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THE LIFE OF THE PROPHET

The Prophet Muhammad was born in the town of Mecca around the year 570 CE.
He belonged to the Banu Hashim clan, a subset of the Quraysh tribe that
controlled Mecca—the trading and religious center deep in the heart of the
Arabian Peninsula. About eighty kilometers inland from the Red Sea, it benefitted
greatly from the north-south trade routes that connected the Romans in the
north and Yemen in the south. Yet, Mecca was far detached from both these
places. Hundreds of kilometers of desert surrounding the valley town allowed it
to develop independent of any foreign control or influence. Mecca was at once
both internationally connected and isolated. But when it came to religion, Mecca
was a focal point for the entire Arabian Peninsula. It was the location of the
Ka’ba and the annual pilgrimage that attracted Arabs from all over the peninsula.
So while Mecca was far away enough to elude imperial control by the Byzantines
or Persians, it was central enough to have a major impact on the Arab people.
Both of these characteristics would play a major role when Islam began to
spread.

Early Life
Muhammad’s early life was marked by hardship and loss. His father, ‘Abdullah,
died before his birth while on a trading mission in the town of Yathrib, north of
Mecca. His mother, Aminah, died when he was six, leaving his respected
grandfather, ‘Abd al-Muttalib to care for him. Two years later, his grandfather
also died and Muhammad came to live with his paternal uncle, Abu Talib. Despite
belonging to the wealthy tribe of Quraysh, Muhammad did not grow up amid
riches. His status as an orphan and his belonging to the clan of Banu Hashim—
considered an inferior branch of Quraysh—meant he was not a part of the ruling
class. He did, however, accompany his uncle on numerous trading missions to
Syria in his childhood, inaugurating him into the age-old nomadic tradition of the
Arabs. His reputation as an honest trader led to him being known by two
nicknames: as-Sadiq and al-Amin, meaning the truthful and the trustworthy. He
was thus respected by the Quraysh, and he was regularly trusted with money and
business transactions, acting as an arbiter in many cases. By his twenties,
Muhammad was an accomplished merchant, working as an agent for a wealthy
widow named Khadijah. Eventually, his reputation as an honest and reliable man
caught the attention of his employer, and when he was twenty-five, Khadijah
proposed to Muhammad, who accepted, despite being several years her junior.
Although being surrounded by a polytheistic idol-worshipping society, the
young Muhammad did not get involved in the religion of the Quraysh. The original
monotheistic message of Ibrahim and Isma‘il was a faint memory to most Arabs,
but it still held weight for a few, known as the hunafa‘ (singular hanif), meaning
“monotheists”, who refused to accept the hundreds of stone and wood gods.
Muhammad was one of them. Instead of engaging in the idol worship so rampant
in society, Muhammad chose seclusion. He made a habit of retreating to a cave
atop a mountain about five kilometers from the center of Mecca, where he
would sit in silence and reflect on the society and religion that surrounded him in
Mecca.

The First Revelations

According to Islamic tradition, in 610, while sitting in the cave he had come to
many times before, Muhammad experienced something new. An angel suddenly
appeared to him in the cave, commanding him, “Read!” He responded that he did
not know how. Like most people in Mecca, Muhammad was illiterate. Again, the
angel demanded he read. Again, Muhammad responded that he was unable to. A
third time, the angel demanded he read, and for a third time, Muhammad
responded that he was unable to. The angel then recited to him the first verses of
the Quran to be revealed:
Recite in the name of thy Lord who created
He created man from a clot of blood.
Recite; and thy Lord is the Most Bountiful,
He who hath taught by the pen,
Taught man what he knew not. (Quran 96)

He repeated the words after the angel, who then informed him that he is
Jibreel (Gabriel), an angel sent by the one God and that Muhammad is the
Messenger of God. Shaken and scared, Muhammad rushed home, not knowing
what to make of the encounter. He was comforted by Khadijah, who believed his
account of the encounter in the cave. She asked her cousin, who was familiar
with Jewish and Christian scriptures, what this could mean. When he heard of
what happened, he immediately accepted Muhammad as the messenger of his
time, like Moses and Jesus before him. Consoled by his wife and her cousin,
Muhammad accepted his mission as the Messenger of God, and his life as the
Prophet began.
The first person to hear of Muhammad’s prophethood and accept it was
Khadijah, who can be said to have converted immediately upon his return from
the cave. He soon began to invite those closest to him to this new religion. His
closest companion, Abu Bakr, his young cousin, ‘Ali, and his house-servant, Zayd,
all respected and trusted Muhammad, and thus immediately accepted him as a
prophet. They began to inform those closest to them, and slowly the number of
people who accepted Muhammad began to grow. The first attempts at
proselytizing were covert. Mecca was, after all, a polytheistic society, and the
idea of one God replacing the numerous idols in the Ka’ba would no doubt be
seen as a threat. Thus, the early months and years of Islam were marked by the
development of a secret, hidden group, fearful of society’s reaction to them, but
submitting to the ideas of this new religion. They were called Muslims, meaning
“submitters”. The word Islam itself, from which Muslim derives, denotes
submission to God and His will.

