The Muslims Live Under Cruel Rules

This Sirah lesson tells one of the hardest chapters in the early history of Islam the years our beloved Prophet Muhammad ﷺ and the Muslims spent cut off from the world, surviving in a small valley outside Makkah.

The Quraysh were watching Islam grow and they could not stand it. More and more people were accepting the truth, so they made a plan. They wrote three cruel rules onto a scroll and hung it inside the Kaʿbah: nobody will give the Muslims food or water, nobody will speak to them, and nobody will buy from them or sell to them. The Prophet’s ﷺ family, Banu Hashim, refused to abandon him. So together Muslims and family alike they left Makkah and moved into a small valley. Their food ran out. They drank rainwater. They chewed dry leaves to survive. Days became months. Months became years. Nearly three years passed like that. And through all of it, the Muslims stayed strong and kept praying to Allah.

Then something happened that the Quraysh could not explain. Our beloved Prophet ﷺ told his uncle Abu Talib: “Allah has informed me that insects have eaten the scroll, except for the name of Allah.” When the Quraysh went to check, it was exactly as he said. They were stunned. The cruel rules ended. The Muslims returned to Makkah.

The name of Allah was the only thing left. That says everything.

The lesson pauses here with a question that sits with young learners long after the page is turned: how can we be kind and help people who are being treated badly?