Muhammad (Muhammad ibn ‘Abdullāh) (Muhammed) (Mohammed) (ca. 53 BH [570 CC], Mecca, Hejaz, Arabia – d. June 8, 632, Medina, Hejaz, Arabia). The Prophet of Islam.
Muhammad ibn Abdullah was an Arab religious, social, and political leader and the founder of the world religion of Islam. According to Islamic doctrine, Muhammad was a prophet, divinely inspired to preach and confirm the monotheistic teachings of Adam, Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and other prophets. He is believed to be the final prophet of God in all the main branches of Islam, though the modern Ahmadiyya movement diverges from this belief. Muhammad united Arabia into a single Muslim polity, with the Qur'an as well as his teachings and practices forming the basis of Islamic religious belief.
Muhammad was born around 570 CC in Mecca. He was the son of Abdullah ibn Abd al-Muttalib and Amina bint Wahb. His father Abdullah was the son of Quraysh tribal leader Abd al-Muttalib ibn Hashim, and he died a few months before Muhammad's birth. His mother Amina died when he was six, leaving Muhammad an orphan. He was raised under the care of his grandfather, Abd al-Muttalib, and paternal uncle, Abu Talib. 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 and receiving his first revelations from God. In 613, Muhammad started preaching these revelations publicly, proclaiming that "God is One", that complete "submission" (islam) to God is the right way of life (din), and that he was a prophet and messenger of God.
Muhammad's followers were initially few in number, and experienced hostility from Meccan polytheists for 13 years. To escape ongoing persecution, Muhammad 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, Muhammad fell ill and died. By the time of his death, most of the Arabian Peninsula had converted to Islam.
The revelations (each known as Ayah – literally, "Sign [of God]") that Muhammad reported receiving until his death form the verses of the Qur'an, regarded by Muslims as the verbatim "Word of God" on which the religion is based. Besides the Qur'an, Muhammad's teachings and practices (sunnah), found in the hadith and sira (biography) literature, are also upheld and used as sources of Islamic law (sharia).
Born around 570, Muhammad grew up as an orphan. At the age of 25, he married Khadija, and it was at the age of 40 that he began to have visions and hear mysterious voices. Key themes in his early recitations include the idea of the moral responsibility of man who was created by God, and the idea of judgment to take place on the Day of Resurrection. To these are added vivid descriptions of the tortures of the damned in hellfire and the pleasures of the believers in Paradise. The religious duties that the Qur’an imposed on the Prophet and his followers during the Meccan years were few in number: one should believe in God, appeal to God for forgiveness of sins, offer prayers frequently, including long night vigils, assist others (especially those who are in need), free oneself from the love of delusive wealth and from all forms of cheating, lead a chaste life, and not expose new born girls to die in the desert.
When the Meccan merchants discovered that the Prophet attacked on principle the gods of Mecca, they realized that a religious revolution might be dangerous for their fairs and their trade. But during the Meccan years, the Prophet had not thought of founding a new religion. His task was only that of a warner, charged with the task of informing the Arabs, to whom no prophet had been sent before, that the Day of Judgment was approaching. The Jews and Christians must also testify to the truth of his preaching, since the same revelation had been sent down to them previously. It is in this context that the meaning of the repeatedly discussed term ummi, often translated as “illiterate,” is best understood. As applied to the Prophet in Sura 7:157, the term appears to mean “one who has not previously been given the Book of God.” After the emigration of some of the Prophet’s followers to Abyssinia, a few notables in Mecca were won for the new teaching, but the religious reform of his native city must be regarded as having failed, as also an attempt to establish himself in Ta’if failed. It is at this point that some accounts place the Night Journey to Jerusalem (in Arabic, isra’) and the Ascension to Heaven (in Arabic, mi‘raj). The Prophet persevered in his search for a new sphere of activity outside of Mecca, and found it in Yathrib (later called Medina).
After he had entered into relations with some Medinans who had come as pilgrims to Mecca in 621, the latter began to spread Islam in their native town. After a preliminary conference in al-‘Aqaba, he was able to conclude at the same place, during the pilgrimage of 622, a formal agreement with a considerable number of Medinans, in they pledged themselves to take him into their community and to protect him. These negotiations produced great bitterness in Mecca, and the believers slipped away to Medina, on September 24, 622.
Slowly at first, and then in larger numbers, the Medinans adopted Islam. During his first year in Medina, the Prophet devoted considerable attention to the Jews. His relations with any Christians who may have been in Medina can only be surmised from references in the Qur’an. In the so-called “Constitution of Medina,” the Prophet established a formal agreement with all of the significant tribes and families and he revealed his great diplomatic skills in his dealings with the Jews. But they would not accept his claims to a new religion, and the Qur’an accuses them of concealing parts of their holy scriptures. The Prophet also came to believe that the Christian scriptures did not preserve the actual message and teachings of the prophet Jesus.