“Woe to every scorner and mocker. Who collects wealth and continuously
counts it. He thinks his wealth will make him immortal. No! He will surely be
thrown into the Fire.”
– Quran 104:1–4

At the same time, the core ideas of Islam began to take shape through
continuing revelations, which would be shared throughout the community. Strict
monotheism, far different from the prevailing religion of Mecca, was the core
theme. According to Muhammad, there was only one God. The idols worshipped
by the Meccans were nothing more than useless statues of stone and wood, and
were incapable of bringing benefit to anyone. The verses also warned of a Day of
Reckoning, when all souls would be brought before God to account for their
deeds. Those who believed in God and did good deeds would enter an eternal
Heaven as a reward. Those who did not would have a place in Hell and would be
eternally tormented. But Islam was not just concerned with theology and life
after death. The early verses also denounced social ills that were prevalent in
Mecca. With increasing prosperity from the trade routes, distinct social classes
developed. The wealthy would use their money to fund more caravans that
would in turn bring them more wealth. A poor person, meanwhile, continued to
be marginalized, doubly so if they did not belong to a powerful clan. The Quran
declared such disregard for the poor as detrimental to the establishment of a just
social order, and worthy of punishment in the Hereafter. It would be years until
the rules regarding society would be laid down, but from early on, it was clear
that Muhammad had come not just to change people’s religious beliefs, but also
society itself.
The early revelations repeated these themes numerous times. The verses and
chapters revealed in Mecca, which are found towards the end of the Quran,
tended to be short and to the point. This worked well for the nascent Muslim
community, which was still unknown to the rest of the city. When around fellow
believers, the Muslims would discuss the latest revelations among themselves and
teach each other. When around non-Muslims, they had to hide their conversion
and beliefs. After all, these new ideas would threaten the established social order
of Mecca. Social, economic and tribal equality flew directly in the face of the
wealthy and powerful members of Quraysh. Social revolution is rarely welcomed
by those in positions of power.
Even if Muhammad had not advocated any change in society, the new beliefs
alone were a threat to the economic and social position of the polytheists.
Because of the Ka’ba, Mecca was a religious center for Arabs throughout the
Arabian Peninsula. Once a year, Arabs would travel to Mecca for a pilgrimage and
to honor the hundreds of idols kept around the Ka’ba. This meant big business for
the Quraysh. Trade was a natural by-product of the pilgrimage: with people from
so many distant lands in the same place at the same time, a natural market
evolved which made Mecca a religious, economic and political focal point of
Arabia. And as the facilitators of this trade, the Quraysh stood to make huge
profits. Muhammad’s message, however, denied the importance of the idols,
emphasizing the unity of God. Without idols, there would be no pilgrimage. With
no pilgrimage, there would be no business. This was not a scenario that was
pleasing to the Quraysh, and the early followers of Muhammad knew that. For
this reason, there could be no mention of this new religion around the leaders of
the tribe. The Muslim community was still small and weak enough that it could
not yet come into open ideological conflict with those in positions of power.
Especially considering the fact that most of the early converts were those who
were considered the lowest class of society. Slaves, servants, and the poor made
up a large proportion of the early Muslim community, attracted by the equality of
all people before God and the egalitarian nature of the new religion, where
wealth and social status did not determine a person’s worth.

