Kinlore
630–632

Return to Mecca and the Death of the Prophet

Muhammad enters Mecca almost without bloodshed, clears the Kaaba of idols, makes his Farewell Pilgrimage and dies in Medina in 632.

  • Muhammad — Encyclopaedia Britannica
  • Muhammad: His Life Based on the Earliest Sources — Martin Lings, George Allen & Unwin (1983)
  • The Prophet and the Age of the Caliphates — Hugh Kennedy, Longman (1986)
  • Muhammad and the Believers: At the Origins of Islam — Fred M. Donner, Harvard University Press (2010)
  • Hajj Statistics Publication 2024 — General Authority for Statistics (GASTAT), Saudi Arabia (2024)

Well established faithprophetcommunity

Part of the story of Islam and Saudi Arabia.

After years of war with Mecca, including the battles of Badr (624) and Uhud (625) and the failed siege of Medina (627), the two sides agreed a truce at Hudaybiya in 628. When it broke down, Muhammad marched on Mecca in 630 with a large army. The city surrendered with little fighting, and he granted a general amnesty to his former enemies. He cleared the Kaaba of its idols and rededicated it to the one God.

  • Muhammad: His Life Based on the Earliest Sources — Martin Lings, George Allen & Unwin (1983)
  • Muhammad — Encyclopaedia Britannica
  • The Prophet and the Age of the Caliphates — Hugh Kennedy, Longman (1986)

Over the next two years most Arabian tribes sent delegations to accept his authority. In March 632 he led the pilgrimage to Mecca himself, the Farewell Pilgrimage, whose rites became the pattern of the Hajj. In a sermon on that pilgrimage, as the tradition records it, he declared that no Arab is superior to a non-Arab, nor white to black, except in piety.

  • Muhammad: His Life Based on the Earliest Sources — Martin Lings, George Allen & Unwin (1983)
  • Islam: The Straight Path — John L. Esposito, Oxford University Press
  • Muhammad — Encyclopaedia Britannica

He fell ill soon after returning and died in Medina in June 632, in the arms of his wife Aisha, and was buried where he died, now inside the Prophet’s Mosque.

  • Muhammad: His Life Based on the Earliest Sources — Martin Lings, George Allen & Unwin (1983)
  • Muhammad — Encyclopaedia Britannica
Abu Bakr reportedly calmed the shocked community with the words: “If anyone worshipped Muhammad, Muhammad is dead; if anyone worships God, God is alive and does not die.” A few scholars, reading early Christian sources, suggest he may still have been alive at the start of the conquest of Palestine in 634, but the date of 632 is accepted by most historians.
  • The Death of a Prophet: The End of Muhammad's Life and the Beginnings of Islam — Stephen J. Shoemaker, University of Pennsylvania Press (2012)
  • Muhammad and the Believers: At the Origins of Islam — Fred M. Donner, Harvard University Press (2010)
  • Muhammad — Encyclopaedia Britannica

Why it matters today

Islam

The pilgrimage rites Muhammad performed in 632 are the model for the Hajj that millions make today, and his Farewell Sermon, with its call to equality between Arab and non-Arab, is often quoted. His death raised the question of who should lead the community, which still divides Sunnis and Shia.

Saudi Arabia

Mecca and Medina lie in today's Saudi Arabia, and the rites of the Prophet's Farewell Pilgrimage are the Hajj the kingdom hosts every year for well over a million pilgrims. Serving God's guests is the kingdom's proudest duty, and the king's title, Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, rests on it.