Muhammad New World Encyclopedia. Muhammad (Arabic: محمد, also Arabic transliterated Mohammad, Mohammed, Muhammed, and sometimes Mahomet, following the Latin or Turkish), is the founder of Islam—the worlds second largest religion. According to traditional Muslim biographers, Muhammad was born c. C. E. in Mecca (Makkah) and died June 8, 6. Medina (Madinah). Both Mecca and Medina are cities in the Hejaz region of present day Saudi Arabia. He was a merchant in Mecca when, in 6. C. E. at about the age of 4. Muhammad experienced a vision from the angel Gabriel, who commanded him to memorize and recite the verses subsequently collected as the Quran. Gabriel told him that God (Allah in Arabic) had chosen him as the last of the prophets to mankind. Muhammad is the founder and chief prophet of Islam and the source for the Quran. Muhammad whose name means highly praised was born in Mecca in 570 AD. The start of Islam is marked in the year 610, following the first revelation to the prophet Muhammad at the age of 40. Muhammad and his followers spread the teachings. Hadith and the Prophet Muhammad Table of Contents Hadith, Hadith Collections, and Searchable Hadith Database sayings and accounts of the Prophet. The Prophet Muhammad, Peace be upon him, said: Seven kinds of people will be sheltered under the shade of Allah on the Day of Judgment. They are: a just ruler, a. Holy Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him and his progeny) has said: Those people from amongst my ummah, who memorize forty hadith (traditions) pertaining to those. Have you ever looked at the key differences between Jesus and the Islamic prophet Muhammad There are many, as you can see in this article we published last summer. Muhammad the Apostle of God inscribed on the gates of the Prophets Mosque in Medina. He began publicly preaching a strict monotheism and predicting a Qiyamah (Day of Judgement) for sinners and idol- worshippers, such as his tribe and neighbors in Mecca. For this was persecuted and ostracized by the Meccan establishment, who depended on income from pilgrims to its polytheistic shrine, the Kaaba. Muhammad, the son of Abdullah and his young wife Aminah, was born in 570 CE, approximately, in the city of Mecca in the Arabian Peninsula. He was a member of the. In 6. 22 Muhammad accepted an invitation from believers in the city of Yathrib, where he became the leader of the first avowedly Muslim community (Yathrib ever after become known as Medina- al- Naby, City of the Prophet, or Medina for short). This journey is known as the Hijra, or migration; the event marked the beginning of the Islamic calendar. War between Mecca and Medina followed, in which Muhammad and his followers were eventually victorious. The military organization honed in this struggle was then set to conquering the other pagan tribes of Arabia. By the time of Muhammads death, he had unified Arabia and launched a few expeditions to the north, towards Syria and Palestine. Under Muhammads immediate successors the Islamic empire expanded into Palestine, Syria, Mesopotamia, Persia, Egypt, North Africa, and Spain. Although there were many battles against the pagans, some of whom became Muslim, the primary method by which Islam as a faith spread around much of the globe was commercial contact between Muslims and non- Muslims, and missionary activity. Islamic rule, on the other hand, was extended by conquest. Many people did not convert but lived as subject of Islamic rule, although as time passed the majority did embrace Islam. As Muhammad taught the unity of all aspects of life, a whole civilization developed from his teaching, with its own art, literature, philosophy, science and theology, but also governmental and legal systems. Muhammads legacy lives on in the minds and hearts of billions of Muslims throughout the world, for whom he represents the best model of human conduct. Non- Muslim opinion on Muhammad has often been less favorable—however, few disagree that his life must be numbered among one of the most influential and significant ever lived, as one of the greatest and geographically widespread civilizations in the world owes its existence to him. Islam, as a religio- cultural- social- political system or way of life, represents Gods ideal or will for billions of people. This way of life stresses that all life must be lived in harmony with God, holds all aspects of life—sacred and secular—in balance and encourages people to live as if God sees everything they do. Islam teaches the equality of all people and anticipates that day when the whole