Persecution
Eventually the size of the Muslim community became too large for the rest of
Quraysh to ignore. Previously the Muslims had been able to perform their prayers
together in a secluded area on the outskirts of the town. But as their prayer
groups grew larger, the chances of them being seen increased. That is exactly
what happened as a group of praying Muslims were seen by a group of idol-
worshippers, whose immediate reaction was to ridicule the Muslims and their
prayer. At first the Quraysh were content to view the small community as an
abnormality to be mocked, until they realized the gravity of these new ideas.
Monotheism, social justice, equality, and submission to the rule of God were all
threatening theories to the Quraysh. In the eyes of many leading members of
Quraysh, the solution was to rid themselves of this new religious and social
movement by getting rid of the source: Muhammad.
But Arab society still had structure and rules. Although Muhammad was an
orphan, he was still under the protection of his uncle, Abu Talib, who was the
leader of the Banu Hashim clan of Quraysh. Abu Talib himself refused to accept
Islam, but his dignity and respect for Arab social customs demanded that he
protect his nephew. Furthermore, age-old Arab customs dictated that if
Muhammad was killed, his clan would have permission to go after his killers, and
thus civil war could break out on the streets of Mecca. So Muhammad himself
could not be harmed, but the protection that he enjoyed was not extended to his
followers, many of whom were not protected by any clan or family. The Quraysh
decided to threaten and persecute them, in the hopes of discouraging others
from joining the new religion. Muslims were thus regularly harassed and deprived
of the same rights as polytheists in Mecca. While Muhammad himself had
protection, he was powerless to stop the oppression of his followers.
Quraysh also took steps to prevent the spread of the new religion outside of
Mecca. A group of Muslim refugees who escaped to Abyssinia were promised
protection by its Christian king, the Negus. The Quraysh sent emissaries after
them, hoping to convince the king to give up his protection and send the Muslims
back to Mecca to be persecuted. When the Negus heard Muhammad’s cousin
Ja’far recite verses from the Quran about Islamic beliefs regarding Jesus and
Mary, he refused to forsake his fellow monotheists, and the Quraysh had to go
back to Mecca without the refugee Muslims. But even if Muslims had not
escaped to distant lands, Islam could still spread beyond Mecca. Thousands of
Arabs visited the city each year, and if some of those visitors heard Muhammad’s
message and saw Quraysh’s inability to stop his unorthodox ideas, the status of
Quraysh as one of the leading tribes in the peninsula would begin to wane.
Alternatively, the visitors would believe Muhammad, accept his religion, and take
it back to their homelands, spreading Islam outside of Mecca, and making it
harder to stop.
All of this led to the extreme measures taken by the Quraysh. In 617,
approximately seven years after the first revelations, the Quraysh decided to
implement an all-out boycott on Muhammad’s clan, Banu Hashim, to whom many
Muslims belonged. No one was to enter into any business transactions with them,
nor marry anyone to a member of the clan. They were even forced into exile in a
barren valley just outside of Mecca. This had disastrous humanitarian effects on
the Muslim community. Persecution brought hunger, social isolation and
economic woes to the Muslims, and even the non-Muslims who happened to be
part of Banu Hashim, such as Abu Talib. The few Muslims not belonging to Banu
Hashim, such as Abu Bakr, ‘Umar, and ‘Uthman did all they could to supply the
persecuted group by circumventing the boycott’s rules, although at great personal
loss. The boycott was draining on the entire Muslim community, those belonging
to Banu Hashim as well as other clans. In the end, the boycott was ineffective in
persuading Muhammad to discontinue his preaching, and it was thus ended after
just over a year of enforcement. Despite Quraysh’s efforts, more people
continued to accept Islam. The boycott also revealed the strength of ties in the
young community, as those not a part of Banu Hashim were still willing to
sacrifice their wealth and safety to help their brothers and sisters that were being
persecuted. Here, one of the core concepts of Islam—that loyalty to the religion
transcended loyalty to a tribe or family—was on full display.
The boycott was not without its effects, however. Years of being denied food
and access to shelter, coupled with physical abuse, took a toll on the Muslims.
The persecution probably played a role in the death of the Prophet’s wife,
Khadijah, in 619. She had been the first convert and had stood by Muhammad
through the adversity he had faced at the hands of Quraysh. The emotional
support she provided in the early years was indispensable for the Prophet,
encouraging him to continue in the face of persecution. The loss was a huge one
on Muhammad, but it was not the only loss he had to deal with. Soon afterwards,
his uncle who had protected him, Abu Talib, became ill and died. Although he did
not accept Islam, he endured persecution like the rest of Banu Hashim and never
gave up protection of his nephew. Beyond being another emotional loss for
Muhammad, the death of Abu Talib had huge implications for the Muslim
community. Without a strong leader, there was little to protect Muhammad and
the rest of the Muslim community from the leaders of Quraysh, who were
becoming bolder in their attacks on the Muslims, verbally as well as physically.
Despite his love for the city of Mecca, Muhammad decided to try to find another
city that would accept him and give him more freedom to preach his religion than
the Quraysh did. The natural choice was Ta’if, a town ruled by the tribe of Thaqif,
sixty-five kilometers to the southeast of Mecca. He rode out to Ta’if and met
with the three brothers who led the tribe. They unequivocally rejected his
proposal that they accept Islam and refused to grant him any form of protection.
To make matters worse, on his way out of the city and back to Mecca, a crowd of
people from Ta’if gathered to pelt him with stones and insults, leaving him
bloodied by the time he was safely out of range of the city. Islamic tradition holds
that he was visited by the angel Jibreel, who asked the Prophet if he would like
him to destroy the city of Ta’if between two mountains as punishment for their
treatment of the Messenger of God. The Prophet replied in the negative, stating
that he hopes perhaps one of their descendants would one day be a believer. This
event would play a huge role in the spiritual connection between Indian Muslims
and the Prophet in later centuries.
After losing his family’s support, being rejected by neighboring tribes, and
watching his own followers persecuted for their faith, Muhammad recognized
that a radical change was necessary if Islam was to survive at all. The opportunity
for such a change came from an oasis town 300 kilometers north of Mecca,
Yathrib. The two main tribes of Yathrib, Aws and Khazraj, were engaged in a
perpetual struggle for power that turned deadly in the 610s. Further exasperating
the problem, numerous Jewish tribes also lived in Yathrib and had trouble
coexisting with the local Arabs. Muhammad’s reputation as a trustworthy and
reliable man was already well-known in Yathrib, and it was in 620 when numerous
notables from the town travelled to Mecca to seek his emigration to Yathrib to
serve as their leader and a mediator of their disputes. Muhammad accepted their
offer and encouraged his followers in Mecca to make the journey with him,
where the oppression of the Quraysh was absent. Muhammad himself was one
of the last to leave Mecca in 622, when he journeyed with his close friend Abu
Bakr, barely eluding Quraysh’s plans to have him murdered before he could leave.
In Yathrib, which was soon renamed al-Medina al-Munawwarah (the radiant city),
officially known as “Medina” (the city), Muhammad would find security, and the
ability to spread Islam away from Quraysh’s opposition.

