The First Year in Madinah

In the days before the arrival, the Ansar, the Muslims of Madinah, went out every morning toward Quba to wait for the Prophet ﷺ. Quba was the outermost settlement of Madinah on the side facing Makkah. Each day they waited until the midday heat forced them back home. One day, just after they had gone home, the Prophet ﷺ and Abu Bakr RA appeared in the distance. A Jewish man picking dates at the top of a palm tree was the first to see them. He shouted, "O Arabs, your king has arrived!" The Prophet ﷺ entered on a Monday in the 14th year of the dawah, which became the first year of the Hijrah. Hundreds of the Ansar rushed out to receive him. Al-Bara' ibn Azib RA, one of the Ansar, recalled that over 500 men came out armed and dressed up. The women climbed onto the rooftops and the children crowded around to see. The Prophet ﷺ and Abu Bakr RA waited about a week at Quba for Ali RA, Aisha RA, and Asma RA to arrive. Then they all entered central Madinah together, reportedly on a Friday. Every companion wanted the Prophet ﷺ to stay with him. The Prophet ﷺ let his camel walk freely and said, "Let the camel be, because Allah has taken charge of it." Wherever it sat down would be the site of his mosque and his house. It sat on an open piece of ground used for drying dates. The Prophet ﷺ asked which of his relatives lived closest, since his great-grandmother had come from the Banu al-Najjar clan of Madinah. Khalid ibn Zayd, known as Abu Ayyub al-Ansari, came forward and said he was from the Banu al-Najjar. This made him roughly the Prophet ﷺ's sixth cousin. So the Prophet ﷺ chose to stay with him until his own house was built. The poem Tala'a al-badru alayna is popularly said to have greeted him on this arrival. Sh. Yasir Qadhi argues that this cannot be so, because Thaniyat al-Wada', the pass named in the poem, lies on the road north of Madinah, not on the road from Makkah. If the singing happened, it was on his return from Tabuk.

Placed here because: First week of Rabi' al-Awwal, 622 CE.

The Prophet ﷺ reached Quba, the settlement of Madinah closest to Makkah, around high noon on a Monday. In Quba he stayed at the house of Kulthum ibn al-Hidm RA, an elderly man of the Banu Amr ibn Awf. Kulthum RA was the first companion to die in Madinah after the Prophet ﷺ arrived. Another report says the Prophet ﷺ stayed at the house of Sa'd ibn Khaythama RA. Some reports combine the two. They say he spent the nights at the house of Kulthum RA, who was a married man with children. He spent the days at the house of Sa'd RA, who was a bachelor, so that visitors could come to see him without difficulty. His companion Abu Bakr RA stayed at the house of another of the Ansar, the Muslims of Madinah.

Placed here because: A few days in Rabi' al-Awwal 1 AH, before entering the city.

The Prophet ﷺ built the first masjid in Madinah, Masjid Quba, at Quba, the settlement on the edge of Madinah where he first stopped after the Hijrah. He began it once Ali RA arrived, two or three days after he himself had reached Quba. The Prophet ﷺ laid the first stone himself. Ali RA and Abu Bakr RA continued after him, and then the Ansar, the Muslims of Madinah, took over the work. The Prophet ﷺ left for central Madinah on the Friday morning, before the masjid was finished. So Masjid Quba was the first masjid he began, but Masjid al-Nabawi was the first he completed and prayed in himself. Even before either was built, the Ansar already had a makeshift place for the Friday prayer, most likely the house of As'ad ibn Zurarah RA. In a hadith in Abu Dawud, the people of Quba were asked why Allah had praised them in the Qur'an in a way He did not praise others. They explained that after relieving themselves they would wipe and then wash with water. Most people at the time only wiped.

Placed here because: Wednesday to Thursday, Rabi' al-Awwal 1 AH, during the stay at Quba.

