The Prophet Muhammad and the Person He Was The prophet Muhammad was born in Mecca around the year 570 C.E. He was orphaned around the age of six and raised by his uncle Abu Talib. He worked as a merchant and was known to be very trustworthy and had the ability to arbitrate fairly to settle disputes. In his mid-twenties Muhammad married a wealthy widow named Khadija. Muhammad and his wife had four daughter and two sons, both of whom dies in infancy. This gave him the freedom to pursue private spiritual discipline. During this time he felt distraught for those who worshipped idols and the oppression of the poor and weak people in society. About fifteen to twenty years after his marriage, he began to …show more content…
After a time Muhammad began to go against the traditional polytheism of his home town and the powerful merchants of Mecca were afraid this was the beginning of a religious revolution. This posed a problem for them as it could affect their business since it was protected by the pantheon of gods and goddesses. Because of this, the rich and powerful persecuted Muhammad and his followers. The situation for Muhammad became even worse when his wife and uncle died and was he and his followers were forced out of Mecca in 622 C.E. He and his followers traveled to Medina and slowly began to convert more people to their religion. In Medina, he created the first Islamic community, later used as the model for all that followed. Muhammad tried desperately to convert many from the Jewish faith, but these attempts mostly failed. The Meccan’s found Muhammad and sent multiple raids that later resulted in full scale war. In the year 629 C.E. Muhammad stated the people of Mecca would not be able to resist when he brought his followers to a pilgrimage to Mecca. He later led an assault that concurred Mecca and then destroyed all of the idols. After defeating Mecca, his prestige grew greatly and embassies from all over Arabia came to pay homage to Muhammad. Overall, Muhammad’s actions left him to be revered as the perfect believer following his death (Young
He became known as “the Prophet,” and was meant to be God’s final prophet. The main two groups of Islam are the Shia and Sunni which were created after Muhammad’s death. The Islamic religion as well as the Judaism and Christianity are monotheistic; these three religions have small disputes but they all believe in only one god. There were two men that wanted to be the first caliph (successor) of Muhammad.
In the late 1980’s Muhammad changed his life around. He and his wife had separated, he converted to Islam, and he joined the U.S. Army (Biography, par 4). He later changed his name to Muhammad (Death, par 2). He was stationed in Washington State. There he married Mildred Green. They ended up having three children. Being in the army was good for Muhammad. He served in Germany and the Middle East and was skilled in marksman (Biography, par 4, 5).
Elijah Muhammad, son of a sharecropper, was born into poverty in Sandersville, Georgia, on October 7, 1897 (biography.com). After moving to Detroit in 1923, he met W. D. Fard, founder of the black separatist movement Nation of Islam (biography.com). Muhammad became Fard’s successor from 1934-75 and was known for his controversial preaching (biography.com). Muhammad faced many challenges during his life span. He declared that Fard had been an incarnation of Allah and that he himself was now Allah’s messenger (biography.com). For forty-one year’s Muhammad spread the word of the Nation of Islam, slowly but steadily attracting new members (biography.com). Muhammad built the religion from a small fringe group into a large and complex organization that attracted controversy along with its new prominence (biography.com).
“Name one significant figure, in Islam and analyse their impact on the lives of adherents”
Abu Talib, the head of the Hashim Clan, and Khadijah protected him from people who didn’t follow him. Many people joined Muhammad, but some people rejected him because they were worried about not being able to worship Makkah or believe in all their gods. Some weaker followers were tortured to give their faith, but they didn’t. As the number of Muslims grew, the powerful clans of Makkah started a boycott to make Muhammad’s followers give up Islam. The Qur’an tell the story of the Night Journey about how Jerusalem is a holy city for the
When Muhammad was 40 years old, he was commanded by God, through his angel, Gabriel, to declare his identity to the idolaters and polytheists of the complete world, and to deliver the message of peace to an embattled humanity. In response to the current command of heaven, Muhammad launched the significant program known as Islam which was to change the destiny of mankind forever.
