The Boycott and the Year of Sorrow

This in-depth content is currently written in English. A faithful translation is in progress.

وَلَنَبْلُوَنَّكُمْ حَتَّىٰ نَعْلَمَ الْمُجَاهِدِينَ مِنْكُمْ وَالصَّابِرِينَ

And We will surely test you until We make evident those among you who strive and those who are steadfast.

— Quran 47:31

A Written Pact of Isolation

Frustrated by their inability to break Abu Talib's protection of the Prophet or crush the growing community through persecution alone, Quraysh's leaders drafted a formal boycott document against the clans of Banu Hashim and Banu al-Muttalib, whether they had accepted Islam or not, so long as they stood by the Prophet. The pact forbade all of Mecca from trading with them, marrying into their families, or even speaking with them, and it was hung inside the Ka'bah as a binding communal oath. The intent was to starve the two clans into surrendering the Prophet or abandoning him altogether, using economic and social strangulation where direct violence had failed.

Confined to the Mountain Pass

For roughly three years, Banu Hashim and Banu al-Muttalib, including believers and non-believing relatives alike who chose loyalty to kin over Quraysh's demands, were forced into a narrow mountain pass on Mecca's outskirts known as Shi'b Abi Talib. Supplies dwindled severely; there are accounts of children crying from hunger and people reduced to eating leaves and whatever scraps could be smuggled in by sympathetic individuals outside the boycott's reach. Only during the sacred pilgrimage months, when tribal warfare and hostility were traditionally suspended, could the clan briefly emerge to trade, and even then at unfair, inflated prices imposed by opportunistic Quraysh traders.

The Boycott Unravels

The siege eventually collapsed from within Quraysh itself. A handful of men, some moved by kinship ties to Banu Hashim and others troubled by the boycott's cruelty, began working secretly to void the pact. According to the Sira tradition, the document hung in the Ka'bah was found to have been eaten by insects, leaving only the phrase invoking God's name intact, a detail the Prophet is said to have informed his uncle of beforehand. Confronted with this, and with public opinion turning against the boycott's harshness, Quraysh's leadership was pressured into ending it, and the two clans returned to Mecca's streets after years of hardship and isolation.

The Death of Khadijah (RA)

The relief was short-lived. Soon after the boycott ended, in the year 619 CE, Khadijah bint Khuwaylid, the Prophet's wife of twenty-five years, passed away. She had been his first believer, his confidante, and the one who had comforted him in his most frightened moment after the first revelation, staking her wealth and standing behind his mission from its very first day. Her death left a void the Prophet mourned deeply for the rest of his life, and he would later speak of her with enduring tenderness, recalling her loyalty when the whole world had turned him away.

The Death of Abu Talib and 'Aam al-Huzn

Within the same short span, Abu Talib, the uncle who had raised, sheltered, and defended the Prophet since childhood despite never openly accepting Islam himself, also died. His passing stripped away the Prophet's last layer of tribal protection in Mecca, and almost immediately the harassment from Quraysh grew bolder and more menacing, no longer restrained by fear of Abu Talib's clan retaliation. The Prophet came to remember this period, with the loss of his two greatest earthly supporters occurring so close together, as 'Aam al-Huzn — the Year of Sorrow, one of the most painful stretches of his entire life, and a moment that made clear his complete reliance on God alone.

In the space of a single grieving year, the Prophet lost his fiercest protector and his gentlest companion, and found that his mission would now have to stand on faith alone.

Sira reports can differ in chronology and detail. Read narrative claims with the cited Quranic passage and the site's editorial methodology in view.