The migration to Abyssinia ( ar, الهجرة إلى الحبشة, translit=al-hijra ʾilā al-habaša), also known as the First Hijra ( ar, الهجرة الأولى, translit=al-hijrat al'uwlaa, label=none), was an episode in the early history of Islam, where the first followers of the Islamic prophet

Muhammad Muhammad ( ar, مُحَمَّد; 570 – 8 June 632 CE) was an Arab religious, social, and political leader and the founder of Islam. According to Islamic doctrine, he was a prophet divinely inspired to preach and confirm the mo ...

(they were known as the Sahabah) fled from

Arabia The Arabian Peninsula, (; ar, شِبْهُ الْجَزِيرَةِ الْعَرَبِيَّة, , "Arabian Peninsula" or , , "Island of the Arabs") or Arabia, is a peninsula of Western Asia, situated northeast of Africa on the Arabian Plat ...

due to their persecution by the Quraysh, the ruling

Arab The Arabs (singular: Arab; singular ar, عَرَبِيٌّ, DIN 31635: , , plural ar, عَرَب, DIN 31635: , Arabic pronunciation: ), also known as the Arab people, are an ethnic group mainly inhabiting the Arab world in Western Asia, ...

tribal confederation of

Mecca Mecca (; officially Makkah al-Mukarramah, commonly shortened to Makkah ()) is a city and administrative center of the Mecca Province of Saudi Arabia, and the holiest city in Islam. It is inland from Jeddah on the Red Sea, in a narrow ...

. They sought and were granted refuge in the Kingdom of Aksum, an ancient

Christian state A Christian state is a country that recognizes a form of Christianity as its official religion and often has a state church (also called an established church), which is a Christian denomination that supports the government and is supported by ...

that was situated in modern-day

Ethiopia Ethiopia, , om, Itiyoophiyaa, so, Itoobiya, ti, ኢትዮጵያ, Ítiyop'iya, aa, Itiyoppiya officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country in the Horn of Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the ...

and Eritrea (also referred to as

Abyssinia The Ethiopian Empire (), also formerly known by the exonym Abyssinia, or just simply known as Ethiopia (; Amharic and Tigrinya: ኢትዮጵያ , , Oromo: Itoophiyaa, Somali: Itoobiya, Afar: ''Itiyoophiyaa''), was an empire that historica ...

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

Najashi Armah ( gez, አርማህ) or Aṣḥamah ( ar, أَصْحَمَة), commonly known as Najashi ( ar, النَّجَاشِيّ, translit=An-najāshī), was the ruler of the Kingdom of Aksum who reigned from 614–631 CE. He is primarily known th ...

( ar, نجاشي, translit=najāšī, label=none), the

Negus Negus (Negeuce, Negoose) ( gez, ንጉሥ, ' ; cf. ti, ነጋሲ ' ) is a title in the Ethiopian Semitic languages. It denotes a monarch,

of the kingdom; modern historians have alternatively identified him with the Aksumite king

Armah Armah ( gez, አርማህ) or Aṣḥamah ( ar, أَصْحَمَة), commonly known as Najashi ( ar, النَّجَاشِيّ, translit=An-najāshī), was the ruler of the Kingdom of Aksum who reigned from 614–631 CE. He is primarily known th ...

and

Ella Tsaham Ella may refer to: * Ella (name), most often a feminine given name, but also used as a surname Places United States * Ella, Kentucky, an unincorporated community * Ella, Oregon, an unincorporated community * Ella, Pennsylvania, an unincorporat ...

. Some of the Sahabah exiles returned to Mecca and made the migration to Medina with Muhammad, while others remained in Aksum and arrived in

Medina Medina,, ', "the radiant city"; or , ', (), "the city" officially Al Madinah Al Munawwarah (, , Turkish: Medine-i Münevvere) and also commonly simplified as Madīnah or Madinah (, ), is the second-holiest city in Islam, and the capital of the ...

in 628.

Background

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

faced persecution, which prompted

to advise them to seek refuge in

Aksum Axum, or Aksum (pronounced: ), is a town in the Tigray Region of Ethiopia with a population of 66,900 residents (as of 2015). It is the site of the historic capital of the Aksumite Empire, a naval and trading power that ruled the whole regio ...

. The earliest extant account is given in the ''sirah'' of the eighth-century Muslim historian Ibn Ishaq: Another view, grounded in the political developments of the time, suggests that following the capture of Jerusalem in 614 by the Sasanian Empire, many believers saw a potential danger to the community as they were not the partisans of the

Persians The Persians are an Iranian ethnic group who comprise over half of the population of Iran. They share a common cultural system and are native speakers of the Persian language as well as of the languages that are closely related to Persian. ...

who practiced

Zoroastrianism Zoroastrianism is an Iranian religion and one of the world's oldest organized faiths, based on the teachings of the Iranian-speaking prophet Zoroaster. It has a dualistic cosmology of good and evil within the framework of a monotheisti ...

and had earlier supported the Jews of Arabia in

Himyar The Himyarite Kingdom ( ar, مملكة حِمْيَر, Mamlakat Ḥimyar, he, ממלכת חִמְיָר), or Himyar ( ar, حِمْيَر, ''Ḥimyar'', / 𐩹𐩧𐩺𐩵𐩬) (fl. 110 BCE–520s CE), historically referred to as the Homerite ...

