Muhammad The Prophet

Who is Muhammad?

Muhammad ibn Abdullāh  (also spelled Muhammed or Mohammed), who was born in 570/571 and died on June 8, 632, is considered by Muslims to be a messenger and prophet of Allah (God in Arabic), the last law-bearer in a series of Islamic prophets, and the last prophet of Islam as taught by the Qur'an. Muslims thus consider him the restorer of an uncorrupted original monotheistic faith (islām) of Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jesus and other prophets. He was also active as a diplomat, merchant, philosopher, orator, legislator, reformer, military general, and, according to Muslim belief, an agent of divine action.

His life

Born in 570 in the Arabian city of Mecca, he was orphaned at an early age and brought up under the care of his uncle Abu Talib. He later worked mostly as a merchant, as well as a shepherd, and was first married at the age of 25 to Khadijah bint Khuwaylid who was 40 years old at that time.
Muhammed retreated to the cave Hira near Mecca's surrounding mountains because he was discontented with life in Mecca. It was there, at age 40, in the month of Ramadan, where he received his first revelation from God. His wife khadija was the first one to know about these revelations. Three years after this event Muhammad started preaching these revelations publicly

• proclaiming that "God is One", that complete "surrender" to Him (lit. islām) is the only way (dīn)  acceptable to God, 
• and that he himself was a prophet and messenger of God, in the same vein as other Islamic prophets. 

At first there were only few followers. Many tribes responded to his preachings with hostility. Because he was persecuted, he first sent some of his followers to Abyssinia (Ethiopia)  and then he and the remaining  followers in Mecca migrated to Medina (then known as Yathrib) in the year 622. This event, the Hijra or emigration, marks the beginning of the Islamic calendar, which is also known as the Hijri Calendar.
In Medina, Muhammad united the conflicting tribes, and after eight years of fighting with the Meccan tribes, his followers, who by then had grown to 10,000, conquered Mecca. In 632, a few months after returning to Medina from his Farewell pilgrimage, Muhammad fell ill and died. By the time of his death, most of the Arabian Peninsula had converted to Islam; and he had united the tribes of Arabia into a single Muslim religious polity.

Revelation

The revelations (or Ayat, lit. "Signs of God") , which Muhammad reported receiving until his death, form the verses of the Qur'an, regarded by Muslims as the “Word of God” and around which the religion is based. Besides the Qur'an, Muhammad’s life (sira) and traditions (sunnah) are also upheld by Muslims. They discuss Muhammad and other prophets (Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jesus and other prophets) of Islam with respect and reverence, adding the phrase peace be upon him whenever their names are mentioned.

Misconceptions

Not many of the Westerners understand the importance of the prophet Muhammad in Islam. They fail to acknowledge his true peaceful nature. This is mainly due to the grave events that Europeans and the Western world in general attribute to Islam and the miconcepitions that they have built in relation to this prophet.

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