Muhammad

Source

• Born: c. 570
• Birthplace: Mecca (now in Saudi Arabia)
• Died: c. 632 (natural causes)
• Best Known As: Founding prophet of Islam

Muhammad is the central prophet of the Islamic faith. Born into a noble Quraish (Quraysh) clan, he was orphaned at an early age. He grew up to be a successful merchant, then turned contemplative; it's said that beginning when he was 40, Muhammad was commanded by Allah (God) to recite the words that would later become Islam's holy book, the Qur'an (or Koran). As the revelations continued, Muhammad preached publicly of the duty to submit to the one true god, gaining followers and earning the enmity of the polytheistic authorities. To escape persecution, Muhammad was forced to flee in 622 to Yathrib (later called Medina). His poetic recitations and pleas for social justice continued to win converts, and Muhammad was repeatedly called into battle in his efforts to unite Arabia behind the faith known as Islam (meaning "submission"). After finally conquering Mecca in 630, Muhammad returned to Medina, where he died in 632.

The prophet's name is sometimes spelled 'Mohammed' or 'Mohamet'... To show respect, many Muslims say or write "peace be upon him" (abbreviated "pbuh") after the name of Muhammad and other prophets... Boxer Cassius Clay took the name Muhammad Ali when he converted to Islam in the 1960s.

Mohammed (ca. 570-632) was the founder of the religion of Islam and of a political unit at Medina that later developed into the Arab Empire, or Caliphate, and a multitude of successor states.

Arabia lay on the periphery of the two empires, the Byzantine and the Persian (Sassanian), which in the early 7th century controlled most of the region from the eastern Mediterranean to India. During the 6th century each made many efforts to gain advantages in Arabia at the expense of the other. From 572 until 628 there was almost constant war between the two, and this left the Byzantine Empire exhausted and the Persian on the point of collapse. This factor contributed largely to the rapidity of the Arab military advance into Persia, Iraq, Syria, and North Africa between 634 and 650.

The town of Mecca, where Mohammed was born about 570, was a commercial center which by 600 had gained monopolistic control of the caravan trade passing up and down the west coast of Arabia, conveying luxury goods from India and East Africa to Syria. In their own business interests the merchants of Mecca had remained neutral toward the two empires. Growing prosperity had led to a malaise among the inhabitants of Mecca, accompanied by religious questioning. Mohammed's clan of Hashim, like most of the Meccan clans, gained a livelihood by commerce, but some of the other clans had been more successful and were now wealthier.

Call To Be a Prophet

Mohammed's personal situation made him keenly aware of the tensions in Mecca. He was born posthumously, and his grandfather, Abdu-l-Muttalib, and his mother both died when he was a child. As a minor, he was unable by Arab custom to inherit anything. He was thus relatively poor until about 595, when a wealthy woman, Khadija, asked him to go to Syria as steward of her merchandise and, on the successful accomplishment of the mission, offered marriage. From this time onward Mohammed was comfortably off, but he began to spend time in solitary reflection on the problems of Mecca.

During a period of solitude about 610 Mohammed had two visions in which he beheld a supernatural being who said to him, "You are the Messenger of God" (this being the title more frequently given to him by Moslems than that of prophet). He also found certain words "in his heart" (that is, his mind). Friends helped to convince him that he was called to convey messages from God to the Arabs as Moses and Jesus had done to the Jews and Christians. He continued to receive such messages from time to time until his death. They were collected into chapters, or suras, partly during Mohammed's lifetime and definitively about 650, and constitute the Koran (Qur'ān). The Koran, though mediated by Mohammed's consciousness, is held by Moslems to come from God and should not be referred to as being of Mohammed's composition.

Meccan Preacher

At first Mohammed communicated these messages only to sympathetic friends, but from 612 or 613 he proclaimed them publicly. Many people in Mecca, especially among the younger men, became followers of Mohammed and Moslems, or adherents of his religion of Islam (submission, namely to God). In the course of time, however, opposition to Mohammed appeared among the leading merchants of Mecca, and he and his followers were subjected to various petty forms of persecution. Apparently to escape from such persecution some 80 of his followers emigrated for a time to Ethiopia. About 616, pressure in the form of a boycott was placed on the clan of Hashim to make it cease protecting Mohammed, but until after the death of the head of the clan, Mohammed's uncle Abu-Talib, about 619, it was felt that to abandon him would be dishonorable.

