In the fifth year of Muhammad's prophethood, ﷺ, the small Muslim community in Mecca was being beaten, starved, and killed. The Prophet instructed them: “There is a king in the land of the Habasha under whom no one is wronged. Go to him.”
About eighty men and women boarded boats at the port of Shu'ayba and crossed to Aksum. They were the first Muslims to seek refuge anywhere. Among them: Ja'far ibn Abi Talib, cousin of the Prophet; Umm Habiba, who would become the Mother of the Believers; Uthman ibn Affan, who would become the third caliph.
The Quraysh sent emissaries with gifts to demand their return. The king — Aṣḥama ibn Abjar, called al-Najashi in Arabic — summoned the Muslims and asked them to speak.
Ja'far recited the chapter of Maryam. The Najashi wept until his beard was wet. He drew a line on the ground with his staff and said: “Between your religion and ours there is no more than this.” He refused to surrender them.
When the Najashi died years later, the Prophet ﷺ — in Medina, hundreds of miles away — prayed the funeral prayer for him. The first salat al-ghaib in Islamic history was performed for an Ethiopian king.
إِنِّي مَا كُنْتُ لِأَفْعَلَ ذَلِكَ، وَمَا أُحِبُّ أَنَّ لِي دَبْرًا مِنْ ذَهَبٍ وَأَنِّي آذَيْتُ رَجُلًا مِنْهُمْ.“I would not surrender them — not for a mountain of gold, not if I had to harm one of them.”— Najashi Aṣḥama ibn Abjar · Aksum · c. 615 CE
