Brigitte Gabriel claimed:
"He (Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him) started preaching in his own city Mecca. He tried to recruit sons and followers to spread his religion and he tried for twelve years and failed. And after twelve years he was only able to recruit his immediate family and friends. So he decided if I go to Medina, which was the Jewish hub of Arabia, the business hub where the Jews lived: If I go there and preach my religion to them if they respect me that will buy me respect and stature with my own people who will then respect me."
The truth is that the Prophet and his people were tortured, murdered and eventually they
were forcefully exiled out of Makkah. Even when the Muslims settled to
get on with their lives they were still hunted down to be killed just
for abandoning their former polytheistic faith:
Having fully perceived that Muhammad (Peace be upon
him) could never be desisted from his Call, Quraish, in a desperate
attempt to quell the tidal wave of the Call, resorted to other cheap
means acting from base motives:
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Scoffing, degrading, ridiculing, belying and
laughter-instigating cheap manners, all of which levelled at the new
converts in general, and the person of Muhammad (Peace be upon him) in
particular, with the aim of dragging the spirit of despair
into their morale, and slackening their ardent zealotry. They used to
denounce the Prophet (Peace be upon him) as a man possessed by a jinn,
or an insane person:
And they say: O you [Muhammad (Peace be upon him) ] to whom the Dhikr (the Qur'an) has been sent down! Verily, you are a mad man. [15:6]
or a liar practising witchcraft,And they (Arab pagans) wonder that a warner [Prophet Muhammad (Peace be upon him) ] has come to them from among themselves! And the disbelievers say: This [Prophet Muhammad (Peace be upon him) ] is a sorcerer, a liar. [38:4].
Their eyes would also look at the good man as if they would eat him up ' , or trip him up, or disturb him from the position of stability or firmness. They used all sorts of terms of abuse madman' or one possessed by an evil spirit', and so on:And verily, those who disbelieve would almost make you slip with their eyes through hatreds when they hear the Reminder (the Qur'an), and they say: Verily, he [Muhammad (Peace be upon him) ] is a madman! [68:51]Amongst the early converts, there was a group who had unfortunately no strong clan at their back to support them. These innocent souls were ridiculed and jeered in season and out of season. Referring to such people, the highbrow Quraish aristocrats used repeatedly to ask the Prophet (Peace be upon him), with jest and scorn:Allah has favoured from amongst us? [6:53]And Allah said:Does not Allah know best those who are grateful? [6:53]The wicked used to laugh at the righteous in many ways:
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They would inwardly laugh at their Faith, because they felt themselves so superior.
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In public places, when the righteous passed, they used to insult and wink at them,
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In their own houses, they would run them down.
- Whenever and wherever they saw them, they reproached and called them fools who had lost their way. In the Hereafter, all these tricks and falsehoods will be shown for what they are, and the tables will be reversed. Allâh had said:
Verily! (During the worldly life)
those who committed crimes used to laugh at those who believed; and
whenever they passed by them, used to wink one to another (in
mockery); and when they returned to their own people, they would
return jesting; and when they saw them, they said: Verily! These have
indeed gone astry!' But they (disbelievers, sinners) had not been sent
as watchers over them (the believers). [83:29-33]
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Distorting Muhammad's teachings, evoking
ambiguities, circulating false propaganda; forging groundless
allegations concerning his doctrines, person and character, and going
to excess in such a manner in order to screen off any scope of sound
contemplation from the public. With respect to the Qur'an, they used to allege that it was:
Tales of the ancients, which he [Muhammad (Peace be upon him) ] has written down, and they are dictated to him morning and afternoon. [25:5]
The iniquitous went on ceaselessly inculcating in people's ears that the Qur'an was not a true Revelation:This (the Qur'an) is nothing but a lie that he [Muhammad (Peace be upon him) ] has invented, and others have helped him at it. [25:4]The wicked would also attribute to men of Allâh just such motives and springs of action as they themselves would be guilty of in such circumstances. The pagans and those who were hostile to the revelation of Allâh and Islam, could not understand how such wonderful verses could flow from the tongue of the Prophet (Peace be upon him) without having someone to teach, and claimed:It is only a human being who teaches him. [16:103]
They also raised another baseless and superficial objection:Why does this Messenger [Muhammad (Peace be upon him) ] eat food and walk about in the markets (like ourselves)? [25:7]
They were sadly ignorant and painfully at fault for they could not perceive that a teacher for mankind is one who shares their nature, mingles intheir life, is acquainted with their doings, and sympathises with their joys and sorrows.
The Noble Qur'an has vehemently refuted their charges and allegations and has explained that the utterances of the Prophet (Peace be upon him) are the Revelations of the Lord and their nature and contents provide a bold challenge to those who attribute his Prophetic expressions to some base origin, at times to the mental throes of a dreaming reformer, at others to the effusion of a frenzied poet or the incoherent drivelling of an insane man.
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Contrasting the Qur'an with the mythology of the ancients in order to distract people's interests from Allâh's Words.