The new head, Abu-Lahab, however, found a way of justifying abandonment, and it became virtually impossible for Mohammed to continue preaching in Mecca. An attempt to move to the neighboring town of Taif proved abortive; but in September 622, after secret negotiations over the previous 2 years, he settled in the oasis of Medina, 200 miles to the north, where 70 of his followers had already gone. This "emigration" (rather than "flight") is the Hijra (Latin, hegira), on which the Islamic era is based.

First Years at Medina

The Arab clans of Medina mostly acknowledged Mohammed's prophethood and entered into alliance with him and the emigrants from Mecca. At first the emigrants depended on Medinese hospitality, but soon small groups of them began to attempt raids on Meccan caravans. Later the Moslems of Medina also joined in. This was a variant of the common Arab practice of the razzia. At first the raids had little success, but in March 624 a larger band of just over 300, led by Mohammed himself, after failing to intercept a caravan, decisively defeated a supporting force of perhaps 800 Meccans with heavy losses. This was a serious blow to Meccan prestige, and the Moslems felt that God was vindicating Mohammed.

To teach Mohammed a lesson, the Meccans in March 625 invaded the Medinese oasis with about 3,000 men. Mohammed, obliged to fight by some supporters, stationed his force of 1,000 on the lower slopes of Uhud, a hill in the north of the oasis, where they were safe from the Meccan cavalry. An attack of the Meccan infantry was repulsed by the Moslems, but as they pursued the fugitives, the cavalry managed to attack them on the flank. Many were killed before they could regain the safety of the hill. Militarily this was not a serious reverse for Mohammed, since the Meccans had also suffered casualties and retreated immediately without following up their advantage; but the reverse shook the belief that God was vindicating him, and confidence was only gradually restored.

Though the Moslems were now making several smaller razzias each year with a measure of success, the next major event was the siege of Medina by 10,000 Meccans and allies in April 627. Mohammed protected the central part of the oasis by a trench which foiled the cavalry, and after a fortnight the alliance broke up and the siege was raised. The Meccans had now shot their bolt and failed to dislodge Mohammed. When he went to Mecca in March 628 with 1,600 men, ostensibly to perform traditional pilgrimage rites, the Meccans turned him back but concluded the Treaty of al-Hudaybiya with him.

Though the terms of the treaty slightly favored the Meccans, the signing of it was a triumph for Mohammed. In the following months many nomadic tribesmen and a few leading Meccans went to Medina to join Mohammed and become Moslems. When the treaty was denounced in January 630 after an incident involving allies of each side, Mohammed was able to march on Mecca with 10,000 men. There was virtually no resistance, and Mohammed entered Mecca in triumph. A few persons guilty of hostile or objectionable acts were proscribed, but the Meccans in general were leniently treated. A fort-night later 2,000 joined Mohammed's army in opposing a concentration of tribesmen east of Mecca and shared in the victory of Hunayn.

New Religion

By 630 the religion of Islam had attained a definite form. In the earliest parts the Koran had emphasized God's goodness and power and had called on men to acknowledge this in worship. It had also asserted the reality of the Day of Judgment, when men would be assigned to paradise or hell in accordance with their attitude to God's revelation, their generosity with their wealth, and similar points. These matters were relevant to the tensions of Mecca, which were seen as arising from the merchants' overconfidence in their wealth and power. After the appearance of opposition to Mohammed, the Koran contained attacks on idols and an insistence that "there is no deity but God."

The religious practices of the Moslems included communal worship or prayers several times a day, in which the climax was prostration, the touching of the ground with the forehead in acknowledgement of God's majesty. They also gave alms in the form of a kind of tithe. At Medina the fast from sunrise to sunset during the month of Ramadan was introduced; and when circumstances made it possible, some of the ceremonies of the traditional pilgrimage to Mecca became a duty for Moslems.