world will be obedient to God, when peace (salam, from which the word islam is derived) will exist in the vertical (between all people and God) and in the horizontal (among all people) and when the earth, given humanity as a trust from God, will be properly valued and respected. Above all, Muhammad taught that without inner piety, external displays of devotion are worthless. From the point of view of those who see Gods hand within history, Muhammads life cannot be understood in other than positive terms. The name Muhammad written in Arabic calligraphy as a form of devotion. Many Muslims believe that Islam prohibits art depicting humans or animals; much Islamic art is decorative calligraphy or arabesque. Sources for Muhammads Life. The sources available to us for information about Muhammad are the Quran, sira biographies, and the hadith (sayings and deeds of Muhammad) collections. Technically hadith refers to a single saying (the plural is ahadith) but in English it is customary to use the singular. While the Quran is not a biography of Muhammad, it does provide some information about his life; on the other hand, knowledge of Muhammads life provides Muslims with the situation of revelation (Asbab al- nuzul, or reasons of revelation) without which understanding the Quran becomes problematical. Zakaria (1. 99. 1) suggests that “it is impossible for even Muslims, let alone non- Muslims, to understand the Quran without an acquaintance with the circumstances in which each revelation descended on Muhammad” (tanzir, or descent, is used to describe the sending down of the Quran, together with the term wahy, or revelation). The Quran does refer to incidents in Muhammads life, including both public and private circumstances, so it does contain information about him. The Sira: Biographical Literature. The earliest surviving biographies are the Life of the Apostle of God, by Ibn Ishaq (d. Guillaume 1. 95. 5), edited by Ibn Hisham (d. Waqidis (d. 8. 22) biography (sira) of Muhammad. Ibn Ishaq wrote his biography some 1. Muhammads death. The third source, the hadith collections, like the Quran, are not a biography per se. In the Sunni belief, they are the accounts of the words and actions of Muhammad and his companions. In the Shia belief, they are the accounts of the words and actions of Muhammad, of the Household of the Prophet (Ahl al- Bayt) and their companions, the sahabah (see below). Lings (1. 98. 3) gives us a modern sira, based on the above. The Hadith Literature. Six collections of hadith are recognized by most Sunni as especially trustworthy: those by Bukhari (d. Muslim Ibn al- Hajjaj (d. Cook and Crone), Tirmidhi (d. Nasai (d. 9. 15), Ibn Majah (d. Abu Daud (d. 8. 88). Together these are called the six books (al- kutub al- sitta). Shia use the above but also have their own collections, which include sayings of the Imams (male descendants of Muhammad); the collections of al- Kulayni (d. Ibn Babuya (d. 9. Al Tusi (d. 1. 05. Many Muslims believe that the whole of Bukhari is authentic, although even in that collection the various hadith are given different categories depending on the reliability of their transmitter, ranging from the highest, sahih, to the lowest, da îf (weak). Rules concerning hadith include that all transmitters (the isnad, or chain of transmission must trace back to a close companion of Muhammad) must be pious, their content (matn) must not contradict the Quran or what was commonly accepted to have been Muhammads opinion, any penalty prescribed must not be disproportionate to the offense or crime involved, and they must not depict Muhammad as predicting the future or performing miracles. With reference to the latter, many hadith do depict Muhammad predicting the future and performing miracles (see Bennett 1. On the latter point, several Quranic verses, such as Q2. Q2: 2. 3 suggest that Muhammad did not perform miracles, since the Quran alone was the only confirmation needed of the genuineness of his mission. However, Q1. 3: 3. Muhammad could perform miracles by Allahs leave. Critical scholarship regarding the sources for Muhammads life. Muslim and non- Muslim scholars alike agree that there are many inauthentic traditions concerning the life of Muhammad in the hadith collections. Muslims have always been free to question the authenticity of hadith, even of those contained in the above- mentioned collections. A very small minority called the “Quran Alone Muslims” considers all hadith as unreliable. Non- Muslim scholars, though, are much more skeptical about the reliability of hadith literature.