Why couldn't the early Muslims just leave Mecca?

Of the youth was the first of the slaves was Zaid Ibn Harita. Ibn mentions as well the of the Jews and Christians to enter into Islam. He says and the.

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If we'll recall when he came back to Khadijah and he explained to her what had happened, what had occurred. She took him to Waraka Ibn and the reason she took him to is that was literate. He was literate and I was very unusual at the time. Likewise, was very knowledgeable about the scriptures of Musa Alaihi Salam. It's even mentioned that he spoke or he was fluent in Hebrew and was able to translate parts of the Torah into Arabic and as well translate things from Arabic into Hebrew. And another narration, he was also other narrations are also articulate that he was likewise fluent in Aramaic. Suryania. And so had become Christian. And his time because that's what he found to be the closest thing to the guidance of Allah of the time. And when the prophet had that first encounter with Jibreel was the first to point out to him that this is Jibreel. This is the man, this is the angel, the archangel Jibreel who comes with revelation to prophets. And this is similar to the revelation of Musa Alaihi Salam. And so immediately accepted Islam. There's not any clear narration in the history books to say that necessarily said I accept Islam or in that way. However, there are narrations. In which the prophet tells us that is in paradise. There is in the narration of what passed away very very soon after that first revelation to the prophet the prophet commented on warakah as was collected by he said that he saw in a vision and he saw in a good state of being which is basically an articulating that he was impaire dice. There are other more explicit narrations though they have some weakness in their chains that is in paradise and for this reason when you look into books of some of the scholars that recorded all of the names of the known companions Al Islaba, Sahaba for Ibn Hajjr, Rahima Allah, or also Uzdul Gaba. and others, you find that is usually mentioned as one of the companions of the prophet we take a moment here to explain what exactly a companion is A companion a what makes a person a a companion the scholars have a very specific set of criteria. That they have picked up on that a person must meet in order to be considered a companion of the prophet in the legislative sense. A companion and this tariff is very well known. Ibn Hajjal Rahima Allah used this definition of a companion and he's most commonly known for this definition and this exact wording though he did earlier take it from others El Mizi and and so forth and that is a companion is Thank you. They say number of times but when a person is considered a companion, they have to have been in the presence of the prophet physically and in a state of Islam, in a state of leaf. And then they die upon Islam. This is the criteria. So three things. They have to omit the prophet and they have to have met him while they were Muslim. At least once. Even if just for a moment. And then they die as a Muslim. These are the companions of the prophet in the most broad sense. This is an important set of criteria because there are people who believed in the prophet but never met him. Those are not considered to be companions. They're almost companions. They're considered to be and the science of Hadith and their narrations are usually just as acceptable as the narrations of the companions but they don't have the level of companionship, right? There are those who met the prophet but did not believe in him when they met him. But they later became Muslim after his death or and they never met him again. Such as Surah bin Malik for instance. Was a bounty hunter who sought to get the reward of a contract of a bounty on the prophet when he went out to when he was migrating from Mecca to Medina, he was intercepted by Suraqah, Suraqah bin Malik. As is in Sahih Al Bukhari, he attempted to capture the prophet meaning he attempted to kill him. He was unsuccessful. And the prophet said to him, do you believe? And he said, no. However, I promise you, I will never against you or help a people who fight against you. So, he let him go. So, Raqab and Malik never met the prophet again as a Muslim. He became Muslim in the time of Umar. So, he is not considered to be a companion. He's considered to be a which is the highest rank of the and so, is considered to be by this definition, a companion. He met the prophet believing in him and died upon that faith. And so is considered to be a companion of the prophet Ibn says people then began to enter into Islam one at a time. And there was a steady consistent flow of people entering into Islam during this stage of the Dawah. The is not really bothered by this. the disbelievers of Quraish, they didn't really have a big problem with this. Yeah, they would kind of poke fun of him and they to him but they didn't have any serious pushback against his Dawah until he started to speak ill of the religion of their forefathers until he started to dismiss their their gods and their deities. This is when Quraish became became hostile towards the prophet and that is that when we say he he insulted their deities or their religion. We're not speaking about you know, vulgar towards them. We're speaking about he would say, these different gods that are worshiped by Quraish and revered. These are not gods. These are idols. It is not permissible to worship these aside from Allah. We do not fear these things. These are not gods. That is considered to be an insult. They took this as an insult and when the prophet began to speak out against their religion and some of their evil and deviant ways and innovations that they introduced to the religion of Ibrahim Alaihi Salam. This is when Qura turned very hostile towards him and his companions.