Medina
The Prophet’s flight from Mecca was known as the hijra, meaning “the
emigration”. It marked a turning point in early Islamic history and is used to this
day as the beginning of the Islamic calendar. No longer was the Muslim
community a marginalized group and Muhammad a social outcast. The Muslim
community would now turn Medina into the first Muslim state, and Muhammad
into its leader. The example set by the Prophet in his ten years in Medina would
inspire hundreds of years of Muslim politics, social order, and economics.
But life in Medina was certainly not without challenges. Chief among them was
the new mix of emigrants from Mecca, known as the Muhajirun, and the original
residents of Medina, the Ansar. The Muhajirun were not a single cohesive unit.
None of the clans of Mecca converted entirely, so the community of emigrants
represented a diverse group of people, on their own without the protection of a
clan or tribe. In contrast, the Ansar belonged to either Aws or Khazraj, the two
embattled tribes of the oasis. Furthermore, there were numerous individuals who
belonged to neither group, immigrants from lands as far away as Africa, Persia,
and the Byzantine Empire. For many Muslims, where their loyalties should lie was
a major question. In response, the Prophet made clear that the old pre-Islamic
ideas of loyalty were outdated. Instead, they were superseded by loyalty to the
Umma, the Muslim nation. In the eyes of Muhammad, it did not matter if a
Muslim hailed from Quraysh, Aws, Khazraj, or even the Jewish tribes. Once they
accepted Islam, they were part of a new community of brotherhood based on
shared belief, not shared ancestry.
 “The Jews … are one community with the believers. To the Jews their
religion and to the Muslims their religion. [This applies] to their clients and to
themselves with the exception of anyone who has done wrong or
committed treachery, for he harms only himself and his family.”
– The Constitution of Medina