Once An-Nadr bin Harith addressed the Quraishites in the following
manner: O Quraish! You have experienced an unprecedented phenomenon
before which you have so far been desperately helpless. Muhammad
(Peace be upon him) grew up here among you and always proved to be
highly obliging, the most truthful and trustworthy young man. However,
later on when he reached manhood, he began to preach a new faith
alien to your society, and opposed to your liking so you began to
denounce him at a time as a sorcerer, at another as a soothsayer, a
poet, or even an insane man. I swear by Allâh he is not anyone of
those. He is not interested in blowing on knots as magicians are, nor
do his words belong to the world of soothsaying; he is not a poet
either, for his mentality is not that of a rambler, nor is he insane
because he has never been witnessed to develop any sort of
hallucinations or insinuations peculiar to madmen. O people of
Quraish, it is really a serious issue and I recommend that you
reconsider your attitude.
It is narrated that An-Nadr, at a later stage, headed for Heerah where he got conversant with the traditions of the kings of Persia and the accounts of people like Rustum and Asphandiar, and then returned to Makkah. Here he would always shadow the Messenger's steps in whatever audiences the later held to preach the new faith and to caution people against Allâh's wrath. An-Nadr would directly follow the Prophet (Peace be upon him) and narrate to the same audience long tales about those people of Persia. He would then always append his talk with a question cunningly inquiring if he did not outdo Muhammad (Peace be upon him). Ibn Abbas (May Allah be pleased with him) related that An-Nadr used to purchase songstresses who would through their bodily charms and songs entice away from Islam anyone developing the least attachment to the Prophet (Peace be upon him); in this regard, Allâh says:
And of mankind is he who purchases idle talks (i.e. music, singing, etc.) to mislead (men) from the Path of Allâh. [31:6]
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In a fresh attempt to dissuade Muhammad (Peace be upon him)
from his principled stand, Quraish invited him to compromise on his
teachings and come to terms with their pre-Islamic practices in such a
way that he quits some of his religion and the polytheists do the
same. Allâh, the All-High says:
They wish that you should compromise (in religion out of courtesy) with them, so they (too) would compromise with you. [68:9].
On the authority of Ibn Jareer and At-Tabarani, the idolaters offered that Muhammad (Peace be upon him) worship their gods for a year, and they worship his Lord for a year. In another version, they said: If you accept our gods, we would worship yours. Ibn Ishaq related that Al-Aswad bin Al-Muttalib, Al-Waleed bin Al-Mugheerah, Omaiyah bin Khalaf and Al-As bin Wa'il As-Sahmy, a constellation of influential polytheists, intercepted the Prophet (Peace be upon him) while he was circumambulating in the Holy Sanctuary, and offered him to worship that they worshipped, and they worship that he worshipped so that, according to them, both parties would reach a common denominator. They added Should the Lord you worship prove to be better than ours, then it will be so much better for us, but if our gods proved to be better than yours, then you would have benefit from it. Allâh, the Exalted, was decisive on the spot and revealed the following Chapter:
Say: O Al-Kâfirûn (disbelievers in Allâh, in His Oneness, in His Angels, in His Books, in His Messengers, in the Day of Resurrection, in Al-Qadar,
etc.)! I worship not that which you worship, nor will you worship
that which I worship. And I shall not worship that which you are
worshipping, nor will you worship that which I worship. To you be your
religion, and to me my religion (Islamic Monotheism).(Safy Arrahman, the sealed nectar)
The failed plot:
Now that all the schemes and conspiracof Quraish had failed, they resorted to their old practices of persecution and inflicting tortures on the Muslims in a more serious and brutal manner than ever before. They also began to nurse the idea of killing the Prophet (Peace be upon him). In fact, contrary to their expectations, this new method and this very idea served indirectly to consolidate the Call to Islam and support it with the conversion of two staunch and mighty heroes of Makkah, i.e. Hamzah bin 'Abdul-Muttalib and 'Umar bin Al-Khattab (May Allah be pleased with him).
THE FIRST ‘AQABAH PLEDGE
Six Madinese who embraced Islam in the pilgrimage season in the eleventh year of Prophethood. They promised to communicate the Message of Islam to their townsfolk.
The following year, on the occasion of the pilgrimage, there came a group of twelve disciples ready to acknowledge Muhammad as their Prophet.
They avowed their faith in Muhammad (Peace be upon him) as a Prophet and swore: “We will not worship any one but one Allah; we will not steal; neither will we commit adultery, nor kill our children; we will not utter slander, intentionally forging falsehood and we will not disobey you in any just matter.” When they had taken the pledge, Muhammad (Peace be upon him) said: “He who carries it out, Allâh will reward him; and who neglects anything and is afflicted in this world, it may prove redemption for him in the Hereafter; and if the sin remains hidden from the eyes of the men and no grief comes to him, then his affair is with Allâh. He may forgive him or He may not.”
THE MUSLIM ENVOY IN MADINAH:
After the Pledge (in the form of an oath had been taken) the Prophet (Peace be upon him) sent to Yathrib (Madinah) Mus‘ab bin ‘Umair Al-‘Abdari, (May Allah be pleased with him) the first Muslim ‘ambassador’ to teach the people there the doctrines of Islam, give them practical guidance and make attempts at propagating the Islam among those who still professed polytheism.
The Second ‘Aqabah Pledge
The next year, thirteenth of Prophethood, June 622 A.D., during the pilgrimage season, over seventy converts from Madinah came in the trail of their polytheist people to perform the rituals of pilgrimage in Makkah. The oft-repeated question amongst them was “Isn’t it high time we protect Muhammad instead of leaving him forsaken, deserted and stumbling in the hillocks of Makkah?”
So, we have examined why Prophet Muhammad migrated to Madinah with God's permission and the circumstances that surrounded this event.
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