The Birth and Spread of Islam: Muhammad and His Prophetic Mission

What are the origins of Muhammad?

According to tradition, Muhammad (Muhammed in Arabic, meaning "the praised") was born in Mecca around 570; His father's name was Abdullah, he was a merchant of modest economic conditions, who died before his son was born. His mother, Amina, did not survive much later after her husband died and Mohammed found himself as an orphan at the age of six. He was assigned to his grandfather at first and then to an uncle. When he was approximately 25 years old he married Cadigia, a rich widow of Mecca, of which he was the administrator and on whose behalf he had made trips in the northern part of Arabia. At Mecca and in the course of his travels Mohammed was able to get in touch with members of the Jewish and Christian communities: the city stands to represent a crossroad for peoples and trade, various forms of paganism, Christianity and (though at lesser extent) Judaism coexisted and mingled. These elements, combined with suction monotheistic, would then be received and processed by Muhammad in the religion that he was about to found.

The monotheism of Islam

The prophetic vocation of Muhammad

The prophetic vocation of Mohammed manifests around 610, when he was about forty, and he retired on Mount Hira, had visions and heard voices. It was here that he developed his strictly monotheistic religion: Islam means "surrender to God", centered on the worship of one God (Allah) of which he proclaimed himself the prophet. His visions were later collected in a book that became the holy book of the Arabs: the Koran. Thus began the preaching of Muhammad, who initially met many hostilities. In fact the new religion bumped the interests of the upper classes, although it was not designed primarily for social purposes and not an incitement to revolt the underprivileged against the rich. Not unlike the primitive Christianity, however, the new religion found followers among the poorest and spread among the discontented and miserable, which also saw the promise of the afterlife preached by Mohammed as the possibility of a reward of deprivation and injustice of which they were victims. In reality the religion of Mohammed and monotheism constituted a challenge to the Arab society and its institutions. Monotheism in fact involved the condemnation of the cult of the idols kept in sanctuaries and in this way threatening the economy that revolved around them. But tribal traditions were denied in the name of the existence of a single community that is faithful to Allah.