History of MUHAMMAD(صلی اللہ علیہو والہ وسلم)
This article is about the Islamic prophet. For other people named Muhammad, see Muhammad (name). For other uses, see Muhammad (disambiguation).
Muhammad[n 1] (Arabic: مُحَمَّد, pronounced [muħammad];[n 2] c. 570 CE – 8 June 632 CE)[1] was an Arab religious, social, and political leader and the founder of Islam.[2] According to Islamic doctrine, he was a prophet, sent to preach and confirm the monotheistic teachings of Adam, Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and other prophets.[2][3][4][5] He is viewed as the final prophet of God in all the main branches of Islam, though some modern denominations diverge from this belief.[n 3] Muhammad united Arabia into a single Muslim polity, with the Quran as well as his teachings and practices forming the basis of Islamic religious belief.
Born approximately 570 CE (Year of the Elephant) in the Arabian city of Mecca, Muhammad was orphaned at the age of six.[6] He was raised under the care of his paternal grandfather Abd al-Muttalib, and upon his death, by his uncle Abu Talib.[7] In later years, he would periodically seclude himself in a mountain cave named Hira for several nights of prayer. When he was 40, Muhammad reported being visited by Gabriel in the cave[8][9] and receiving his first revelation from God. In 613,[10] Muhammad started preaching these revelations publicly,[11] proclaiming that "God is One", that complete "submission" (islām) to God[12] is the right way of life (dīn),[13] and that he was a prophet and messenger of God, similar to the other prophets in Islam.[14][15][16]
The followers of Muhammad were initially few in number, and experienced hostility from Meccan polytheists. He sent some of his followers to Abyssinia in 615 to shield them from prosecution, before he and his followers migrated from Mecca to Medina (then known as Yathrib) in 622. This event, the Hijra, marks the beginning of the Islamic calendar, also known as the Hijri Calendar. In Medina, Muhammad united the tribes under the Constitution of Medina. In December 629, after eight years of intermittent fighting with Meccan tribes, Muhammad gathered an army of 10,000 Muslim converts and marched on the city of Mecca. The conquest went largely uncontested and Muhammad seized the city with little bloodshed. In 632, a few months after returning from the Farewell Pilgrimage, he fell ill and died. By the time of his death, most of the Arabian Peninsula had converted to Islam.[17][18]
The revelations (each known as Ayah — literally, "Sign [of God]") that Muhammad reported receiving until his death form the verses of the Quran, regarded by Muslims as the verbatim "Word of God" on which the religion is based. Besides the Quran, Muhammad's teachings and practices (sunnah), found in the Hadith and sira (biography) literature, are also upheld and used as sources of Islamic law (see Sharia).
Quranic names and appellations
The name Muhammad (/mʊˈhæməd, -ˈhɑːməd/)[19] means "praiseworthy" and appears four times in the Quran.[20] The Quran also addresses Muhammad in the second person by various appellations; prophet, messenger, servant of God ('abd), announcer (bashir),[Quran 2:119] witness (shahid),[Quran 33:45] bearer of good tidings (mubashshir), warner (nathir),[Quran 11:2] reminder (mudhakkir),[Quran 88:21] one who calls [unto God] (dā'ī),[Quran 12:108] light personified (noor),[Quran 05:15] and the light-giving lamp (siraj munir).[Quran 33:46]
Sources of biographical information
Quran
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The Quran is the central religious text of Islam. Muslims believe it represents the words of God revealed by the archangel Gabriel to Muhammad.[21][22][23] The Quran, however, provides minimal assistance for Muhammad's chronological biography; most Quranic verses do not provide significant historical context.[24][25]
Early biographies
Important sources regarding Muhammad's life may be found in the historic works by writers of the 2nd and 3rd centuries of the Muslim era (AH – 8th and 9th century CE).[26] These include traditional Muslim biographies of Muhammad, which provide additional information about Muhammad's life.[27]
The earliest surviving written sira (biographies of Muhammad and quotes attributed to him) is Ibn Ishaq's Life of God's Messenger written c. 767 CE (150 AH). Although the work was lost, this sira was used at great length by Ibn Hisham and to a lesser extent by Al-Tabari.[28][29] However, Ibn Hisham admits in the preface to his biography of Muhammad that he omitted matters from Ibn Ishaq's biography that "would distress certain people".[30] Another early history source is the history of Muhammad's campaigns by al-Waqidi (death 207 of Muslim era), and the work of his secretary Ibn Sa'd al-Baghdadi (death 230 of Muslim era).[26]
Many scholars accept these early biographies as authentic, though their accuracy is unascertainable.[28] Recent studies have led scholars to distinguish between traditions touching legal matters and purely historical events. In the legal group, traditions could have been subject to invention while historic events, aside from exceptional cases, may have been only subject to "tendential shaping".[31]
Hadith
Other important sources include the hadith collections, accounts of the verbal and physical teachings and traditions of Muhammad. Hadiths were compiled several generations after his death by followers including Muhammad al-Bukhari, Muslim ibn al-Hajjaj, Muhammad ibn Isa at-Tirmidhi, Abd ar-Rahman al-Nasai, Abu Dawood, Ibn Majah, Malik ibn Anas, al-Daraqutni.[32][33]
Some Western academics cautiously view the hadith collections as accurate historical sources.[32] Scholars such as Madelung do not reject the narrations which have been compiled in later periods, but judge them in the context of history and on the basis of their compatibility with the events and figures.[34] Muslim scholars on the other hand typically place a greater emphasis on the hadith literature instead of the biographical literature, since hadiths maintain a verifiable chain of transmission (isnad); the lack of such a chain for the biographical literature makes it less verifiable in their eyes.[35
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