Years of Triumph

In 622 Mohammed, though recognized as prophet in Medina, had been only one clan chief among nine. His power and authority grew, however, with the success of the razzias and other expeditions undertaken by the Moslems, especially those against the Meccans. There were Jewish clans in Medina, wealthy but now politically subordinate to the Arab clans, and these made damaging criticisms of Mohammed's religious teaching and sometimes intrigued with his enemies. On suitable occasions in 622, 624, and 625 he attacked the three main clans and expelled them. In the last case all the men were put to death.

Beyond Medina a system of alliances was gradually built up with the nomadic Arab tribes. As Mohammed grew stronger, he came to insist that those wanting an alliance should become Moslems. After the conquest of Mecca and the victory at Hunayn in January 630, he was the strongest man in Arabia, and deputations came from tribes or parts of tribes in eastern, central, and southern Arabia, seeking alliance with him. When he died on June 8, 632, he was in effective control of a large part of Arabia, but it is impossible to define exactly the area he ruled, since we do not know how important in the tribe or local community was the group allied to Mohammed.

His Personality and Achievement

Mohammed is said to have been a fast walker, of sturdy build, with a prominent forehead, a hooked nose, large brownish-black eyes, and a pleasant smile. He showed great tact in his dealings with people and, when appropriate, gentleness and even tenderness. Medieval Europe, however, on the defensive against Arab armies and Islamic culture, came to look on him as a monster or demon. Even scholars depicted him as treacherous and lecherous and an impostor. The last he certainly was not, for as Thomas Carlyle pointed out in 1840, a great religion cannot be founded on imposture.

At time Mohammed was indeed harsh to those in his power, but this was not out of keeping with the age. His marital relations - at his death he had nine wives and one concubine - must also be judged in the context of the age. A political purpose can be traced in all his marriages, and he was also creating a new family structure to replace older matrilineal family structures associated with undesirable polyandric practices. For his time he was a social reformer.

Politically his great achievement was to create the framework which made possible the uniting of the Arab tribes and was capable of being developed to include an empire. Mohammed was aware at least by 627 that it would be necessary to expand beyond Arabia, since tribes allied to him could not raid other allies and must direct their energies further afield. He thus devoted special attention to the tribes on the route to Syria and to a lesser extent on the route to Iraq. He was also to win over to his cause his chief Meccan opponents, and their administrative skills were later invaluable in conquering and ruling numerous provinces. The growth of the Arab Empire, and with it of the religion of Islam, was made possible by favorable circumstances; but the opportunity would not have been grasped but for Mohammed's gifts as visionary, statesman, and administrator.

Further Reading

The most recent full account of Mohammed is contained in the two works by W. Montgomery Watt, Muhammad at Mecca (1953) and Muhammad at Medina (1956). These volumes are briefly summarized in Watt's Muhammad: Prophet and Statesman (1961). Tor Andrae, Mohammed: The Man and His Faith (trans. 1936), is chiefly concerned with the religious aspect. Rather slighter is the section on Mohammed in Francesco Gabrieli, Muhammad and the Conquests of Islam (1967; trans. 1968). The primary Arabic biography is translated by Alfred Guillaume as The Life of Muhammad: A Translation of Ishaq's Sirat Rasul Allah (1955).

Norman Daniel, Islam and the West: The Making of an Image (1960), discusses the medieval distortions. The best of the numerous translations of the Koran are those by George Sale, Selections from the Kur-an (1734; 5th ed. 1855), and Arthur J. Arberry, The Koran Interpreted (1955). Richard Bell, Introduction to the Qur'an (1953; rev. ed. 1958), is also recommended. For general background see G. E. von Grunebaum, Classical Islam: A History, 600 A.D.-1258 A.D. (1971), and P.M. Holt, Ann K. S. Lambton, and Bernard Lewis, eds., The Cambridge History of Islam (2 vols., 1971).

For more information on Muhammad, visit Britannica.com.

Early Life

Muhammad was the son of Abdallah ibn Abd al-Muttalib and his wife Amina, both of the Hashim clan of the dominant Kuraish (Quraysh) tribal federation. Muhammad was orphaned soon after birth, and was brought up by his uncle Abu Talib. When he was 24, he married Khadija, a wealthy widow much his senior; he had no other wife in Khadija's lifetime. Khadija's daughter Fatima was the only child of Muhammad to have issue. His position in the community was that of a wealthy merchant.

