “Sleep upon my bed, wrap yourself in this green Hasimi cloak of mine and sleep: nothing shall reach you from them that you hate.” The Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) slept in that cloak of his when he slept. This story mentioned by Ibn Ishaq, al-Waqidi related through his own chains, from Aisha, Ibn Abbas, Ali, Suraqa ibn Malik ibn Jou’shoum and others, their hadiths intertwining, and he mentioned like what has preceded.
Ibn Ishaq said: Yazid ibn Abi Ziyad related to me, from Muhammad ibn Ka’b al-Qurazi: when they gathered at his door, among them Abu Jahl, the latter said, while they stood at his door: “Muhammad claims that if you follow him in his order, you shall be kings of the Arabs and the Persians; then you shall be resurrected after your death and gardens made for you like the gardens of the Jordan; and if you do it not, there shall be in you slaughter; then you shall be resurrected after your death, and a Fire made for you wherein you shall burn!” The Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) went out, took a handful of dust in his hand and said: “Yes, I say that: you are one of them.” Allah took from their eyes the sight of him: he kept sprinkling that dust upon their heads, reciting: “Yassine. By the Quran full of wisdom. Thou art indeed of the envoys, upon a straight path. Revelation of the Almighty, the Merciful...” to His word: “and We have set before them a barrier, and behind them a barrier, covering them: so they see not.” There remained not a man of them but dust was laid upon his head, then he departed toward where he wished to go.
A man came to them, of those who were not with them, and asked: “What do you await here?” They said: “Muhammad.” He said: “Allah has disappointed you: by Allah, Muhammad has gone out from you; he left none of you without dust upon his head, and set out to his affairs. See you not what is upon you?” Each man put his hand upon his head and behold: dust. They peered about and saw Ali upon the bed, wrapped in the cloak of the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him), and said: “By Allah, this is indeed Muhammad: his cloak laid upon him.” They remained thus until morning. Ali rose from the bed, and they said: “By Allah, he who informed us has spoken true.”
Ibn Ishaq said: among what Allah sent down that day, concerning that to which they had all conspired, was the word of the Most High: “And when those who disbelieved plotted against you: to restrain you, or kill you, or expel you. They were plotting, and Allah plotted: Allah is the best of plotters”; and His word: “Or do they say: a poet! We await for him the adversity of fate. Say: Wait: I am with you of those who wait.” Ibn Ishaq said: Allah then permitted His prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) the emigration.