الهِجْرَة النَّبَويَّة
al-hijra al-nabawiyya
The Prophetic migration
The migration of the Prophet ﷺ from Makkah to Madinah — the event from which the Islamic calendar is counted.
After thirteen years of calling to Allah in Makkah, and after the pledges given at al-ʿAqaba by the people of Yathrib, the Prophet ﷺ was permitted to migrate. He left with Abū Bakr al-Ṣiddīq, may Allah be pleased with him; the two sheltered in the cave of Thawr while Quraysh searched for them, and then travelled north to Yathrib, which from then on was Madīnat al-Nabī — the City of the Prophet ﷺ.
Why the calendar begins here
It was ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb, may Allah be pleased with him, who set the Islamic era from the year of the migration rather than from the Prophet’s birth or from the first revelation. The choice is itself a lesson: the community dates itself not from a man’s birth but from the day a community was established.
Sources
- السيرة النبوية لابن هشامAl-Sīra al-Nabawiyya
The earliest surviving recension of Ibn Isḥāq’s biography.
- الرحيق المختومAl-Raḥīq al-Makhtūm
A modern narrative arrangement of the sīra, useful to the beginner.
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