Migration to Abyssinia: the first Hijra

According to Ibn Ishaq, Muhammad advised his persecuted followers to go to Abyssinia, “for the king will not tolerate injustice and it is a friendly country”. Muslim historians describe two migrations: a first group of about a dozen men and four women, led by Uthman ibn Maz'un and including Muhammad’s daughter Ruqayya and her husband Uthman ibn Affan, the future caliph, who sailed from the port of Shu'ayba; and, after some of them had returned on a false rumour that the Meccans had accepted Islam, a larger party of 83 men and their families led by Ja'far ibn Abi Talib. The first migration is dated to 613 or 615. Some Western historians, such as W. Montgomery Watt, doubted the scheme of two migrations and thought that the believers went over in several smaller groups.

According to Ibn Ishaq, the Quraysh sent Amr ibn al-As and Abd Allah ibn Abi Rabi'a with gifts of fine leather for the king and his generals to demand the return of the fugitives. The king heard both sides. Ja'far described how Muhammad had turned his people from idolatry and recited a passage from the Sura of Mary telling of Mary and the birth of Jesus, and the king, moved to tears, is said to have declared that this came from the same source as the Gospel. When the envoys claimed that the Muslims insulted Jesus, Ja'far answered that for them Jesus was the servant and messenger of God, His spirit and His word, and the king sent the envoys away with their gifts. Muslim tradition holds that the Najashi, named Ashama, himself became a Muslim and that when he died, around 630, Muhammad performed the funeral prayer for him in absentia.

Many of the exiles returned to Mecca and went on to Medina with the Hijra of 622, while others stayed in Aksum and joined Muhammad at Medina only in 628. Historians have tried to identify the Najashi with a king known from Aksumite sources, for example Armah, whose silver and copper coins survive, but such identifications are disputed. Another interpretation connects the refuge with the politics of the time: Aksum and Persia had competed for influence in Arabia since the previous century, and in 614 the Persians, who had once backed the Jewish kings of Himyar, took Jerusalem.