The Flight to Medina

After thirteen years of oppression, he makes a migration to Medina. It is actually a flight. It is called the hijrah. He flees there because they actually tried to kill him at that point. And he goes there, and many people begin to become Muslim.

Now the discourse, the Qurʾānic discourse, radically changes from the Meccan period to the Medinan period. One will see a change between these two. The focus of the verses moves away from these topics to the social environment: how to implement. Once these things have been internalised, interiorised, how are they implemented in social behaviour? If you believe in God, what is that going to do to alter your character, to alter your behaviour? How will that change you as an individual, as a person? So the focus becomes character, building a community, building a society.

So one will see that many of the verses revealed in Mecca begin: O humanity, O humankind. But in Medina they begin: O you who have accepted. In other words, the call in Mecca was to people; from amongst those people there were those who responded, and now the revelation is going to focus on creating an environment in which this teaching will manifest at the societal level, not simply at the individual level.

And so the next ten years are the Medinan period. For ten years — it is called the Medinan period. Now, the interesting thing about the Qurʾān is that within Meccan verses are Medinan verses, and within Medinan verses are Meccan āyāt. In other words, there are sections; because over the twenty-three-year period, according to the tradition of the Sunni Muslims, during this period it is our belief that Gabriel was coming to the Prophet (peace be upon him) and telling him the order that the Qurʾān should be in. So it was revealed non-linearly, but now it begins to move into a type of sequence, beginning mostly with the Medinan sūrahs in the beginning and the Meccan sūrahs at the end.

After ten years — during that time the entire Qurʾān is written during the lifetime of the Prophet (peace be upon him), but it is not collected together. There is no collection; but during his lifetime the entire Qurʾān is written in his presence. And the Muslims do not have any doubt about that. The Orientalists — the older ones are actually better than the more recent ones from Germany — would definitely challenge that claim. But the Muslims would not. This is our belief, that during that time it was written.

Now, in 632 the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) dies. At that point there are even a few revelations right before his death, and we know what they were, which verses they were. So the Prophet (peace be upon him) left companions behind who had memorised the entire Qurʾān. One of them was Ubayy ibn Kaʿb, whom the Prophet (peace be upon him) was commanded to have recite the Qurʾān to him, and he would listen to it. Many of the companions had memorised the Qurʾān during this time completely. At this point they are teaching the people, and Islam is beginning to spread.