The Hegira

Muhammad, Islam’s most important prophet, became an outcast in his home city, because people in Mecca disapproved of Muhammad’s messages and religion. People in another city, Yathrib, asked Muhammad to leave Mecca and become their leader.

Knowing the opposition he faced in Mecca, Muhammad accepted their invitation. Threatened with violence in Mecca, Muhammad and his followers made their way secretly to Yathrib. This emigration is known as the Hegira. The Islamic calendar begins with the Hegira, which was July 16, 622, in the Western calendar.

In Yathrib, Muhammad became a successful politician. Yathrib became known as Medinat al-Nabi, or City of the Prophet, then simply Medina.

Within ten years of his flight to Medina, Mecca surrendered to Muhammad. By the time he died, in June 632 C.E., Muhammad had united the disparate peoples of the Arabian Peninsula into one nation.


Describe what it must be like to be forced to flee your home, like Muhammad.