The Migration and the Madinan Period

The migration — the Hijra — of the Prophet and his Companions from Mecca to Medina in 622 CE marks the beginning of the Islamic calendar and a new phase of the prophetic mission. Al-Mubarakpuri narrates the journey in careful detail, drawing on the accounts preserved in the Sahih collections and the major seerah works. The Prophet left Mecca with Abu Bakr al-Siddiq, while Ali ibn Abi Talib remained behind to return trusts that people had deposited with the Prophet. The two traveled by a circuitous route, sheltering for three days in the Cave of Thawr south of Mecca while the Quraysh search parties combed the roads north toward Medina. Their arrival in Medina was received with extraordinary joy — the Ansar, the Helper Companions of Medina, lined the streets to greet them.

The first acts in Medina were foundational. The Prophet established the first mosque — the Masjid al-Nabawi — on the site where his camel knelt, and he instituted the system of brotherhood between the Muhajirun (Emigrants from Mecca) and the Ansar (Helpers of Medina), pairing each immigrant family with a Medinan household that would share their wealth and support them until they could establish themselves. This act of institutional brotherhood created social bonds that went beyond tribal affiliation — a radical departure from the norms of Arabian society.

The Constitution of Medina, which al-Mubarakpuri discusses with care, was among the first formal political documents in the Islamic period. It regulated relations between the Muslim community and the Jewish tribes of Medina — Banu Qaynuqa, Banu Nadir, and Banu Qurayza — establishing mutual obligations of defense and non-aggression. Al-Mubarakpuri situates this document as evidence of the Prophet's statecraft, his ability to build political structures that could manage a pluralistic community without compromising the Islamic mission.

The military campaigns of the Madinan period — the Ghazawat — form a substantial portion of Al-Rahiq al-Makhtum. Al-Mubarakpuri organizes these chronologically and traces the strategic logic of each engagement. The Battle of Badr in 2 AH was the first major military confrontation, in which a Muslim force of approximately three hundred men defeated a Quraysh army of nearly a thousand. The Battle of Uhud in 3 AH saw the Muslims suffer serious casualties, including the death of Hamzah ibn Abd al-Muttalib, the Prophet's uncle, due in part to archers abandoning their positions. The Battle of the Trench in 5 AH saw the Muslims successfully defend Medina by digging a defensive trench on the city's exposed northern front — a strategy reportedly suggested by the Persian Companion Salman al-Farisi.

Alongside the military narrative, al-Mubarakpuri documents the internal development of Islamic law, the progressive revelation of the Quran, and the growing complexity of the Muslim community's social and political life. Treaties were made and broken, alliances shifted, and the Muslim state gradually extended its reach — through diplomacy, dawah, and when necessary, armed force — across the Arabian Peninsula. By the time of the Treaty of Hudaybiyyah in 6 AH, Islam had grown from a persecuted minority in one city to a major political force whose recognition the Quraysh themselves were compelled to negotiate.