delegations reached Madinah they found the Prophet ﷺ right there and did not have to toil in searching for him, crowding round him on every side. Accordingly, he did not perform Hajj in the ninth year so that he could receive those delegations. That is one reason.
Another reason is that in the ninth year the idolaters still made the pilgrimage alongside the Muslims, for they had not yet been barred from entering Mecca. Later they were forbidden to do so, and Allah the Exalted revealed: “O you who believe! The polytheists are indeed impure; so let them not approach the Sacred Mosque after this, their (final) year” (9:28). A herald of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ then proclaimed: “After this year no polytheist shall perform Hajj, and no one may circumambulate the House naked.”
The leader of the pilgrims on that occasion—the Hajj of the ninth year—was Abu Bakr (may Allah be pleased with him), after whom the Prophet ﷺ dispatched ʿAli ibn Abi Talib. The Prophet ﷺ later announced that he himself would make Hajj, whereupon huge numbers came to Madinah, estimated at about one hundred thousand. In total the Muslims numbered one hundred and twenty-four thousand, meaning that only a few stayed behind. They accompanied the Prophet ﷺ on the pilgrimage that came to be called the Farewell Pilgrimage, for he bade the people farewell in it, saying, “Perhaps I shall not meet you again after this year of mine.” And so it was: after returning to Madinah he passed away in Rabiʿ al-Awwal, having lived through Muharram, Safar, and twelve days of Rabiʿ al-Awwal. May Allah’s blessings and peace be upon him.
During the Farewell Pilgrimage he ﷺ delivered sermons to the people. He addressed them at ʿArafah and again at Mina, mentioned the False Messiah (al-Masih al-Dajjal), magnified his affair, and warned against him in the strongest terms. He did likewise in Madinah, repeatedly mentioning the Dajjal and stressing the gravity of his trial, until the Companions said, “We thought he might already be hiding among the clusters of the date-palms,” meaning that he had actually arrived, so vivid were the Prophet’s warnings. Then he ﷺ informed them that no prophet