Three nights in the cave

When the Prophet and Abu Bakr arrived at the cave on Mount Thawr, Abu Bakr entered first to clear away anything that might injure the Prophet . He found a few holes and stuffed them with pieces of cloth. The Prophet then entered and went to sleep with his head on Abu Bakr’s lap. Suddenly, something stung Abu Bakr’s foot, but he did not even twitch, fearing he would wake the Prophet . The pain was so intense that tears began to run down his cheeks and onto the Prophet’s face. The Prophet woke up and saw that Abu Bakr was in pain. He then applied his spittle on the injury and the pain disappeared.

For three consecutive nights the Prophet and Abu Bakr remained hidden in the cave. During this period, Abu Bakr’s son, Abdullah, would pass his nights nearby. The clever young man would return to Makkah so early in the morning that the Quraysh had no idea that he had slept elsewhere. Each day in Makkah he collected information about the activities of the Quraysh, and each night he updated the Prophet and Abu Bakr.

Abu Bakr’s slave, Amir bin Fuhayrah , would graze Abu Bakr’s goats near the cave so that both men could drink fresh milk. Early the next morning Amir would drive the goats back to Makkah along the same route that Abu Bakr’s son took, to obscure his footprints.

Meanwhile the search party scoured the area south of Makkah where the Prophet and Abu Bakr were hiding. Once the Quraysh even came upon the mouth of the cave, and had they looked down while standing at the edge of the cave, they would surely have found the men they were hunting. With the Quraysh so close to discovering their hiding place, Abu Bakr became very tense about the Prophet’s safety. The Prophet reassured him, “How can you be apprehensive about two with whom is a third, especially when the third is Allah?”