Medina: the community and the pact

The mosque

The Prophet ﷺ built his mosque on the date-drying yard of two orphans of the Banu al-Najjar, Sahl and Suhayl (Ibn Hisham, I, 495-496; Ibn Sayyid al-Nas, I, 224; Bukhari 3906). The work went on until Safar of 2 AH (Ibn Sayyid al-Nas, I, 224), and the Prophet ﷺ carried bricks alongside his Companions (Bukhari 3906).

The land was bought. It was offered to him ﷺ: by the orphans themselves, in the account of Urwa ibn al-Zubayr reported by al-Bukhari (Bukhari 3906); by the Banu al-Najjar, who said they would seek its price from God alone, in Anas’s account (Bukhari 3932). But in the text of al-Bukhari on which Ibn Hajar comments, he does not take it “until he had bought it from them”, and the version of Abu Dharr, from al-Kushmihani, says that he refused to receive it as a gift (Ibn Hajar, Fath al-Bari, VII, 246). These words are missing from some copies of the hadith, including the one given on sunnah.com. Ibn Sayyid al-Nas also writes: “it has been reported that the Prophet ﷺ would take it only by paying for it, and God knows best” (Ibn Sayyid al-Nas, I, 224).

Who paid, and how much, remains debated. According to Ibn Ishaq, their guardian Mu’adh ibn Afra promised to compensate the orphans (Ibn Hisham, I, 496); the guardian is As’ad ibn Zurara according to al-Bukhari (Bukhari 3906). According to Ibn Sa’d, on the authority of al-Waqidi, the Prophet ﷺ charged Abu Bakr with paying them its price, ten dinars according to another transmission (Ibn Hajar, Fath al-Bari, VII, 246).

The call to prayer and the brotherhood

The call to prayer, the adhan, was instituted in 1 AH (Ibn Sayyid al-Nas, II, 351). Eight months after the arrival, according to Ibn Sayyid al-Nas, the Prophet ﷺ bound the Emigrants and the Ansar in brotherhood, two by two (Ibn Sayyid al-Nas, II, 352; Ibn Hisham, I, 505). Thus Abd al-Rahman ibn Awf became the brother of Sa’d ibn al-Rabi’ (Bukhari 2048). Ibn Sayyid al-Nas counts two brotherhoods, the first among the Emigrants themselves, before the Hijra (Ibn Sayyid al-Nas, I, 230).

Ibn Ishaq adds that the Prophet ﷺ took Ali by the hand, saying “this is my brother”. But he introduces the saying with caution: “according to what has reached us, and we seek refuge in God from attributing to him what he did not say” (Ibn Hisham, I, 505).

The pact of Medina

Ibn Ishaq gives the text of a document written by the Prophet ﷺ “between the Emigrants and the Ansar”, in which he made a truce and a covenant with the Jews and confirmed them in their religion and their property (Ibn Hisham, I, 501). This text:

• makes the believers of Quraysh and of Yathrib a single community, an umma (Ibn Hisham, I, 503);
• places the Jews of the Banu Awf and of the other clans “with the believers”, as a community, each keeping its own religion (Ibn Hisham, I, 503);
• provides that the Jews contribute to the expenses with the believers as long as they are at war (Ibn Hisham, I, 503-504);
• makes the interior of Yathrib inviolable for those who are party to it (Ibn Hisham, I, 504);
• refers every dispute “to God and to Muhammad, the Messenger of God ﷺ” (Ibn Hisham, I, 504).

Ibn Sayyid al-Nas reproduces it word for word, with minor variants, under the heading “the truce between the Muslims and the Jews” (Ibn Sayyid al-Nas, I, 227-228).

One limit must be stated: Ibn Ishaq gives this text without a chain (Ibn Hisham, I, 501). Two hadiths in al-Bukhari corroborate elements of it: the alliance the Prophet ﷺ concluded between Quraysh and the Ansar in the house of Anas (Bukhari 2294), and the sheet kept by Ali, on which is written “Medina is sacred” (Bukhari 1870). The pact therefore stands as the text Ibn Ishaq reports, supported by these corroborations, and not as a preserved document.

The qibla and the fast

In 1 AH, Abd Allah ibn Salam embraced Islam, according to Ibn Sayyid al-Nas (Ibn Sayyid al-Nas, II, 352); the expectation of a prophet among the Jews of Yathrib has its own page: The witnesses of the expectation.

In 2 AH, after sixteen or seventeen months of praying towards Jerusalem, the qibla was turned towards the Ka’ba (Bukhari 40; Ibn Sayyid al-Nas, II, 352; Ibn Hisham, I, 550):

In the same year, the fast of Ramadan and the alms at the end of the fast were prescribed (Ibn Sayyid al-Nas, II, 352).

