"Entering the Religion of Allah in Multitudes"

Allah (ʿazza wa jall) says:

When the victory of Allah has come, and the conquest, and you see the people entering the religion of Allah in multitudes, then exalt Him with praise of your Lord, and ask forgiveness of Him; indeed, He is ever Accepting of repentance. When the victory of Allah has come, and the conquest, the result of that would be that people would enter Islam. As is mentioned in the books of sīrah, the tribes of Arabia were watching the conflict between the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) and Quraysh, and they were waiting to see who would win. When the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) defeated Quraysh, the Arabs then came in multitudes, accepting Islam. Quraysh were seen as the religious authority: they were the keepers of the House of Allah; they were the ones who managed the affairs of the people in Ḥajj and ʿUmrah; they were the ones who lived in Makkah, and Makkah was the religious centre of the Arabs; so people used to look up to them. And when Muḥammad (peace be upon him) announced his prophethood, and the war between him and Quraysh started, many of them wanted to sit on the sidelines and not take a position until they saw where this conflict was heading.

After Makkah was opened, pretty soon after that the tribes around Makkah started accepting Islam — such as Hawāzin; many of them became Muslim — and then after that Thaqīf also came and accepted Islam: it has been told how they were besieged, and the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) left them, and eventually they came of their own choice and accepted Islam. So there were Quraysh and Thaqīf, the largest and most important two tribes in the area, accepting Islam; and after that people were just flooding into Madīnah, accepting Islam. So the ninth year of the hijrah was called the Year of Delegations.

These tribes would send their representatives to Madīnah, and they would pledge allegiance to the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him). And this pledge of allegiance was also a pledge of allegiance to the Islamic state: it was not as though they were only accepting Islam and then leaving; no — they were becoming part of the political entity of Madīnah, because the bayʿah they were giving was a bayʿah to the head of state, the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him); so they were accepting his ḥukm; they were accepting his rule. Ibn Kathīr, Ibn Isḥāq and al-Wāqidī mention many delegations; some of them are gone through here.

And one needs to keep in mind here that even though these all became Muslim, and they are counted as Companions of the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him), it is considered that whoever became Muslim before the conquest of Makkah has a higher status than those who became Muslim after the conquest of Makkah. Why? Because after the conquest of Makkah it was becoming very clear that victory in the dunyā belonged to the Muslims; but for the ones who accepted Islam before that, becoming Muslim was a choice they would make knowing that they would face hardship and would have to make sacrifices. So the earlier you became Muslim, the more difficult it was. And that is why Allah says, in Sūrat al-Ḥadīd: not equal among you are those who spent before the conquest — and this refers to the conquest of Makkah — and fought, and those who did so after it; those are greater in degree than those who spent afterwards and fought (57:10).