After the Hijrah, the Prophet ﷺ spent a few days in Quba, on the edge of Madinah, helping to build its masjid. On Thursday night he announced that he would enter central Madinah the next morning. He left Quba on Friday morning, and the time for the Friday prayer came while he was on the way. He stopped in the area of the Banu Salama clan and gave his first Jumu'ah (Friday) khutbah, or sermon, there. This was his own first Jumu'ah, but not the first one held in Madinah. The Muslims there had already been praying Jumu'ah before he arrived, because Mus'ab ibn Umayr RA was with them. After the prayer the Prophet ﷺ continued into central Madinah. There his camel knelt down, and he stayed in the nearest house, the home of Abu Ayyub al-Ansari RA.

Placed here because: Friday morning, Rabi' al-Awwal 1 AH, on the way from Quba into the city.

When the Prophet ﷺ arrived in central Madinah, his camel knelt on a piece of land used for drying dates. It belonged to two orphan brothers, Sahal and Suhayl, who had inherited it from their father. They offered it as a gift, but the Prophet ﷺ insisted on paying its due price. The date palms on the land were cut down and used to make the front and back walls of the masjid. The Companions made clay bricks for the other walls. The Prophet ﷺ worked alongside them, taking his place in the line that passed the bricks along. According to al-Bayhaqi's Dala'il, the building took about two weeks, and the masjid measured roughly 100 by 130 feet. It had three public doors. Bab al-Rahma (the Door of Mercy) was on the south side and Bab Jibril (the Door of Gabriel) on the west. Bab al-Nisa' (the Door of Women) was on the east, set aside after Umar RA suggested that men and women should not share an entrance. There were also private entrances from the houses built against its walls, including the house of Abu Bakr RA and the Prophet ﷺ's own house, where Aisha RA lived. At first the roof covered only the northern part, which then faced the qibla towards Jerusalem. When the qibla changed to face Makkah, that covered area became the back of the masjid, and it was known as al-Suffa. A roof over the whole masjid was added later, but it only kept out the sun. Sahih Bukhari records that it rained on the 22nd of Ramadan, probably in 8 AH, and the Prophet ﷺ prostrated on the muddy ground. This shows that the roof leaked. The caliphs after him changed the building in turn. Abu Bakr RA left it as it was. Umar RA strengthened it with wooden pillars and a waterproof roof, and enlarged it by 10 to 15 rows. Uthman RA then enlarged it by about half again.

Placed here because: Begun on arrival, about two weeks of building.

After spending two to three weeks building the masjid, the Prophet ﷺ began building his own houses. At the time he had two wives, Sawda RA and Aisha RA, and both of their houses were built against the masjid. These were the only two of his wives' houses that ever opened directly onto it. He married his later wives years afterwards, when other houses already filled the space around the masjid, so their houses stood in a separate block. Sawda RA was an elderly lady, older than the Prophet ﷺ. Wanting to please him, she later gave her night with him to Aisha RA. From then on the Prophet ﷺ would visit Sawda RA and spend time with her during the day, but he did not spend the night in her house. So of the two houses joined to the masjid, Aisha RA's was the only one he actually lived in.

Placed here because: Shortly after the mosque, 1 AH.

One of the first things the Prophet ﷺ did after arriving in Madinah was the muakha, the "brothering." Some early scholars say he did it even before the masjid was built. He paired every male Muhajir (an emigrant from Makkah) with an Ansari (a Muslim native of Madinah), and each pair became brothers. Over 100 pairs were made. The Prophet ﷺ chose every pairing himself, because he knew each of the Muhajirun better than anyone. The two people in a pair usually had a great deal in common. For example, he paired Abu Bakr RA with Kharijah ibn Zayd RA, and both were noblemen of their people. Anas ibn Malik RA recalled that the Prophet ﷺ sat down and arranged the muakha "in our house," which scholars take to mean in Anas's part of Madinah. At first the bond was so complete that the brothers even inherited from one another. This rule was abrogated after the Battle of Badr, when Allah revealed in Surah al-Anfal that blood relatives are more entitled to inheritance (8:75). The Ansar were already very generous to the Muhajirun. They even offered the Prophet ﷺ half of their land for the Muhajirun. He made du'a for them but declined the gift. Instead, the Muhajirun would work the land and the Ansar would share the produce with them. He wanted the Muhajirun to earn their living rather than live on free handouts, which might one day breed resentment among the descendants of the two groups. The muakha did not stop after the early days. It continued through the whole Madinan period. Ja'far ibn Abi Talib RA only reached Madinah in the 7th year of the Hijrah, and the Prophet ﷺ still paired him with Mu'adh ibn Jabal RA. It is also reported that he arranged a muakha for Muawiyah ibn Abi Sufyan, who accepted Islam after the Conquest of Makkah (8 AH).

