Year of Delegations (Am al-Wufud)

The ninth year of the Hijra is known as Sanat al-Wufud — the Year of Delegations — because tribe after tribe from across the Arabian Peninsula sent representatives to Medina to negotiate alliance, pay tribute, or accept Islam. After the Conquest of Mecca and the Battle of Hunayn had removed the last major military obstacles to Muslim political authority in Arabia, the calculus for every remaining tribe changed. The Quraysh had accepted Islam en masse. The Hawazin-Thaqif confederacy had been broken. The political reality of the peninsula had shifted, and the delegations came to Medina to acknowledge it. Ibn Hisham, Ibn Sa'd, and Ibn Kathir each record dozens of delegations, and acknowledge the list is not exhaustive. Tribes came from Yemen, Oman, Bahrain, the Najd, the Syrian frontier, and every region of Arabia. Some came as a formality to confirm alignments; others came with genuine questions about Islam and left as Muslims. Some sent advance parties and followed with larger groups. The Prophet ﷺ received each delegation personally, answered their questions with patience, honored their customs while requiring the essentials of faith, and sent teachers with those who accepted Islam. Surah al-Nasr — revealed in this period — named what was happening: 'When the victory of Allah has come and the opening, and you see the people entering into the religion of Allah in multitudes.' The phrase 'in multitudes' (afwajan) described precisely the delegations arriving collectively. Abu Bakr wept when he heard the surah, understanding that the completion implied the nearness of the Prophet's ﷺ death. The Prophet ﷺ appointed governors to newly Muslim territories: Muadh ibn Jabal to Yemen, Abu Musa al-Ash'ari to part of Yemen, Amr ibn al-As to Oman. The letters and instructions he sent with these governors constitute some of the earliest written records of Islamic governance principles. The Year of Delegations is the documentary record of how Arabia became Muslim. The Year of Delegations left behind the governors and teachers the Prophet ﷺ sent with each delegation — the letters and instructions he sent with them constituting some of the earliest written records of Islamic governance, transmitted across the Muslim world ever since.