Three Nights in the Cave of Thawr

After the Prophet ﷺ slipped past his would-be assassins and made his way to Abū Bakr's house, the two of them rode out into the darkness, heading due south. Madinah is due north. This was intentional.

❧Ghār Thawr

Ghār Ḥirāʾ, where revelation began, is north of Makkah. Ghār Thawr is south. It sits inside Jabal Thawr, a mountain requiring a two-and-a-half to three-hour climb from the city. Its cave is a crevice, not a large chamber. The entrance is at ground level, low and small, easily mistaken for just another crack in the rock face. There was barely room for two people. (In our times Ghār Thawr is somewhat larger because millions of visitors have walked in and out of it over fourteen centuries, gradually expanding it by erosion.)

The plan was to stay completely hidden for three nights. By going south, opposite to Madinah, they would confuse any immediate pursuit. By day three, any initial search would have expanded outward in other directions, and they could slip out northward via a route the Quraysh did not know.

❧Three helpers, three tasks

Abū Bakr had thought all of this through months before. He assigned three people three roles:

1. ʿAbdullāh ibn Abī Bakr (Abū Bakr's eldest son, a sharp and observant young man): Each morning, he would go into Makkah as though doing ordinary errands, shopping, tending animals. His real purpose was to listen. What are the Quraysh saying? Which valleys are they searching? Which direction is the main expedition heading? Each night, after dark, he would come to the cave with food and give a full intelligence briefing so the plan could be adapted.

2. ʿĀmir ibn Fuhayrah (Abū Bakr's freed slave, absolutely loyal): He would take a flock of sheep and graze them over and around the mountain each day, including back over the tracks that ʿAbdullāh ibn Abī Bakr left each time he visited. A skilled tracker following human footprints would lose the trail under hundreds of hoofprints. He also brought fresh milk to the cave each night as additional sustenance.

3. ʿAbdullāh ibn Urayqiṭ (a Bedouin guide from outside the Quraysh, not a Muslim): He would come on the morning after the third night, with the two prepared camels, and lead them south to the coast and then north to Madinah on a route that almost no one knew, what we now call Ṭarīq al-Hijrah.

❧Abū Bakr narrates: the Quraysh arrive

The most famous ḥadīth about the cave is muttafaq ʿalayh, Bukhārī and Muslim both. Abū Bakr narrated it himself, years later, from memory:

"I looked out and saw Abū Jahl, Umayyah ibn Khalaf, and a group of the Quraysh climbing the mountain." (They had been there for three days without any lead. Then, as narrated in al-Balādhurī and other early works, the Quraysh hired an expert Bedouin scout to trace the camel tracks from Abū Bakr's house. The scout followed the trail until it reached the base of Jabal Thawr. "From here," he said, "they went up. I cannot trace further on rock." It was enough of a lead. The Quraysh came in force.)

Abū Bakr said: "If any one of them looks down at his feet right now, he will see us." The cave entrance was at their feet level; they were walking on it. A glance downward at the crack in the rock and it would be over.

He whispered: "Yā Rasūlallāh, law naẓara aḥaduhum ilā qadamayhi la-abṣaranā, if even one of them looks at his own feet, he will see us."

And the Prophet ﷺ, peace be upon him, said to him the words that every Muslim knows and should memorize:

"Yā Abā Bakr, mā ẓannuka bi-thnayni Allāhu thālithuhumā?"

"O Abū Bakr, what do you think of two people, when Allah is the third of them?"

Allāh ʿazza wa-jall would not let them be found.

❧The miraculous protection

In the Musnad of Imām Aḥmad, with a slight weakness in its chain, there is a report that a spider wove its web across the entrance to the cave, and a dove (or two doves) built a nest and laid eggs just outside it. When the Quraysh reached the entrance, the undisturbed web and nest made it seem as though no one had entered, for surely a person entering would have broken the web and disturbed the birds. They moved on.

The tree bending over the mouth, and other miraculous shelter reports, are found in later narrations with missing links in their chains. We cannot say these did not happen, if Allāh willed them, there is no reason to deny them, but they are not established with the same strength as the chain in Aḥmad.

What is established without any chain question is the Prophet ﷺ's words to Abū Bakr: two people, Allāh the third. Whatever means Allāh used to protect them, He protected them.

❧The third morning

After three nights, ʿAbdullāh ibn Urayqiṭ arrived as planned with the two camels. The Prophet ﷺ, Abū Bakr, and the guide set off, heading south and west toward the coast, then turning north toward Madinah on the path that runs parallel to but separate from the known road. And on that journey: the encounter with Surāqah ibn Mālik.