Quote · As the Prophet ﷺ approached Yathrib
O Arabs, your king has arrived!
withMuhammad ﷺ
Called out from atop a date palm on sighting the Prophet ﷺ and Abu Bakr RA approaching Yathrib in the distance.
~First week of Rabi' al-Awwal, September 622 CEDate debatedThe precise date of the Hijrah is not established; the popular 12 Rabi' al-Awwal date is not certain. It was most likely the first week of Rabi' al-Awwal (September 622 CE).
Dating debated
The precise date of the Hijrah is not established; the popular 12 Rabi' al-Awwal date is not certain. It was most likely the first week of Rabi' al-Awwal (September 622 CE).
The Prophet ﷺ and Abu Bakr RA arrived at Quba, the outermost settlement of Madinah facing Makkah, entering on a Monday in the 14th year of the dawah (the 1st year of the Hijrah). Each day beforehand, the Ansar had gone out toward Quba to await him, staying until the midday heat forced them back, until word spread that he was near and they rushed out in throngs, hundreds of them, to receive him; a Jewish man of Yathrib, sighting the two travelers from atop a palm tree, was first to call out, "O Arabs, your king has arrived!" Al-Bara' ibn Azib RA, an Ansari eyewitness, recalled that over 500 armed and dressed Ansar came out, with women climbing onto rooftops and children thronging around to see. The Prophet ﷺ and Abu Bakr RA then waited about a week at Quba for Ali RA, Aisha RA, and Asma RA to arrive, before entering central Madinah together, reportedly on a Friday. The Prophet ﷺ let his camel walk freely, saying it should be left alone because Allah had taken charge of it; wherever it sat down would be the site of his masjid and house. It sat on an open plantation-drying ground. He asked whose relatives among his family were closest by, and Khalid ibn Zayd (Abu Ayyub al-Ansari), of the Banu al-Najjar, came forward (the Prophet ﷺ's great-grandmother was of that same clan, making Abu Ayyub roughly his sixth cousin), so the Prophet ﷺ chose to stay with him until his own house was built. The poem Tala'al-badru alayna is popularly said to have greeted him on this arrival; scholars differ over whether it belongs here or to his return from Tabuk.
The arrival marks the formal beginning of the Madani era and, as the seerah describes it, the seed of the first Islamic nation in the Ansar's joyous welcome; the site where the camel knelt became the location of Masjid al-Nabawi and the Prophet ﷺ's house.
Other events recorded around the same time. Their order within the year is not established; use the storyline above for the sequence.
O Arabs, your king has arrived!
Called out from atop a date palm on sighting the Prophet ﷺ and Abu Bakr RA approaching Yathrib in the distance.
I saw the Ansar all dressed up and coming out. Over 500 men came outside, all of them armed and dressed to accompany the Prophet ﷺ. The women climbed up on the houses. The children thronged around to see. The Prophet ﷺ was surrounded by hundreds of people, all believing in him.
An eyewitness account of the Ansar's reception of the Prophet ﷺ as he entered Yathrib.
Whose house of our family members is the closest to us?
The Prophet ﷺ had distant relatives in Madinah through his great-grandmother, of Banu Adi ibn al-Najjar.
O Messenger of Allah ﷺ, I am from the Banu al-Najjar.
Let the camel be, for Allah has taken charge of it.
Is he the one?
As later recounted by Safiyyah bint Huyayy: her father and uncle went to see the Prophet ﷺ, and were afterward so struck that they paid her no attention, unlike their usual fondness for her.
By the Lord of Moses, he is the one.
What will we do?
We will oppose him as long as he lives.
I was a young girl, favored by my father and my uncle Abu Yasir: they would play with me and talk with me. One day, they came back very depressed. I went up to them running, but they completely ignored me, their shoulders dragging.
Safiyyah's own later recollection of her father Huyayy and uncle Abu Yasir's reaction on returning from seeing the Prophet ﷺ.
As soon as I saw him ﷺ, I knew this face cannot be the face of a liar.
Abdullah ibn Salam, chief rabbi of the Jews of Madinah, went to see the Prophet ﷺ for himself on the day he arrived in Madinah.