Second Migration to Abyssinia

# The Second Migration to Abyssinia

Return and Departure Again

The first migration to Abyssinia had been a small group — eleven men and four women — who crossed the Red Sea in secret and found refuge in the court of the Negus Ashama ibn Abjar. When a rumor reached them in Abyssinia that the Quraysh had converted to Islam and Mecca was safe again, many of the migrants returned, only to find the situation unchanged or worse. The persecution that had driven them out had not eased. Within weeks, the scale of the Muslim response shifted dramatically: the second migration, beginning in approximately 616 CE (the sixth or seventh year of prophethood), would involve approximately eighty-three men and nineteen women — a community large enough to represent the backbone of the early Muslim movement.

This second migration was not a retreat. It was a strategic relocation of a significant portion of the Muslim community under conditions of sustained, organized persecution — one of the clearest early examples of what the Quran would later name and sanctify as hijra: migration in the way of Allah.

Who Made the Second Migration

The roster of those who participated in the second migration reads like a who's who of the prophetic generation. Among those who crossed to Abyssinia:

Ja'far ibn Abi Talib, the Prophet's cousin and the most eloquent spokesman the Muslim community produced in this period, who would again serve as the voice of the Muslims before the Negus. Ja'far had been among the first migration group and would remain in Abyssinia until after the conquest of Khaybar — returning to Medina in 7 AH, nearly a decade later. The Prophet ﷺ embraced him when he returned and said he could not say which brought him more joy: the conquest of Khaybar or the return of Ja'far.

Umm Salamah (Hind bint Abi Umayyah) and her husband Abu Salamah ibn Abd al-Asad. Umm Salamah would later become one of the Prophet's ﷺ wives and one of the most prolific narrators of hadith among the women of the prophetic household. Her life during the migration period — separation from her husband, her child temporarily taken from her, her years of patient endurance — is one of the most moving personal narratives in the early seerah literature.

Abdullah ibn Mas'ud, a companion so close to the Prophet ﷺ in his early years that he was described as being like one of the family, and who would later become one of the greatest authorities on Quran in the Muslim world.

Zubayr ibn al-Awwam, one of the Ten Promised Paradise, nephew of Khadijah, and a warrior of extraordinary courage.

Many others of similarly significant stature formed the bulk of the migration party. What they shared was the reality that remaining in Mecca had become incompatible with practicing their faith — and the decision to leave was not abandonment but obedience.

The Quraysh Embassy — A More Serious Attempt

The Quraysh sent a second embassy to the Negus — this time a more carefully prepared diplomatic mission. They sent Amr ibn al-As and Abdullah ibn Abi Rabia with gifts specifically calibrated to the tastes of the Negus's court and bishops, with the explicit goal of persuading the Negus to surrender the Muslims on religious grounds: the migrants had left the religion of their ancestors without entering Christianity, and therefore represented a lawless population whose extradition was a matter of simple order.

The Negus summoned the Muslims. The scene at court was the decisive encounter of the entire Abyssinian episode. Ja'far ibn Abi Talib stood and delivered the speech recorded in detail by Ibn Hisham and Ibn Kathir — describing the state of Arabia before the Prophet ﷺ, the nature of the Islamic message, and the Muslim position on Jesus and Mary. He then recited the opening of Surah Maryam (Chapter 19), with its account of the birth of Yahya (John) and the annunciation to Maryam (Mary) and the birth of 'Isa (Jesus).

The Negus wept. His bishops wept. The Negus picked up a stick, drew a line on the ground, and said: "The difference between what you say and what we believe about Jesus does not exceed this." He refused to hand over the Muslims. He said: "By Allah, I will never surrender them." He returned the gifts to the Qurayshi envoys and dismissed them from his court.

Life in Abyssinia

The community that established itself in Abyssinia under the protection of the Negus lived there for extended periods — some for more than a decade. They maintained their Islamic practice, raised families, and observed the unfolding events in Arabia from a distance. The Negus himself, in the accounts preserved by Ibn Hisham and confirmed by later Islamic tradition, eventually accepted Islam in private — his faith concealed from his court and subjects, as he ruled a Christian kingdom. When he died during the Prophet's ﷺ lifetime, the Prophet ﷺ announced his death to the companions in Medina and led them in the funeral prayer — the salat al-gha'ib, the prayer for the absent — the only known instance of this in his prophetic career.

The Muslim community in Abyssinia constituted something new in Islamic history: a Muslim community living under non-Muslim rule, practicing their faith, protected by a non-Muslim ruler who recognized their truth and refused to betray them. This precedent would have implications for Islamic legal thought about the status of Muslims living in dar al-kufr (lands of disbelief) that persist in jurisprudential discussions to the present day.

The Return

Most of the Abyssinian migrants eventually returned — some before the Hijra to Medina, most in the seventh year after the Hijra, following the conquest of Khaybar. When Ja'far returned to Medina, the Prophet ﷺ ran to greet him and kissed him between the eyes. Those who came back came as individuals refined by years of patient endurance and geographic displacement — a formative experience that the Quran would acknowledge and honor.

The Quran speaks directly to the virtue of the muhajirin — those who migrated for Allah's sake — in multiple chapters. The muhajirin of Abyssinia were not the same cohort as the muhajirin of the Hijra to Medina, but the Quran's acknowledgment of migration as an act of faith encompasses both. Allah says: "Those who emigrated for Allah's sake after having been wronged — We will surely give them a good place in this world, but the reward of the Hereafter is greater, if only they knew." (Surah al-Nahl, 16:41)

Significance

The second migration to Abyssinia matters for reasons beyond its immediate protective function. It demonstrated to the Quraysh — and to the Arab world watching — that the Muslim community would not simply submit to persecution. They had options, they had a just king willing to receive them, and they had the moral clarity to use those options. It demonstrated to the Muslims themselves that the ummah was not limited to Mecca, that belonging to this community transcended geography, and that Allah's protection could operate through the justice of a non-Muslim ruler who had not yet — or perhaps quietly had — accepted the truth of the message they carried.

The Abyssinian migration also shaped the community that survived to build the early Islamic state in Medina. Those who endured years in Abyssinia, who raised children in diaspora, who maintained their practice far from the Prophet ﷺ without his immediate guidance — they came back with a depth of individual faith that no amount of daily proximity alone could have produced. They had been tested in the most existential way: forced to choose between their community and their homeland, between safety and obedience. They had chosen Allah. The strength of the community that eventually built Medina was partly the strength of what those years in Abyssinia had forged.

Sources: Ibn Hisham, al-Sira al-Nabawiyya; Ibn Kathir, al-Bidayah wan-Nihayah; Ibn Sa'd, al-Tabaqat al-Kubra; al-Bayhaqi, Dala'il al-Nubuwwa; Surah al-Nahl (16:41); Surah Maryam (19)