Muhammad’s new political and social order in Medina came to be codified in a

text known as the Constitution of Medina. The Constitution detailed that, under
Muhammad’s authority, Medina would operate as a state based on Islamic law.
The Umma was to operate as one political unit. Furthermore, Muhammad would
act as the city’s ultimate arbitrator. Old Arab customs regarding revenge and
honor in the face of injustice were eliminated in favor of a structured justice
system based on Islamic law. The Constitution gave the oasis’s Jews freedom to
practice their religion, but they had to recognize the political authority of
Muhammad over the city and join the common defense in the case of an attack
from Quraysh. Muhammad’s nascent political entity in Medina would serve as the
model Islamic state for centuries of Muslim governments, particularly with
regards to the treatment of non-Muslim minorities.
The nature of the continuing revelations changed to match the change in
circumstances for the Muslim community. Verses and chapters revealed to
Muhammad in Medina tended to be longer than the ones from Mecca, detailing
things such as forms of worship, taxation, inheritance, and relations between
Muslims and non-Muslims. The Quran provided the generalities of how a Muslim
society should operate, and where necessary, Muhammad explained the precise
details. His words and actions, known as the hadith, were a vital source of
guidance and law, second only to God’s revelation itself. But the Quran was not
only concerned with law and social order. Many of the Medinese verses
described the stories of earlier prophets. Stories of Noah, Abraham, Moses, David
and Jesus were all described in great detail to Muhammad’s followers, making
very clear that Muhammad was simply the last in a long line of prophets, and that
his message is no different from theirs.
Much of this was aimed at the Jewish community of Medina. On the surface,
they shared much in common with the Muslims. They were both monotheistic in
a land known for polytheism, they both revered the same prophets, and early on
in Muhammad’s prophethood, they both prayed towards Jerusalem. As a result,
some of Medina’s Jews accepted Muhammad as a prophet and converted to
Islam. Jewish scriptures speak of a Messiah, and to them, Muhammad was that
promised man. But many more rejected Muhammad. Judaism is unique, in that
belief and ethnicity were tied to the concept of a Chosen People. Muhammad’s
message of egalitarianism and the unity of all Muslims regardless of ethnicity
challenged some of the main ideas the Jews believed in. Some probably genuinely
believed he was a prophet, but the fact that he was not a Hebrew was
problematic for those who followed Jewish theology strictly. The divide between
a Jewish community that believed themselves to be specially chosen by God and
a Muslim community that advocated the unity of all people would develop into
serious tensions between the two faith groups.

