A Concise History of the Middle East

34 • 3 THE PROPHET OF MECCA

This accommodation shocked many Muslims. When Muhammad realized

what he had done, he denounced what he had mistaken for a divine reve¬

lation, and the Quran addressed the Quraysh regarding those goddesses:

What, would you have males and He females?

That would indeed be an unjust division.

They are nothing but names you and your fathers have named,

God has sent down no authority touching them. (QURAN, 53:21-23)

When Muhammad disowned the goddesses, the Meccan leaders became

angry, for the keepers of their nearby shrines were Mecca's allies. Unable to

attack Muhammad while he had Abu-Talib's protection, the Meccans tried

to instigate a boycott of the whole Hashimite clan. It failed. Still, they

could torment the most vulnerable Muslims, some of whom took refuge

in Christian Ethiopia. Then Muhammad made what, to the pagan Mec¬

cans, was a still more incredible claim. Following a Quranic revelation, he

said that he had journeyed in one night, upon a winged horse, first to

Jerusalem, then up through the seven levels of Heaven, where he saw the

celestial Ka'ba and received from God the fundamentals of the Islamic

creed, and that he had talked to Moses during his return to earth. Al¬

though the Quran confirmed Muhammad's claims, the pagans mocked

them. They averred that he had slept that whole night in his own bed.

In 619 Muhammad lost the two people who had most helped him in his

early mission: Khadija and Abu-Talib died. Muhammad would later marry

many women, but none could match the loyalty and support of his first

wife. Without his uncle, Muhammad had no protector within the Hashi¬

mite clan, and so the persecution grew worse. The Muslims realized that

they would have to leave Mecca. An attempt to take refuge in nearby Taif

failed, because of its close ties with the Meccan leaders. Muhammad had to

abase himself to find a new Meccan protector so that he and his followers

could safely return home. The Muslims could no longer survive in Mecca,

but where else could they go?

THE EMIGRATION (HIJRA)

During the pagan pilgrimage month in 620, Muhammad was visited by six
Arabs from an agricultural oasis town called Yathrib (now Medina), located
about 270 miles (430 kilometers) north of Mecca, just after they had com¬
pleted their hajj rites at the Ka'ba. They told him that fighting between