Revelation to Muhammad and the Birth of Islam

Also called: Founding of Islam, First revelation

Around 610 Muhammad, a merchant of Mecca, began preaching what he proclaimed were revelations from the one God, Allah. A new religion of the Arabs, Islam, was born.

Muhammad was born into the Hashim clan of Mecca’s Quraysh tribe, lost his parents young and worked in the caravan trade. According to tradition, at about forty, while meditating in the cave of Hira on Jabal al-Nour near Mecca, he received his first revelation through the angel Gabriel (Jibril). His wife Khadija became the first believer, and from about 613 he preached openly.

He called on people to worship Allah alone and abandon idols, and taught the Last Judgement and the equality of all before God. Recognising Abraham, Moses and Jesus as earlier prophets and calling himself the last, he placed his monotheism in the same line as Judaism and Christianity. “Islam” means submission to God, and a believer is a Muslim.

The duties of believers were later summed up as the Five Pillars: the profession of faith, prayer five times a day, almsgiving (zakat), fasting in the month of Ramadan, and the pilgrimage to Mecca once in a lifetime. The revelations were gathered into the Qur’an, a scripture to be recited in Arabic. The idea of a community bound by faith rather than tribe and blood transformed Arabian society and led on to the Hijra and the community (umma) at Medina.