Prophet Muhammad

The Kaaba in Mecca (courtesy www.vecip.com)

Muhammad (pbuh) was born in Mecca ( Makkah), Arabia, on Monday, 2 August A.D. 570. His family was very rich but soon he became an orphan and his uncle had to take care of him. He spent all his childhood among the Arab nomads of the desert. When he grew up he got hired by a rich woman trader named Khadija. Khadija became the wife of the prophet Muhammad (Peace Be Upon Him) and faithful companion during all his life. At that time his job was the management of Khadija's caravans. By that time he was called Al Amin which means the trustworthy, and Meccans used to trust him with their possessions or called his wisdom to judge on social matters. But after some time he stopped that job of caravan leading to devote himself to meditation.

He used to go for long solitary walks among the hills of Mecca. One day he got a vision of ALLAH (God) bidding him to preach truth to the Arabs. This meant that Muslims had to strictly follow the rules of a life code contained in the Coran which is the Muslim book of revelation. He had to reveal to the Meccans that there exists only one God, ALLAH, that the Arabs had therefore to stop adoring several idols that they made themselves and called them gods. In one word they had to stop idolatry.

The grand mosque of Mecca (courtesy smh.com.au)

This was the beginning of his mission. He was 40 years old. But the Arabs did not want to listen to Prophet Muhammad and they not like the idea of give up their gods for a new religion. This was a period of huge controversy in Arabia. Soon Muhammad was forced to leave Mecca to go to Medin. This migration is known as Hegira and is the beginning of the Muslim year and the birth of their religion. It took place in 622. The prophet and some of his followers found refuge in Medin. Here the population of Medin listened to him and many of them accepted the new religion he was proposing.

From Medin, the Muslim religion expanded to all Arabia and outside Arabia. When he got a great number of followers the prophet Muhammad (PBUH) returned to Mecca his native place and conquered it without shedding a single drop of blood. The Meccans immediately accepted his military superiority. That day he delivered his last homily which was some kind of farewell recommendations setting the grounds of good leadership and peaceful relations between human beings. He mainly recommended to the Arabs not to shed anyone's blood anymore for "blood calls for blood"; not to take anybody's possessions, for "the blood and the possessions of other people are sacred."

The prophet Muhammad was to die a short time after that farewell homily. His successors, called Califs, governed Mecca after the prophet and popularised Islamic precepts gathered in the Holy Book called the Coran.