emerged between Arabs and Jews, the latter would threaten the Arabs, saying that they would follow the new Prophet and cause the Arabs to suffer a crushing defeat. Those six Arabs from Yathrib sat with the Prophet and listened to his exposition of his message and to his recitation of the Qur’ān. They were highly impressed and declared their acceptance of Islam. The Arabs of Yathrib belonged to two main tribes, the Aws and the Khazraj, who were often in war with each other. Those six told the Prophet: “We have left our people in a terrible state of division and enmity. If God brings about their unity through you, no one will be more honourable than you.” They promised to explain their new faith to their fellow tribesmen and to meet the Prophet again in the next pilgrimage season.
They kept their promise, bringing with them six others. In this second meeting, all twelve pledged themselves as firm believers in Islam. The terms of the pledge were: “We believe in God and associate no partner with Him. We shall not steal, commit adultery, kill our children, assert a falsehood with regard to the parenthood of our children, or disobey the Prophet in anything reasonable.” In this meeting, there was a discussion of the needs of the new Muslim community in Yathrib. The Prophet sent one of his most learned Companions, Muṣʿab ibn Umayr, with them to teach new Muslims the principles of Islam and the Qur’ān. Muṣʿab was also to organize the efforts of advocacy of Islam among the people of Yathrib. His mission was very successful, and Islam spread rapidly in Yathrib, with whole clans converting to the new faith. On his return to Makkah ten months later, Muṣʿab reported to the Prophet that the city offered a good base for Islam.
The pilgrimage season of the following year (622 CE), which was the thirteenth since the start of Islam, witnessed an unprecedented step in Arabia. The Prophet met with seventy-three men and two women from Yathrib, who were all Muslims. They were part of the pilgrimage contingent from the city. Under the cover of the night, they came out stealthily from their camp in Mina to meet the Prophet. They pledged to support him and declared themselves ready to make whatever sacrifices they would need to make. They asserted that they would fight anyone who would oppose him, and that they welcomed all Muslims in Makkah to come over to Yathrib, where they would share with them all they have. They agreed that together they would form a community separate from others, with the bond of Islam making them all a single nation (an ummah). Their only condition was that this new alliance would come into force once the Prophet had arrived in Yathrib.
Over the next three months all Muslims who could do so immigrated from Makkah to Yathrib. They travelled in small groups, taking with them only some small items they could carry. They abandoned their homes and businesses, and deserted their clans. Only those who were physically prevented from travelling stayed behind. The Prophet remained in Makkah with Abū Bakr and ʿAlī, his cousin, until he received instructions to travel. In the meantime, the Quraysh realized what was going on and feared the worst. In an emergency meeting, the chiefs of the clans considered all options and decided to move immediately to kill the Prophet. The plot was to choose a brave young man from each clan so as to share in the responsibility for the assassination. This method was agreed upon so that the Hāshimites would realize that they could not fight the rest of the Quraysh on their own. They would then accept blood money in compensation.
The Prophet managed to escape his would-be assassins and took every precaution to mislead them. He arrived in Madinah after two weeks, where he received a very warm welcome. He immediately set about organizing his new community, which consisted of the Muhājirūn (the immigrants from Makkah), and the Anṣār (the supporters who were the Muslims from Yathrib, which was henceforth called God’s Messenger’s city, or Madinah for short). The Prophet took four measures of great importance:
1. He built a mosque to serve as a place of worship, a school where Muslims learnt the details of their faith, a meeting place, and a government headquarters.
2. He established a strong bond of brotherhood between the Muhājirūn and the Anṣār, making one of each group a brother of one of the other group. This brotherhood was considered to be so important that it superseded the tribal bond.
3. He drew a covenant with the other groups in Madinah, namely the Jews and the Arab unbelievers, making them all citizens of the new state that he established in the city. This was a detailed document specifying duties and commitments of each group. This was the first written constitution in human history, establishing a pluralist society based on citizenship.
He sent out several armed expeditions into the areas surrounding Madinah, so as to demonstrate that the new state did not fear anyone. The Arabian society was used to tribal raids that were launched for easy gain. The Prophet wanted to show that Madinah was too strong for anyone to contemplate such an attack. Moreover, the expeditions threatened the trade route of the caravans of the Quraysh, without actually engaging in any fighting: except once resulting in a small clash between a group of six Muslims and a small caravan. These expeditions were formed of the Muhājirūn only.
The new society in Madinah was discovering vistas of life that the people had never encountered. The treatment of other people as brothers and sisters in faith, rather than blood relations and tribesmen, gave all Muslims a new meaning of life. Having a cause to work for also added a new dimension to their outlook. As advocates of Islam, they brought its message to their relatives and fellow citizens. For the first time, the Muslims could conduct their lives according to Islamic teachings without fear. More people were embracing the faith every day. The Prophet continued his efforts of moulding the new community, smoothing its rough edges and consolidating the fledgling Islamic state. However, this state of affairs could not last long, as the Quraysh represented a serious threat and had managed to reassert its position as the leading force in Arabia. If Islam was to move beyond Madinah, it had to neutralize the threat of the Quraysh.
From another point of view, the Muslim community lived in poverty: the influx of the Muhājirūn placed a heavy burden on the economy of the city, and the Quraysh had confiscated all the possessions that they left behind. Therefore, the Prophet was looking for an opportunity to redress this imbalance.
Such an opportunity offered itself in Ramadan of the second year of the Prophet’s settlement in Madinah (year two in the Islamic calendar, which starts with the Prophet’s immigration to Madinah). The Prophet received intelligence that a large trade caravan belonging to the Quraysh was on its way back from Syria to Makkah. He called on Muslims to move quickly to intercept it. A force of 313 men, most of them from the Anṣār, marched with the Prophet to intercept the caravan. The Prophet did not order a full mobilization, because that would have taken time, and the caravan might be then difficult to chase. Moreover, the Muslim force was ill equipped for a major fight. Abū Sufyān, the leader of the caravan, was moving wearily when he came parallel with Madinah. He soon heard that a Muslim force was out to intercept his caravan. He took two actions in response: he moved towards the sea to march by the seaside route, and he sent information to Makkah, urging its people to come to his defence. A well-equipped army of 1000 fighters moved fast to defend the caravan, which was able to slip away and escape its Muslim pursuers.
The two forces met at Badr. Although the Prophet had tried to avoid an armed clash, the hardliners in the Quraysh army thought they should not miss such a chance of defeating the Muslims in battle. However, the Muslims were able to score a resounding victory. Many of the chiefs of Quraysh’s clans were among seventy of their soldiers killed in battle, and a similar number were taken prisoners. The Muslim losses were fourteen martyrs. There was some discussion about the fate of the prisoners of war. Some of the Prophet’s Companions were in favour of killing them in order to demonstrate to the whole of Arabia that the Muslim community was uncompromising toward unbelievers. The Prophet, however, decided to let them go against the payment of ransom. Those who had no money, but were literate, were given their freedom in return for teaching ten Muslim children to read and write.
Over the next few years a number of momentous events occurred, with enemies of Islam resorting to various methods of confrontation. First, the Jewish tribe of Qaynuqāʿ in Madinah violated the treaty that the Prophet made with all Jewish tribes