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And high esteem amongst Quraish. He was considered of the nobility of Quraish and so he protected the prophet the best that he could. And even the to an issue here and he says and it is of Allah's wisdom that Abu Talib did not accept Islam. Abu Talib never accepted Islam. He died upon disbelief. And it's of Allah's wisdom that he did not accept Islam because it really changed the dynamic of how he was able to protect the prophet he himself would have most likely fallen victim to the same hostility and persecution had he accepted Islam but being that he remained upon the religion of Quraish but he said look not from a religious perspective but from a tribal perspective it is unacceptable for you to lay hands on my nephew this made the dynamic of his of his protection to be very very different and very effective He says, Iru the and as for the rest of his companions, whoever had us was a member of a strong tribe and was able to seek their protection and that refuge in his or her tribe did so. Some of the companions, they had strong tribes. They were able to do that. However, others of the companions did not have strong tribes. They were not considered of the nobility or notables. or they were slaves or they were people that didn't have any family in Mecca. They're from some other land and they moved to Mecca because it was more metropolitan. and so, Mecca was considered to be more cosmic politics. It was more integrated. People moved there that weren't from there in order to trade because of the huge influx of travelers due to Hajj. So, people that accepted Islam and they didn't have a tribe to protect them. They were turned on by Quresh and they began to endure extreme persecution by Quresh. Of these people was Amar? And his mother specifically and also the rest of his close family members. they were persecuted and physically tormented almost on a daily basis. He says, and the prophet was unable to stop this. He he was beyond his power to to make this situation any different and the only thing that could be done was to be patient. And so when he would see them being persecuted. See them being tormented. He would consistently remind them and say be patient. for indeed your promise is paradise. Paradise is for you. You just have to be a little bit patient. Of these individual that were tormented physically as well was Bilal. Bilal. he was of the most severely tormented from amongst the companions. he was not Arab and he was a slave and he was tormented day in, day out and it was almost a sport for them. if you read the narrations, if you read the books that comment on Bilal and what he endured with his torment you see that it was kind of a sport for them, right? They would torment him to try to get him to say certain things and he would refuse to do so in order to frustrate them because that's the only thing that he could do. And they would try to break him. And so they kind of made it their prerogative, their mission to try to break this man and break his faith and break his his his mind. And they were ultimately unable to do this. Says.

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And who would see this and comment to him and say of by Allah, yes, oh Bilal, Ahad. I concur. The.

