Facts about Muhammad
Each sect and school had its own sometimes-conflicting traditions of what Muhammad and his companions had done and said.
All prophets are equal but Muhammad is distinguished from all others by the nature of his message, which was universal whereas their messages were limited to particular places or people.
Most Muslims feel a great love and reverence for Muhammad, and express this in many ways, although no Muslim worships him or regards him as other than human.
Non-Muslims have often taken a much more critical view, and many have regarded Muhammad as self-serving, insincere, immoral, the inventor of Islam.
From Medina, Muhammad signed treaties of alliance and mutual help with neighboring tribes.
Asked what Muhammad was like, his wife Aisha once said, “read the Qur'an,” suggesting that Muhammad lived by what he preached.
Under Muhammad's immediate successors the Islamic empire expanded into Palestine, Syria, Mesopotamia, Persia, Egypt, North Africa, and Spain.
The earliest surviving biographies are the Life of the Apostle of God, by Ibn Ishaq (d. 768) (see Guillaume 1955), edited by Ibn Hisham (d. 833); and al-Waqidi's (d. 822) biography (sira) of Muhammad.
About 620, Muhammad went on the Isra and Miraj (night journey and ascension), a two-part journey he took in one night.
The capitulation of Mecca and the defeat of an alliance of enemy tribes at Hunayn effectively brought the greater part of the Arabian world under Muhammad's authority.
Reeves (2000) refers to Muhammad's love of children and says that his household was “a model husband—gentle, generous, considerate and courteous” (49).
The majority, the Sunni, disputes this, and say that the leaders of the community conferred and freely chose Abu Bakr, who was pre-eminent among the followers of Muhammad.
Some sayings of Muhammad are taken as mandatory, others as only advisory but major difference in practice and consequences for policing Islamic faithfulness may result.
According to Shi'a Islam, Muhammad had appointed his son-in-law Ali as his successor, in a public sermon at Ghadir Khumm.
Muhammad’s denunciation of polytheism was especially offensive to his own tribe, the Quraysh, as they were the guardians of the Ka'bah.
Muhammad's enemies boycotted his supporters' businesses and sometimes attacked them in the streets.
A few mocked him, calling him a magician, a soothsayer, a poet (the Qur'an is rhymed prose but Muhammad always rejected the accusation that he was a poet).
at about the age of 40, while meditating in a cave, Muhammad experienced a vision from the angel Gabriel, who commanded him to memorize and recite the verses subsequently collected as the Qur'an.
The sources available to us for information about Muhammad are the Qur'an, sira biographies, and the hadith (sayings and deeds of Muhammad) collections.
The Muslims were clearly the dominant force in Arabia, and most of the remaining tribes and states hastened to submit to Muhammad.
Muhammad's legacy lives on in the minds and hearts of billions of Muslims throughout the world, for whom he represents the best model of human conduct.
Muhammad came to Medina as a mediator, invited to resolve the feud between the Arab factions of Aws and Khazraj.
After a short illness, Muhammad died around noon on Monday, June 8, 632, in the city of Medina at the age of 63.
Muhammad had hoped that they would recognize him as a prophet, but they did not do so.
Ibn Ishaq records that Khadijah bore Muhammad five children, one son and four daughters.
Muhammad was born into a well-to-do family settled in the northern Arabian town of Mecca.
According to tradition, Muhammad traced his genealogy back as far as Adnan, whom the northern Arabs believed to be their common ancestor.
The four daughters are said to be Zainab bint Muhammad, Ruqayyah bint Muhammad, Umm Kulthum bint Muhammad, and Fatima Zahra.
Muslim and non-Muslim scholars alike agree that there are many inauthentic traditions concerning the life of Muhammad in the hadith collections.
Muhammad, in turn, promised a general amnesty (from which a small number of people were specifically excluded).
Early accounts report meetings between Muhammad and a Christian monk, Bahira (see Guillaume, 79-82), while Q16:103 may respond to the charge that he was coached by a young Christian called Jabr (see Guillaume, 180).
Most Meccans converted to Islam and Muhammad destroyed the idols in the Ka'bah.
The historicity of the biographical material about Muhammad presented in the summary above is less contested than legal material of the hadith.
At the age of six, Muhammad lost his mother Amina, and at the age of eight his grandfather Abd al-Muttalib.
Isra is the Arabic word referring to what it regarded as Muhammad's miraculous night journey from Mecca to Jerusalem, specifically, to the site of the Masjid al-Aqsa, the al-Aqsa Mosque.
All of Khadija's children were born before Muhammad started preaching about Islam.
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Virtually all the remaining Medinans converted, and Muhammad became de facto ruler of the city.
Muslims are careful to ascertain whether Muhammad intended a particular edict to be universally binding, before they deem it to be mandatory for all Muslims.
Concerned for the safety of his small following, Muhammad sent a group to Abyssinia and founded a small colony there.