Placed here because: ~ Beginning of 1 AH; its order against the Constitution is not fixed by the lectures.

Not long after the Prophet ﷺ arrived in Madinah, he built the mosque and paired each emigrant from Makkah (the Muhajirun) with a Muslim of Madinah (the Ansar) as brothers, a pairing called the muakha. He ﷺ then issued a written constitution that governed the whole city, which was still called Yathrib at the time. The constitution named, one by one, around 40 Muslim subtribes from the Quraysh and from Yathrib, including the clans of the Aws and the Khazraj. It also named around a dozen Jewish tribes. It set out terms as well for the pagans who still lived in Yathrib at this stage. Its clauses can be grouped into four parts: those for the Muslims, those for the Jews, those for the pagans, and those for the whole community. Several features suggest that the document is early and authentic. It calls the city "Yathrib," not yet "Madinah." It does not yet use "Muhajirun" and "Ansar" as fixed titles. Its language is archaic, and it lists many subtribes whose names are now obscure. Ibn Ishaq preserves it in full, though without a complete chain of narrators (isnad). Musnad Imam Ahmad separately preserves one phrase of it with a chain.

Placed here because: ~ Early Madani period, 1 AH; told in Ep. 33 after the mosque and the brotherhood.

The Prophet ﷺ asked the sahaba (his companions) how the people should be called to salah, the daily prayer. One suggested using a bell, as the Christians did, but the idea was set aside. There are authentic hadiths that the Prophet ﷺ disliked bells, and that he said, "The angels do not accompany any caravan that has a bell." Others suggested a shofar, a horn, and that was set aside too. The meeting ended without a decision. That night, Abdullah ibn Zayd RA and Umar ibn al-Khattab RA each saw the same dream. In Abdullah's dream, a man taught him the words of the call to prayer, the adhan as Muslims know it today. Abdullah rushed to tell the Prophet ﷺ, who said, "This is a true dream, insha'Allah." The Prophet ﷺ chose Bilal RA to call the adhan because he had the loudest voice. Abdullah ibn Zayd stood beside him and told him each phrase, and Bilal repeated it aloud. While Bilal was calling, Umar RA came rushing into the masjid and said that he had seen the same words in his own dream.

Placed here because: ~ Shortly after the arrival in Madinah, 1 AH; the month is not given.

