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Around the time of Muhammad's birth in Makkah in 570, both of his parents died so he was raised by his uncle, from the respected tribe of Quraysh. Known as Al-Amin, the truthful and the trustworthy, because of his profoundly religious nature, Muhammad often meditated in the cave of Hira near the summit of the Mount of Light, Jabal al-Nur. He married a forty year old, righteous widow, Khadijah, when he was twenty-five. At the age of forty, he received his first revelation through the Archangel Gabriel, (Jibrail), while meditating on Jabal al-Nur (Mount Hira). This revelation which became known as the Quran, continued for the next twenty-three years. Muhammad suffered such bitter persecution when he began to recite the revealed words about Allah and a Day of Judgement that he emigrated to Madinah with his small group of followers in 622, the date of this pivotal journey or Hijra, marks the beginning of the Muslim calendar.
After he made a farewell
pilgrimage to the Kaaba in Makkah in 630, the Prophet Muhammad returned to
Madinah where he died on June 8, 632.
Within ten years, Islam was established throughout the whole Arabian Peninsula. Over the next hundred years, Islam spread as far as Spain and China. Muslims believe that Muhammad was the final Prophet of Almighty God and His Messenger to all humanity. Muhammad believed that the message he received from Archangel Gabriel sura by sura was the same one which Allah had sent down to the earliest humans. It contained a description of the way of life which Allah had established for people to follow while they lived here on earth. By agreeing to follow this way of life, people would essentially be submitting themselves to Allah. The name of this way of life was simply "submission". In Arabic this is "Islam"
In Islam, the Quran and the living example of the Prophet satisfied both mind
and heart and formed the foundation of a way of life where the spheres of law,
economics, and politics surrendered to the central creed of the oneness and
uniqueness of Allah...Continue on
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