The migration to Abyssinia (), also known as the First Hijra (), was an episode in the early history of

Islam Islam is an Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the Quran, and the teachings of Muhammad. Adherents of Islam are called Muslims, who are estimated to number Islam by country, 2 billion worldwide and are the world ...

, where the first followers of the Islamic prophet

Muhammad Muhammad (8 June 632 CE) was an Arab religious and political leader and the founder of Islam. Muhammad in Islam, According to Islam, he was a prophet who was divinely inspired to preach and confirm the tawhid, monotheistic teachings of A ...

(they were known as the Sahabah, or the companions) migrated from

Arabia The Arabian Peninsula (, , or , , ) or Arabia, is a peninsula in West Asia, situated north-east of Africa on the Arabian plate. At , comparable in size to India, the Arabian Peninsula is the largest peninsula in the world. Geographically, the ...

due to their persecution by the

Quraysh The Quraysh () are an Tribes of Arabia, Arab tribe who controlled Mecca before the rise of Islam. Their members were divided into ten main clans, most notably including the Banu Hashim, into which Islam's founding prophet Muhammad was born. By ...

, the ruling

Arab Arabs (, , ; , , ) are an ethnic group mainly inhabiting the Arab world in West Asia and North Africa. A significant Arab diaspora is present in various parts of the world. Arabs have been in the Fertile Crescent for thousands of years ...

tribal confederation of

Mecca Mecca, officially Makkah al-Mukarramah, is the capital of Mecca Province in the Hejaz region of western Saudi Arabia; it is the Holiest sites in Islam, holiest city in Islam. It is inland from Jeddah on the Red Sea, in a narrow valley above ...

. They sought and were granted refuge in the

Kingdom of Aksum The Kingdom of Aksum, or the Aksumite Empire, was a kingdom in East Africa and South Arabia from classical antiquity to the Middle Ages, based in what is now northern Ethiopia and Eritrea, and spanning present-day Djibouti and Sudan. Emerging ...

, an ancient Christian state that was situated in modern-day northern

Ethiopia Ethiopia, officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country located in the Horn of Africa region of East Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the north, Djibouti to the northeast, Somalia to the east, Ken ...

and

Eritrea Eritrea, officially the State of Eritrea, is a country in the Horn of Africa region of East Africa, with its capital and largest city being Asmara. It is bordered by Ethiopia in the Eritrea–Ethiopia border, south, Sudan in the west, and Dj ...

(also referred to as Abyssinia), in or . The kingdom's capital was Aksum, which is an ancient city in the

Tigray Region The Tigray Region (or simply Tigray; officially the Tigray National Regional State) is the northernmost Regions of Ethiopia, regional state in Ethiopia. The Tigray Region is the homeland of the Tigrayan, Irob people, Irob and Kunama people. I ...

. The ruling Aksumite monarch who received them is known in Islamic sources as Najashi (), the

Negus ''Negus'' is the word for "king" in the Ethiopian Semitic languages and a Ethiopian aristocratic and court titles, title which was usually bestowed upon a regional ruler by the Ethiopian Emperor, Negusa Nagast, or "king of kings," in pre-1974 Et ...

of the kingdom; modern historians have alternatively identified him with the Aksumite king Armah and Ella Tsaham. Some of the Sahabah exiles returned to Mecca and made the migration to Medina with Muhammad, while the others remained in Aksum and arrived in

Medina Medina, officially al-Madinah al-Munawwarah (, ), also known as Taybah () and known in pre-Islamic times as Yathrib (), is the capital of Medina Province (Saudi Arabia), Medina Province in the Hejaz region of western Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, ...

in 628. The migration to Abyssinia is an Islamic historical event that refers to the migration of some of the early Muslims from Mecca to Abyssinia (the Kingdom of Aksum) because of the harm they were facing from the leaders of Quraysh.A number of Muslims left, and the first migration to Abyssinia was in Rajab of the fifth year after the mission. They were eleven men and four women, and they appointed Uthman ibn Mazun as their leader. Then, while they were in Abyssinia, they heard that the people of Mecca had converted to Islam. Some of them returned to Mecca, but they did not find that to be true. So they returned, and another group went with them to Abyssinia. It was the second migration. They were eighty-three men, their wives, and their children, headed by Ja`far ibn Abi Talib.

Background

According to the traditional view, members of the early Muslim community in

faced persecution, which prompted Muhammad to advise them to seek refuge in Aksum. The earliest extant account is given in the ''sirah'' of the eighth-century

Muslim Muslims () are people who adhere to Islam, a Monotheism, monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God ...

historian

Ibn Ishaq Abu Abd Allah Muhammad ibn Ishaq ibn Yasar al-Muttalibi (; – , known simply as Ibn Ishaq, was an 8th-century Muslim historian and hagiographer who collected oral traditions that formed the basis of an important biography of the Islamic proph ...

