The Farewell Sermon — what he said when he knew he was leaving

This account is fortunate: most of it survives in the words of an eyewitness.

Jabir ibn Abdullah narrated the whole journey — from setting out to returning — and that narration is in Sahih Muslim 1218. It is among the longest hadith in the collection, and the sermon at Arafat is inside it. He was a young man that day and was in the crowd.

Alongside it, the sermon of the day at Mina is in Sahih al-Bukhari, and the report about Quran 5:3 and Umar is at Sahih al-Bukhari 45.

And the single most famous line of all — "no Arab has any superiority over a non-Arab" — is not in Sahih Muslim 1218. It comes through the narration of the sermon of the days of Tashriq in the Musnad of Ahmad and elsewhere. Where it appears below, that is said.

Now the event.

After the Hijrah he had not performed hajj. Nine years passed. Then in the tenth year it was announced that he would perform it himself.

Jabir says that when the news spread, people began gathering in Madinah — everyone wanted to travel with him and do as he did.

And that is the real point of the whole journey. This was not only an act of worship; it was a teaching. Everything that had come down over twenty-three years was to be performed once, in one place, in front of everyone — and then said aloud.