The Hijrah: Migration to Medina

By around 622 CE, after more than a decade of preaching in Mecca, the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ and his followers faced sustained persecution from the city's ruling tribes, including boycotts, torture of early converts, and at least one documented plot to kill him. A delegation from Yathrib, a city to the north later renamed Medina, had invited him to relocate there and act as an arbiter between its feuding tribes. The migration that followed, known as the Hijrah, was carried out in stages: most Muslims left Mecca gradually and quietly ahead of him, while Muhammad ﷺ himself left last, accompanied by his close companion Abu Bakr, evading pursuers by hiding in the Cave of Thawr before completing the journey to Medina. The Hijrah is considered one of the most consequential events in Islamic history — not simply a relocation, but the point at which the Muslim community gained a home where it could organize, govern, and practice openly for the first time. It is significant enough that the Islamic calendar does not begin with the Prophet's ﷺ birth or the first revelation, but with the Hijrah, and the calendar's dates are marked 'AH,' after the Hijrah, for this reason.