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Islam. Some of them left Islam. Some of them were killed. things started to happen and as this torment continued, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala allowed those who were able to flee Mecca and able to migrate elsewhere. He allowed them to do so. So, a person might say, well, I don't understand. What's what's the big deal about leaving? If you think about it, you're there in Mecca. You're being tormented. Why not just move outside of the city, move somewhere else and just be over there, right? It's not that because the way that Mecca was, the way that the tribes were set up, right? It was literally like countries. So, if Quresh has a problem with someone, if and they have certain treaties with other tribes no matter where you go in the entirety of the Arab Peninsula, you're not going to find anyone to sell you food. You're not going to find anyone to sell you land. You're not going to find anyone to allow you to live in a certain place. It's kind of how countries are. You have a passport and a passport is basically you saying that look, I have, I come from this country. I'm a citizen there and this passport is to essentially say to whatever country you go to, I the best of what your treaty has to offer with my people. That's what a passport is, right? Well, if you could imagine a passport that you know, a person that is a fugitive and they try to leave with their passport wherever they land, whatever country they go to, most likely, they're not going to let them stay there and they're going to consider them a fugitive. They'll either take them back or they won't allow them into the into the country. the same kind of thing. It's not just that a person could, you know, get up, gather his stuff, and leave. It wasn't that easy. There is a lot of tribalism. There's a lot of treaties. There's a lot of agreements between the tribes and if you're on bad terms with tribesmen here and they have an agreement with tribesmen over here, you're going to be in in a bad situation in both and this did eventually happen to where They were cut off from, you know, fiscally. They were, it was basically a financial embargo that took place as we'll get to inshallah. And so, was allowed for people to who were able to escape, to completely leave outside of the reach of that tribalism, right? Cuz if you imagine with me, there's a lot of tribalism but it's not necessarily a country. it's not an empire. The empires where the Persian Empire, the Roman Empire, the the Ethiopian Empire, right? These were really the empires that were around and so, that tribalism that was taking place in the Arab Peninsula, they weren't independently countries or empires. They were always just a part of the Roman or the Persian Empire and so, when they were able to leave and escape the reach of that tribalism, the closest place that they could flee to was Ethiopia at that time, Al Habasha. And so, this is where they fled but between the Arab Peninsula and Ethiopia, there's water. So, what they did was they fled at night, very few, and it Allah Allah had it time just so that when they reached that water, there were a couple of merchants there that were docked or getting ready to sail across. and so, they took them with them in their ships and by that grace of Allah, they were able to escape. Though they were being pursued. The first of those to make that hijra was the third Khalifa and the prophet son-in-law. He had the prophet's daughter with him or and there were twelve men and four women. But we have just around 20 people that made that first migration, that first hijra, right? And they made that hijra, they made that hijra to Ethiopia, to El Habasheh. He says, that this took place in the fifth year after the prophet prophethood in the month of Rajab. So in the month of Rajab Rajab is the seventh month of the Islamic lunar calendar. This month the fifth year after he was appointed as a messenger as a prophet. in the month of Rajab, this is when this first migration took place. He says.

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In Mecca with the prophet and they were trying to stay abreast with any new developments there. One of those developments is that a rumor started to spread that of Quraish accepted Islam. and this was not true, obviously, but this was the rumor and this was what was making the rounds and so, those companions that made that first migration were of course, very thrilled and they wanted to go back and be reunited with their tribesmen, with the prophet and so they returned to Mecca. But what happened is, as they came close to Mecca, just little ways on the outskirts of Mecca. They found out that actually, not only is that untrue but Mecca has upped the ante. The Quraish has up the ante against the prophet and his companions and they have become more murderous and vicious than they ever were previously. So, this now is a conundrum. It's a problem. Do we go back into Mecca and become a part of that or do we go back to where we came from? What should we do? And Some of the historians, some of the Islamic historians mentioned that the reason why that rumor spread. was that the chapter in Nejim was revealed to the prophet in this chapter in Nejim at the very end at the last verse Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala there is what's called referred to as a sejda and in that sejdah the prophet went to a gathering of the nobility of Quraish. And he recited this chapter to them. And they were so captivated by it. They were so enthralled by Surat and Nejim. That they forgot to they forgot to abuse the prophet they just wanted to listen to it. They didn't interrupt him and they didn't abuse him. And at the very end of this chapter the prophet made sujood. Ibn Masraud and also Ibn Abbas. They mention in Bukhari and Muslim that when he made that sujood noone present refrain from making sujood with him. So, everyone, Muslim