By Kamran Pasha | Huffingtonpost

Many may be familiar with the "hijrah" or "emigration" -- the famous moment in 622 C.E. when Prophet Muhammad escaped from Mecca and established a community in the oasis of Medina to the north. From there, Islam blossomed and become a global religion and civilization within only a few years. The hijrah was the turning point of Islam, and Muslims to this day mark it as Year 1 of their calendar.

Yet the hijrah to Medina was not the first emigration in Islam. It was the second.

And our Christmas story begins with that first emigration, to the Christian kingdom of Abyssinia, in modern day Ethiopia.

In 615 C.E., five years after the prophet's first vision of Gabriel, persecution of the Muslims had become a life-and-death matter. A Muslim woman named Sumaya, the first martyr of Islam, had been publicly murdered by a Meccan tribal chief. The weakest members of the community, such as the African slave Bilal, were subjected to torture. And the Arab chieftains were coming together to proclaim a ban of trade with the Muslims, prohibiting citizens of Mecca from providing food and medicine to members of the new movement.

Facing the very real possibility of extinction, a small group of Muslims led by the Prophet's daughter Ruqayya and his son-in-law Uthman, escaped Meccan patrols and managed to get to the Red Sea, where they fled to Abyssinia by boat. They sought the protection of the Negus, the Christian king who had a reputation for justice.

The Meccan chieftains were outraged when they learned of the Muslim escape to Abyssinia. Trade with Africa was important to their economic power, and the arrival of dissident Arabs in the Abyssinian court could create an embarrassing diplomatic problem. The tribal lords dispatched Amr ibn al-As, a respected merchant who had befriended the Negus, to recover the Muslim refugees before they could harm Mecca's image with its trading partners.

Amr arrived with expensive gifts and honeyed words for the Negus. He advised the king that the Muslim refugees were criminals and asked that they be repatriated to Mecca. The Negus was concerned that he could be harboring troublemakers in his kingdom and summoned the Muslim refugees to his court to answer the allegations.

It was a tense moment, as the Muslims were brought before the Negus and the Meccan delegation. If things went badly, they would be handed over to Amr to be taken back against their will. In reality, they knew that once they were in Amr's hands, they would probably never see Mecca. In all likelihood, they would be killed long before they reached their erstwhile home.

When the Muslims responded that they were not criminals but victims of religious persecution, the Negus asked: "What is this religion wherein you have become separate from your people, though you have not entered my religion nor that of any other of the folk that surround us?"

The Prophet's cousin Ja'far, known for his eloquent speech, stepped forward and said:

"O King, we were people steeped in ignorance, worshiping idols, eating unsacrificed carrion, committing abominations, and the strong would devour the weak. Thus we were, until God sent us a Messenger from out of our midst, one whose lineage we knew, and his veracity and his worthiness of trust and his integrity. He called us unto God, that we should testify to His Oneness and worship Him and renounce what we and our fathers had worshiped in the way of stones and idols; and he commanded us to speak truly, to fulfill our promises, to respect the ties of kinship and the rights of our neighbors, and to refrain from crimes and from bloodshed. So we worship God alone, setting naught beside Him, counting as forbidden what He has forbidden and as licit what He has allowed. For these reasons have our people turned against us, and have persecuted us to make us forsake our religion and revert from the worship of God to the worship of idols. That is why we have come to your country, having chosen you above all others; and we have been happy in your protection, and it is our hope, O King, that here with you we shall not suffer wrong."

The Negus, a devout Christian, was intrigued by Ja'far's words and asked him if this Prophet had brought a scripture like the messengers of old. Ja'far nodded, saying that their Scripture was the Qur'an, which means recitation in Arabic. The Negus asked them to recite from their holy book.

And Ja'far recited for them a verse that had been revealed to the Prophet about the birth of Jesus Christ, who was revered as one of God's messenger's by the Muslims.

"And make mention of Mary in the Book, when she withdrew from her people unto a place towards the east, and secluded herself from them; and We sent unto her Our Spirit, and it appeared unto her in the likeness of a perfect man. She said: I take refuge from you in the Infinitely Good, if any piety you have. He said: I am none other than a messenger from your Lord that I may bestow on you a son most pure. She said: How can there be for me a son, when no man has touched me, nor am I unchaste? He said: Even so shall it be; your Lord says: It is easy for Me. That We may make him a sign for mankind and a mercy from Us; and it is a thing ordained." (19:16-21)

The Negus was deeply moved to hear the story of Christ's miraculous conception in the Muslim scripture. He said to his guests:

"This has truly come from the same source as that which Jesus brought."

The Meccans became alarmed. The shared love for Jesus and Mary had created a bond between the Christians and Muslims that threatened to disrupt the Meccan scheme. Amr, who knew that the Muslims saw Jesus as a human messenger of God rather than a divine being, quickly tried to create a rift between the two communities.

"O King, they utter an enormous lie about Jesus the son of Mary. They call him a slave!"

The Abyssinian priests gasped at this apparent blasphemy. The Christian king tensed. He turned to the Muslims with a frown.

"What do you say about Jesus?"

Ja'far could only tell the truth.

"We say of him what our Prophet brought unto us, that he is the servant of God and His Messenger and His Spirit and His Word which He cast unto Mary the blessed virgin."

A tense silence fell on the crowd. And then the Negus smiled.

For him, the differences between Christian and Muslim visions of Jesus were just semantics. He had tired of the kind of theological disputes that had torn apart his fellow Christians and had led to never-ending accusations of heresy and warfare between competing Christian groups. Arguments over complicated theologies about the nature of Christ were not what mattered to him as a Christian. What mattered was that God had sent Jesus Christ to teach humanity love. And the Muslims clearly loved Jesus Christ.

"Go your ways, for you are safe in my land. Not for mountains of gold would I harm a single man of you."

And then he sent his attendant to the Meccan envoys.

"Return unto these two men their gifts, for I have no use for them."

And in that moment, Islam found its first refuge. In a Christian land, under the protection of a Christian king who viewed Muslims as his brothers and sisters.

The history of Christianity's relationship with Islam has not always been so cordial. From the Crusades to the horrors of September 11th, both communities have committed atrocities against the other.

And yet it was not so at the beginning. And perhaps it will not be so at the end.

For me as a Muslim, this story of how Christians and Muslims could get past theology and see the truth in each other's hearts is one of the most beautiful tales to unite our communities as we struggle to define faith in the 21st century.

And like the story of Christmas itself, I believe that the tale of the Christian king and the Muslim refugees is not just a memory of a time long past. It is, I hope, a vision of a world still to come. A world that will be built by sincere people of faith, who care more about love for humanity than about the triumph of their own tribe or theology.

It is, God-willing, a prophecy.

On behalf of your Muslim brothers and sisters, I wish you all a joyous Christmas.

Kamran Pasha is a Hollywood filmmaker and the author of Mother of the Believers, a novel on the birth of Islam as told by Prophet Muhammad's wife Aisha (Atria Books; April 2009). For more information please visit: www.kamranpasha.com

• SOURCE: HUFFINGTONPOST