. The acceptance of these Muslims into the Kingdom of Aksum at precisely a moment of Persian triumph in the

Levant The Levant () is an approximate historical geographical term referring to a large area in the Eastern Mediterranean region of Western Asia. In its narrowest sense, which is in use today in archaeology and other cultural contexts, it is ...

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 A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the stu ...

, 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 is a British 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 following year.migrants, which comprised twelve men and four women, who fled

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

, the

Negus Negus (Negeuce, Negoose) ( gez, ንጉሥ, ' ; cf. ti, ነጋሲ ' ) is a title in the Ethiopian Semitic languages. It denotes a monarch,

of the Kingdom of Aksum, a

that existed in modern-day

and Eritrea. This group included

's daughter

Ruqayyah Ruqayya ( ar, رقيّة) is an Arabic female given name meaning "spell, enchantment, or incantation.” It is not to be confused with a separate Arabic term "Ruqia" from Arabic رقى (ruqia) meaning “to rise” or “ascend.” Ruqayya bint M ...

and his son-in-law

Uthman ibn Affan Uthman ibn Affan ( ar, عثمان بن عفان, ʿUthmān ibn ʿAffān; – 17 June 656), also spelled by Colloquial Arabic, Turkish and Persian rendering Osman, was a second cousin, son-in-law and notable companion of the Islamic prop ...

, who would later become the third caliph of the Rashidun Caliphate 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 via the

Red Sea The Red Sea ( ar, البحر الأحمر - بحر القلزم, translit=Modern: al-Baḥr al-ʾAḥmar, Medieval: Baḥr al-Qulzum; or ; Coptic: ⲫⲓⲟⲙ ⲛ̀ϩⲁϩ ''Phiom Enhah'' or ⲫⲓⲟⲙ ⲛ̀ϣⲁⲣⲓ ''Phiom ǹšari''; ...

. After a year, the exiles heard rumours that the Quraysh had

converted to Islam Religious conversion is the adoption of a set of beliefs identified with one particular religious denomination to the exclusion of others. Thus "religious conversion" would describe the abandoning of adherence to one denomination and affiliatin ...

, 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 Western may refer to: Places *Western, Nebraska, a village in the US *Western, New York, a town in the US *Western Creek, Tasmania, a locality in Australia *Western Junction, Tasmania, a locality in Australia *Western world, countries that id ...

historians such as

Leone Caetani Leone Caetani (September 12, 1869 – December 25, 1935), Duke of Sermoneta (also known as Prince Caetani), was an Italian scholar, politician, and historian of the Middle East. Caetani is considered a pioneer in the application of the historic ...

(1869–1935) and

William Montgomery Watt William Montgomery Watt (14 March 1909 – 24 October 2006) was a Scottish Orientalist, historian, academic and Anglican priest. From 1964 to 1979, he was Professor of Arabic and Islamic studies at the University of Edinburgh. Watt was one ...

(1909–2006) questioned the account of two migrations. Although Ibn Ishaq 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 caliph,

Umar ibn al-Khattab ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb ( ar, عمر بن الخطاب, also spelled Omar, ) was the second Rashidun caliph, ruling from August 634 until his assassination in 644. He succeeded Abu Bakr () as the second caliph of the Rashidun Caliphate ...

In Aksum

Much of the coverage of this event comes from the historian Ibn Ishaq. When the Quraysh learned that the early Muslims were planning to move to the

Aksumite kingdom The Kingdom of Aksum ( gez, መንግሥተ አክሱም, ), also known as the Kingdom of Axum or the Aksumite Empire, was a kingdom centered in Northeast Africa and South Arabia from Classical antiquity to the Middle Ages. Based primarily in wha ...

, they sent a delegation to the

Negus Negus (Negeuce, Negoose) ( gez, ንጉሥ, ' ; cf. ti, ነጋሲ ' ) is a title in the Ethiopian Semitic languages. It denotes a monarch,

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

and his generals. The gifts were made up of leather and prepared by fine skin. The Meccans appealed to the generals, arguing that the Muslim 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 Sahabah 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 king requested their revelations from

God In monotheistic thought, God is usually viewed as the supreme being, creator, and principal object of faith. Swinburne, R.G. "God" in Honderich, Ted. (ed)''The Oxford Companion to Philosophy'', Oxford University Press, 1995. God is typically ...

