Muhammad is born in Mecca, setting the founding of Islam in motion

Story: 570 C.E.  |  Last updated: January 1, 0570

Around 570 C.E., in the city of Mecca in what is now Saudi Arabia, a child was born who would become the founder of one of the world’s major religions. His name was Muhammad ibn Abdullah, and the tradition that grew from his life now shapes the beliefs and daily practices of roughly 1.9 billion people across every continent on Earth.

Key facts

• Founding of Islam: Muhammad is recognized in Islamic tradition as the final prophet of God, sent to confirm and complete the monotheistic teachings attributed to Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, and Jesus before him.
• Birth circumstances: Born into the Banu Hashim clan of the Quraysh tribe, Muhammad lost his father before or shortly after birth and his mother at age six, leaving him an orphan raised by his grandfather and later his uncle, Abu Talib.
• Historical record: The earliest written biography of Muhammad dates to around 767 C.E. — roughly 135 years after his death — meaning his life is reconstructed primarily from oral traditions later committed to writing, a gap scholars acknowledge as historically significant.

A life shaped by loss and reflection

Mecca in the late sixth century C.E. was a commercial hub at the crossroads of Arabian trade routes, home to a complex tribal society and a wide variety of religious practices, including polytheism, Judaism, and Christianity. Into this world, Muhammad entered under difficult circumstances.

His father, Abdullah, died around the time of his birth. His mother, Amina, died when he was six. He was raised first by his grandfather Abd al-Muttalib, then by his uncle Abu Talib, a respected figure in Meccan society. These early experiences of loss and dependence on community likely shaped the deep emphasis on care for orphans and the poor that would later run through his teachings.

As a young man, Muhammad worked as a merchant and became known for his integrity — earning the Arabic title Al-Amin, “the trustworthy.” He married Khadijah, a businesswoman who employed him and later became the first person to accept Islam. She remained one of his most important companions until her death.

The moment that changed everything

Around 610 C.E., at approximately 40 years old, Muhammad began a practice of retreating to a cave called Hira on the outskirts of Mecca for nights of prayer and reflection. According to Islamic tradition, it was there that the archangel Gabriel appeared to him and delivered the first of what would become the verses of the Quran — the central scripture of Islam, believed by Muslims to be the direct word of God.

Three years later, in 613 C.E., Muhammad began preaching publicly. The core message was direct: God is one, submission to God is the right way of life, and all people — regardless of tribe or status — stand equal before the divine. In a society organized rigidly around tribal hierarchy, that message was radical.

It was also, for a time, dangerous. Muhammad’s followers faced persecution from Meccan polytheists for more than a decade. In 615 C.E., he sent some followers to the Christian kingdom of Abyssinia — a remarkable early act of cross-cultural refuge-seeking — where the ruler granted them protection. In 622 C.E., Muhammad and his remaining followers made the Hijra, the migration to the city of Medina, an event so consequential it marks the beginning of the Islamic calendar.

Building a new community

In Medina, Muhammad’s role expanded from preacher to statesman. He helped forge the Constitution of Medina, an agreement among the city’s diverse tribes — Muslim, Jewish, and pagan — establishing mutual obligations and a shared framework for governance. Scholars have pointed to this document as one of the earliest written constitutional agreements in history, though its precise dating and scope remain subjects of academic discussion.

By 630 C.E., after years of conflict and negotiation, Muhammad led an army of 10,000 into Mecca in a largely bloodless conquest. He died in 632 C.E., having seen most of the Arabian Peninsula adopt the new faith. The community he built — the ummah — would within a century extend from Spain to Central Asia.

Lasting impact

The founding of Islam reshaped human civilization. Islamic scholars of the 8th through 13th centuries C.E. preserved and advanced Greek philosophy, mathematics, medicine, and astronomy at a time when much of that knowledge was in danger of being lost to history. Algebra, the word itself derived from Arabic, emerged from Islamic intellectual culture. The global networks of trade, scholarship, and pilgrimage that Islamic civilization created connected peoples across Africa, Asia, and Europe in ways that had no prior parallel.

Islam’s emphasis on literacy — every Muslim is called to read the Quran — drove rates of learning across communities that had previously had little access to formal education. The tradition of zakat, obligatory charitable giving, built welfare structures into the fabric of Islamic societies from the beginning.

Today, Islam is the world’s second-largest religion, with nearly two billion adherents. Muhammad has also received recognition beyond Islam: in Sikhism as an inspirational figure, in the Druze faith as one of seven principal prophets, and in the Baháʼí Faith as a Manifestation of God.

Blindspots and limits

The historical record for Muhammad’s life is reconstructed almost entirely from sources written 130 to 250 years after his death, transmitted through oral tradition across a significant gap. Historian John Burton, among others, has noted that virtually nothing of conventional historical utility survives for the early years of Muhammad’s life beyond the basic fact of his existence. Western scholars widely regard the hadith literature — the reported sayings and practices attributed to Muhammad — as shaped in part by the theological and legal concerns of later centuries rather than serving as direct transcripts of his words and actions. These limitations do not diminish Islam’s historical significance, but they are part of honest engagement with its origins.

Read more

For more on this story, see: Wikipedia — Muhammad

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