When the Prophet ﷺ arrived, the city was called Yathrib, and he gave it a new name. Two years before the Hijrah he had been shown it in a dream. He saw a land of date palms, and at first he thought it was Yamamah or Hajar. He said that he had been commanded to go to a town that would devour all other towns. People called it Yathrib, but it was al-Madinah. The name Yathrib comes from a root meaning blame, or corruption. In the Qur'an, only the hypocrites use the old name. The Prophet ﷺ called the city Madinah, Tabah and Taybah, which means "the pure". He said that anyone who called it Yathrib should ask Allah's forgiveness. The Muhajirun, the emigrants from Makkah, found it hardest to love the city. A fever struck the newcomers. Aisha went to visit her father Abu Bakr and Bilal, and found both of them moaning with it. Abu Bakr was saying that a man wakes up among his family with death nearer to him than the strap of his sandal. Bilal was reciting verses about how he longed for one more night in a valley of Makkan grass. He also cursed, by name, the men of Quraysh who had driven them out. Aisha went back and told the Prophet ﷺ. He prayed, "O Allah, make Madinah as beloved to us as Makkah, or more. Bless us in its measures. Take its fever away to Juhfah." Slowly the love came. In time, Companions who were away from the city counted the days until they would see it again. Ibn Abbas said that whenever the Prophet ﷺ came home from an expedition and saw the outline of Madinah, he would spur his mount to reach it sooner. Over the years he taught its people what their city was. He told them that Uhud was a mountain that loved them, and that they loved it. It was one of the mountains of Paradise. The Dajjal would never enter Madinah, because two angels would stand guard at its approaches. No plague would ever enter it, and none ever has. When Islam was in danger, faith would return to Madinah the way a snake returns to its hole. The city would be its refuge. He also warned them about how to treat it. Anyone who plotted against Madinah would dissolve the way salt dissolves in water. Anyone who did wrong in it, or sheltered a wrongdoer, would bear the curse of Allah, the angels and all mankind. None of that person's deeds would be accepted, whether obligatory or voluntary. He told them that Madinah was better for them, if only they knew it. No one would leave it out of contempt without Allah replacing him with someone better. Whoever bore its hardships would have the Prophet ﷺ as an intercessor. And whoever was able to die in Madinah should do so, because he would intercede for anyone who died there. Jibril once sent him at night to Baqi' al-Gharqad to pray for the dead there. Ten thousand Companions are buried there, along with all of his wives except Khadija. Above all, he made Madinah a sanctuary, a Haram. He prayed, "Your servant Ibrahim declared Makkah a Haram. I am Your servant, and I declare Madinah a Haram." He also asked Allah to give Madinah twice the blessing of Makkah. Imam Malik, who was from Madinah himself, based his view that Madinah is the holier city on this hadith. Most scholars, however, chose not to rank the two. Makkah had been sacred since the heavens and the earth were created. It held the first house ever built for the worship of Allah. Madinah became sacred through the Prophet ﷺ's prayer. Inside a Haram, things that are lawful elsewhere become forbidden. No weapons are carried and no army enters. No game is hunted and no green plant is cut. Even a lost object must be left where it lies. Ibn Umar said that in the days of ignorance before Islam, a man might see his father's killer walking around the Ka'bah and still not touch him. That is how well the Arabs understood what the Haram of Makkah meant. There are only two such places in the world. Jerusalem is blessed, and prayer there is multiplied, but no scholar has ever called it a Haram in law. Every Haram is blessed, but not every blessed land is a Haram.

Placed here because: ~ Ep. 32: Aisha RA visited Abu Bakr and Bilal in their fever "after she arrived in Madinah", and the Prophet ﷺ prayed that Madinah be loved; the rest of what he taught about the city came over the years.

At first, Allah commanded the Prophet ﷺ to pray facing Bayt al-Maqdis (Jerusalem), and he did so throughout his time in Makkah. Some books report that he would stand so that the Ka'bah was also in front of him, a kind of "double qibla." The qibla is the direction Muslims face in prayer. After he emigrated to Madinah, this was no longer possible. Madinah lies due north of Makkah, and Bayt al-Maqdis lies further north still. So to face Jerusalem from Madinah, he had to turn his back to the Ka'bah. When he first arrived, the Prophet ﷺ was hopeful about the Jews of Madinah. They believed in the same God and the same line of prophets, and in Paradise, Hell and the Day of Judgment. Their chief rabbi, Abdullah ibn Salam RA, had even accepted Islam. But as the Jews began to show open hostility, the Prophet ﷺ began to wish that he could face Makkah instead. He could not change the qibla by his own choice. It is narrated that he once said to Jibril AS, "O Jibril, I wish to pray facing Makkah." Jibril AS replied that he was only a servant who came by Allah's command, and that the Prophet ﷺ should ask Allah through du'a. So the Prophet ﷺ began to make du'a earnestly, by night and by day. He even looked up to the sky as he prayed, something he did only at times of great distress. Allah then revealed Qur'an 2:144, which told him to turn towards Masjid al-Haram in Makkah. Further verses on the change followed, and they now open the second juz (part) of the Qur'an. The change confused the Jews, some Muslims and the pagans of Makkah alike. This was the first time Allah had replaced one ruling with another, a concept called abrogation (naskh), so the idea itself was new. Some of the Jews openly mocked the change. Allah answered that true piety is not about which direction a person faces (2:177). He also told the Prophet ﷺ that no amount of proof would make the People of the Book follow the Muslims' qibla, and that the Muslims would not follow theirs (2:145). The Companions also asked about those who had died while praying towards Bayt al-Maqdis. They wanted to know whether those prayers would be accepted. Allah revealed that He would never let their faith go to waste (2:143). Imam Bukhari later pointed out that in this verse Allah called their prayer "faith." Scholars used it as evidence that prayer (salah) cannot be separated from faith (iman).

