Muhammad
MUHAMMAD
The prophet (al-Nabi) and founder of Islam. Muhammad ("he who is praised") ibn Abd?Allah ibn ?Abd al-Muttalib al-Hashimi is thought to have been born in September 570 C.E., in Mecca, in Arabia, in the clan of Hashim of the tribe of Quraysh. In fact, his date of birth remains uncertain, situated by historians during the "year of the elephant" between 569 and 571, a period marked by an attack against Mecca led by the Christian Abyssinian viceroy of Yemen, Abraha, whose troops had a few elephants at their disposal. His father died before he was born and his mother died when he was around six.
Brought up by his uncle Abu Talib, Muhammad, as a youth, accompanied caravans to Syria, affording him the opportunity to meet Jews and Christians, among whom was the monk Bahira, in the city of Basra. The latter has been thought to have seen the future prophet in Muhammad. In 595, Muhammad married a rich widow, Khadija, fifteen years older than he was. In the night of 26 to 27 Ramadan of the year 610 (or 611) he had his first revelations in a cave on Mount Hira, near Mecca. Through the intermediary of the archangel Jibra?il (Gabriel), God charged him with transmitting the Qur?anic message to all of humanity, a message based on the oneness of God. The archangel asked him to be the prophet of the God of Abraham and of Moses. As soon as he started preaching, Muhammad came up against the hostility of the Quraysh, who were afraid that his words might compromise their commercial relations with the people of Mecca, who were polytheists. This hostility prompted him to emigrate to the oasis of Yathrib, a city with a large Jewish community, in July 622. He made a pact with twelve inhabitants of the city (the Oath of Aqaba), allowing him to benefit from the protection of their clan. This emigration marks the beginning of the Islamic calendar named after the emigration (hijra). It was during this epoch, in 622 or 623, that his "Night Journey" (isra?) to Jerusalem took place, in which he rode, according to Qur?anic tradition, on a mare that had a woman's head and a peacock's tail. When he arrived in Jerusalem he "ascended to Heaven," where he had been expected by God, who had a message for him. The relations of the first Muslims with the Meccans worsened, leading to a veritable war between the two communities, following which, on 11 January 630, the followers of Muhammad took control of Mecca, emptying the Ka?ba of its idols, leaving only the Black Stone in place. Meanwhile, the Muslims also fought with and banished or killed those who betrayed their army in the battles, in particular many members of the Jewish tribes of Yathrib (renamed Madinat al-Nabi, the "City of the Prophet," or Medina). At Medina, he founded the first Islamic city-state and the first Islamic constitution. The house of the prophet Muhammad in Medina became the first mosque, and Bilal, an emancipated black slave, was charged with calling the Muslims to prayer.
On 7 March 624, the Battle of Badr, south of Medina, marked for Muslims the end of pagan Arabia. The prophet Muhammad remained monogamous until the death of Khadija, following which he married, successively, Sauda, A'sha, Hafsa, Zaynab bint Khuzayma, Umm Salama, Zaynab bint Jahsh, Juwayriya, Umm Habiba, Safiyya, and Maymuna. He had four sons who died early: Qassim, Tayyib, Tahir, and Ibrahim, and four daughters with Khadija: Zaynab, Ruqaya, Umm Kulthum, and Fatima. On 8 June 632, Muhammad died at Medina. For Muslims, Muhammad is the last of the prophets (nabi), after, among others, Noah, Abraham, Moses, and Jesus.