Middle years
Muhammad became a merchant and one of his employers was Khadijah, a widow then forty years old. The young twenty-five-year old Muhammad had impressed Khadijah and she proposed to him in the year 595. By Arab custom before Islam, minors did not inherit, so Muhammad had received no inheritance from either his father or his grandfather.
Ibn Ishaq records that Khadijah bore Muhammad five children, one son and four daughters. All of Khadija's children were born before Muhammad received his first revelation. His son Qasim died at the age of two. The four daughters are said to be Zainab, Ruqayyah, Umm Kulthum, and Fatimah.
The Shi'a say that Muhammad had only the one daughter, Fatimah, and that the other daughters were either children of Khadijah by her previous marriage, or children of her sister.
Timeline of Muhammad
Important dates and locations in the life of Muhammad
c. 569 Death of his father, `Abd Allah
c. 570 Possible date of birth, April 20: Mecca
570 End of ancient South Arabian high culture
570 Unsuccessful Abyssinian attack on Mecca
576 Mother dies
578 Grandfather dies
c. 583 Takes trading journeys to Syria
c. 595 Meets and marries Khadijah
610 First reports of Qur'anic revelation: Mecca
c. 610 Appears as Prophet of Islam: Mecca
c. 613 Begins spreading message of Islam publicly: Mecca
c. 614 Begins to gather following: Mecca
c. 615 Emigration of Muslims to Abyssinia
616 Banu Hashim clan boycott begins
c. 618 Medinan Civil War: Medina
619 Banu Hashim clan boycott ends
c. 620 Isra and Miraj
c. 620 Tribes convert to Islam: Medina
622 Emigrates to Medina (Hijra)
622 Takes leadership of Medina (Yathrib)
c. 622 Preaches against Ka'aba pantheon: Mecca
622 Meccans attack Muhammad unsuccessfully
c. 622 Confederation of Muslims and other clans
c. 623 Constitution of Medina
624 Battle of Badr Muslims defeat Meccans
625 Battle of Uhud
c. 625 Expulsion of Banu Nadir tribe
626 Attack on Dumat al-Jandal: Syria
c. 627 Opponents' siege fails: Medina
627 Battle of the Trench
627 Destruction of the Banu Qurayza tribe
c. 627 Bani Kalb subjugation: Dumat al-Jandal
c. 627 Unites Islam: Medina
628 Treaty of Hudaybiyya
c. 628 Gains access to Mecca shrine Kaba
628 Conquest of the Khaybar oasis
629 First hajj pilgrimage
629 Attack on Byzantine empire fails: Mu'ta
630 Attacks and bloodlessly captures Mecca
c. 630 Battle of Hunayn
c. 630 Siege of al-Ta'if
630 Establishes theocracy: Mecca
c. 631 Subjugates Arabian peninsula tribes
c. 632 Attacks the Ghassanids: Tabuk
632 Farewell hajj pilgrimage
632 Dies (June 8): Medina
c. 632 Tribal rebellions in Arabia
c. 632 Abu Bakr (Caliph) reestablishes the Caliphate
The first revelations
Muhammad had a reflective turn of mind and routinely spent nights in a cave (Hira) near Mecca in meditation and thought. Muslims believe that around the year 610, while meditating, Muhammad had a vision of the Angel Gabriel.
His wife Khadijah and her Christian cousin Waraqah ibn Nawfal were the first to believe Muhammad was a prophet. She was soon followed by his ten-year-old cousin Ali ibn Abi Talib, and Abu Bakr, whom Sunnis assert to have been Muhammad's closest friend.
Until his death, Muhammad reportedly received frequent revelations, although there was a relatively long gap after the first revelation. This silence worried him, until he received surat ad-Dhuha, whose words provided comfort and reassurance.
Around 613, Muhammad began to spread his message amongst the people. Most of those who heard his message ignored it. A few mocked him. Some, however, believed and joined his small group.
Rejection
As the ranks of Muhammad's followers swelled, he became a threat to the local tribes and the rulers of the city. Their wealth, after all, rested on the Kaaba, a sacred house of idols and the focal point of Meccan religious life. If they threw out their idols, as Muhammad preached, there would be no more pilgrims, no more trade, and no more wealth. Muhammad's denunciation of polytheism was especially offensive to his own tribe, the Quraysh, as they were the guardians of the Ka'aba. Furthermore, Muhammad and his followers, bypassing the rulers, forged a relationship with the Christian nation of Ethiopia, a nation traditionally considered an enemy of Mecca. Muhammad and his followers were persecuted. Some of them fled to Abyssinia (present day Ethiopia)and founded a small colony there under the refuge of the Ethiopian King.
