The migration of refugees is not a problem of the twenty-first century. Historian JENNY RAHEL OESTERLE investigates the question of how people in need of protection were treated in the Middle Ages. Her particular focus in this video is the Arabian Peninsula in the early seventh century, specifically the Islamic context during the lifetime of Muhammad. The term refugee is coined by a modern understanding in the context of national states and international human rights and asylum. The political and legal conditions are clearly different in early Islamic times. The term is applied on early medieval persons in need of protection such as the prophet Muhammad and his followers in awareness of the historical and semantical complexity of its use. As Jenny Oesterle describes, she focused on narrative texts and was inspired by the methods of New Historicism but also considered the legal context. From Islamic historiographies and Prophet biographies, she gained the insight that stories of protection are essential for the understanding of early Islamic history. Muhammad’s role as a refugee, she found, is highly relevant for the development of the first concepts of Muslim protection during the founding of the Islamic communities. This research demonstrates that countries from which many refugees arrive in Europe nowadays, such as Syria or Iraq, already had developed concepts of protection in the Middle Ages.