It was at this point that the nascent Muslim community took on a pronounced national character through the adoption of various elements from ancient Arabian worship. This decisive change in the course of Islam occurred in the second year of the Hijra (July 623-June 624), and was signaled by the much discussed “change of the Qibla” from Jerusalem to the ancient sanctuary
Now the inevitable necessity arose of forcing admission to Mecca. The Prophet sent some of his followers to Nakhla, where they succeeded in capturing a Meccan caravan. In 624, the Muslims succeeded in completely routing the far more numerous Meccan enemy in the battle of Badr. The Jewish tribe of Qaynuqa’ was forced to leave Medina, while alliances were concluded with a number of Bedouin tribes. At the battle of Uhud in 624, the Prophet was wounded and the Meccans were victorious, but the expected negative consequences of this setback did not materialize in Medina. A second Medinan Jewish tribe, the Banu’l-Nadir, who were delighted at the Prophet’s misfortune, were forced to emigrate to Khaybar.
In 626, the Meccans set out with a large army against Medina. The Prophet had a trench (in Persian, khandaq) dug, and after the siege had dragged on, the besiegers gradually began to retire. After that the Prophet declared war on the Jewish tribe of the Qurayza, and all of their men were killed.
He then turned his major attention to the north and led two of the expeditions himself, one against the Banu Lihyan in 627, the other against the Banu Mustaliq. In 628, he felt strong enough to undertake the pilgrimage to Mecca. He encamped at al-Hudaybiya, where he agreed to the proposal of the Meccans that the Muslims would return the following year to perform the so-called “little pilgrimage” (in Arabic, ‘umra). He also concluded a ten years’ truce with the Quraysh. This so-called “Treaty of al-Hudaybiya” represented a brilliant act of diplomacy on his part, in that he had induced the Meccans to recognize him as an equal. In 628, the fertile oasis of Khaybar, inhabited by Jews, was captured.
At about this time, hadith puts the dispatch of letters from the Prophet to the Muqawqis of Alexandria, the Negus of Abyssinia, the Byzantine emperor Heraclius, the Persian king, and a number of others, in which he demanded that they adopt Islam.
Early in 629, the Prophet performed the pilgrimage to Mecca and accomplished the reconciliation with his family, the clan of Hashim. A few of the most important Meccans, such as the military men Khalid ibn al-Walid and ‘Amr ibn al-‘As, became Muslims. In the meantime, the Prophet continued his military expeditions. His forces suffered a serious reverse in the battle of Mu’ta in Transjordan against the Byzantines. The belligerent party in Mecca decided to support one of their client clans, the Banu Bakr, against the Banu Khuza‘a, who were allied to the Prophet. This, according to the custom among the Arabs at that time, was seen on both sides as breaking the Treaty of al-Hudaybiya, freeing the Prophet to attack Meccan caravans and even the city itself.
In December 629, Muhammad set out against Mecca. Not far from the town he was met by some Quraysh, who paid homage to him and obtained an amnesty for all Quraysh who abandoned armed resistance. Thus, the Prophet was able to enter his native city practically without a struggle. He acted with great generosity and demanded only the destruction of all idols in and around Mecca. After that he returned to Medina. His forces then routed the Hawazin tribes of central Arabia at Hunayn, but were unable to take Ta’if, which only surrendered in 630.
In 630, many embassies came to Medina from different parts of Arabia to submit to the conqueror of Mecca on behalf of their tribes. Although the Prophet’s appeal for a campaign against northern Arabia met with little support, he carried through with his plan. The campaign against Tabuk in 630 was indecisive by itself, but the petty Christian and Jewish states in the north of Arabia submitted to him, as did small groups of Bedouins in regions so far away from Medina as Bahrain, Oman and South Arabia.
In March 632, the Prophet carried through the first truly Islamic pilgrimage, the so-called “Farewell Pilgrimage.” Only a month before his death, Muhammad began preparations for a great expedition against Trans-jordan that he intended to lead himself. At about this time the appearance of rival “prophet’s,” such as al-Aswad, Musaylima and Tulayha, provoked disturbances.
The Prophet suddenly fell ill and died on June 8, 632. The really powerful factor in his life and the essential clue to his extraordinary success was his unshakable belief from beginning to end that he had been called by God.
Stories about the Prophet, his life and his intercession have permeated popular Muslim thought everywhere, and although he never claimed to have performed any miracle, traditional folk poetry indulges in extensive descriptions of his marvellous attributes and actions.
Immediately after the first Arab conquests, the professional story-tellers began to compose and disseminate stories of the life of the Prophet. A specimen of this sort of literature, which belonged to the historical novel rather than to history, was the “Book of the military campaigns” of Wahb ibn Munabbih. The oldest author of a biography of the Prophet was ‘Urwa ibn al-Zubayr. Oral transmissions by Aban ibn ‘Uthman (642-723), a son of the third caliph, were collected by ‘Abd al-Rahman ibn al-Mughira (d. before 742). These earliest productions are given the name “military campaigns.” Works of historians like Shihab al-Zuhri (671-741) and Musa ibn ‘Uqba (d. 758) also bear this title. The most famous biography of the Prophet is that of Ibn Ishaq -- the Sirah -- in the recension of Ibn Hisham, who preserved almost intact the primitive text of Ibn Ishaq. Other famous biographers in early Islam were Muhammad ibn ‘Umar al-Waqidi and Muhammad ibn Sa‘d (d. 844).
Muhammad ibn 'Abdullah see Muhammad
Muhammed see Muhammad
Mohammed see Muhammad
The Prophet of Islam see Muhammad
The Messenger of God see Muhammad
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