Call to Prophecy

When he was 40, Muhammad felt himself selected by God to be the Arab prophet of true religion. The Arabs, unlike other nations, had hitherto had no prophet. In the cave of Mt. Hira, N of Mecca, he had a vision in which he was commanded to preach. Thereafter throughout his life he continued to have revelations, many of which were collected and recorded in the Qur'an. His fundamental teachings were: there is one God; people must in all things submit to Him; in this world nations have been amply punished for rejecting God's prophets, and heaven and hell are waiting for the present generation; the world will come to an end with a great judgment. He included as religious duties frequent prayer and almsgiving, and he forbade usury.

Enemies and Converts

In his first years Muhammad made few converts but many enemies. His first converts were Khadija, Ali (who became the husband of Fatima), and Abu Bakr. From about 620, Mecca became actively hostile, since much of its revenues depended on its pagan shrine, the Kaaba, and an attack on the existing Arab religion was an attack on the prosperity of Mecca. While he was gaining only enemies at home, Muhammad's teaching was faring little better abroad; only at Yathrib did it make any headway, and on Yathrib depended the future of Islam. In the summer of 622 Muhammad fled from Mecca as an attempt was being prepared to murder him, and he escaped in the night from the city and made his way to Yathrib. From this event, the flight, or Hegira, of the Prophet (622), the Islamic calendar begins.

Muhammad spent the rest of his life at Yathrib, henceforth called Medina, the City of the Prophet. At Medina he built his model theocratic state and from there ruled his rapidly growing empire. Muhammad's lawgiving at Medina is at least theoretically the law of Islam, and in its evolution over the next 10 years the history of the community at Medina is seen.

Medina lies on the caravan route N of Mecca, and the Kuraishites of Mecca could not endure the thought of their outlawed relative taking vengeance on his native city by plundering their caravans. A pitched battle between Muhammad's men and the Meccans occurred at Badr, and the victory of an inferior force from the poorer city over the men of Mecca gave Islam great prestige in SW Arabia. More than a year later the battle of Uhud was fought but with less fortunate results. By this time pagan Arabia had been converted, and the Prophet's missionaries, or legates, were active in the Eastern Empire, in Persia, and in Ethiopia.

As he believed firmly in his position as last of the prophets and as successor of Jesus, Muhammad seems at first to have expected that the Jews and Christians would welcome him and accept his revelations, but he was soon disappointed. Medina had a large Jewish population which controlled most of the wealth of the city, and they steadfastly refused to give their new ruler any kind of religious allegiance. Muhammad, after a long quarrel, appropriated much of their property, and his first actual conquest was the oasis of Khaibar, occupied by the Jews, in 628. The failure of several missions among the Christians made him distrustful of Christians as well as Jews.

His renown increased, and in 629 he made a pilgrimage to Mecca without interference. There he won valuable converts, including Amr and Khalid (who had fought him at Uhud). In 630 he marched against Mecca, which fell without a fight. Arabia was won. Muhammad's private life—the fact that he had nine wives—has received a vast, and perhaps disproportionate, amount of attention. His third wife, Aishah, was able and devoted; he died in her arms June 8, 632.

Legends and Veneration

Islam has enshrouded Muhammad's life with a mass of legends and traditions (contained in the Hadith). Islamic dogma stresses his exclusively human nature, while presenting him as infallible on matters of prophecy. Muhammad is still perceived as the ultimate subject of emulation. At a popular level, Muslims throughout the world venerate Muhammad by expressing their love and devotion to him through numerous poems, folk songs, and formulaic prayers invoking God's blessings. Many believe that he will intercede for the Muslim community on the day of judgment. His deeds and sayings are collected in the sunna. He is considered by most Muslims to have been sinless. Muhammad is probably the most common given name, with variations including the W African Mamadu and the Turkic Mehmet. He was known to medieval Christianity as Mahomet.