Until his death, Muhammad received frequent revelations, although there was a relatively long gap after the first revelation.
To the Muslims, the victory in Badr appeared as a divine vindication of Muhammad's prophethood, and he and all the Muslims rejoiced greatly.
According to traditional Muslim biographers, Muhammad was born c. 570 C.E.
Muslim feminists contend that Muhammad was a champion of women's rights but that most of his male followers were unprepared to accept this aspect of his teaching, and subsequently altered it.
Muhammad once described the whole earth as a mosque, and in its widest sense any permitted act is a form of worship.
Muhammad's father, Abd Allah ibn Abd al-Muttalib, had died before he was born, and the young boy was brought up by his paternal grandfather Abd al-Muttalib, of the tribe of Quraysh (or Quraish).
Reportedly, Abu Sufyan converted following this encounter, since he was convinced that if even the Byzantine emperor feared Muhammad, he would soon conquer all.
Knowledge or information about the context in which a verse of the Qur'an or a saying of Muhammad was first uttered depends on the witness statements of Muhammad's companions.
Muhammad now came under care of his uncle Abu Talib, the new leader of the Hashim clan of the Quraysh tribe, the most powerful in Mecca.
The Qur'an early became a focus of Muslim devotion and eventually a subject of theological controversy.
By the time of Muhammad's death, he had unified Arabia and launched a few expeditions to the north, towards Syria and Palestine.
Christians have long accused Muhammad of making up his religion based on borrowed material.
By breaking the link with his own tribe, Muhammad demonstrated that tribal and family loyalties were insignificant compared to the bonds of Islam, a revolutionary idea in the tribal society of Arabia.
On the latter point, several Qur'anic verses, such as Q29:50 and Q2:23 suggest that Muhammad did not perform miracles, since the Qur'an alone was the only confirmation needed of the genuineness of his mission.
War between Mecca and Medina followed, in which Muhammad and his followers were eventually victorious.
Muhammad built a mosque, which also contained his living quarters and those of his wives.
Muslims take a different view, believing that Muhammad was protected as a prophet from any major error and that his life represents the highest standard of human behavior.
Muhammad's multiple marriages do not match some understandings of the ideal family as one husband and one wife.
Certainly, this experience gave Muhammad great encouragement and comfort at a critical period in his career.
Each of these men, in later years, would emerge as successors to Muhammad and political leaders of the Muslims.
In 619, both Muhammad's wife Khadijah and his uncle Abu Talib died.
Others suggest that Muhammad’s temporal or political authority resulted from the particular circumstances in which he found himself.
Before his death in 632, Muhammad had established Islam as a social and political force and had unified most of Arabia.
Few non-Muslims doubt Muhammad's achievement in terms of uniting Arabia, establishing an embryonic empire and leaving behind him a faith tradition that developed into the second largest religion in the world.
By 628 the Muslim position was strong enough that Muhammad decided to return to Mecca, this time as a pilgrim.
Many Europeans, though critical of his motives, nonetheless credited Muhammad with political and military success.
Muhammad then resolved to emigrate to Medina, then known as Yathrib, a large agricultural oasis where there were a number of Muslim converts.
In April 627, Abu Sufyan (whose wife, Hind, was among Muhammad's most vocal and bitter opponents) led another strong force against Medina.
After Khadija's death, Muhammad married again, to Aisha, daughter of his friend Abu Bakr (who later emerged as the first leader of the Muslims after Muhammad's death).
Tradition says that before Muhammad died, Gabriel recited the whole of the Qur'an again to ensure that no content was lost and that all the verses were correctly remembered.
Descendents of Muhammad are known by many names, such as sayyids, syeds ???, and sharifs ???? (plural: ?????? Ashraaf).
The hadith tell us more about how Muhammad experienced revelation.
The Shi'a say that Muhammad had only the one daughter, Fatima, and that the other daughters were either children of Khadijah by her previous marriage, or children of her sister.
The young 25-year-old Muhammad so impressed Khadijah that she offered him marriage in the year 595 C.E.
Muhammad drafted a document now known as the Constitution of Medina (c. 622-623), which laid out the terms on which the different factions, specifically the Jews, could exist within the new state.
Muhammad marched on Mecca with an enormous force, said to number ten thousand men.
At a certain point, Muhammad began to engage in the old Arabian practice of raiding caravans bound for Mecca.
From the point of view of those who see God's hand within history, Muhammad's life cannot be understood in other than positive terms.
By Arab custom minors did not inherit, so Muhammad had received no inheritance from either his father or his grandfather.
The Sunni do not accept this view, but they still honor Muhammad's descendents.
Muhammad routinely spent nights in a cave (Hira) near Mecca in meditation and thought.
Muslims stress that Muhammad had never taken part in idol worship (just as Abraham kept himself apart from idolatry in Ur; see Q6:79).
The first vision of Gabriel disturbed Muhammad, but Khadijah reassured him that it was a true vision and became his first follower.
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