Several suras and parts of suras are said to date from this time, and reflect its circumstances: see for example al-Masadd, al-Humaza, parts of Maryam and al-Anbiya, al-Kafirun, and Abasa.
In 619, both Muhammad's wife Khadijah and his uncle Abu Talib died; it was known as "the year of sorrows." Muhammad's own clan withdrew their protection of him. Muslims patiently endured hunger and persecution.
Isra and Miraj
Some time in 620, Muhammad told his followers that he had experienced the Isra and Miraj, a miraculous journey said to have been accomplished in one night. In the first part of the journey, the Isra, he is said to have travelled from Mecca to Jerusalem. In the second part, the Miraj, Muhammad is said to have toured Heaven and Hell, and spoken with earlier prophets, such as Abraham, Moses, and Jesus.
Muslims believe that the Jerusalem mosque on the Temple Mount known as the Masjid al-Aqsa is built over the site from which Muhammad ascended to Heaven.
Hijra
By 622, life in the small Muslim community of Mecca was becoming not only difficult, but dangerous. Muslim traditions say that there were several attempts to assassinate Muhammad. Muhammad then resolved to emigrate to Medina, then known as Yathrib, a large agricultural oasis where there were a number of Muslim converts. 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. This Hijra or emigration (traditionally translated into English as "flight") marks the beginning of the Islamic calendar. The Muslim calendar counts dates from the Hijra, which is why Muslim dates have the suffix AH (After Hijra).
Muhammad came to Medina as a mediator, invited to resolve the feud between the Arab factions of Aws and Khazraj. He ultimately did so by absorbing both factions into his Muslim community, forbidding bloodshed among Muslims. However, Medina was also home to a number of Jewish tribes (whether they were ethnically as well as religiously Jewish is an open question, as is the depth of their "Jewishness"). Muhammad had hoped that they would recognize him as a prophet, but they did not do so. Some academic historians attribute the change of qibla, the Muslim direction of prayer, from the site of the former Temple in Jerusalem to the Kaaba in Mecca, which occurred during this period, to Muhammad's abandonment of hope of recruiting Jews as allies or followers.
Non-Muslim settlements within Muslim territories were taxed rather than expelled. 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 and other "Peoples of the Book" could exist within the new Islamic State. This system would come to typify Muslim relations with their non-believing subjects and that tradition was one reason for the stability of the later Muslim caliphate or Khilafah. In this, the Islamic empire was more tolerant than another great power of the area, the Byzantine empire, which was actively hostile to any religions or sects other than the state-sponsored version of Orthodox Christianity.
War
Relations between Mecca and Medina rapidly worsened (see surat al-Baqara). Meccans confiscated all the property that the Muslims had left in Mecca. In Medina, Muhammad signed treaties of alliance and mutual help with neighboring tribes.
Muhammad turned to raiding caravans bound for Mecca. Caravan raiding (al-ghazw) was an old Arabian tradition; Muslims justified the raids by Meccan's confiscation of all their property left at Mecca and the state of war deemed to exist between the Meccans and the Muslims. Secular scholars add this was also a matter of survival for the Muslims. They owned no land in Medina and if they did not raid, they would have to live on charity and whatever wage labor they could find, both of which were in short supply in the small oasis.
In March of 624, Muhammad led some 300 warriors in a raid on a Meccan merchant caravan. The Meccans successfully defended the caravan and then decided to teach the Medinans a lesson. They sent a small army against Medina. On March 15, 624 near a place called Badr, the Meccans and the Muslims clashed. Though outnumbered more than 3 times (1000 to 300) in the battle, the Muslims met with success, killing at least forty-five Meccans and taking seventy prisoners for ransom; only fourteen Muslims died. This marked the real beginning of Muslim military achievement.
Muhammad's rule consolidated
To the Muslims, the victory in Badr appeared as a divine authentication of Muhammad's prophethood, and he and all the Muslims rejoiced greatly. Following this victory, after clashes, and the breaking of a treaty that risked the security of the city state, the victors expelled a local Jewish clan, the Banu Qainuqa. Virtually all the remaining Medinans converted, and Muhammad became ruler of the city.
After Khadija's death, Muhammad married again, to Aisha, the daughter of his friend Abu Bakr (who would later emerge as the first leader of the Muslims after Muhammad's death). In Medina, he married Hafsah, daughter of Umar (who would eventually become Abu Bakr's successor).
Muhammad's daughter Fatima married Ali, Muhammad's cousin. According to the Sunni, another daughter, Umm Kulthum, married Uthman. Each of these men, in later years, would emerge as successors to Muhammad and political leaders of the Muslims. Thus all four of the first four caliphs were linked to Muhammad by marriage. Sunni Muslims regard these caliphs as the Rashidun, or Rightly Guided. (See Succession to Muhammad for more information on the controversy on who the first caliph should have been).