Hijrah
Muhammad and Abu Bakr leave Mecca and hide at Thawr
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Original prompt & settings (JSON) ↗The escape began by travelling in the opposite direction from the destination — south to a cave on Mount Thawr, while Yathrib lay north of Mecca.
622: leaving Mecca by the wrong road
According to the traditional account transmitted by ʿAisha, Muhammad received permission to emigrate in 622 and arranged for Abu Bakr to accompany him from Mecca. His position there had become untenable, supporters in Yathrib had pledged protection, and traditional sources report an imminent Quraysh plan against him.
Rather than immediately taking the northbound road to Yathrib, the two went south to a cave on Mount Thawr — a deliberate concealment manoeuvre.
Three nights in the cave
They remained there for three nights while the Quraysh searched. Abu Bakr's son ʿAbd Allah brought intelligence gathered in Mecca, returning before dawn so that no one would know where he had slept, and ʿAmir ibn Fuhayra brought sheep and milk after nightfall.
When the concealment period ended, their hired guide — not yet a Muslim — brought the two prepared camels and led the party toward Yathrib by less conspicuous routes.
Which day was “the Hijra”?
The emigration is securely placed in 622, but its exact Julian date depends on conflicting early chronological reports and on whether pre-Islamic Arabian intercalation is assumed. A non-intercalated reconstruction places the departure around 9–12 September; a hypothetical intercalated one produces June dates, including 17 June.
Two further cautions belong here. The sources distinguish several moments — leaving the house, reaching the cave, leaving the cave, reaching Quba — so one date labelled “the Hijra” can mean different events; and 16 July 622 is the retrospectively chosen epoch of the Hijri year, not the day Muhammad physically left Mecca.
Sources
Researched 23 Aug 2026 4 sources 3 audit passes Date disputed
How this was checked
Researched from the web into a fact sheet, rewritten from that sheet, then audited against it by a different model. How the pipeline works →
Date disputed. Sources disagree; the research places it at ~0622-09-09.
What the sources leave uncertain
- The Hijra is securely placed in 622, but its exact Julian date depends on conflicting early chronological reports and on whether pre-Islamic Arabian intercalation is assumed.
- A non-intercalated reconstruction places the departure around 9–12 September. A hypothetical intercalated reconstruction produces June dates, including 17 June; the intercalation scheme is itself uncertain.
- The sources distinguish several moments—leaving the house, reaching the cave, leaving the cave and reaching Quba—so a single date labeled 'the Hijra' can refer to different events.
- The detailed narrative comes from Islamic tradition recorded generations later; the cave episode is also alluded to in Qur'an 9:40, but the Qur'anic verse does not supply a calendar date.