Prophet Muhammad

Muhammad (also transliterated Mohammad, Mohammed, Muhammed) was an Arab religious and political leader.

Non-Muslims consider him the founder of Islam.

Muslims view him as the final prophet of Islam, which is considered by Muslims to have existed prior to Muhammad, in the same tradition as Judaism and Christianity.

Early Muslim sources report that in 611, at about the age of 40, he experienced a vision. He described it to those close to him as a visit from the Angel Gabriel, while he was meditating in a cave near Medina Saudi Arabia, who commanded him to memorize and recite the verses later collected as the Qur’an. He eventually expanded his mission, publicly preaching a strict monotheism and predicting a Day of Judgement for sinners and idol-worshippers — such as his tribesmen and neighbors in Mecca. He did not completely reject Judaism and Christianity, two other monotheistic faiths known to the Arabs; he only claimed to complete and perfect their teachings. He soon acquired both a following and the hatred of his neighbors. In 622 he was forced to flee Mecca and settle in Medina with his followers, where he established legal authority as leader of the first avowedly Muslim community. War between Mecca and Medina followed, in which Muhammad and his followers were eventually victorious. The military organization honed in this struggle was then set to conquering the other pagan tribes of Arabia. By the time of Muhammad’s death, he had unified Arabia and launched a few expeditions to the north, towards Syria and Palestine.

Under Muhammad’s immediate successors the Islamic empire expanded into Palestine, Syria, Mesopotamia, Persia, Egypt, North Africa, and Spain. Later conquests, commercial contact between Muslims and non-Muslims, and missionary activity spread his faith over much of the globe.

Muhammad ibn Abdullah^{[n 1]} (Arabic: مُحَمَّد بنِ عَبْد ٱللَّٰه‎, romanized: Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allāh Classical Arabic pronunciation: [muˈħammad]; c. 570 CE – 8 June 632 CE)^[1] was an Arab religious, social, and political leader and the founder of the world religion of Islam.^[2] According to Islamic doctrine, he was a prophet, divinely inspired to preach and confirm the monotheistic teachings of Adam, Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and other prophets.^[2][3][4][5] He is believed to be the final prophet of God in all the main branches of Islam, though some modern denominations diverge from this belief.^{[n 2]} Muhammad united Arabia into a single Muslim polity, with the Quran as well as his teachings and practices forming the basis of Islamic religious belief.

Muhammad was born approximately 570 CE (Year of the Elephant) in Mecca. He was the son of Abdullah ibn Abd al-Muttalib and Amina bint Wahb. His father was the son of Quraysh tribal leader Abd al-Muttalib ibn Hashim, and Abdullah died a few months before Muhammad’s birth. His mother Amina died when he was six, leaving Muhammad an orphan.^[6] He was raised under the care of his grandfather, Abd al-Muttalib, and paternal uncle, Abu Talib.^[7] In later years, he would periodically seclude himself in a mountain cave named Hira for several nights of prayer. When he was 40, Muhammad reported being visited by Gabriel in the cave^[8][9] and receiving his first revelation from God. In 613,^[10] Muhammad started preaching these revelations publicly,^[11] proclaiming that “God is One”, that complete “submission” (islām) to God^[12] is the right way of life (dīn),^[13] and that he was a prophet and messenger of God, similar to the other prophets in Islam.^[14][15][16]

Muhammad’s followers were initially few in number, and experienced hostility from Meccan polytheists for 13 years. To escape ongoing persecution, he sent some of his followers to Abyssinia in 615, before he and his followers migrated from Mecca to Medina (then known as Yathrib) later in 622. This event, the Hijra, marks the beginning of the Islamic calendar, also known as the Hijri Calendar. In Medina, Muhammad united the tribes under the Constitution of Medina. In December 629, after eight years of intermittent fighting with Meccan tribes, Muhammad gathered an army of 10,000 Muslim converts and marched on the city of Mecca. The conquest went largely uncontested and Muhammad seized the city with little bloodshed. In 632, a few months after returning from the Farewell Pilgrimage, he fell ill and died. By the time of his death, most of the Arabian Peninsula had converted to Islam.^[17][18]

The revelations (each known as Ayah – literally, “Sign [of God]”) that Muhammad reported receiving until his death form the verses of the Quran, regarded by Muslims as the verbatim “Word of God” on which the religion is based. Besides the Quran, Muhammad’s teachings and practices (sunnah), found in the Hadith and sira (biography) literature, are also upheld and used as sources of Islamic law (see Sharia).