The Year of Delegations
After the conquest, resistance simply dissolved. The ninth year is called the Year of Delegations: tribe after tribe rode into Madīnah to submit — Thaqīf of Ṭāʾif among them, and the Christians of Najrān, who disputed with the Prophet ﷺ about ʿĪsā, declined his proposal of mutual imprecation, and went home under a treaty guarding their churches and their faith for tribute. In the same year he led the great expedition to Tabūk on the Byzantine frontier — a march of terrible hardship in the drought, from which no battle came, but which sifted the community and left its record in Sūrat al-Tawbah, including the forgiveness of the three who stayed behind, told in Kaʿb ibn Mālik's confession — among the most humanly perfect narratives in the ḥadīth. When Sūrat al-Naṣr descended — “When God's help comes, and the victory, and you see the people entering God's religion in crowds” — the discerning, like Ibn ʿAbbās, understood that the Messenger's ﷺ work was announced complete, and his departure near.123
Labbayk
In the eleventh month of the tenth year the Prophet ﷺ announced that he would lead the ḥajj — his only full pilgrimage since the ancient rite had been purified of idolatry. Madīnah emptied behind him; the tribes converged on the road; by ʿArafāt the gathering was counted in scores of thousands — a hundred thousand and more by the common estimates, most of whom had entered Islam within four years. Jābir ibn ʿAbdillāh's narration in Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim preserves the journey rite by rite — the iḥrām at Dhū'l-Ḥulayfah, the talbiyah swelling from horizon to horizon: “Labbayk Allāhumma labbayk — Here I am, O God, here I am” — and it remains the manual of every pilgrimage since.4
The Sermon at ʿArafāt
On the ninth of Dhū'l-Ḥijjah, mounted on al-Qaṣwāʾ in the valley of ʿUranah by ʿArafāt, he delivered the sermon that stands as his testament, criers relaying the phrases across the multitude. Its clauses abolished the pillars of the Jāhiliyyah one by one: “Your blood and your wealth are sacred to one another, as this day of yours is sacred, in this month of yours, in this city of yours. All the usages of the Age of Ignorance are beneath my two feet. The blood-feuds of the Jāhiliyyah are abolished — and the first I abolish is the blood-claim of my own house. The usury of the Jāhiliyyah is abolished — and the first I abolish is the usury of al-ʿAbbās ibn ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib. Fear God concerning women… you have rights over them, and they have rights over you… I have left among you that which, if you hold fast to it, you will never go astray: the Book of God. And you will be asked about me — what will you say?” They answered: “We bear witness that you have conveyed, and fulfilled, and counselled.” He raised his finger to the sky and said three times: “O God, bear witness.”451
That afternoon, as he stood at ʿArafāt, the verse descended which ʿUmar could never hear without weeping: “This day I have perfected your religion for you.” A Jewish scholar later told ʿUmar: had that verse come to us, we would have taken its day as a festival. ʿUmar answered that he knew the day and the very hour: a Friday, at ʿArafāt, in the Farewell Pilgrimage.6
He completed the rites — Muzdalifah, the stoning, the sacrifice, the farewell circuit of the House — telling the people, “Take your rites from me, for I do not know whether I shall meet you after this year.” The pilgrims heard the goodbye inside the words, and the pilgrimage has borne its name ever since: Ḥajjat al-Wadāʿ, the Farewell Pilgrimage.41