In the Shade of the Blessed Prophetic Hijra

Occasion: A Fajr khatira delivered on 30 June 2025 Source: A transcription of a video khatira by Dr. Ahmed Abouseif — Watch the original video on YouTube

People celebrate the Hijra of the Prophet ﷺ, and one wonders at such occasions: why do we do that? Why do we celebrate the Hijra of the Prophet ﷺ? And the answer is that the Prophet ﷺ emigrated from Makkah to Madīnah, so one is asked: what are you celebrating?

The Hijra Was a Parting with No Joy in It

The Hijra in its form was nothing but the Prophet's ﷺ parting from his land and homeland and family and wealth and people and memories and heritage and experiences and life. And this is a matter many people do not rejoice in; that a person should be compelled to leave one land for another, or be driven out of it, is a sad matter. So why do we celebrate?

The Prophet ﷺ left Makkah for Madīnah after psychological and moral and physical and sensory and mental pressure, after pressure from every side from which a human being can receive it. And it is related that he ﷺ stood over Makkah and addressed it to the effect that had its people not driven him out he would not have left. So he ﷺ was compelled to leave. So why do we celebrate, then? Do we celebrate because he left Makkah for Madīnah and found a tranquil, happy life? What is the story?

We Celebrate What Came, Not What Was

The people of intellect who reflect on such matters say: we celebrate not what was, but what came. So what came? The stage of real achievements began in the life of the Muslim da'wah, when the Prophet ﷺ began to establish this ummah. So you see him achieve victory at Badr and at Uḥud and at the Trench, and even before that he achieves victory when he makes the first official constitution in the world of life for a civil city, in which law speaks in its own language. And law derived from the laws of heaven is the greatest kind of law; the law that combines the text of revelation and the application of this text in the movement of human beings and the circumstances of life is the greatest constitution in the world.

So the first achievement of the Prophet ﷺ in Madīnah was making this constitution that brings together the diverse groups and the differing ethnicities and the varied psychologies, and even what is claimed to be different religions; there are Jews, and there are Arabs, and there is Islam and Muslims, and the Prophet ﷺ combined all this in a legal formulation.

And you see him ﷺ achieve victory when he begins to feel freedom in the movement of the da'wah, so he corresponds with those around him and speaks with people, not at the limited level within Makkah, but at a larger regional level; he addresses this tribe and corresponds with it and receives its leaders. So we saw him achieve victory in making the foundation, and in freedom of da'wah, and in teaching people how believing civilizations live on the ground: there is no problem but it has a solution, and there is no defeat but the whole society feels its pain and weeps for its effect, and there is no morsel in the society but it knows where it goes and how it is divided among its members, according to the effort people expend and according to what they deserve to take. A very great equation that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ made in this land with this constitution and with this just distribution among all individuals.

And we saw him achieve victory by making a society in which people do not differ among themselves except when afflictions are present. And among that is the Jew who reminded the Aws and the Khazraj of the wars there had been between them, so some of them set against others, and they all made an appointment to kill one another, and then the Prophet ﷺ warned these people that they were demolishing what had been built until now, and reminded them of the call of the Jāhiliyya while he was among them; as though he ﷺ was saying to them: Do you want to demolish all that has been built of the people's Islam, and do you want to bring back your Jāhiliyya once again?

And so the victories of the Prophet ﷺ are seen in establishing the concepts of the Noble Qur'an in the minds of people. He has freedom of da'wah, and he has an open mosque, and he has the Friday sermon, and he has public meetings with people, and he has freedom of movement, and he has the ability to convey his message. This is a climate that existed in Madīnah, through which the da'wah could grow and multiply and become great, and this climate did not exist in blessed Makkah.

And What About Makkah?

Is Makkah then devoid of achievements? No; there are societal achievements, and there are individual achievements. And what happened in Makkah was the Prophet's ﷺ building of the characters of the individuals who carried the da'wah to Madīnah. Had it not been for Muṣʿab ibn ʿUmayr, the da'wah would not have existed in Madīnah with this great density. And likewise Abū Bakr al-Ṣiddīq and ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb and ʿUthmān, and these great and mighty figures for whom Allah, the Most High, combined the two goods of character and comprehension of Islam, so their characters were great, and their comprehension of Islam was great, indeed greater than the original nobility of their souls. So the Prophet ﷺ in Makkah over thirteen years made persons whom he brought into being by this da'wah, and they grew in it and by it, and lived it and lived by it and lived for it, so that when they went out to Madīnah they were the best helpers to the Messenger of Allah ﷺ in carrying out this great task.

Where Are Our Own Achievements?

I wonder now, after this review: where are the achievements that we ourselves have attained after our emigration from our countries to this country? Each one of us must, even if we do not find a plain and clear answer, ask himself about the proportion of achievements he has attained after his emigration from his country to here. And we have a set of measures.

Material achievement. It is part of human nature that each of us senses material achievements, and no one is blamed for that. But have we really achieved material achievements? Does this country leave us to earn and save until we have a large good balance? I always say to people: in our countries the young people imagine that here we pick up money from the street. And in the joke, someone was told: as soon as you land in America you will find money in the street, so our friend got off at the airport and found some poor fellow who hit him and took what he had with him. The conclusion is that this country knows how to give you, and knows how to take from you, so hardly anyone rests at the end of the year with anything in hand even if he has achieved a quantity of achievements. And our only wealth, and this is a talk I have been stressing to myself since the first moment I came to this country: your only "savings" are in your children; if you can invest in your children, that is the greatest saving, and as for anything less than that, do not ask about any remaining money that stays in your hands.

Moral achievement. Did people, when they came to America, improve in their psychological states and rise in their morale and settle psychologically and live a happy, comfortable life? On the contrary; ninety-nine percent of the human beings you see, unfortunately, are psychologically broken.

Family achievement. Have we succeeded at the family level? Have we been able to keep our family together, and to protect our children, and to keep our wives, and to be at ease for our children with life stable? Or have we lost large parts of psychological and moral stability?

Da'wah achievement. And all of that is on one side, and the da'wah achievement remains on the other: what da'wah achievements has each of us attained? Have we contributed to spreading the call of Allah, blessed and exalted? I wonder, as I mentioned before: if I had neighbors among whom I lived five or ten years and none of them came to know me or my character or my way or my Islam, how would I meet Allah, glory and exaltation be to Him, with these people? How would I meet Allah, Mighty and Majestic, on the Day of Resurrection, with neighbors who knew nothing of Islam except the loud voice that comes out of the house and the quarrels night and day? And in principle we see them doing that; but glory be to Allah, in the area where I live now, for about five years I have not seen the police enter anyone's house because of a problem between them, and we have not heard anyone's voice shouting except mine. (And I am joking, of course.)

Conclusion

If we want to celebrate the Hijra as a defeat, we have no justification for that, and if we celebrate the Hijra as an achievement, we must ask ourselves: where are our achievements in this life of ours?

I ask Allah, the Most High, to realize His religion through us, and that we not be defeated before ourselves, and that we not be an example for the nations on the Day of Resurrection, and that we not be a burden on Islam and on our religion. I ask Allah to establish faith in our hearts, and to preserve God-fearing in our souls, and the well-being of our hearts and bodies, and to make us a means of support for this religion and a help to its people. O Allah, āmīn.