Today, Islam is the world’s second-largest religion, with close to 1.5 billion adherents in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia. But it started 1,400 years ago with only a few followers who embraced an Arabian merchant named Muhammad (570–632).
The founding prophet of Islam, Muhammad was an orphan who was raised by his uncle in the city of Mecca, then a thriving commercial outpost near the Red Sea. While in his teens, he began accompanying his uncle on caravans across present-day Saudi Arabia and Syria, where he came into contact with Christians and Jews.
At the time, Mecca was enjoying newfound prosperity, thanks to the profits reaped by metal, spice, and leather traders like Muhammad and his uncle. But along with the city’s material abundance, Muhammad worried, had come a sense of spiritual malaise among the formerly nomadic Arab tribesmen.
Mecca’s religious life was centered around a temple known as the Kaaba, best known for the black rock in its cornerstone. Mecca’s residents worshipped hundreds of different gods at the shrine, including one powerful deity named Allah.
The founding of Islam dates to 610, when Muhammad, worried by what he viewed as Mecca’s spiritual decay, retreated to a cave during the month of Ramadan. While meditating in the cave, he said, he was visited by the angel Gabriel, who dictated to him verses that would eventually form the Muslim holy book, the Koran.
Muhammad described the revelation—and the many more that would follow over the rest of his life—as an overwhelming experience. “Never once did I receive a revelation without feeling that my soul was being torn away from me,” he said. Inspired by his revelations, Muhammad insisted there was only one god—Allah—and that the rest of the Arab gods should be removed from the Kaaba. Initially, his monotheism was met with intense distrust, and Muhammad, along with his followers, was forced to flee Mecca for Medina in 622.
But by the time of his death, Muhammad had become both the religious and political leader of thousands of Muslims attracted to his emphasis on justice and community, as well as to the beauty of the Koran itself. The prophet returned triumphantly to Mecca just before his death to finally remove the other gods from the Kaaba and make his home city the capital of the rapidly expanding faith.
ADDITIONAL FACTS
- Islamic rules forbid pictures or drawings of Muhammad; as a result, there are no contemporary depictions of his physical appearance.
- Muhammad had twelve wives; his descendants are traditionally given the honorific title sayyid to denote their ancestry from the prophet.
- Allah’s shrine in Mecca—the Kaaba—remains the holiest spot in Islam. All Muslims physically able to make the trip are compelled to make a pilgrimage to Mecca at least once in their lifetimes.
