Makkah had been won the year before, in Ramadan of 8 AH, and the idols around the Kaaba had already come down. But a city is not a season, and a conquest is not yet a cleansing. The first year there was no formal pilgrimage from Madinah at all: Taif, an hour up the road, was still hostile and still armed, and you do not delay a duty over delegations, you delay it over danger. So the Prophet ﷺ waited.
Now it is 9 AH, the year before his own farewell, and he decides the pilgrimage must finally be set right. He sends Abu Bakr at the head of three hundred Muslims and twenty-five sacrificial animals to lead the hajj. He does not go himself, and he says why, plainly: people still circle the Kaaba naked, and he will not perform hajj in the middle of that. This is the year the pagan pilgrimage ends, and the proclamation that ends it is still on its way down from heaven.
Why he sent Abu Bakr and stayed
Two things had to be true before the Prophet ﷺ himself would lead a pilgrimage, and in 9 AH only one of them was. The idols were gone, yes. But pagans were still coming to Makkah from across Arabia, carrying customs from before the light, and one of those customs he would not stand beside.
Sheikh Yasir is careful to set the scene exactly. The pilgrimage of this year would still be performed in the old order, the way the Arabs were accustomed to it, because the Prophet ﷺ had not yet shown them the corrected rites: that lesson he was saving for the following year, his own farewell hajj. So Abu Bakr radiyallahu anhu goes ahead as the leader, three hundred believers behind him, twenty-five animals to be sacrificed, to lay the foundation for the perfect hajj that was coming. He goes to make sure that from this point on, Makkah belongs to one worship only. No more idolaters, no more idol rites, ever again.
The custom he would not stand beside
يَا بَنِي آدَمَ قَدْ أَنزَلْنَا عَلَيْكُمْ لِبَاسًا يُوَارِي سَوْآتِكُمْ وَرِيشًا ۖ وَلِبَاسُ التَّقْوَىٰ ذَٰلِكَ خَيْرٌ ۚ ذَٰلِكَ مِنْ آيَاتِ اللَّهِ لَعَلَّهُمْ يَذَّكَّرُونَ
“O children of Adam, We have bestowed upon you clothing to conceal your private parts and as adornment. But the clothing of righteousness, that is best. That is from the signs of Allah that perhaps they will remember.”
Surah al-A'raf 7:26 Read 7:26 with tafsir
وَإِذَا فَعَلُوا فَاحِشَةً قَالُوا وَجَدْنَا عَلَيْهَا آبَاءَنَا وَاللَّهُ أَمَرَنَا بِهَا ۗ قُلْ إِنَّ اللَّهَ لَا يَأْمُرُ بِالْفَحْشَاءِ ۖ أَتَقُولُونَ عَلَى اللَّهِ مَا لَا تَعْلَمُونَ
“And when they commit an immorality, they say, "We found our fathers doing it, and Allah has ordered us to do it." Say, "Indeed, Allah does not order immorality. Do you say about Allah that which you do not know?"”
Surah al-A'raf 7:28 Read 7:28 with tafsir
Some of the pagans circled the Kaaba with nothing on, and they did not see it as shame, they saw it as piety. It was not everyone, and not all the time: the Sheikh estimates roughly one in a hundred, a display of extra devotion, more common in the crowds of the hajj season and more common at night. The Quraysh themselves abstained from it, but only out of arrogance, because they thought the rules of the Haram did not bind the people of the Haram.
Where did such a thing come from? Sheikh Yasir walks you to the place the Qur'an answers it. Read the page before the verse and it is all about clothing: how Shaytan stripped Adam and his wife to expose them, and how Allah then says, in answer, that He sent clothing down. We are the one creation in this world that wears something from beyond what we are born in, and that covering is not an accident of culture, it is, quite literally, a gift sent down. Then comes the indictment: when these people commit a fahisha, a vulgar sin, they reach for two excuses, that their forefathers did the same, and that Allah commanded it. Allah lets the first excuse pass, because it was simply true, their fathers really had done it, but a true fact is not a valid reason. The second He crushes outright: Allah does not command immorality.
And the excuses these pilgrims gave for stripping should sound eerily familiar. They wanted to come before Allah the way their mothers gave birth to them, returned to nature, unspoiled. They said it was shameful to circle the House in clothes they had sinned in. The Sheikh pauses on the first one, because it is, word for word, the logic of the modern movement that wants to strip down in the name of nature too. It is proof, he says, of how the human mind, left to itself with no revelation, will manufacture a justification for absolutely anything. You want to walk naked around the holiest house on earth, you will find a reason. That is why we were sent guidance: not because the intellect is too weak to reason, but because it is strong enough to rationalize anything it already wants.
A living lesson for whoever lives among it
Before the proclamation comes down, the Sheikh stops to take something for us out of this. For the first fifty-three years of his life, the Prophet ﷺ lived in a Makkah where this happened publicly, women among the pilgrims included, and he could do nothing about it but lower his gaze and fight his own battle. He did not flee the city because sin was visible in its streets.