: Another view, grounded in the political developments of the time, suggests that following the capture of Jerusalem in 614 by the

Sasanian Empire The Sasanian Empire (), officially Eranshahr ( , "Empire of the Iranian peoples, Iranians"), was an List of monarchs of Iran, Iranian empire that was founded and ruled by the House of Sasan from 224 to 651. Enduring for over four centuries, th ...

, many believers saw a potential danger to the community as they were not the partisans of the

Persians Persians ( ), or the Persian people (), are an Iranian ethnic group from West Asia that came from an earlier group called the Proto-Iranians, which likely split from the Indo-Iranians in 1800 BCE from either Afghanistan or Central Asia. They ...

who practiced

Zoroastrianism Zoroastrianism ( ), also called Mazdayasnā () or Beh-dīn (), is an Iranian religions, Iranian religion centred on the Avesta and the teachings of Zoroaster, Zarathushtra Spitama, who is more commonly referred to by the Greek translation, ...

and had earlier supported the Jews of Arabia in

Himyar Himyar was a polity in the southern highlands of Yemen, as well as the name of the region which it claimed. Until 110 BCE, it was integrated into the Qatabanian kingdom, afterwards being recognized as an independent kingdom. According to class ...

. The acceptance of these Muslims into the

at precisely a moment of Persian triumph in the

Levant The Levant ( ) is the subregion that borders the Eastern Mediterranean, Eastern Mediterranean sea to the west, and forms the core of West Asia and the political term, Middle East, ''Middle East''. In its narrowest sense, which is in use toda ...

recalls the Aksumite foreign policy of the previous century, which saw Aksum and Persia compete for influence in

The migration(s)

According to historians of Islam, there were two migrations, although there are differences of opinion with regard to the dates.Rafiq Zakaria, 1991, ''Muhammad and The Quran,'' New Delhi:

Penguin Books Penguin Books Limited is a Germany, German-owned English publishing, publishing house. It was co-founded in 1935 by Allen Lane with his brothers Richard and John, as a line of the publishers the Bodley Head, only becoming a separate company the ...

, pp. 403-4. The first group of migrants, which comprised twelve men and four women, who fled

in the year or according to other sources, and was granted asylum by Najashi, the

of the

, a Christian state that existed in modern-day

and

. This group included Muhammad's daughter Ruqayyah and his son-in-law

Uthman ibn Affan Uthman ibn Affan (17 June 656) was the third caliph of the Rashidun Caliphate, ruling from 644 until Assassination of Uthman, his assassination in 656. Uthman, a second cousin, son-in-law, and notable Companions of the Prophet, companion of ...

, who would later become the third caliph of the

Rashidun Caliphate The Rashidun Caliphate () is a title given for the reigns of first caliphs (lit. "successors") — Abu Bakr, Umar, Uthman, and Ali collectively — believed to Political aspects of Islam, represent the perfect Islam and governance who led the ...

after Muhammad's death. Prior to the exile, Muhammad chose Uthman ibn Mazʽun, one of his most important companions, as the leader of this group. According to Tabqat Ibn Saʽd, the group boarded a merchant ship from the sea port of Shuʽaiba and paid a half-dinar each to cross into

East Africa East Africa, also known as Eastern Africa or the East of Africa, is a region at the eastern edge of the Africa, African continent, distinguished by its unique geographical, historical, and cultural landscape. Defined in varying scopes, the regi ...

via the

Red Sea The Red Sea is a sea inlet of the Indian Ocean, lying between Africa and Asia. Its connection to the ocean is in the south, through the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait and the Gulf of Aden. To its north lie the Sinai Peninsula, the Gulf of Aqaba, and th ...

. After a year, the exiles heard rumours that the

had converted to Islam, which prompted them to return to

. Confronted with the opposite reality, they set out for the Aksumite kingdom again in or according to other sources, this time accompanied by other newly-founded Muslims, with the migrant group comprising 83 men and 18 women in total. Some Western historians such as Leone Caetani (1869–1935) and William Montgomery Watt (1909–2006) questioned the account of two migrations. Although

provided two partially overlapping lists of migrants, he did not mention that the first group returned and went back a second time. Watt argued that the word used by Ibn Ishaq (''tatāba‘a'', ) and the order of the names on the lists suggests that the migration may have taken place in a number of smaller groups rather than two large parties, while the appearance of the two lists reflected the controversies surrounding the assignment of priority on official registers during the reign of the second

Rashidun The Rashidun () are the first four caliphs () who led the Muslim community following the death of Muhammad: Abu Bakr (), Umar (), Uthman (), and Ali (). The reign of these caliphs, called the Rashidun Caliphate (632–661), is considered i ...