The Battles
The Prophet’s hijra to Medina did not mean the end of conflict with the Quraysh.
The Muhajirun were still bitter at their treatment by their fellow clansmen in
Mecca and the Ansar were eager to punish those who had oppressed their new
brothers in Islam. But the Muslim community had not yet been given permission
to fight by the Prophet. Warfare is, of course, a serious endeavor, especially in
the Arabian Peninsula where complex rules regarding honor and vengeance had
reigned for centuries. Furthermore, the Quran itself testifies to the sanctity of life
and the egregiousness of unjustly taking one. The Muslim community was thus
hesitant to act militarily against Mecca, despite the years of oppression they
faced at the hands of the Meccans.
But that changed early on in Muhammad’s time in Medina. He proclaimed to
his followers a new revelation from God, which stated “Permission [to fight] has
been given to those who are being fought, because they are wronged. And indeed
God is competent to give them victory. [They are] those who have been evicted
from their homes without right—only because they say, ‘Our Lord is Allah’”
(Quran 22:39–40). These new verses made clear to Muhammad’s followers that
war was permissible, even obligatory, when Muslims were being oppressed. They
also signaled an important aspect of Islam’s role in the world: that this religion
was not just a set of beliefs about the unseen, but a complete way of life that
encompassed everything from prayer rituals to foreign relations to theology. Like
they did with other instructions given in the Quran, the Muslim community of
Medina was eager to show their worth and follow this new command.
The opportunity came in 624 when the Muslim community mustered a small
army of around 300 men to intercept a caravan belonging to Quraysh that was
passing by Medina. The Muslims were unable to reach the caravan, but ended up
meeting a much larger Qurayshi force that had been sent to protect the caravan.
At the Battle of Badr, about 100 kilometers southwest of Medina, the Muslims
had their first opportunity to physically fight their former oppressors. Despite
being outnumbered, the Muslim army, commanded by the Prophet’s uncle,
Hamza, managed to rout the Meccans, taking numerous prisoners. The Battle of
Badr was of monumental importance for the new community at Medina. It
established the Muslims as a real political and military force, while simultaneously
lowering the prestige of Quraysh in the eyes of the rest of the Arabs.
The Quraysh were of course not willing to allow such a humiliating defeat to go
unpunished. The next year an even larger Meccan army was assembled, with the
aim of harassing Medina enough to lower Muhammad’s newfound prestige and
call into question his ability to protect his followers. The army camped out a few
kilometers north of the city, in the shadow of the imposing Mount Uhud, where
they could harass the rural farms surrounding Medina. As part of the Constitution
of Medina, Muhammad had vowed to protect the city and its inhabitants, and
was thus compelled to organize a fighting force to go out and confront the
Meccans. There was, however, a group within the city that opposed his plan,
believing that their best bet was to leave the rural farmers to fend for themselves
and keep the army inside the city to defend it. They were joined by two of the
Jewish tribes of the city, who refused to go out to Uhud to battle a superior
force. Muhammad was thus forced to march out to Uhud with a considerably
smaller army than he anticipated.
The results of the battle were disastrous for the Muslims. The Meccans, led by
the brilliant Khalid ibn al-Walid—who would later convert to Islam and lead
Muslim armies into Syria—managed to rout the Muslims from the battlefield up
onto the slopes of Uhud. Hamza, the hero of Badr, was killed in the fighting and
his body mutilated by the Quraysh. Muhammad himself was at one point
surrounded along with a small group of Muslims by the Meccans and was injured
in the hand to hand combat that followed. The Quraysh, having defeated the
Muslim army in battle and believing they had done enough to damage
Muhammad’s reputation, retreated back to Mecca.
The Battle of Uhud did not manage to end Islam or the Prophet’s authority in
Medina as the Quraysh had hoped, although it did sow seeds of tension between
Medina’s Muslims and the Jews, most of whom had refused to honor the terms
of the Constitution and join the battle. It was becoming clear that neither the
Muslims nor the Quraysh were going to be able to decisively defeat the other on
the battlefield. Both sides thus resorted to trying to gain support among the
numerous Arab tribes of the region, each hoping to tip the scales against the
enemy. The Meccans in particular hoped to gain the support of Medina’s Jewish
tribes, which seemed willing to dislodge the Prophet from their midst. Five years
after the Prophet’s hijra, the Meccans besieged the city of Medina from the
north, and sought the help of one of Medina’s Jewish tribes, the Banu Qurayza,
who lived on the southern outskirts of the city. It was a calculated gamble for the
Jews. The siege looked promising, and by joining with the Quraysh, they could
wipe out Muhammad and his followers for good. As it happened, however, the
Meccans and their Jewish allies were unsuccessful. Muhammad, advised by a
Persian immigrant named Salman, ordered the construction of a trench around
the city to thwart the Meccan siege. The Battle of the Trench, as it was called,
was a disastrous failure for the Quraysh, who failed to even dent the power of
Muhammad in the city. But it was even worse for the Banu Qurayza. They had
broken the terms of the Constitution, and thus were liable to be punished
according to its terms. An arbitrator assigned to the case ruled against the
subversive tribe, ordering that the men who had taken part in the siege be
executed while the women and children exiled from the city. Muhammad was
setting an important standard with his handling of the Jews of Medina. He made
clear that Islamic law had no problem with the presence of non-Muslims living
within a Muslim state. For years Medina’s Jews had been tolerated. But when
they failed to live up to existing agreements and threatened the security of the
Islamic state, punishment had to be doled out. Like everything he did,
Muhammad’s example in dealing with Banu Qurayza would set the precedent for
hundreds of years of Muslim relations with non-Muslims.

