الصحابة والمجتمع الأوّل
Islamic Studies · Key Stage 2 · The School
Who the companions were
The SAHABAH were the people who met the Prophet ﷺ and followed his teaching. Among the best known are Abu Bakr, Umar, Uthman and Ali, who led the community after him, and Khadijah and Aisha, whose accounts are a major source for how he lived. They matter because most of what is known about his life and practice was passed on through them.
The move to Madinah
In 622 CE the Prophet ﷺ and his followers left Makkah for Yathrib, later called Madinah — the HIJRAH, and the year from which the Islamic calendar counts. It changed the community's situation entirely: from a persecuted minority to a community responsible for governing a city, with agreements binding its Muslim, Jewish and other inhabitants.
Why this period is studied so closely
For Muslims this generation is the closest witness to how the teaching was actually practised, so their reports are examined with great care — who said what, who they heard it from, and whether the chain holds. That method of checking is why hadith scholarship became such a demanding discipline. Where reports disagree, scholars have disagreed too, and honest teaching names that rather than hiding it.
At Badr the Prophet ﷺ first camped in one place, and al-Hubab ibn al-Mundhir asked whether this was revelation or a judgement. Told it was a judgement, he suggested a position controlling the wells instead — and the army moved. The sources kept a story in which a companion corrects the Prophet's tactical choice and is right. That kind of record is part of why the tradition is trusted.