Bibliography

See biographies by T. Andrae (tr. 1936, repr. 1971), W. M. Watt (1953), M. Hamidullah (1959), M. Rodinson (tr. 1971), M. Lings (1983), and K. Armstrong (1992 and 2006); see also A. Schimmel, And Muhammad Is His Messenger (1985).

570 - 632

The Prophet of Islam.

Muhammad is referred to by Muslims as rasul allah (the messenger of God) or al-nabi (the Prophet), an appellation that they always follow with the invocation salla allah alayhi wa sallam (May God's peace and blessing be upon him).

Early Life

He was born in Mecca in 570, the year of the Elephant, a fortuitous year in tradition, since Mecca in that year survived an Abyssinian invasion directed through Yemen. Although one of various pagan centers in Arabia, Mecca was considered the most important one on account of the Kaʿba, a cubical religious sanctuary revered since ancient times. A spiritual focal point for devotees, who came to it as pilgrims with sacrifices, Mecca provided a convenient meeting point for merchants who exchanged goods there and poets who displayed their literary talents and competed for the attention of its wealthy guests and residents. Authority over the city rested in a loose confederation of tribal groups largely dominated by the tribe of Quraysh. Muhammad was born to the clan of Banu Hashim (Hashimites), a branch within Quraysh that was known less for its wealth than for its religious prestige. The patriarch of the clan was traditionally entrusted with caring for the Kaʿba and maintenance of the pilgrimage facilities, such as the renowned well of zamzam, where Islamic tradition states that in ancient times Ismaʿil, abandoned with his mother Hagar by Abraham (Ibrahim), struck water in the desert and thereby attracted settlement in that spot. Because Mecca is situated on the overland route between Yemen and Syria, its importance as a station, market, and religious center grew with the increasing caravan trade in the region.

Muhammad grew up as an orphan, having lost both of his parents by the age of six. He was then cared for briefly by his grandfather, Abd al-Muttalib, the patriarch of his clan, and afterward by his uncle Abu Talib. In his adolescent years, Muhammad joined his uncle on trade journeys, the most notable of which were to Syria, and he noticed the effects of this commercial boom on his city. The growth of excessive competition in Mecca was gradually undermining traditional Arab tribal values that emphasized principles of solidarity, mutual help, and magnanimity (muru'a), and leaving a pool of destitute and disenfranchised Meccans who were abandoned by a new, wealth-driven generation. In this troubled Arab milieu, Muhammad, who attracted attention in Mecca because of his fair dealing, honesty, and moral sensitivity, was commissioned by a wealthy widow, Khadija, to take charge of her caravan trade. Aged twenty-five, Muhammad married Khadija, fifteen years his senior; she bore him two sons (al-Qasim and Abdullah), who died in infancy, and four daughters (Zaynab, Ruqiyya, Umm Kulthum, and Fatima).

Beyond his distress about the social malaise in Mecca, Muhammad was dissatisfied with the pagan beliefs of the Meccans. The Kaʿba, surrounded by idols that catered to various pagan cults, had become a platform for profit making and opportunism.

Beginning of Islamic Religion

Seeking a full break with this society, Muhammad found solace in spiritual retreats that he undertook in a mountain cave, Hira, on the outskirts of Mecca. According to tradition, Muhammad spent long stretches of time alone in the cave, and it was on one of these occasions, in the year 610, that the angel Gabriel ( Jabril) appeared to him and presented him with the words, "Recite in the name of thy Lord, the Creator" (Sura 96:1). Gabriel announced to Muhammad that he was to be the messenger of God and called on him to warn his people against polytheism and to lead them to the worship of the one God. The first words of the Qurʾan came to light in the month of Ramadan - hence the religious importance of that month - and other verses followed in later years in various contexts over the course of Muhammad's life. Those closest to Muhammad - his wife, Khadija, his cousin Ali, his companion Abu Bakr, and his servant Zayd - were the first to hear the words of the Qurʾan and to embrace the new message, Islam (meaning literally surrendering oneself to the will of God). After overcoming some initial hesitation, Muhammad grew confident in his sense of mission and took the message to the public arena of Mecca.