Victory
With his position in Medina secured, Muhammad could finally deal with Quraysh
on an equal level. Confident in the stability of the Muslim state and inspired by a
recent revelation that promised impending victory, Muhammad set out in 628
with an army of 1,500 towards Mecca. But this was not an army intent on war.
They were clothed in the simple two-garment outfit of pilgrims, and only carried
travelling swords. No armor, no cavalry and no banners of war were brought
along. Muhammad hoped to gain access to Mecca and the Ka’ba peacefully in
order to conduct a pilgrimage. He camped just outside the borders of Mecca, at
Hudaybiyyah, waiting for permission from Quraysh to enter the sacred grounds.
The Meccans, no doubt baffled by the audacity of the Muslims, just six years
after their escape from Mecca, had a difficult decision to make. If they allowed
Muhammad and his followers to enter Mecca, they would look weak to other
Arab tribes, unable to prevent a barely-armed force from entering their city. On
the other hand, their main role in Mecca was to facilitate the pilgrimage for
anyone, a duty they took very seriously. In the end, they negotiated a treaty with
Muhammad. They agreed to vacate Mecca for three days to allow Muhammad
and the Muslims to complete the pilgrimage—the following year. Muhammad
would have to return to Medina that year without having visited his hometown.
Furthermore, a truce was agreed to. Mecca and Medina (and their affiliated
tribes) would refrain from fighting for ten years. Some Muslims were clearly
discontented by the terms of the Treaty of Hudaybiyyah, having hoped for
immediate access to Mecca or even a complete conquest of Quraysh.
But the treaty provided a welcomed respite from conflict that gave
Muhammad the ability to expand Islam far beyond Medina. Now without the
threat of internal dissent and external invasion, he had the freedom to send
missionaries throughout the Arabian Peninsula, and even beyond, into the
Byzantine and Persian Empires in the north. Bedouin tribes converted en masse,
allying themselves with the Prophet. Even Meccans began to convert. Khalid ibn
al-Walid and ‘Amr ibn al-‘As, two of Quraysh’s greatest military commanders, left
Mecca and joined Muhammad in Medina in the years after Hudaybiyyah. The
treaty had failed to give the Muslims immediate control of their holiest site, but it
allowed Islam to grow exponentially throughout Arabia, much to the dismay of
the hardliners in Mecca, who just a few years earlier hoped to end Islam.
Furthermore, the sanctity of the truce was not completely fulfilled. Just two
years after its signing, a tribe allied with Quraysh launched a surprise attack
against a tribe allied with Muhammad just outside the borders of Mecca. This
constituted a breach of the treaty, which had promised a total peace for ten
years. With the treaty now voided, Muhammad could call upon his newfound
allies throughout the peninsula in a new expedition aimed for Mecca. This time,
however, they would not be travelling as peaceful pilgrims. Muhammad was
finally in a position of power. Thousands of Muslims from all over the peninsula
were now at his command, bound by alliances and conversions to join his army
whenever called upon. At this point, the people of Mecca knew there was no way
they could militarily defeat the Prophet. It was Mecca versus dozens of tribes, all
united together for the first time in the history of the Arabs. Attempted
negotiations between Muhammad and the Quraysh ended in failure, and in early
630, his army of over 10,000 Muslims—brought together from all corners of
Arabia—marched on the holy city.
Most Meccans realized that resistance was futile. With the exception of some
minor skirmishes, Muhammad’s army entered Mecca bloodlessly. His triumphant
return to his birthplace was seen by his followers as the final victory of Islam over
polytheism, of truth over falsehood. The hundreds of idols surrounding the Ka’ba
were destroyed, making the sanctuary a place for Muslim worship dedicated to
one God. For many in Mecca, including the leader of the Quraysh, Abu Sufyan, this
complete conquest was a sign that their idols were in fact no more than crude
sculptures of stone and wood. They submitted to Muhammad, the man they had
oppressed, chased out of the city, and gone to war with. Muhammad, in turn,
proved to be a lenient conqueror. Most Meccans were left unharmed, a
remarkable gesture for a people accustomed to brutal tribal wars that showed no
mercy. Once again, Muhammad was setting the example that his prophethood
marked the beginning of a new era with new rules and customs. The pre-Islamic
period of jahiliyyah, meaning ignorance, would forever be left behind.
Muhammad’s return to Mecca is remarkable if only because of the
circumstances of his life in the preceding years. Just eight years after his escape in
the middle of the night from his oppressors, Muhammad returned to his
hometown as a victorious leader with an army of thousands. In Mecca, he had
gone from a trusted merchant, to an undesirable rebel against polytheism, to a
distant enemy, to the benevolent conqueror of his native land. No doubt his rapid
accession to power and his ability to break down old tribal rivalries under the
banner of unity in Islam were seen as miraculous and signs of his prophethood by
many. The Muslims of that era, including those who had suffered through the
early years of oppression in Mecca and the ones who only converted upon the
city’s conquest, thus believed there was something special about Islam. It was
guided and protected by God, in their eyes, and they were on a special mission to
spread this true religion to the rest of the world. This mindset would play a major
role in the way Muslims viewed themselves on the world stage throughout their
history.