A new society, according to al-Nadwi

The modern author al-Nadwi contrasts Mecca, with its single religion and single way of life, with Yathrib, where religions, cultures and interests lived side by side (al-Nadwi, p. 249). The Prophet ﷺ and the Emigrants, in his view, moved not from a city to a village, but from one city to another (al-Nadwi, p. 271), a more complex one, which only a prophet supported by God could unite. The Qur’an says so (8:62-63):

For him, the brotherhood was its first stone: the generosity of the Ansari, the dignity of the Emigrant, as with Sa’d ibn al-Rabi’ and Abd al-Rahman ibn Awf (Bukhari 2048; al-Nadwi, p. 281-282).

He also sees hypocrisy arising in Medina, where it had been unknown in Mecca: the new strength of Islam set two powers face to face there. Abd Allah ibn Ubayy, whom his people were about to crown, entered Islam only under constraint (Ibn Hisham, I, 584-585; Bukhari 4566; al-Nadwi, p. 283-285).

With the Jewish tribes, finally, he marks the difference between a political leader, who would have humoured them, and a prophet, charged with calling all people, the People of the Book included (al-Nadwi, p. 287).

The Jewish tribes, according to the sources

A hadith of Ibn Umar sums up what happened: “the Nadir and the Qurayza made war; he expelled the Nadir and let the Qurayza stay, granting them his favour, until the Qurayza made war” (Bukhari 4028).

The Banu Qaynuqa. According to Ibn Ishaq, on the authority of Asim ibn Umar ibn Qatada, they were “the first Jews to break” what bound them to the Prophet ﷺ, between Badr and Uhud (Ibn Hisham, II, 47). Ibn Sa’d dates the expedition against them to the middle of Shawwal 2 AH, twenty months after the Hijra (around April 624), and Ibn Sayyid al-Nas reports the warning the Prophet ﷺ gave them in their market, and their reply (Ibn Sayyid al-Nas, I, 343).

The Banu al-Nadir. Their expulsion is established (Bukhari 4028); Ibn Ishaq places it in 4 AH, and sura 59 came down concerning them (Ibn Hisham, II, 190-192). Ibn Ishaq gives the cause: having come to ask them to contribute to the blood money for two men of the Banu Amir, the Prophet ﷺ learned that they were planning to drop a stone on him from a rooftop (Ibn Hisham, II, 190). This is Ibn Ishaq’s account; the hadith of Ibn Umar speaks of war, without this detail.

The Banu Qurayza. In 5 AH, during the battle of the Trench, Ka’b ibn Asad broke his pact at the urging of Huyayy ibn Akhtab (Ibn Hisham, II, 221). After a siege of twenty-five nights (Ibn Hisham, II, 235), the Qurayza surrendered to the judgment of Sa’d ibn Mu’adh (Bukhari 3043), to whom the Prophet ﷺ said: “you have judged by the judgment of God” (Ibn Hisham, II, 240). The men were executed: six hundred or seven hundred, and between eight hundred and nine hundred according to “whoever gives the highest count” (Ibn Hisham, II, 241).

How this page connects to the others

• Before: Aqaba and the Hijra, and the first part of al-Nadwi’s reading.
• The Jews of Yathrib and the expectation of a prophet: The witnesses of the expectation.
• Badr, Uhud, the Trench, and what followed: From Badr to Tabuk.

Sources for this page

• Qur’an: Tanzil text (Uthmani); translation of the meaning by the site.
• Hadiths: Bukhari 40, Bukhari 1870, Bukhari 2048, Bukhari 2294, Bukhari 3043, Bukhari 3906, Bukhari 3932, Bukhari 4028, Bukhari 4566.
• Ibn Hisham, al-Sira al-nabawiyya, ed. al-Saqqa, al-Abyari and Shalabi, Cairo, 1955, I, 495-505, 550, 584-585; II, 47, 190-192, 221-241.
• Ibn Sayyid al-Nas, Uyun al-athar, Beirut, 1993, I, 224-230, 343; II, 351-352.
• Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani, Fath al-Bari sharh Sahih al-Bukhari, Dar al-Ma’rifa, Beirut, 1379 AH, VII, 246.
• Abu al-Hasan Ali al-Hasani al-Nadwi, al-Sira al-nabawiyya, Dar Ibn Kathir, Damascus and Beirut, 12th ed., 2004, p. 249, 271, 281-287.
• Research file “The message and the Hijra”, v1.0, 2 November 2026, section 5, “The Constitution of Medina”, “The Jewish tribes of Medina”.