caliph, Umar ibn al-Khattab. After some of the immigrants returned to Mecca, the Prophet gave them permission to go to Abyssinia for a second time, so they went out. Their number the second time was eighty-three men and nineteen women, and it was said: eighteen women. Al-Tabari said: They were eighty-two men, in addition to their women and children. He doubted whether Ammar ibn Yasir was among them, so that the number of eighty-three would be completed. At their head was Ja`far ibn Abi Talib, so he was the leader over them, and the translator for them before the Negu

In Aksum

Much of the coverage of this event comes from the historian

. When the

learned that the early Muslims were planning to move to the Kingdom of Aksum, Aksumite kingdom, they sent a delegation to the

to demand the surrender of the fugitives. They selected two envoys: ‘Amr ibn al-‘As and Abdullah bin Rabiah. The Meccan envoys were given gifts for the Aksumite king Najashi and his generals. The gifts were made up of leather and prepared by fine skin. The Meccans appealed to the generals, arguing that the

migrants were rebels who had invented a new religion, the likes of which neither the Meccans nor the Aksumites had heard of, and that their relatives were asking for their return. The king granted them an audience, but ultimately refused to hand over the migrants until he heard their defence. The Sahaba were later brought in front of the Negus and his bishops. Jaʽfar ibn Abi Talib, who acted as the leader of the exiles, spoke in their defence: The

Christian A Christian () is a person who follows or adheres to Christianity, a Monotheism, monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus in Christianity, Jesus Christ. Christians form the largest religious community in the wo ...

king requested their revelations from

God In monotheistic belief systems, God is usually viewed as the supreme being, creator, and principal object of faith. In polytheistic belief systems, a god is "a spirit or being believed to have created, or for controlling some part of the un ...

. Jaʽfar then recited a passage from the Quran's Surah Maryam (). When the king heard it, he wept and exclaimed: "Verily, this is the word of

Jesus Jesus (AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ, Jesus of Nazareth, and many Names and titles of Jesus in the New Testament, other names and titles, was a 1st-century Jewish preacher and religious leader. He is the Jesus in Chris ...

(the Injeel) has come from the same source of light (''miškāt'')". However, one of the envoys, ‘Amr ibn al-‘As, thought of an alternative tactic. On the following day, he returned to the king and told him that the Muslims had disrespected Jesus. When the Muslims heard that the king had summoned them again to question them about their view of Jesus, they tried to find a diplomatic answer, but ultimately decided to speak according to the revelation they had received. When the king addressed Jaʽfar, he replied that they held Jesus to be "God's spirit (Rooh Allah, Quran 4:171) everlasting, sinnless (Corinthians 5:21, Sahih bukari vol 4 book 54, Hadith 506, al-kabira, zakkiya (pure)-ghulaman (son) Quran 19:19) omnipresent and omnipotent, and His word (Kalam Allah Quran 3:39) that continues to guide the living and the dead, He cast upon the

virgin Mary Mary was a first-century Jewish woman of Nazareth, the wife of Saint Joseph, Joseph and the mother of Jesus. She is an important figure of Christianity, venerated under titles of Mary, mother of Jesus, various titles such as Perpetual virginity ...

". Muslim accounts state that upon hearing these words, the Negus declared that Jesus was indeed no more than what he had said; he turned to the Muslims and told them: "go, for you are safe in my country". He then returned the gifts to the envoys and dismissed them.

End of the Muslim exile

Many of the exiles in Aksum returned to

in 622 and made the hijra to Medina with Muhammad, while a second wave went to

in 628.

First migration list

The first list of emigrants reported by

included the following eleven men and four women: *

Sa'd ibn Abi Waqqas Sa'd ibn Abi Waqqas ibn Wuhayb al-Zuhri () was an Arabs, Arab Muslims, Muslim commander. He was the founder of Kufa and served as its governor under Umar, Umar ibn al-Khattab. He played a leading role in the Muslim conquest of Persia and was a cl ...

* Jahsh ibn RiyabHe is father of Zainab and a father-in-law of Muhammad. In some accounts relating to Sahabahs in China, he (Jahsh) is noted as Geys. Muslims of Chams (Cambodiya) trace ancestry to a father-in-law of Muhammad, who is Jahsh (Geys). See T. W. Arnold, ''The Preaching of Islam'', 294n8. * Abd-Allah ibn Jahsh * Ja'far ibn Abi Talib spokesman * Uthman, son-in-law and companion of Muhammad, husband of Ruqayyah, and the third rightly guided caliph. * Ruqayyah bint Muhammad, the wife of Uthman and daughter of Muhammad. * Abu Hudhayfa ibn 'Utba * Sahla bint Suhail, wife of Abu Hudhayfa * Zubayr ibn al-Awwam * Mus'ab ibn Umair * Abdur Rahman bin Awf * Abu Salama Abd Allah ibn Abd al-Asad * Umm Salama, wife of Abu Salama * Uthman bin Maz'oon leader of group *Amir bin Rabiah *Layla bint Abi Asmah – wife of Amir

References