The End of the Prophethood

By the time of the Conquest of Mecca, Muhammad was about sixty years old, an
old man by the standards of his time. Through his sayings and the continuing
revelations of the Quran, the tenets of Islam had been formalized, covering
everything from articles of belief, to instructions for worship, to guidelines for
Islamic governance. A new social order had been inaugurated, one that left
behind tribalism and nationalism in favor of Islamic unity under divine laws.
Muhammad codified this in his last sermon, where he declared that “You all
descended from Adam and Adam was created from dirt. The most noble in the
sight of God is the most pious. No Arab is superior to a non-Arab except by their
God-consciousness.” His religious and social message was intertwined with a
political one that forged a united Muslim empire that spanned the entire Arabian
Peninsula, the first time in history that all the Arabs had been united. He even
managed to make some inroads among the tribes living on the southern edges of
the Byzantine and Persian Empires, an accomplishment that would not go
unnoticed by those two great empires, who would soon take the rapid spread of
Islam very seriously.
After his conquest of Mecca, Muhammad returned to his adopted hometown
of Medina. He had, after all, promised to lead the Muslim Umma from that oasis
eight years earlier when Aws and Khazraj invited him. Here, he began to make
preparations for a Muslim community that would continue long after his death.
He spoke increasingly about the obligations of a true believer, the preservation of
the Quran and his example. In early 632, he journeyed to Mecca for a final
pilgrimage, the hajj. He spoke to thousands of his followers, all equally dressed in
simple white robes regardless of their financial status, reminding them of the
equality of all people. He cautioned his followers to avoid oppression, treat
women with respect and love, and leave behind the old tribal rivalries that had
been the bane of Arab civilization for centuries. His Farewell Sermon summarized
his prophethood: it was a complete revolution in every sense. In the eyes of his
followers, a new order was dawning upon the world, one that would be based
upon God’s law and inspired by the example of Muhammad.
After the pilgrimage, Muhammad returned to Medina, where the foundation
was laid for the continued expansion of Islam. Learned men were sent to distant
provinces such as Yemen and the eastern edge of Arabia to teach the recently
converted the basics of Islam. Medina, the community in closest contact with the
Prophet, would operate as a hub of knowledge about Islam, serving to educate
the rest of the Muslim world, even after the Prophet. A military expedition was
prepared to trek north against the Byzantines. The Islamic ethics of war, which
would guide hundreds of years of Muslim armies, were reiterated.
According to Islamic belief, Muhammad’s role was to serve as a messenger for
God, delivering God’s word, the Quran, and acting as a model for Muslims. After
twenty-three years of acting as a prophet of God, his mission was complete. The
Quran was finalized and recorded on scraps of parchment, leather, and bone, but
more importantly memorized completely by many of Muhammad’s Companions.
The pre-Islamic tradition of memorizing long poems gave the Arabs the ability to
maintain and ensure the preservation of Islam’s holy book. Narrations of
Muhammad’s actions and sayings were also given due importance, and spread
throughout Arabia by word of mouth. According to Islamic tradition, one of the
final verses of the Quran revealed to Muhammad stated, “Today I have perfected
for you your religion and completed My favor upon you and have approved for
you Islam as your religion” (Quran 5:3).
Muhammad fell ill in the early summer of 632. He experienced debilitating
headaches and a fever, and was soon unable to walk without the help of his
cousin ‘Ali and his uncle Abbas. When he was unable to lead the five daily prayers
in the mosque, he appointed his close friend and companion, Abu Bakr, to lead
them in his place. He spent his final days in the house of his wife Aisha, the
daughter of Abu Bakr. From a wall adjoining the home to the mosque, he was
able to watch the Muslim community follow his instructions to worship God, even
in his absence. It was no doubt an emotional time for his followers, who had
been with him through the difficult days in Mecca, the fierce battles against
Quraysh where he established his authority, and his triumphant bloodless
conquest of Mecca. They had looked to Muhammad for guidance and leadership
in all aspects of life. His increasing talk of death, and the fact that he was now
unable to even rise up to lead them in prayer played heavily on the hearts of the
Muslim community.
His final days were spent resting in his home, with his head in the lap of his wife
Aisha. Close family members and friends visited, hoping to see some signs of
recovery in their leader. But one of the central aspects of Islam was
uncompromising monotheism. Muhammad preached that only God is divine; all
other creatures, whether they were animals, humans, or even angels would
experience death, according to Islamic belief. Thus while they were prepared for
his passing, recognizing that Islam would indeed continue after him, Muhammad’s
followers, deeply emotionally invested in this man that had led them out of the
era of pre-Islamic polytheism and tribal warfare, could not imagine life without
him. On 8 June 632, with his head on Aisha’s lap and his followers gathered in the
mosque hoping to hear of his recovery, the first era of Islamic history, spanning
the twenty-three years of prophethood, ended as the Prophet Muhammad
breathed his last.