The Prophet's Effort to Promote Islam: Thirteen Years of Da'wah, Trial and Steadfastness in Makkah (UK British Muslim Guide)

From the first revelation in the cave of Ḥirāʾ to the migration to Madinah, the Prophet Muḥammad ﷺ spent thirteen years in Makkah doing the most difficult work any human has ever attempted: building belief in the One God, in a city that had built its economy and identity around 360 idols. This piece walks through those thirteen years — the strategy, the trials, the breakthroughs, the ups and the downs — and draws the lessons every British Muslim parent, teacher, and individual believer needs.

This is the story of how Islam was promoted in its hardest decade.

Phase 1: Three years of secret da'wah (610-613 CE)

After the first revelation, the Prophet ﷺ began with those closest to him. The first to accept Islam: Khadījah (his wife), ʿAlī (his cousin, then a child), Zayd (his freed slave), and Abū Bakr (his closest friend). Through Abū Bakr, a stream of further conversions — ʿUthmān ibn ʿAffān, ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn ʿAwf, Ṭalḥah, al-Zubayr, Saʿd ibn Abī Waqqāṣ — all future giants of the ummah.

The methodology was relational, not institutional. He did not preach in the streets. He spoke one-to-one with people he knew, in homes, in trusted spaces. Lesson for British Muslim da'wah: the same model still works. Most British conversions happen through workplace friendships, university friendships, and family connections — not through public preaching.

Phase 2: Public da'wah (613 CE)

Three years in, Allah commanded: "Then proclaim that which you are commanded and turn away from the polytheists" (al-Ḥijr 15:94). The Prophet ﷺ stood on the hill of Ṣafā and called the Quraysh tribes by name. They came expecting urgent news. He warned them of the Day of Judgement. His uncle Abū Lahab cursed him on the spot — the curse that Allah would answer in Sūrat al-Masad.

From this moment, the persecution began.

Phase 3: Persecution and steadfastness (613-619 CE)

The Prophet's ﷺ companions endured systematic abuse:

• Bilāl al-Ḥabashī: a slave, dragged across hot Makkan sand with a boulder on his chest, repeating "Aḥad, Aḥad" — One, One.
• Sumayya bint Khayyāṭ: the first martyr in Islam, killed by Abū Jahl with a spear because she would not renounce her faith.
• Yāsir, her husband: also killed.
• ʿAmmār ibn Yāsir: their son, tortured but allowed by the Prophet ﷺ to verbally renounce while keeping faith in his heart, given the special permission of "unless one is forced while his heart is at rest in faith" (al-Naḥl 16:106).
• The Prophet ﷺ himself: had camel intestines thrown on him while in sajdah, was stoned in Ṭāʾif until his shoes filled with blood, was repeatedly insulted, called a magician and a poet, and saw his closest people abused.

His response: never violence, never withdrawal, never compromise on tawḥīd. He continued teaching, gathering, and supporting his companions through it.

Phase 4: The first migration to Abyssinia (615 CE)

When persecution became unbearable, the Prophet ﷺ instructed a group of Companions to migrate to Abyssinia (Ethiopia), under the just Christian king al-Najāshī. See our detailed account. This was the first geopolitical move of Islam — using the protection of a non-Muslim state to safeguard the faithful. The lesson for British Muslims: Islam has always recognised the legitimacy of seeking refuge in just non-Muslim societies.

Phase 5: The boycott and Year of Sorrow (616-619 CE)

The Quraysh imposed a three-year economic and social boycott on the Banū Hāshim (the Prophet's clan). They were starved, isolated, and reduced to eating leaves. The boycott document was hung in the Kaʿbah. When Allah miraculously caused worms to eat the document — leaving only the words "In Your name, O Allah" — the boycott collapsed.

But the strain had been costly. Soon after the boycott ended, the Prophet ﷺ lost his beloved wife Khadījah and his protective uncle Abū Ṭālib in the same year. This is called the ʿĀm al-Ḥuzn — the Year of Sorrow. The Prophet ﷺ was alone, grieving, with the Quraysh emboldened.

Phase 6: The journey to Ṭāʾif (619 CE)

Looking for new soil for da'wah, the Prophet ﷺ walked to Ṭāʾif — sixty miles south of Makkah. The Thaqīf tribe rejected him brutally. They set street boys to throw stones at him until he bled. He took shelter in a garden, made the famous du'ā: "O Allah, to You I complain of my weakness…"

An angel appeared offering to crush Ṭāʾif between two mountains. The Prophet ﷺ refused, saying: "Perhaps Allah will bring forth from their descendants those who worship Him alone." He was right — Ṭāʾif eventually became Muslim, and produced great scholars.

The lesson: persistence and mercy in da'wah, even after rejection.

Phase 7: The Isrāʾ and Miʿrāj (621 CE)

In the depth of his sorrow, Allah took the Prophet ﷺ on the night journey from Makkah to Jerusalem and then through the seven heavens. The five daily prayers were prescribed. This was the divine consolation after the Year of Sorrow — the message that the heavens themselves had not forgotten him.

Phase 8: The Madinan opening (620-622 CE)

At the annual Hajj seasons, the Prophet ﷺ began meeting pilgrims from Yathrib (later Madinah). The Aws and Khazraj tribes, exhausted from civil conflict, were ready for guidance. The two pledges of ʿAqabah (621 and 622 CE) created the political conditions for the Hijrah.

Lessons for British Muslim life

1. Da'wah is patient and long. Thirteen years of effort produced perhaps a few hundred Companions. By the Conquest of Makkah eight years later, the entire peninsula was Muslim. The seed was slow; the harvest was sudden.
2. Persecution is not the end of da'wah — it is part of it. British Muslims facing workplace discrimination, school bullying, or media hostility are walking a path the Prophet ﷺ marked.
3. Mercy in rejection. The Ṭāʾif response — du'ā for those who hurt you — is the Sunnah model.
4. Strategy matters. The migration to Abyssinia, the Hijrah to Madinah — these were planned, not panicked.
5. The hardest period is often immediately before the breakthrough. The Year of Sorrow preceded the Miʿrāj and the Madinan opening.

What this means for a British Muslim today

You are part of a community in a non-majority context, often misrepresented, sometimes pressured. The Makkan period is not historical curiosity — it is the closest direct parallel to British Muslim life. The Prophet ﷺ did not give up. He did not radicalise. He did not assimilate to disbelief. He stayed firm on tawḥīd, kept teaching one person at a time, married, raised children, paid debts, did business, served his community, made du'ā in the night, and waited for Allah's opening.

That is the British Muslim playbook.

Read further

• The Onset of Prophethood
• The Migration to Abyssinia
• Seerah: The Final Years

Closing

The Prophet's ﷺ effort to promote Islam in Makkah is the most important leadership case study in human history. Read it slowly. Read it more than once. Then book a free Qur'ān class and build the recitation that the Companions of those thirteen years built theirs around.