Muḥammad

MuḤammad

MUḤAMMAD ibn ʿAbdullāh (c. 570–632 CE) is revered by Muslims as the prophet to whom the Qurʾān, the sacred scripture of Islam, was revealed. Apart from the Qurʾān and the ḥadīth, the main sources for his life history are the biographies written by four early Muslim historians: Muḥammad ibn Isḥāq (d. c. 767), Muḥammad ibn Ṣaʿd (d. c. 845), Abū Jaʿfar al-Ṭabarī (d. c. 923), and Muḥammad ibn ʿUmar al-Waqīdī (d. c. 820).

Early Life (C. 570–610)

Born in Mecca, in the Arabian Ḥijāz, in about 570, Muḥammad was a member of the Quraysh, the ruling tribe of Mecca, but of the clan of Hāshim, one of its less influential family groups. Orphaned early in life, he was brought up by his uncle Abū Ṭālib, and although he was treated kindly, the experience of deprivation made an indelible impression on Muḥammad, who remained poor throughout his youth and a marginal figure in the thriving city of Mecca. Mecca had long been the holiest city in Arabia. The Kaʿbah, the cube-shaped shrine in the heart of the town, was of great antiquity. It was a place of pilgrimage. Each year, Arabs came from all over the peninsula to perform the arcane rites of the ḥājj pilgrimage, whose original significance had been forgotten but which still yielded a powerful religious experience.