MUHAMMAD

  Muhammad was born in 570 - JUNE 08 632, was a man of Mecca that unified Arabia into a  single religious        polity under Islam. It is believed by Muslims and Bahá'ís to be a  messenger and prophet of God,    Muhammad is almost universally regarded by Muslims  as the last prophet sent by God to mankind.  While non-Muslims regard Muhammad as the  founder of Islam, Muslims consider him to have  restored the unaltered original  monotheistic faith of Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jesus and other  prophets. Muslims  discuss Muhammad and other prophets of Islam with reverence, adding the  phrase peace  be upon him whenever their names are mentioned.

 Born in about 570 CE in the Arabian city of Mecca, Muhammad was orphaned at an early  age; was  brought up under the care of his paternal uncle Abu Talib. After his childhood  Muhammad worked  mostly as a merchant. Occasionally he retreated to a cave in the  mountains several nights of solitude  and prayer; later, at age 40, said in this place, which  was visited by Gabriel and received his first  revelation from God. Three years after this  event Muhammad started preaching these revelations  publicly, proclaiming that "God is  One", that complete "surrender" to Him is the only acceptable  way to God, and that he was  a prophet and messenger of God, in the same vein as other Islamic  prophets.

 Muhammad gained few followers early on, and was met with hostility from some tribes of  Mecca.  To escape persecution, Muhammad sent some of his followers to Abyssinia before  he and his  followers in Mecca migrated to Medina in 622 this case, the Hijra, marks the  beginning of the  Islamic calendar, also known as the calendar Gregorian. In Medina,  Muhammad united the tribes  under the Constitution of Medina. After eight years of fighting  with the tribes of Mecca, Muhammad  gathered an army of 10,000 Muslim converts and  marched on the city of Mecca. The attack was in  large part undisputed and Muhammad    took over the city with little bloodshed. He destroyed the  pagan idols in the city and sent  his  followers to destroy all pagan temples remaining in eastern  Arabia. In 632, a few  months after returning to Medina from the Farewell Pilgrimage, Muhammad  fell ill and died.  Before his death, most of the Arabian Peninsula had converted to Islam, and he had  united  Arabia into a single Muslim religious government system. 

 The revelations that Muhammad reported receiving until his death form the verses of the  Quran,  regarded by Muslims as the "Word of God" and around which the religion is based.  Besides the  Qur'an, Muhammad's teachings and practices found in the Hadith and sira  literature are also  respected by Muslims and used as sources of Islamic law. Conceptions  of Muhammad in medieval  Christendom and premodern other contexts were largely  negative, evaluations in modern history  have been far more favorable.