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

Jesus Jesus, likely from he, יֵשׁוּעַ, translit=Yēšūaʿ, label= Hebrew/ Aramaic ( AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ or Jesus of Nazareth (among other names and titles), was a first-century Jewish preacher and religiou ...

brought (the

Gospel Gospel originally meant the Christian message (" the gospel"), but in the 2nd century it came to be used also for the books in which the message was set out. In this sense a gospel can be defined as a loose-knit, episodic narrative of the words a ...

) 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 servant, His prophet, His spirit, and His word which He cast upon the

virgin Mary Mary; arc, ܡܪܝܡ, translit=Mariam; ar, مريم, translit=Maryam; grc, Μαρία, translit=María; la, Maria; cop, Ⲙⲁⲣⲓⲁ, translit=Maria was a first-century Jewish woman of Nazareth, the wife of Joseph and the mother of ...

". 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

returned to

in 622 and made the hijra to Medina with

, while a second wave went to

in 628.

First migration list

The first list of emigrants reported by Ibn Ishaq included the following eleven men and four women: *

Sa'd ibn Abi Waqqas , image = File:Saad ibn Abi Waqqas Masjid an-Nabawi Calligraphy.png , alt = , caption = His name in Arabic calligraphy , birth_date = , death_date = , birth_place = Mecca, Hejaz, Arabia , death_place ...

Jahsh ibn Riyab Jahsh ibn Riyab ( ar, جحش بن رئاب), was a companion of Muhammad. Originally from the Asad ibn Khuzayma tribe, he settled in Mecca and formed an alliance with Harb ibn Umayya, chief of the leading clan of the Quraysh tribe. He married U ...

He 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 Prophet Muhammad, who is none other than Jahsh (Geys). See T. W. Arnold, ''The Preaching of Islam'', 294n8. *

Abd-Allah ibn Jahsh ʿAbd-Allāh ibn Jaḥsh ( ar, عَبْد ٱلله ابْن جَحْش) ( 586 – 625), was the brother-in-law and companion of the Islamic prophet, Muhammad. Description He was described as being "neither tall nor short and had a lot of h ...

Ja'far ibn Abi Talib Jaʿfar ibn Abī Ṭālib ( ar, جعفر بن أبي طالب September 629), also known as Jaʿfar al-Ṭayyār ( ar, جعفر الطيّار, lit=Ja'far the Flyer) was a companion and cousin of the Islamic Prophet Muhammad, and an older broth ...

leader of the group *

Uthman Uthman ibn Affan ( ar, عثمان بن عفان, ʿUthmān ibn ʿAffān; – 17 June 656), also spelled by Colloquial Arabic, Turkish and Persian rendering Osman, was a second cousin, son-in-law and notable companion of the Islamic prop ...

, son-in-law and companion of

. Husband of

. *

Ruqayyah bint Muhammad Ruqayya bint Muhammad ( ar, رقية بنت محمد, translit=Ruqayya bint Muḥammad; –March 624) was the second eldest daughter of the Islamic prophet Muhammad and Khadija. She married the third caliph Uthman and the couple had a son Abd Al ...

, the wife of Uthman and daughter of Muhammad. *

Abu Hudhayfa ibn 'Utba Abū Ḥudhayfa ibn ʿUtba (Arabic: أبو حذيفة بن عتبة; died 633), full name Abū Ḥudhayfa ibn ʿUtba ibn Rabīʿa was an early companion of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. He was the son of Utba ibn Rabi'a, one of the Leaders of Ban ...

* Sahla bint Suhail, wife of Abu Hudhayfa *

Zubayr ibn al-Awwam Az Zubayr ( ar, الزبير) is a city in and the capital of Al-Zubair District, part of the Basra Governorate of Iraq. The city is just south of Basra. The name can also refer to the old Emirate of Zubair. The name is also sometimes written ...

* Mus'ab ibn Umair *

Abdur Rahman bin Awf Abdul (also transliterated as Abdal, Abdel, Abdil, Abdol, Abdool, or Abdoul; ar, عبد ال, ) is the most frequent transliteration of the combination of the Arabic word '' Abd'' (, meaning "Servant") and the definite prefix '' al / el'' (, mea ...

* Abu Salama Abd Allah ibn Abd al-Asad *

Umm Salama Hind bint Abi Umayya ( ar, هِنْد بِنْت أَبِي أُمَيَّة, Hind ʾibnat ʾAbī ʾUmayya, 580 or 596 – 680 or 683), better known as Umm Salama ( ar, أُمّ سَلَمَة, link=no) or Hind al-Makhzūmiyah ( ar, هِنْد ...

, wife of Abu Salama * Uthman bin Maz'oon *Amir bin Rabiah *Layla bint Abi Asmah – wife of Amir

References

{{reflist, 25em Islam in Ethiopia Life of Muhammad Medieval Ethiopia Medieval Somalia Horn of Africa Islam in Eritrea Islam in Somalia 610s 7th century in Africa Christian and Islamic interfaith dialogue

Background

The migration(s)

In Aksum

End of the Muslim exile

First migration list

See also

References