48 No god but God
cloak and hold him in her arms until the terror subsided must have
been an unimaginable sorrow for the Prophet.
With the loss of both his physical and his emotional support,
Muhammad could no longer remain in Mecca. Some time earlier, he
had sent a small group of his followers—those without any form of
protection in Meccan society—temporarily to Abyssinia, partly to seek
asylum from its Christian emperor or “Negus,” partly in an attempt to
ally himself with one of the Quraysh’s chief commercial rivals. But
now Muhammad needed a permanent home where he and his Com-
panions could be free from the unrestrained wrath of the Quraysh.
He tried Mecca’s sister city, Ta’if, but its tribal leaders were not
inclined to antagonize the Quraysh by giving refuge to their enemy.
He visited the local fairs around Mecca—places where he must have
been well known both as a merchant and as a troublemaker—but to
no avail. Finally, the answer came in the form of an invitation from a
small clan called the Khazraj, who lived in an agricultural oasis some
two hundred fifty miles north of Mecca—a conglomeration of villages
known collectively as Yathrib. Although Yathrib was a distant and
totally foreign city, Muhammad had no choice but to accept the invi-
tation and prepare his Companions to do the unthinkable: abandon
their tribe and their families for an uncertain future in a place where
they would be without protection.
The emigration to Yathrib occurred slowly and stealthily, with the
Companions heading out toward the oasis a few at a time. By the time
the Quraysh realized what was happening, only Muhammad, Abu
Bakr, and Ali were left. Fearing that Muhammad was leaving Mecca to
raise an army, the various clan Shaykhs decided to choose one man
from each family, “a young, powerful, well-born, aristocratic warrior,”
who would sneak into Muhammad’s house while he was asleep and
simultaneously drive their swords into his body, thereby placing the
responsibility for his death upon everyone in the tribe. But when the
assassins arrived at Muhammad’s house, they found Ali asleep in his
bed pretending to be the Prophet. Having learned about the attempt
on his life the night before, Muhammad and Abu Bakr had slipped out
of the house through a window and fled the city.
The Quraysh were furious. They offered a massive bounty of a
hundred she-camels to anyone who could find Muhammad and bring