The earliest Qurʾanic recitations of Muhammad emphasized the belief in absolute monotheism. Meccans were called on to cast aside all polytheism and to worship the one God, Allah, the creator of the universe. The Qurʾan described the omniscience and omnipotence of God and invited the people (al-nas) to ponder the signs of creation. The Qurʾan also admonished the Meccans for their exploitative business practices, involving usurious transactions and unfairness, and warned them of the existence of Judgment Day, when all would be rewarded or punished according to their deeds. This admonishment, together with Muhammad's public denigration of paganism, elicited the hostility of the leading Meccan merchants, who, in addition to feeling their pride offended, feared that the Islamic concept of one God would undermine the status of Mecca as a pagan center and an economic hub. Recognizing the significance of Hashimite solidarity, the Meccans at first attempted to make Muhammad abandon his attack on paganism by such methods as offering to make him king of Mecca, but when all failed, they declared a boycott against him and tried to extend it to all his clan.

In Mecca, Muhammad gained few Islamic converts (primarily young men, some from affluent families), and his attempt to preach in the neighboring town of Taʾif elicited even greater hostility than in Mecca. Finally, in 620, the prospects of the new religion began to change when Muhammad met six men from Medina who were visiting Mecca. This Medinese group, from the tribe of Khazraj, had long been familiar with messianic expectations that circulated in the discourse of Jews and Christians living in the region and proved receptive to the Islamic prophecy. The next year, this group held a larger meeting between Muhammad and seventy residents of Medina who pledged loyalty to the Prophet and invited him to their town. After years of rivalry in Medina between its two leading tribes, the Aws and the Khazraj, Muhammad's leadership offered the possibility of a neutral authority that could mediate disputes, administer the affairs of a diverse community, and contribute to its social recovery. As the hostility of the Meccans to the new religion and its adherents mounted, Muhammad finally decided to migrate, with Abu Bakr, to Medina in a secret journey that took place on 17 September 622. The trip, known in Arabic as hijra (migration), would later mark the beginning of the Islamic lunar calendar.

Rise of Islamic State

Once established in Medina, Muhammad set about organizing the nascent Islamic community and strengthening fraternalist ties between the Meccan emigrants (al-muhajirun) and the Medinese, known as the helpers (al-ansar). In a document referred to by scholars today as the Constitution of Medina, Muhammad declared the unity of the community (umma) of Medina under his leadership and stipulated that all matters of legal and political concern were to be referred to him. Medina's hosting of the new religion soon made it the target of Meccan hostility. In 624, mounting tension between the two cities finally led to the first military confrontation at the battle of Badr, where a small Muslim force succeeded in beating back a larger Meccan army. The significance of Badr was not so much military as political. Muhammad's victory strengthened his support in Medina, attracted the admiration of tribal leaders from around the Arabian peninsula, and undermined the prestige of the Meccan order. Between the years 624 and 628, Mecca engaged the Medinese in numerous military skirmishes and battles, the most famous of which was the battle of alKhandaq (the Trench) in 626. In that year, Mecca assembled a massive confederation of neighboring tribes to invade Medina, but the campaign was forestalled by the Medinese strategy of digging a trench around Medina. The Meccan army, unprepared for a siege and composed of tribal groups that had united for a quick battle only, soon dispersed and retreated.

This last confrontation definitively turned Muhammad into the central leadership figure, and it was then only a matter of time before Mecca would itself become vulnerable to conquest. In 628, Muhammad set out to Mecca on pilgrimage with the new community, only to find his way blocked by the Meccans. At the peace of al-Hudaybiyya in that year, the Meccans called for a long-term truce, after which Muslims would be allowed access to Mecca for pilgrimage. Two years later, the treaty was violated by confederate tribesmen of Mecca, and this opened the way for the Islamic conquest of Mecca, which took place peacefully in 630. A year later, various Arab tribal chiefs from around the peninsula converged on Medina to pay homage or pledge allegiance to the Prophet. Whether nominal or effective, Muhammad's political authority had extended over the greater part of the peninsula, and texts of letters can be obtained from Islamic sources that Muhammad sent to neighboring kings of Persia and Byzantium, as well as various regional princes, inviting them to embrace Islam.