and Muslim and non Muslim antagonist or protagonist All made sujood with the prophet due to the due to the immensity and the gravity of and so when they saw all of these people making sujood, Abu Jahal is making sujood and ifflan and ifflan it appeared to those around that they had accepted Islam. And so, a rumor started to spread and make the rounds that all of Quraish had accepted Islam. They're all now Muslim, all of Mecca is Muslim, and we saw them all praying together. Obviously, this is not the case. And so, they headed back to Mecca based on this faulty intel and when they reach the outskirts of Mecca, the truth, the hard truth, saying and they realized the hard truth. So, whoever wanted to enter Mecca, they either entered secretly. basically smuggled themselves into Mecca or they had to wait on the outskirts of Mecca and seek seek sanctuary from different tribesmen that they may know. And so the way that this works is that let's say my father was a friend of your fathers. And you have such and such tribe. So I say you know look our fathers were friends. Please grant me protection and so I would come in under your protection, the protection of you and your tribes, right? You and your tribe and this nobody is going to really interfere with that person because of the politics that would be involved with that. And so, there were those who were able to enter back into Mecca in this way and then there were others who were unable to enter back into Mecca in this way and were forced to instead basically smuggle themselves back into Mecca. He mentions that one of these individuals was Ibn Masud. Even Masud is from Mecca originally and he made the first hijara. And then he and he entered into Mecca during this time and he stayed there with the prophet until he made the second hijra which was the major hijra to Madinah with the prophet this is what many historians mention of them is even Isak he is is the author of and it's summarized by Ibn Hisham. So, it's one of the most important sources of the prophet biography. as his book Asira. This book is lost. We don't have this book anymore. This was lost many hundreds of years ago. the only remnants of the of Ibn has is hack that we have is what's known as and I'm sure we all know the of Hisham. It's considered the most expansive, most well-known book on Syrah. This book Sierra Tibin Hisham, he summarized it from the book of Ibn Isak. So, the original work of Ibn Is Haq is Mafkud. We don't have this book anymore. The only thing that we have is its summary which is by Ibn Heshem. So, the only narrations that we have from Ibn is half is what was delivered to us from Ibn, His this book had it remained as a very expansive book and that's the book that has all of the chains of narration in it and so forth. Unfortunately, it's been lost and now all we have is Sierra and this happens in the history of Islamic scholarship. There are some books that have become lost. We read about them. You know, we read about these books in the works of later scholars but when we go to look for the book, we it doesn't exist anymore. We don't have it anymore and so the only thing that we have of that book is whatever the scholars who used it and had it at the time, narrate to us in their books. There's a lot of books like this. a good example of this is the Muslimt the has a very long story A very in intricate and inspiring story in which he traveled all the way from North Africa to Baghdad on foot. And he was a contemporary of Imam Ahmed of Rahima Allah. And on his journey from North Africa to Baghdad, he stopped at every major village, every major city, and collected near from all of the scholars in his path. So, he had the most expansive collection on narrations of the prophet ever in the history of Islam. Also, he had the biggest in the history of Islam and he met Imam Ahmed Ibn Hamble and so on and so forth. the point is is that this book, the Muslim of is lost. We don't have this book anymore. we have scholars such as a scholar of the seventh century, right? So, the mentions in his book CR that he saw volumes of this in his life. Ibn Hajab is the 9th century scholar and he mentioned in that he had seen a few volumes of this book yet. Somewhere between that time until now, that book has been lost. how did how did these books become lost? You ask? Because these books become lost due to war. War. the crusades had a huge impact on the Islamic library Unlike the Muslims and their scholars, when Muslims would usually enter into a land, most important thing was the books. They would take them, they would translate them, they would read them, they would study them, they would preserve them. The crusades did the opposite. And also the invasion of the the Tatter invasion which was the Mongols. They as well came and they had no use for knowledge. They were not a people of knowledge. They were not literate. Most of them were. very lay and and illiterate. And so the first thing they would do when they would come into these big Muslim cities, big Muslim areas Davdad, Hashem, and so forth, as they would take all the books and burn them, or they would take all the books and throw them into the river, right? They came into Egypt and threw them in the Nile. They came into Baghdad and they burned them. And so some books, that was the only copy. Some books, there was only four or five copies and that's all of them, right? And if there's only, you know, if you can imagine a book that they have to literally, there were no printing presses. If you want a copy of the book, you have to write the whole thing. And so, if you imagine has a book that is 40 or 50 volumes, how many copies are there going to be? Three, four. Well, all of these will be easily wiped out in these kinds of crusades and these invasions. So, unfortunately, there are some books that have been lost but the bulk of Islamic knowledge has been preserved by Allah's favor and grace that's enough for tonight to allow Mohammed.