Mohammed, the prophet and founder of Islam, was born into a polytheistic environment around 570 A.D. He belonged to the clan of Hashim and was of the tribes of Quraysh, the group who controlled the Kaaba stone during this time. Mohammed's father died some time before his birth and his mother died when he was still very young. He was raised as an orphan among his relatives and practiced the polytheistic forms of worship known among his people. While still a teenager, Mohammed became a camel driver and soon began traveling with caravans from Egypt to Syria. At the age of 25, Mohammad came under the employment of a wealthy widow in Mecca named Khadijah. Although she was 15 years older than him, they married and she bore him two sons and four daughters.
It was during Mohammed's travel with the caravan that he came in contact with the representatives of the many different religions and cultures of that time. He observed that many of them had several things in common:
· A belief in one God
· A dualistic belief in the fight between good and evil
· A scripture they believed to be the Word of God
· An eschatology teaching that the righteous would be rewarded and the evil punished
During the solitude of Mohammed's travels, he began to meditate in search of the one true God. After approximately 15 years, he claimed to have had a vision in which the angel Gabriel told him that he was to be the prophet of Allah. Mohammed was then instructed to proclaim this message that there is no God but Allah. According to Thomas M. Starkes, in his book Today's World Religions, Mohammed received the exact words that were to later become the Quran, even though he could not read or write. Acting as the prophet of Allah, Mohammed began to spread the message that he had been given, but it was not well received. Mohammed was laughed at, and on one occasion, when he and his followers were praying to Allah, the residents of Mecca threw dirt on him and his followers.
In 619 A.D., Mohammed lost his wife in death. In 620 A.D., he and some of his followers received a visit by men from the town of Yathrib. This town was later renamed Medina, in honor of Mohammed. The men from Yathrib were mostly Jews who believed that Mohammed could be the Messiah. Their mission was to convince him to come to Yathrib and bring peace among its warring factions. Initially Mohammed refused, but in 622 A.D., while wars had broken out in Mecca, he and his followers went to Yathrib to establish the peace as they had initially been requested to do. Among Muslims, this trip to Yathrib became known as "the flight" or "Hijirah".
Islam grew in Yathrib (Medina) and by 629 Islam had grown into a major military and political force. In 630, Mohammed entered Mecca with an army of 10,000 men. He immediately took custody of the Kaaba and destroyed all relics, idols, and paintings that had become the object of worship among the people. By 632, Muslims had near complete control of Arabia. It was in that same year that Mohammed died.
F. A. Perry is a graduate of Fruitland Bible Institute, where his education placed an emphasis on pastoral studies and counseling. He has served as an interim pastor and guest speaker in various churches. He has taught Bible studies and Sunday School for many years.