The Hegira or Flight of Mohammed
His wife and a few other immediate relatives were the prophet’s first disciples, and these did not increase very rapidly. The people of Mecca denounced him as a madman or an impostor, and in a little time he was forced to flee from Mecca to save his life. He betook himself, with his disciples, to what is now Medina. The date of this flight, or Hegira, as the Arabians call it,—July 15, 622 A.D.,—has been adopted ever since as the chronological era in Mohammedan countries. At Medina he was received with open arms,—his doctrines having already made a number of converts in that place; and here he built his first mosque.