Muhammad

Muhammad (c. 570 CE–632 CE) was an Arab religious, political, and military leader who founded Islam and unified the Arabian Peninsula under a single centralized state. Born in Mecca into the Hashim clan of the Quraysh tribe, he worked as a merchant before reporting a series of divine revelations starting in 610 CE. Facing severe persecution from Mecca's ruling elite, he led his followers to Medina in 622 CE—an migration known as the Hijra that marks the inception of the Islamic calendar. In Medina, he drafted the Constitution of Medina, establishing an unprecedented inter-tribal confederation, and went on to orchestrate the military consolidation of Arabia, culminating in the bloodless conquest of Mecca in 630 CE. The revelations he proclaimed were compiled into the Quran, which, alongside his recorded normative practices (Sunnah), constructed the comprehensive legal, ethical, and theological foundations of Islamic civilization.