Second Pledge of Aqabah

# The Second Pledge of Aqabah

The Night That Made the Hijra Possible

The Second Pledge of Aqabah took place in the twelfth year of prophethood, in the month of Dhul-Hijjah — approximately 622 CE, the final pilgrimage season before the Hijra. Seventy-three men and two women from Yathrib came to Mecca with the pilgrimage caravan, and in the middle of the night, they slipped away from their encampment in Mina and gathered with the Prophet ﷺ and his uncle al-Abbas ibn Abd al-Muttalib in the pass of al-Aqabah.

The First Pledge of Aqabah (the previous year) had been a pledge of faith and personal conduct. The Second Pledge was categorically different: it was a pledge of full political allegiance and military protection — a pledge to receive the Prophet ﷺ in Yathrib, to defend him as they would defend their own families, and to fight in the way of Allah. It was, in every meaningful sense, the foundational political compact of the first Islamic state.

Al-Abbas's Role

Al-Abbas ibn Abd al-Muttalib — the Prophet's uncle who had not yet accepted Islam at this point (his Islam came at or after the conquest of Mecca) — was present at the pledge. His presence is one of the remarkable features of the event. Al-Abbas came to assess the Yathribis himself, to make sure that if his nephew was going to commit to leaving Mecca and placing himself under the protection of these people, they understood what they were taking on and were capable of following through.

Al-Abbas addressed the gathering first. He said: "O people of the Khazraj — and by this name I address everyone present, whether Khazraj or Aws — Muhammad is in honor and protection among his own people. He is safe among his family. Yet he has decided to join you and separate from us. If you are people who can fulfill what you promise and can protect him from his enemies, then take on this burden. But if you intend to betray him or abandon him after he has gone to you, abandon him now — leaving him where he is is safer for him than what you are proposing."

The Yathribi delegation responded through their spokesman, al-Bara ibn Ma'rur: "We have heard what you say. By Allah, we are people of war, people of weapons — we have inherited this from father to son. The Prophet ﷺ can come to us."

The Terms of the Pledge

The Prophet ﷺ then addressed the assembly directly and recited verses from the Quran. He described the terms of the pledge:

The Yathribis pledged to:

• Hear and obey in times of energy and laziness
• Spend in times of ease and difficulty
• Command what is right and forbid what is wrong
• Stand for the truth regardless of the opposition
• Aid and protect the Prophet ﷺ when he came to Yathrib as they would protect their own wives and children

The Prophet ﷺ asked what they would receive in return. The answer, in the hadith recorded by Ahmad and Ibn Hisham: Paradise.

Asad ibn Zurara, who had been one of the first six Muslims from Yathrib and had hosted Musab for the year, called for the community to stretch out their hands. They pledged. The Prophet ﷺ shook their hands and accepted their oath. Seventy-three men and two women — the two women pledged verbally, not by hand, in accordance with the established practice — bound themselves and their city to the mission of Islam.

The Twelve Naqibs

After the pledge, the Prophet ﷺ asked the Yathribis to select twelve naqibs — leaders or overseers — from among their number to be responsible for their people's faithfulness to the pledge. The model was explicit: "As Isa requested twelve disciples among the Children of Israel to be responsible for their people, so I ask you to appoint twelve naqibs." Nine naqibs came from the Khazraj and three from the Aws, reflecting the relative population proportions. Their names are recorded in Ibn Hisham: they included Asad ibn Zurara, Sa'd ibn Ubada, Abd al-Rahman ibn Awf's close companion, and others who would become central figures in the Medinan period.

The Quraysh Learns of the Pledge

The gathering had taken place in secrecy — the Yathribi pilgrims had left their encampment in the middle of the night to avoid detection. But news reached the Quraysh the next day. The Quraysh came to the Yathribi encampment and confronted the leaders of the delegation, asking about the reports of a secret meeting with Muhammad. The leaders of the delegation who had not attended — and who genuinely did not know the details — said they knew nothing of such a pledge. The Quraysh had some information but not enough to act on with certainty.

The Prophet ﷺ instructed the Yathribis to return to their city and await his instructions. Over the following weeks and months, the Muslims in Mecca began migrating to Yathrib in small groups. The Hijra proper — the Prophet's ﷺ own migration — came months later, when the Quraysh convened the council that decided on assassination.

What the Second Pledge Meant

The Second Pledge of Aqabah is the moment at which Islam became more than a community of believers — it became a political entity with a territorial base, a governing compact, and a military capacity. The Prophet ﷺ was no longer preaching under someone else's protection in someone else's city. He was about to become the leader of a city that had voluntarily chosen to receive him and defend him.

The transition this represented was theological as well as political. The early Meccan years had been defined by patience under persecution, migration as a response to oppression, and the private preservation of faith under hostile conditions. What followed the Second Pledge — the Hijra, the Constitution of Medina, the battles of Badr and Uhud and the Trench, the diplomacy with surrounding tribes and kingdoms, and eventually the return to Mecca — was the full expression of Islam as a complete way of life governing not just private piety but public order, law, war, and peace.

It began here, in the dark of a pass outside Mina, with seventy-three men and two women from Yathrib stretching out their hands and saying: we will take him, we will protect him, we will fight for him. We will earn Paradise.

Sources: Ibn Hisham, al-Sira al-Nabawiyya; Ibn Kathir, al-Bidayah wan-Nihayah; Ibn Sa'd, al-Tabaqat al-Kubra; Ahmad ibn Hanbal, al-Musnad; al-Tabari, Tarikh al-Umam wal-Muluk