So hold this, the Sheikh says, especially the young man convinced that living surrounded by temptation is itself forbidden, that he must escape to some purer land. There is no purer land. Go east and you will find as much or worse, and the screen in everyone's pocket has flattened the whole map anyway. The Prophet's ﷺ own example settles it: when you are the minority and you cannot change what is around you, you do not abandon your place, you guard your own eyes and you keep your own soul. Presence in a flawed society is not a sin. Surrender to it is.
Bara'ah comes down
بَرَاءَةٌ مِّنَ اللَّهِ وَرَسُولِهِ إِلَى الَّذِينَ عَاهَدتُّم مِّنَ الْمُشْرِكِينَ
“[This is a declaration of] disassociation, from Allah and His Messenger, to those with whom you had made a treaty among the polytheists.”
Surah at-Tawbah 9:1 Read 9:1 with tafsir
فَسِيحُوا فِي الْأَرْضِ أَرْبَعَةَ أَشْهُرٍ وَاعْلَمُوا أَنَّكُمْ غَيْرُ مُعْجِزِي اللَّهِ ۙ وَأَنَّ اللَّهَ مُخْزِي الْكَافِرِينَ
“So travel freely, [O disbelievers], throughout the land [during] four months but know that you cannot cause failure to Allah and that Allah will disgrace the disbelievers.”
Surah at-Tawbah 9:2 Read 9:2 with tafsir
Abu Bakr had been gone from Madinah only a few hours, not yet arrived, when the opening of Surat at-Tawbah was revealed: a declaration aimed straight at the pagans of Arabia. It begins, the Sheikh notes, without the basmala, and that is no oversight. You do not open a proclamation of severance, of bara'ah, with In the name of Allah the Most Merciful, when the proclamation itself announces that Allah has cut His ties. There is no word in English, he says, as total as bara'ah: it is the washing of the hands, the end of every bond.
And what it ends is the web of treaties Makkah had signed over the years, in the sixth, the seventh, the eighth. All of them are now made null. But Islam does not break a treaty by ambush. You are warned first: travel the land freely for four months, anywhere, safe, settle your affairs, see your families, pack what you own. The grace is deliberate and it is generous, and it is not weakness. Allah is not unable to act now, He is choosing to give notice. Four months, then the bond is gone.
The verse they call the sword
إِلَّا الَّذِينَ عَاهَدتُّم مِّنَ الْمُشْرِكِينَ ثُمَّ لَمْ يَنقُصُوكُمْ شَيْئًا وَلَمْ يُظَاهِرُوا عَلَيْكُمْ أَحَدًا فَأَتِمُّوا إِلَيْهِمْ عَهْدَهُمْ إِلَىٰ مُدَّتِهِمْ ۚ إِنَّ اللَّهَ يُحِبُّ الْمُتَّقِينَ
“Excepted are those with whom you made a treaty among the polytheists and then they have not been deficient toward you in anything or supported anyone against you; so complete for them their treaty until their term [has ended]. Indeed, Allah loves the righteous [who fear Him].”
Surah at-Tawbah 9:4 Read 9:4 with tafsir
فَإِذَا انسَلَخَ الْأَشْهُرُ الْحُرُمُ فَاقْتُلُوا الْمُشْرِكِينَ حَيْثُ وَجَدتُّمُوهُمْ وَخُذُوهُمْ وَاحْصُرُوهُمْ وَاقْعُدُوا لَهُمْ كُلَّ مَرْصَدٍ ۚ فَإِن تَابُوا وَأَقَامُوا الصَّلَاةَ وَآتَوُا الزَّكَاةَ فَخَلُّوا سَبِيلَهُمْ ۚ إِنَّ اللَّهَ غَفُورٌ رَّحِيمٌ
“And when the inviolable months have passed, then kill the polytheists wherever you find them and capture them and besiege them and sit in wait for them at every place of ambush. But if they should repent, establish prayer, and give zakah, let them [go] on their way. Indeed, Allah is Forgiving and Merciful.”
Surah at-Tawbah 9:5 Read 9:5 with tafsir
وَإِنْ أَحَدٌ مِّنَ الْمُشْرِكِينَ اسْتَجَارَكَ فَأَجِرْهُ حَتَّىٰ يَسْمَعَ كَلَامَ اللَّهِ ثُمَّ أَبْلِغْهُ مَأْمَنَهُ ۚ ذَٰلِكَ بِأَنَّهُمْ قَوْمٌ لَّا يَعْلَمُونَ
“And if any one of the polytheists seeks your protection, then grant him protection so that he may hear the words of Allah [i.e., the Qur'an]. Then deliver him to his place of safety. That is because they are a people who do not know.”
Surah at-Tawbah 9:6 Read 9:6 with tafsir
Sheikh Yasir slows right down here, because this is the verse Fox News reaches for, the verse Spencer and Geller and every islamophobe quotes and calls the verse of the sword: then kill the polytheists wherever you find them. Read alone it is a weapon. Read in its place, it is something else entirely, and the Sheikh insists you read it in its place.
