An Overview of the Hijrah
The Hijrah in the time of the Prophet
The meaning of the experience of the Hijrah was fully understood by the believers who lived through it. It meant for them the responsibility of transitioning Islam from a personal discipline to a settled way of life, a distinctive civilisation. The Hijrah was the first step, a step from which there could be no turning back, from subordination under the jurisdiction of non-believers to the establishment of Islam as an independent, sovereign jurisdiction.
The Hijrah was understood from the beginning as a massive enlargement of the responsibilities of being Muslim, among which was the duty to prepare for sustained warfare with their persecutors. After the believers achieved political and military security, they honoured the greatness of this transition by marking the year of the Hijrah as Year One of the Islamic calendar. That occurred during the caliphate of ʿUmar.
Despite the obvious parallels with the commission of Mūsā, ʿalayhi al-salām, to liberate his people from the cruel jurisdiction of Pharaoh, the Prophet’s Hijrah ﷺ was unique. It was pursued with great wisdom and unwavering resolve and, with the help of Allah, succeeded far beyond any reasonable calculation based on the balance of manpower, financial resources, and military equipment.
The success of the Hijrah was due both to the depth of faith among the believers and to the quality of leadership and intelligent planning that guided it. The believers sacrificed almost everything that bound them to Makkah. They risked permanent separation from close family members, together with the loss of their homes, possessions, businesses, land, livestock, and every means of survival in their world.
Yet they did not undertake this immense risk as a panicked mass flight with enemies in close pursuit. Rather, the Hijrah was a carefully planned manoeuvre. The Makkan Muslims departed in small groups, by different routes and at different times. Most importantly, they travelled towards a known destination. The Hijrah had somewhere to go.
The Prophet ﷺ had accepted the refuge promised in Yathrib by fellow Muslims from that settlement. Just as the Makkan Muslims came from different clans and tribes, so too did the people of Yathrib. Nevertheless, they agreed to live as one community under the leadership of the Prophet ﷺ, whose authority rested upon the emerging revelation and the religion of Islam.
Not every Makkan who undertook the Hijrah reached Yathrib alive, yet their effort was surely rewarded by Allah as though they had. Even after arrival there were many setbacks: severe military defeats, internal dissensions, backsliding, betrayals, and broken pledges.
Although the true believers, including the Prophet himself, believed in the victory Allah had promised them, this was faith bi-l-ghayb, faith in the unseen that had yet to unfold. Human beings are not perfectly consistent, as Allah reminds us through the misjudgement of Ādam, ʿalayhi al-salām, who sincerely repented and whom Allah completely forgave.
Yathrib did not become Madinah through any sudden transformation. It had to be built through sustained human effort and the steadfast sacrifice of lives and possessions over many years. It required high morale among believing men and women, together with the wisdom needed to preserve their unity. In demonstrating these qualities, they proved themselves deserving of Allah’s help, which is always near and which ultimately granted them victory.
The struggles of the Hijrah, together with the fluctuations of gains and losses in īmān and dīn, are recorded throughout the Qur’an, alongside the contrasting example of the wanderings of the people of Mūsā, ʿalayhi al-salām.
Lessons from the Hijrah in our time
In our own time, the need for Hijrah is still felt. There remains a longing for a place of refuge where, freed from the fitnah of subjection and subordination to non-Muslim ways of life, Muslims might rebuild the disciplines of a genuinely Islamic way of living. Such a way of life extends beyond the fundamental acts of worship and dietary observance to include the broader social, political, and economic structures that shape, support, and direct human aspirations and endeavour.
Yet this need is now felt only weakly because no such place of refuge presently exists. There is no Yathrib to which small groups of Muslims can quietly migrate, find welcome, gather, and rebuild.
Officially independent and sovereign Muslim countries are, in reality, rarely fully sovereign. Most have been unable to establish the economic independence necessary for secure governance. Instead, they remain entangled in financial and political systems that leave them vulnerable to economic pressure and, ultimately, military intervention and regime change.
Muslims in Iran, Yemen, Palestine, and Lebanon have demonstrated that, despite these conditions, survival and resistance remain possible. Patient resistance, sustained long-term institution-building, and the gradual development of the means for survival and eventual independence may well represent the only practical way in which the lessons of the Hijrah can be lived today.
When the faith of a new Muslim is regarded by family and friends as “cultural treason”, the believer may experience forms of passive persecution. This may include verbal abuse, exclusion from family conversations and plans, deliberate interference with meals so that the believer must eat alone or go hungry, and making noise or causing disturbances to prevent prayer.
Such treatment may be endured in the short term if the believer finds companionship and support among fellow Muslims outside the immediate family and local circle. In the longer term, however, particularly in the case of wives with non-believing husbands, such pressures may force a painful choice between continued family association and commitment to Islam. If separation becomes necessary, the lesson of the Hijrah is not to flee impulsively, but to prepare carefully, ensuring there is both a destination and a realistic plan for survival.
The same pattern can also be observed among Muslim minorities living in societies that quietly regard Muslim presence as “cultural infiltration” or “cultural pollution”. Such societies may subject Muslims to personal harassment, legal and informal economic exclusion, public ridicule of their beliefs and customs, and the tacit tolerance of acts of vandalism and desecration directed against mosques and other Muslim institutions.
In countries such as the United Kingdom, where robust legal mechanisms exist to address such abuses, Muslims nevertheless continue to experience verbal abuse in public. Women are still harassed for wearing the headscarf. Faeces are still thrown at Muslim homes, pigs’ heads are occasionally left inside mosques, and dogs are sometimes released into mosques while people are praying.
At the same time, the authorities possess both legislation and established procedures to investigate and prosecute such crimes, and generally do so discreetly in order not to inflame tensions further. Muslims should therefore become fully informed of their legal rights, overcome any reluctance to acknowledge themselves as victims of crime, and make greater use of the legal remedies available to them.
More importantly, Muslims should prepare for the economic instability that may eventually affect countries such as the United Kingdom. In such circumstances, Muslims, together with other immigrant minorities, may become convenient scapegoats. The present atmosphere of tolerance is genuine, but it exists largely because it is economically sustainable. Should that change, Muslims and other minorities could find themselves openly relegated to second-class status, since British tolerance is grounded more in political expediency than in religious principle. The economic standing of many Muslims would likely decline significantly relative to the wider population.
Hijrah-like resistance today could include building strong neighbourhood solidarity under recognised and respected leadership, storing essential supplies, and learning how to administer them responsibly. Islamic obligations require that assistance be distributed fairly among all those in need within the neighbourhood, especially non-Muslims, just as Muslims routinely demonstrate generosity during Ramadan.
Nothing overcomes prejudice more effectively, or more permanently, than personal relationships formed during times of hardship. Equally important is the cultivation of networks with Muslims in Muslim-majority countries through family and other connections. Such relationships strengthen commercial ties within the Muslim world while also preparing for the worst-case possibility of forced expulsion.
The practical lesson remains the same as that of the original Hijrah: if the worst should happen, have a place to go and a thoughtful plan for how to survive when you arrive.