Medina continued its role as the capital of the Islamic state, although Mecca, after the destruction of the idols around the Kaʿba, became the spiritual center of Islam. In 632, soon after completing pilgrimage at Mecca and setting out again for Medina, Muhammad fell mortally ill from a fever. In his final days, he made no specific arrangements for succession. With illness preventing him from leading the prayers, the Prophet asked Abu Bakr to lead the community in prayers, and this gesture would later be interpreted in Sunni Islam as a recommendation for political succession. Shiʿite Islam, in contrast, turns toother traditions describing Muhammad's praise for Ali as a reflection of the Prophet's general designation of Ali as his successor. Ali was also, through his marriage to Fatima, the father of Muhammad's two grandchildren, al-Hasan and al-Husayn.

The life of Muhammad has long captivated the attention of Muslims and non-Muslims alike. Muslims look on him not only as a spiritual guide but also as an exemplar in social, ethical, and political terms. Islamic law grew not only from Qurʾanic edicts but also from the Islamic understanding of Muhammad's day-to-day manner of handling all sorts of temporal issues. Oral tradition (hadith) transmitted through Muhammad's companions recounts in detail his instructions and how he lived. Outside observers, on the other hand, continue to weigh Muhammad's achievements in comparison with those of other spiritual masters. In his confrontation with polytheism and his experience of migration, he is compared to Abraham, whereas as promulgator of the rudiments of Islamic law, he evokes a connection with Moses; in his political leadership of the community, he evokes a connection with David. In the vast desert on the fringes of the urban and sophisticated empires of the time - those of the Byzantines and the Sassanians, each with long traditions of structured governmental institutions - Muhammad united both the nomadic and sedentary Arabs into a coherent social unit that would later conquer these powers. Although this political expansion took place under his successors, Muhammad had laid the foundation for an Islamic universalist social vision that was rooted in a unifying monotheistic belief. The memory of the prophetic experience of hijra between cities henceforth inspired its emulation on a grander scale outside Arabia.

Bibliography

Cook, Michael. Muhammad. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1983.

Guillaume, Alfred. The Life of Muhammad: A Translation of IbnIshaq's "Sirat Rasul Allah." London, 1955.

Lings, Martin. Muhammad: His Life Based on the Earliest Sources, revised edition. Cambridge, U.K.: Islamic Texts Society, 2001.

Muir, Sir William. The Life of Mohammad (1912). New York: AMS Press, 1975.

Rodinson, Maxime. Mohammed, translated by Anne Carter. New York: Pantheon, 1971.

Watt, W. Montgomery. Muhammad at Mecca. Oxford: Clarendon, 1953.

Watt, W. Montgomery. Muhammad at Medina. Oxford: Clarendon, 1956.

Watt, W. Montgomery. Muhammad: Prophet and Statesman. London and New York: Oxford University Press, 1961; reprint 1974.

— TAYEB EL-HIBRI

(ca. 572-632) prophet and founder of Islam. Mohammad was born of the Koreish people in Mecca, Saudi Arabia. Each year he would climb Mt. Hira for meditation. One year he returned from the mountain, declaring himself a prophet, or messenger, of God. Returning to Mecca, he preached his message for nine years, attracting many disciples, much to the dismay of those practicing established beliefs (much like the experience of Jesus). In 612 A.D. he was forced to flee from enemies. This year marks the beginning of the Muslim calendar: 1A.H. (= After Hejrat, i.e. "after the flight"). His flight allowed him to gather his followers and in 630 A.D. he returned to wrest Mecca from the hands of the Koreish. He was then acknowledged the last prophet of Allah by all Arabia.

Etymology: Muhammad "praised, extolled" passive participle of intensive hammada "to extoll" from hamida "to praise." Akin to Ahmad, Hamid, Hamdi, and Mahmud (see also 'Arabic language').

Quotes:

"Patience is the key to contentment."

"Believe, if thou wilt, that mountains change their place, but believe not that man changes his nature."

"If anyone tells you someone has changed their character; don't believe it."

"Give the laborer his wages before his perspiration be dry."

"A man's true wealth is the good he does in the world."

"The ink of the scholar is more sacred than the blood of the martyr."

See more famous quotes by Mohammed