'Amr ibn 'Abasa (may Allah be pleased with him) came to Makkah and found the Messenger of Allah ﷺ “in hiding”.
“Who is with you in this?” he asked. The Prophet ﷺ answered: “A free man and a slave.”
'Amr wanted to follow him. The answer: “You cannot do that today. Do you not see my state and the people's?”
“Go back to your people. When you hear that I have prevailed, come to me.”
Such were those days: the Prophet ﷺ in hiding, and only a handful of people with him.
Where did they pray? The biographers report that the companions went out to the ravines, hidden from their people.
One day, polytheists came upon some of them at prayer. It came to blows: the first blood shed in Islam.
Then a house, near as-Safâ, where they gathered.
Inside, one day: the Prophet ﷺ, his uncle Hamza (may Allah be pleased with him), and close to forty men and women.
The house belonged to al-Arqam ibn Abî l-Arqam (may Allah be pleased with him), one of the first Muslims.
His house stood in Makkah, on as-Safâ: the house where the Prophet ﷺ used to be in the early days of Islam.
There he called people to Islam, and many embraced Islam there. It came to be called Dâr al-Islâm.
'Ammâr ibn Yâsir (may Allah be pleased with him) remembered: “I met Suhayb ibn Sinân at the door of Dâr al-Arqam.”
Each asked the other what he wanted. 'Ammâr: to go in to Muhammad ﷺ and hear his words. Suhayb: “I want that too.”
They went in. The Prophet ﷺ presented Islam to them and they embraced it. They left at nightfall, in hiding.
Mus'ab ibn 'Umayr (may Allah be pleased with him) embraced Islam there too, and hid it from his mother.
The house became a landmark in time. Of many companions it was said: Muslim “before the Prophet ﷺ entered Dâr al-Arqam”.
So it was said of 'Uthmân ibn 'Affân, Ibn Mas'ûd, Khabbâb and others (may Allah be pleased with them).
The best-known entry is 'Umar's (may Allah be pleased with him). It is told in “The Man Who Came to Kill the Prophet ﷺ”.
The Prophet ﷺ had asked Allah to strengthen Islam through 'Umar. The answer walked in through this door.
Ibn Mas'ûd (may Allah be pleased with him) said it: “We have been powerful since 'Umar embraced Islam.”
And remember when you were few and oppressed in the land, fearing that people might abduct you,
but He sheltered you, supported you with His victory, and provided you with good things, that you might be grateful.
Such was the believers' state in those Makkah years: “few, in hiding, hard-pressed”.
Dâr al-Arqam: the house where the first Muslims met in secret. You have surely heard its name.
What happened behind its door, in the days when the Prophet ﷺ was in hiding?
In a hidden house, with a handful of believers, the Prophet ﷺ kept calling. Those few became many.
The Qur'an asks those believers to remember the days when they were few, so that they would be grateful.
Tonight, recall a time when you had less, name what Allah has given you since, and thank Him.