Miraculous Protection: How Often He ﷺ Was Saved

Shaykh Yasir Qadhi explains:

The fourth category is the miraculous protection Allāh gave His Prophet ﷺ, how many times, out of nowhere, he was saved. The whole of the night of the Hijrah is one long protection: the cave of Thawr (غَار ثَوْر), the spider's web, walking out past the very feet of his pursuers while Abū Bakr trembled and he said إِذْ يَقُولُ لِصَاحِبِهِ لَا تَحْزَنْ إِنَّ اللَّهَ مَعَنَا, "Do not grieve; indeed Allāh is with us" (9:40), and Surāqah ibn Mālik's failed pursuit.

❧Abū Jahl at the Kaʿbah

As the Prophet ﷺ prayed, Abū Jahl finally resolved to kill him, then was seen backing away. Asked why, he said he had seen a stallion camel with fiery eyes and fangs sharp as razors coming to devour him; "By Allāh, had I taken one more step it would have torn me apart." There was no camel to be seen.

❧On the battlefields

Badr, يَوْم الْفُرْقَان, three hundred lightly armed Companions against a thousand of the Quraysh. The Khandaq. And even Uḥud, no doubt a partial defeat, where Allāh preserved the person of the Prophet ﷺ though he was wounded, perhaps his closest brush with death. When ʿĀʾishah asked whether any day had been worse than Uḥud, he answered that the day of Ṭāʾif was worse; Allāh protected him through both. And Ḥunayn as well. Whether by angels descending, or an animal held back like Surāqah's horse, or one sent like the spider, again and again the protection came.