al-Lat, as he previously destroyed all other idols.
When the pilgrimage season at the end of the ninth year after the Hijrah approached, the Prophet appointed his Companion, Abū Bakr, to lead the pilgrimage. Abū Bakr travelled to Makkah with a good number of Muslims. Shortly after his departure, God revealed Sūrah 9 of the Qur’ān, which opens with an announcement addressed to the remaining unbelievers in Arabia. Since the announcement gave notice to all Arabs, it had to be made, as the sūrah states in its opening, on the grand day of pilgrimage. Therefore, the Prophet sent his cousin, ʿAlī, to make the announcement: according to the Arabian tradition, it had to be made on his behalf by a member of his own family. The opening of the sūrah is as follows:
Disavowal by God and His Messenger [is hereby announced] to those of the idolaters with whom you have made a treaty. [Announce to them:] You may go freely in the land for four months, but you must realize that you can never escape God’s judgement, and that God shall bring disgrace upon the unbelievers. And a proclamation from God and His Messenger is hereby made to all mankind on this day of the greater pilgrimage: God is free from obligation to the idolaters, and so is His Messenger. If you repent, it shall be for your own good; and if you turn away, then know that you can never escape God’s judgement. Give the unbelievers the news of grievous suffering, except for those idolaters with whom you have made a treaty and who have honoured their obligations [under the treaty] in every detail, and have not aided anyone against you. To these fulfil your obligations until their treaties have run their term. God loves those who are righteous. When these months of grace are over, slay the idolaters wherever you find them, and take them captive, besiege them, and lie in wait for them at every conceivable place. Yet if they should repent, take to prayer and pay the zakāt, let them go their way. For God is Much-forgiving, Merciful. (9: 1-5)
This announcement meant that the Muslims were bound by the treaties they made with believers to the end of the terms specified by those treaties, provided that the other party had honoured their obligations under their treaty in full. Those who had not honoured their treaties in full were given notice of cancellation. Likewise, those who had treaties that did not specify a date of termination were also given notice of termination of the treaties. In both these last cases, the notice allowed them a period of grace of four months. They had to make their choice during those four months: either they would accept Islam and live as Muslims or they must leave the Arabian Peninsula. In effect, the announcement claimed Arabia as a land of Islam where no pagans could live.
ʿAlī and Abū Bakr made the announcement on the day of attendance at ʿArafāt, where all pilgrims gather. They then made it again on the following day, which was the day of sacrifice. Again all pilgrims would be there. Furthermore, Abū Bakr sent callers to the camps of all tribes to make the announcement. Thus, all pilgrims were aware of it, which meant that all tribes heard of it as soon as their pilgrims returned home. Another announcement made clear that this was the last year that idolaters were allowed to offer the pilgrimage. No one was ever to be allowed to go around the Kaʿbah naked, as the Quraysh imposed on visitors from outside Makkah. This was a distortion of the worship rituals established by the Prophet Abraham when he built the Kaʿbah.
This announcement was made at the end of year 9 AH (631 CE). The following year is known in Islamic history as the Year of Delegations: delegations of Arabian tribes continued to come to Madinah where they pledged their loyalty to the Prophet as Muslims. They came from every corner of the Peninsula, including Yemen, Oman and the eastern and central parts. This ensured that the whole of the Arabian Peninsula accepted Islam as its faith. This was a remarkable achievement for the Prophet, as it had taken only twenty-two lunar years for Islam to be the only religion of all Arabs in the Arabian Peninsula. Of course, there were other religions in Arabia. The Jews continued to live in Khaybar and other northern towns. There were Christians as well in Najrān in the south-west. The announcement did not apply to these: it applied only to the Arab idolaters. It was important that idolatry should disappear from Arabia.
As the tenth year after the Hijrah was coming to an end, the pilgrimage season was again approaching. The pilgrimage is one of the five main duties of Islamic worship: it is required of every Muslim, man or woman, at least once in a lifetime, provided that they have the means to offer it. So far, the Prophet could not offer the pilgrimage, because the Quraysh denied Muslims access to the Ḥaram area. The Prophet could have offered the pilgrimage a year earlier, but he did not wish to see idolaters performing their worship in the nude. Now that this was no longer the case, the Prophet announced his intention to offer the pilgrimage in the coming season. He sent messages making his intention clear to people all over Arabia. Therefore, pilgrims from all areas around Madinah and to the north came over to join him on his pilgrimage journey. As he proceeded, a large number of people went with him. Estimates of those pilgrims starting with the Prophet from Madinah vary between 90,000 and 130,000 people. A similar number awaited him in Makkah, where people from southern areas joined the population of Makkah.
The pilgrimage involves a series of rituals and duties of worship to be offered at particular places in Makkah and in the area close to it. The Prophet told people to follow his guidance in offering their duties. Throughout the journey the Prophet clearly had an important objective besides showing the people how their rituals should be offered: he wanted to make the pilgrimage easy for all. With such a large crowd moving from one place to another and attending to worship duties within a short span of time, a strict order and a rigid pattern would cause substantial inconvenience and hardship. Therefore, the Prophet provided maximum leeway in every respect, while making sure that the duties and rituals were offered correctly and within time.
The Prophet delivered a speech in which he outlined the main principles of Islam. He abrogated all usurious transactions that were made by anyone prior to their adoption of Islam, starting with those of his own uncle, al-ʿAbbās. He also waived all revenge for any killing that took place prior to Islam, starting with the killing of one of his own cousins. Thus, he provided a model for all Muslims to follow.
In his speech he outlined five basic principles of the Islamic programme of action. The first two principles operate on the level of the individual. The first indicate that Islam severs all ties that a Muslim has with Jāhiliyyah (its idols, practices, financial dealings, usury transactions and so on), because the adoption of the religion of Islam means a start of a new life for a Muslim which is completely divorced from the erroneous ways of the past. The second requires every Muslim to guard against all forms of sin. The Prophet also made it clear that, by sin, he did not mean the sinking back into idolatrous worship: he meant lesser sins that lead people away from the path of Islam. The other three principles provide the basis on which Islamic society is founded. One is the tie of Islamic brotherhood, which moulds the proper relationship between all Muslims. It is this brotherhood that makes every Muslim a patron and ally of every other Muslim. Next is the providing of support for the weak, so that their weakness does not make the whole society vulnerable. It is noteworthy that the Prophet repeatedly stressed the importance of being kind to women, since they were the weaker element in society. The last principle is the co-operation between Islamic government and the members of Islamic society to achieve the proper implementation of Islamic law, which works toward the removal of all evil from society and its replacement with what is good.
The Prophet repeatedly asked his audience whether he had delivered God’s message to them. Every time they replied that he did. He asked God to be his witness. This was an emotional gesture that showed his heartfelt wish that his tireless efforts had enabled him to fulfil his task as God’s Messenger and deliver God’s message to its intended addressees: namely, all mankind.
With the completion of the pilgrimage, the Prophet had indeed completed his mission, advocating God’s message and calling on people to accept the faith of Islam based on self-surrender to God. He had shown them how to offer all their duties. He had shown them the way to conduct their lives in accordance with Islam, to earn God’s pleasure and to be sure of receiving His reward, which is admittance into heaven in the life to come. During the pilgrimage, a Qur’ānic verse was revealed to him: “This day I have perfected your religion for you and have bestowed on you the full measure of My blessings and have chosen Islam as a religion for you.” (5: 3)
The Prophet then returned to Madinah, and less than three months later,