At a Glance

Background: The Boycott Years

To understand the Year of Sorrow, we must look at the three years before it. Around 616 CE, the leaders of the Quraysh imposed a crushing social and economic boycott on the clan of Banu Hashim, the Prophet’s clan, to force them to withdraw their protection from him. The terms were written into a deed and hung inside the Kaaba: no one would marry their women, and no one would buy from them or sell to them.

The clan withdrew into the mountain pass of Shi’b Abi Talib, where they endured hunger so severe that the seerah accounts say they survived on leaves, and the crying of hungry children could be heard in the night. The boycott lasted about three years, until a group of sympathetic Quraysh leaders moved to annul it, and the deed was found eaten away, with only the name of Allah remaining. The siege ended in 619 CE, and the Muslims returned to their homes in Makkah. The worst, it must have seemed, was behind them.

What Happened

The Death of Abu Talib

Shortly after the boycott ended, Abu Talib, the Prophet’s uncle and the chief of Banu Hashim, fell gravely ill. He was the man who had raised Muhammad from the age of eight, after the death of his grandfather Abdul Muttalib. For ten years of prophethood, Abu Talib had stood between his nephew and the worst violence of the Quraysh. His clan protection was considered inviolable by Meccan custom, and as long as he lived, the Prophet’s enemies could not touch him.

The Prophet visited his dying uncle and pleaded with him to accept Islam, saying the words of the testimony so that he could intercede for him. But the leaders of the Quraysh were at the bedside, urging Abu Talib to stay on the religion of his fathers, and he passed away without accepting the message. The Prophet grieved deeply for the uncle who had protected him all his life but had not entered the faith.

The Death of Khadijah

Within weeks of Abu Talib’s death, a second blow fell. Khadijah, the Prophet’s wife of twenty-five years, passed away at about sixty-five years of age. She had been the first person to believe in him, the one who comforted him on the night of the first revelation, who spent her wealth for the cause, and who endured the hunger of the boycott years beside him. The seerah writers note that during her entire life with him, he took no other wife.

The Prophet’s grief was profound. The companions later said they did not see him smile for months. He had lost, in a single year, the two people who had sheltered him most: his protector in the world and his comfort at home. That is why this year became known in the seerah tradition as ‘Aam al-Huzn, the Year of Sorrow.

The Journey to Taif

With Abu Talib gone, the Prophet’s position in Makkah became dangerous. The Quraysh’s attacks grew bolder, with some throwing filth on him in the street. Seeking a new base for the message, he traveled to Taif, a town in the mountains southeast of Makkah, accompanied only by his freedman Zayd ibn Harithah. He called the leaders of the Thaqif tribe to Islam and asked for their protection.

They refused him cruelly. They set the street crowds and slaves upon him, pelting him with stones until his sandals filled with blood. Zayd shielded him with his own body and was wounded in the head. The Prophet took shelter in an orchard, where he raised his hands in a dua of profound humility, complaining to Allah of his weakness and helplessness, yet declaring that he did not care as long as Allah was not angry with him.

According to the hadith in Sahih al-Bukhari, the angel of the mountains then came to him and offered to crush the people of Taif between the two mountains. The Prophet refused. Instead, he expressed the hope that Allah would bring forth from their descendants a people who would worship Him alone. It was mercy at the very moment when revenge would have been easiest.

On his return to Makkah, the Prophet could not enter the city without protection. He sent to several leaders, and it was Mut’im ibn Adi, of the Banu Nawfal, who granted him clan protection, escorting him into Makkah with his armed sons. The Prophet never forgot the favor: years later, after the Battle of Badr, he said that if Mut’im had been alive and asked him for the captives, he would have released them all for his sake.

Key Figures

• Khadijah (RA): the Prophet’s wife of twenty-five years, the first believer, who died at about sixty-five in 619 CE.
• Abu Talib: the Prophet’s uncle and chief of Banu Hashim, whose protection had shielded the message for a decade.
• Zayd ibn Harithah (RA): the Prophet’s freedman and companion, who shielded him with his body at Taif.
• Mut’im ibn Adi: the Meccan chief who granted the Prophet protection on his return from Taif.

Lessons and Legacy

The Year of Sorrow teaches us that grief is not a weakness in faith. The Prophet, the most beloved of Allah’s creation, grieved so openly and so long that an entire year of his life was named for it. His sorrow did not shake his trust: at Taif, bleeding and rejected, he still turned to Allah with hope for the very people who had hurt him, and refused the angel’s offer of vengeance.

The year also marks a turning point in the seerah. With Makkah closed to him, the Prophet began looking outward, and within two years the people of Yathrib would pledge themselves to him. The sorrow of 619 CE was the darkness before the dawn of the Hijrah. And between the two came one of the greatest honors of his life: Al-Isra wal-Mi’raj, the Night Journey, when Allah raised him through the heavens in the very year his earthly supports had fallen.

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Final Thoughts

The Year of Sorrow shows us the Prophet at his most human: grieving, bleeding, and rejected, yet still merciful, still hopeful, still turning to Allah. It is a comfort for every believer who has known loss, because the best of creation knew it too, and named a year for it. From that sorrow came the Night Journey, and from the Night Journey came the road to Madinah. Allah’s pattern is constant: with hardship comes relief, and the relief is always greater than the eye can see.