Muhammad (Arabic: محمد; pronounced [muħammad]; French: Mahomet /məˈhɒmɪt/; Latinized as Mahometus c. 570
CE – 8 June 632 CE) was
the founder of Islam. According
to Islamic doctrine, he was a prophet and
God's messenger, sent to present and confirm the monotheistic teachings
preached previously by Adam, Abraham, Moses, Jesus,
and other prophets. He is viewed as the final prophet of God in
all the main branches of Islam, though some modern
denominations diverge from this belief. Muhammad united Arabia into
a single Muslim polity and his teachings, practices, and the Quran form the basis
of Islamic religious belief.
Born in approximately 570 CE (Year of the Elephant) in the Arabian city
of Mecca,
Muhammad was orphaned at an early age; he was raised under the care of his
paternal uncle Abu Talib and Abu Talib's wife Fatimah bint
Asad
Periodically, he would
seclude himself in a mountain cave named Hira for several
nights of prayer; later, at age 40, he reported being visited by Gabriel in
the cave, where he stated he received his first revelation from God. Three
years later, in 610, Muhammad started preachingthese revelations
publicly, proclaiming that "God is One",
that complete "surrender" (islām)
to him is the right course of action (dīn), and
that he was a prophet and messenger of God, similar to the other prophets in Islam.
Muhammad gained few early followers,
and experienced hostility from Meccan polytheists.
To escape ongoing persecution, he sent some 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 wars 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
his death, most of the Arabian
Peninsula had converted to Islam.
The revelations (each known as Ayah,
lit. "Sign [of God]"), which Muhammad reported receiving until
his death, form the verses of the Quran, regarded by Muslims as the verbatim
"Word of God" and around 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).
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