It is believed that here God told Muhammed, through the angel Gabriel, that he was going to spread Islam and be the bearer of the divine message or basically be a prophet. Although, it is clear throughout Islamic religion that the only job of Muhammed was to strictly “read what God had ordered and ordained, nothing more” (Bassiouni, 10). Therefore, everything Muhammed said would apparently be with the help of God, making it that much more persuasive and significant. In Muhammed’s time everyone was pagan and believed in multiple gods that controlled different aspects of life. Muhammed’s hometown of Mecca’s economy revolved around the beliefs of multiple Gods, which attracted followers from other towns to come to Mecca and purchase these idols along with other objects that were related. Since Muhammed’s basic belief in a monotheistic religion without statues of gods was extremely different from the popular pagan one, the community felt threatened that he would destroy their entire economy. Muhammed continued to preach even with threats of the community, yet he did not have much success until he told his story of when the Angel Gabriel visited him from God. The visit from Gabriel was the turning point that lead to the spread of Islam. Muhammed was able to physically support his statement that he supposedly traveled with
Unlike Christians, Muslims believe that the Prophet Muhammad spread their religion throughout the world. Islam began in the year 610, when the prophet Muhammad started receiving messages from Allah, through the Angel Gabriel. He started spreading the word to others and that is how the Islamic faith began. The Prophet Muhammad was born in 570 AD in Saudi Arabia, Mecca. Both of his parents passed away by the time he was 6 years old and he was raised by his uncle. Muhammad’s first job was a camel driver and later he started managing caravans for many merchants. In doing so, he was employed by a woman named Khadija. They soon got married and it was said that she made his life easier because Allah was through her. When Muhammad was in his 30’s, he would go to Mount Hira to be alone and pray.One day on the mountain while in solitude an angel came to him saying he was chosen to spread the word of Allah. At first, Muhammad said he was not the right one to do this mission however, the angel persisted. He went home to tell his wife and through his wife he found the courage to follow what the angel told him. Khadija was his first follower. In the first three years, he only converted 40 people in Mecca. It was only a small amount of people but it caused a lot of chaos in Mecca. Many of his followers were sentenced to death and Muhammad was next. As persecution was rising, Muhammad found out that he had followers in a city
Most people might not think that a professional boxer could be an activist. However, Muhammad Ali is not only considered a world champion boxer, but is also a well known political and social activist and humanitarian. As an activist, he refused to be drafted into the U.S. military during the Vietnam War. In addition to that, he promoted world peace by traveling to war torn countries and became an advocate for children.
The town of Mecca was the birthplace of Islam, at first the leaders of the city refused the changing of this new religion and forced Muhammad to leave. Muhammad returned and preached to the people about what he had heard, that there is only one god. Islam spread quickly for two main reasons they are the message and military conquest. Some people believe that trade routes were most important reason in Islam expansion. People travel through Mecca and trade there while on their way to other cities such as Aden, Medina, and Petra.(Document A)
When people think about Mecca one of the first things that might come to their heads is the pilgrimage or the black stone. Muhammad is one of the reasons that Mecca is what it is today. Muhhamad was a prophet born 570 in Mecca. He was orphaned as a child and sent to ended up living with his uncle. Muhhamad would get away from everything by going to the desert to meditate. One night while alone at Mt. Hira he was visited by an angel named Gabriel. After this Muhhamad began to accept Allah and started to believe. Some of the things Muhhamad believed was Jihad, holy struggle. He also began to believe you live for Allah. He believed all those who did would be rewarded and the rest punished. Not everyone believed the way Muhammad did. People at first thought that his teachings were a threat to the religious and material order. He was accused of making up what the Angel Gabriel had told him. He got followers from the poor and people who thought they were being unequally treated. Muhhamad took these people and then left and went to Medina to find more followers. He then returned to Mecca later and took over the city and converted everyone to Islam.
The prophet Muhammad had a significant impact on the rise and spread of the religion Islam. According to World Civilizations, Muhammad “began receiving revelations transmitted from Allah,” and later these revelations became holy scripts in the Quran. Muhammad started off with very few followers but as the faith of Allah started to spread, he gained more followers and he became a threat to Mecca’s rulers. As mentioned in World Civilization, “in 622 Muhammad left Mecca for Medina where his skilled leadership brought new followers.” In Medina, Muhammad became the religious authority in the area and he used this power to conquer Mecca, a holy place for Islamic believers. By the time of his death, he was able to have created a religious empire that controlled all of the Arabian Peninsula.
After ‘The Year of Sorrow’ in which both Muhammad’s uncle- Abu Talib and wife- Kadijah died Muhammad is warned by the angel Gabriel that the situation is getting too dangerous for him in Mecca. “Muhammad knew the faith must find expression in a community which would insure its external force and the opportunity to prevail against opposition” (Cragg). It is at this point that Muhammad is invited to become a leader in Medina (622ce).
Muhammad married Khadija at the age of 25, and he took no other wife during the twenty-six years of their married life. He married Aisha . . . at the age of 54, three years after the death of Khadija. After this marriage, he took other wives, about whom non-Muslim writers have directed much unjust criticism against him. The facts are all these ladies were old maids or widows left destitute and without protection during the repeated wars of persecution, and as head of the State at Medina the only proper way, according to the Arab code, in which Muhammad could extend both protection and maintenance to them was by marriage. The only young person was Maria the Copt, who was presented to him as a captive of war, and whom he immediately liberated, but she refused to leave his kind protection and he therefore married her.
Let us start with this statement: I believe that new preachers and new people to the Christian Faith try hard to avoid the Old Testament. If they do, they only look at one section and struggle to connect all the pieces together. One of the issues that makes people uncomfortable is the prophets. First, there is a definite volume of them, and then they are divided into “major” and “minor.” I think at the core of our hearts, we are trying to understand the difference among the different biblical prophets.