Muhammad
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Muhammad (c. 570–632) (Arabic: محمد) (listen <http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/aa/Ar-muhammad.ogg> (help·info)), also transliterated Mohammad, Mohammed, Muhammed, and sometimes Mahomet (following the Turkish), is believed by Muslims to be God's final prophet sent to guide all of mankind with the message of Islam. He is referred to as "The Prophet" (Arabic: النبي) within the faith. Non-Muslims generally consider him to be the founder of Islam.
According to traditional Muslim biographers, he was born c. 570 in Mecca (Makkah) and died on June 8, 632 in Medina (Madinah). Both Mecca and Medina are cities in the Hejaz region of present day Saudi Arabia. The name Muhammad means "the praised one" in Arabic.
Summary
The name "Muhammad" written in Arabic calligraphy as a form of devotion <http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/fd/Muhammad_callig.gif> Enlarge The name "Muhammad" written in Arabic calligraphy as a form of devotion
Born Muhammad ibn Abdullah, he is said to have initially been a merchant who traveled widely.
Muhammad often retreated to the mountains outside Mecca, for prayer and contemplation. Muslims believe that in 610, at about the age of forty, while praying in one of these mountain caves called Hira, he was visited by the Angel Gabriel who commanded him to memorize and recite the verses sent by God. These verses were later collected as part of the Qur'an. Gabriel told him that God (Allah in Arabic) had chosen him as the last prophet to mankind. He eventually expanded his mission as a prophet, publicly preaching a strict monotheism and warning against a Day of Judgement where all humans shall be held responsible for their deeds. He did not completely reject Judaism and Christianity, two other monotheistic faiths known to the Arabs; rather he said that he had been sent by God in order to complete and perfect their teachings. Many in Mecca resented his preaching and persecuted him and his followers. Muslims believe that this was in part due to his followers' holding Muhammad's authority above that of their leaders. Eventually, persecution followed and in 622, he was forced to flee from Mecca (the Hijra) and settled in Yathrib (now known as Medina) with his followers, where he was the leader of the first avowedly Muslim community. War between factions in Mecca and Medina followed, in which Muhammad and his followers were eventually victorious. The military organization that was created by this struggle was then set to conquering the other tribes of Arabia. By the time of Muhammad's death, he had unified Arabia, spread Islam throughout the Arabian Peninsula, and launched expeditions to the north, towards Syria and Palestine.
Under Muhammad's immediate successors, the Islamic empire expanded into Palestine, Syria, Mesopotamia, Persia, Egypt, North Africa, and Iberia. Later conquests, commercial contact between Muslims and non-Muslims, and missionary activity spread Islam over much of the globe.
Sources about Muhammad's life
The sources available about Muhammad's life are the Qur'an, the Sira biographies, and the Hadith collections. While the Qur'an is not a biography of Muhammad, it does provide information about his life. The earliest surviving biographies are the Life of the Apostle of God, by Ibn Ishaq (d. 768), edited by Ibn Hisham (d. 833); and al-Waqidi's (d. 822) biography of Muhammad. Ibn Ishaq wrote his biography some 120 to 130 years after Muhammad's death. The third source, the hadith collections, like the Qur'an, are not a biography per se. In both the Sunni and Shia belief, they are the accounts of the verbal and physical traditions of Muhammad.
Some skeptical scholars (Wansbrough, Cook, Crone, and others) have raised doubts about the reliability of these sources, especially the hadith collections. They argue that by the time the oral traditions were being collected, the Muslim community had grown and also fractured into rival sects and different schools of thought. Each sect and school had its own sometimes conflicting traditions of what Muhammad and his companions had done and said. Traditions multiplied, and Muslim scholars made a strenuous effort to weed out what they felt were spurious stories. Traditionalists rely on their efforts while the skeptics feel that the question must be revisited.
Muslim and non-Muslim scholars alike agree that there are some inauthentic traditions concerning the life of Muhammad in the hadith collections. Thus most of these traditions are acknowledged by Muslim clerical authorities to be weak and only a few hadith collections are considered reliable. A very small minority called the "Qur'an Alone Muslims" consider all hadith as unreliable.
However, the historicity of the biographical material about Muhammad presented in the summary above is not generally contested. Traditionalists, both Muslim and non-Muslim, paint a much more detailed picture of Muhammad's life.
Muhammad's life according to Sira
Muhammad's genealogy
According to tradition, Muhammad traced his genealogy back as far as Adnan, whom the northern Arabs believed to be their common ancestor. Adnan in turn is said to be a descendant of Ismaeel (Ishmael), son of Ibrahim (Abraham) though the exact genealogy is disputed. Muhammad's genealogy up to Adnan is as follows:
Muhammad ibn Abd Allah ibn Abd al-Muttalib (Shaiba) ibn Hashim (Amr) ibn Abd Manaf (al-Mughira) ibn Qusai (Zaid) ibn Kilab ibn Murra ibn Ka`b ibn Lu'ay ibn Ghalib ibn Fahr (Quraish) ibn Malik ibn an-Nadr (Qais) ibn Kinana ibn Khuzaimah ibn Mudrikah (Amir) ibn Ilyas ibn Mudar ibn Nizar ibn Ma`ad ibn Adnan. (ibn means "son of" in Arabic; alternate names of people with two names are given in parentheses.) [1] <http://www.sunnipath.com/Resources/PrintMedia/Books/B0033P0005.aspx>
He was also called Abul-Qaasim by some meaning "father of Qaasim", after his short-lived first son.
Childhood
Muhammad was born into a well-to-do family settled in the northern Arabian town of Mecca. Some calculate his birthdate as April 20, 570 (Shia Muslims believe it to be April 26), and some as 571; tradition places it in the Year of the Elephant. Muhammad's father, Abdullah, 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. While he was still an infant, Abd al-Muttalib brought Muhammad before Hubal (at-Tabari, The History of the Prophets and Kings, 1:157). Tradition says that as an infant, he was placed with a Bedouin wetnurse, Halima, as desert life was believed to be safer and healthier for children. At the age of six, Muhammad lost his mother Amina, and at the age of eight his grandfather Abd al-Muttalib. Muhammad now came under the care of his uncle Abu Talib, the new leader of the Hashim clan of the Quraysh tribe, the most powerful in Mecca.
Mecca was a thriving commercial centre, due in great part to a stone temple (now called the Kaaba) that housed many different idols. Merchants from different tribes would visit Mecca during the pilgrimage season, when all inter-tribal warfare was forbidden and they could trade in safety. While still in his teens, Muhammad began accompanying his uncle on trading journeys to Syria. He thus became well-travelled and knowledgeable as to foreign ways.
