The history of Islam
The life of Muhammad
Born in Mecca about 570, first revelation in 610, emigration to Medina in 622, conquest of Mecca in 630, death in 632. Almost everything we know comes from Muslim sources written a century or more later.
Mecca (about 570-622)
Muhammad ibn Abdullah of the clan of Hashim was born about 570. He worked in the caravan trade and married the widow Khadija about 595. About 610 he began to receive what he proclaimed as revelation. His preaching against idols brought persecution; some followers fled to Christian Ethiopia, and after Khadija and Abu Talib died (about 619) his position in Mecca became dangerous.
Medina (622-632)
In 622 he emigrated (the hijra) to Yathrib, where he became ruler and judge. Wars with Mecca followed: Badr (624), Uhud (625), the Trench (627). The three main Jewish tribes of Medina were expelled or, in the case of Banu Qurayza, their men executed. The treaty of Hudaybiyya (628) was followed by the conquest of Khaybar (628) and of Mecca (630). He died in Medina in June 632.
The earliest sources
The first biography (Ibn Ishaq, died about 767) survives in Ibn Hisham's edition. The earliest datable outside references are Christian: the Doctrina Jacobi (about 634) speaks of a prophet appearing among the Saracens, and a Syriac chronicle by Thomas the Presbyter records a battle in 634 involving the Arabs of Muhammad. The earliest dated coins naming Muhammad as messenger of God are from the 680s.
Where scholars disagree
- Muhammad's birth year is traditional (the Year of the Elephant); historians give a range. Revisionist scholars question how much of the later Sira is historical.
Sources
- Earliest source Ibn Ishaq, Sirat Rasul Allah, ed. Ibn Hisham; A. Guillaume, The Life of Muhammad (OUP, 1955).
- Robert G. Hoyland, Seeing Islam as Others Saw It (Darwin Press, 1997), on the Doctrina Jacobi and Thomas the Presbyter.