First the timing. When the inviolable months have passed: those are the four months of grace just promised. Nothing happens during them. And the verse just before this one carves out an exception with its own hand: any pagan tribe that had a fixed-term treaty and kept it honestly is to have that treaty honored to its end, because Allah loves those who keep faith. The order is for the Arabian Peninsula, for the Haram, for the end of open idolatry in the one land it could not be allowed to remain in. Two choices were on the table: give up your idols, or leave. Never convert or die. And the proof is inside the same verse, its second half: but if they repent and pray and give zakah, let them go their way, they are now your brothers.
Then the verse right after seals it. If a pagan, even one under that threat, asks you for protection, you grant it, you let him hear the words of Allah, and then you escort him safely to wherever he feels safe, and he goes his way. The Sheikh's point lands hard: not one human being lost his life because of the verse of the sword. It was a warning that worked, a notice that scared a peninsula into a choice, and that is exactly how idolatry vanished from Arabia. He will not sanitize the goal, idolatry was to end in this land and it did, but he will not let the verse be torn from the mercy bolted onto both its sides.
Why Ali carried it
وَأَذَانٌ مِّنَ اللَّهِ وَرَسُولِهِ إِلَى النَّاسِ يَوْمَ الْحَجِّ الْأَكْبَرِ أَنَّ اللَّهَ بَرِيءٌ مِّنَ الْمُشْرِكِينَ ۙ وَرَسُولُهُ ۚ فَإِن تُبْتُمْ فَهُوَ خَيْرٌ لَّكُمْ ۖ وَإِن تَوَلَّيْتُمْ فَاعْلَمُوا أَنَّكُمْ غَيْرُ مُعْجِزِي اللَّهِ ۗ وَبَشِّرِ الَّذِينَ كَفَرُوا بِعَذَابٍ أَلِيمٍ
“And [it is] an announcement from Allah and His Messenger to the people on the day of the greater pilgrimage that Allah is disassociated from the disbelievers, and [so is] His Messenger. So if you repent, that is best for you; but if you turn away, then know that you will not cause failure to Allah. And give tidings to those who disbelieve of a painful punishment.”
Surah at-Tawbah 9:3 Read 9:3 with tafsir
When the surah came down, someone asked the Prophet ﷺ to simply send it ahead to Abu Bakr. He refused: none shall convey this on my behalf except a man of my own household. So he gave Ali ibn Abi Talib his own personal camel, the way a ruler hands a trusted envoy his ring or his staff, and sent him to gallop after the caravan and recite the proclamation to the people at the time of hajj. Ali had not been part of the original three hundred. He was sent for one task.
When Abu Bakr saw Ali riding the Prophet's ﷺ own camel, he asked at once: am I being replaced, or am I still the leader? Ali answered plainly, you are still the leader, I have only come to recite Surat at-Tawbah. Sheikh Yasir is even-handed about the dispute this has fed for centuries. Our brothers among the Shia read this as proof that Ali should have led the ummah. But the answer, he says, is simple and it is in front of us. By the custom of the Arabs, a treaty made by a chief, or broken by him, had to be enacted by a man of his own blood, so that the stubborn pagans could raise no objection. The Prophet ﷺ removed every excuse. And the two giants travel in one caravan, Abu Bakr radiyallahu anhu the overall leader, Ali radiyallahu anhu sent for a sacred errand. We love Ali, the Sheikh says, as he deserves to be loved, and we grant him every honor that is truly his, this one included. That a man delivers a message is not the same as a man leading a nation.
Four announcements that closed an age
So Ali and Abu Bakr move through Mina and proclaim it. First the opening verses, so every pilgrim knows the clock has started: four months. Then four announcements that drew the line of a new world.
No one enters Jannah but a believer. No one circles the Kaaba naked, ever again. No idolater performs the pilgrimage after this year. And every treaty with the pagans is dissolved, with four months' notice, unless it carried its own honored term. The Sheikh lingers on the first, that no disbeliever enters Paradise, because it was placed first on purpose, to the very people about to scatter across Arabia. It is, he says, the principle our age finds hardest to swallow and most waters down: that salvation runs through this path. But a religion that saves no more than any other saves nothing in particular, and there would be no reason to follow it. In this world, he says, you have your way and I have mine, no compulsion. In the next, the truth cannot be every contradiction at once.
And this was the only hajj in all of history where Muslims and pagans performed the rites side by side, the last time the two would ever stand together at the House. By the next year the idolaters were gone. Sheikh Yasir calls it one of the most astonishing turns the world has seen: in roughly twenty years an entire civilization abandoned a heritage of more than three thousand years. There are Arab Christians to this day, and there were Arab Jews until living memory, Islam tolerated them both. But Arab pagans simply ceased to exist, and the Prophet ﷺ, in the last year of his life, watched the whole arc of his mission come to rest.