Placed here because: Fifteen to sixteen months after the Hijrah.

When the qibla changed, the front of the Prophet ﷺ's mosque became its back. He ordered that this old front be covered with a shade of palm branches. The roof was not yet waterproof, but it served a purpose. At first, every emigrant from Makkah had been taken in by an Ansari household in Madinah, which looked after him until he could stand on his own feet. But the emigrants and new converts kept coming, until the households could take no more. So around Ramadan of the second year after the Hijrah, the time of Badr, the newcomers were given this shaded area at the back of the mosque as a public shelter. It was called the Suffa, and the people who lived there were called Ahl al-Suffa, the People of the Suffa. Sometimes there were five or ten of them, and at other times up to seventy. They were among the best of the Companions in memorizing the Qur'an, in night prayer and in learning. They had given up everything to live in the mosque. The most famous of them was Abu Hurairah, of the tribe of Daws. Emigrants such as Abu Dharr, Suhayb, Bilal and Ibn Mas'ud lived there too. Even some of the Ansar, such as Hanzala and Ka'b ibn Malik, left their own homes to join them. The People of the Suffa were desperately poor. Some had so little clothing that the Prophet ﷺ told the women in the congregation not to raise their heads from prostration too quickly. Many went two days at a time without food, and some would collapse from weakness when he came in to lead the prayer. Anything given to him in charity went to them, and he shared any gift of food with them. He would often ask a Companion to take some of them home for supper. Sa'd ibn Ubadah sometimes hosted as many as eighty of them at once. They were always on the Prophet ﷺ's mind. When his grandson Hasan was born, he told his daughter Fatima to give charity to the People of the Suffa. Years later, Fatima asked him for one servant from a group of prisoners of war to help with her housework. He told her he could not give her a servant while the People of the Suffa were starving, and he swore he would sell the prisoners and spend the money on them. Abu Hurairah later admitted something about those days. He would stop a Companion leaving the mosque and ask him a question he already knew the answer to. He did this only to keep the man talking until they reached his door, in the hope of being invited in to eat. Abu Hurairah also told this story. One day the Prophet ﷺ saw that he was faint with hunger and took him home. He asked his wife Aisha whether there was anything to eat, and she said a neighbour had sent a cup of milk. Abu Hurairah was delighted, but the Prophet ﷺ then told him to go and call the People of the Suffa. Thirty or forty of them came. The Prophet ﷺ handed Abu Hurairah the cup and told him to pass it to each of them. Every man drank his fill, while Abu Hurairah wondered what would be left for him. In the end only he and the Prophet ﷺ remained. The Prophet ﷺ told him to sit and drink. He drank, and the cup was as full as when it started. The Prophet ﷺ told him to drink again and again, until Abu Hurairah swore he had no room left. Then the Prophet ﷺ took the cup and drank last. Later, a rope was strung between two of the Suffa's pillars. Dates were hung on it so that the poor could eat without having to ask. This custom survived in the mosque for about thirteen centuries. Abu Hurairah came to Madinah late, after Khaybar, yet he narrated more hadith than anyone. When people complained that he narrated too much, he explained why. The emigrants were busy trading in the market, and the Ansar were busy working their fields. He, meanwhile, stayed at the Prophet ﷺ's side with an empty stomach, and so he memorized what they did not. He was not a poor man by background, but he chose the Suffa to be near the Prophet ﷺ and learn from him.

Placed here because: Ep. 34: after the qibla change the old front was roofed; "the Suffa was probably built around Ramadan; and it was only after Badr this concept of the People of the Suffa became known."