Muhammad, the Quran, and Islamic Practice

Muhammad ibn Abdullah was born around 570 CE in Mecca, a trading center in the Hijaz region of the Arabian Peninsula, into the Quraysh tribe; orphaned at a young age, he was raised first by his grandfather and then by an uncle, and later worked as a merchant, gaining a reputation for honesty before marrying a wealthy widow, Khadija, considerably older than himself. According to Islamic tradition, in 610 CE, while meditating in a cave on Mount Hira near Mecca, Muhammad received the first of a series of revelations delivered through the angel Jibril, understood in the Islamic tradition as the angel Gabriel, which he came to understand as the direct word of God, calling for the worship of one God and warning of a coming day of judgment. His preaching provoked opposition from the polytheistic Meccan establishment, leading in 622 CE to the Hijra, his migration together with his followers to the city of Yathrib, subsequently renamed Medina, an event that marks the beginning of the Islamic calendar. In Medina, Muhammad established a new political and religious community, articulated in part through the so-called Constitution of Medina, and after years of conflict with Mecca returned to conquer the city largely peacefully in 630 CE before his death in 632 CE.