Muhammad
prophet of Islam
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Alternate titles: Aḥmad, Abū al-Qāsim Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib ibn Hāshim
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Medina, Saudi Arabia: Prophet's Mosque
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Born: 570 Mecca Saudi ArabiaDied: June 8, 632 (aged 62) Medina Saudi ArabiaNotable Family Members: spouse Khadījah spouse ʿĀʾishah daughter FāṭimahSubjects Of Study: Islam QurʾānRole In: Battle of Badr Battle of the Ditch Pact of Al-Ḥudaybiyah
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Muhammad, in full Abū al-Qāsim Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib ibn Hāshim, (born c. 570, Mecca, Arabia [now in Saudi Arabia]—died June 8, 632, Medina), the founder of Islam and the proclaimer of the Qurʾān. Muhammad is traditionally said to have been born in 570 in Mecca and to have died in 632 in Medina, where he had been forced to emigrate to with his adherents in 622.
Biographical sources
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The Qurʾān yields little concrete biographical information about the Islamic Prophet: it addresses an individual “messenger of God,” whom a number of verses call Muhammad (e.g., 3:144), and speaks of a pilgrimage sanctuary that is associated with the “valley of Mecca” and the Kaʿbah (e.g., 2:124–129, 5:97, 48:24–25). Certain verses assume that Muhammad and his followers dwell at a settlement called al-madīnah (“the town”) or Yathrib (e.g., 33:13, 60) after having previously been ousted by their unbelieving foes, presumably from the Meccan sanctuary (e.g., 2:191). Other passages mention military encounters between Muhammad’s followers and the unbelievers. These are sometimes linked with place-names, such as the passing reference to a victory at a place called Badr at 3:123. However, the text provides no dates for any of the historical events it alludes to, and almost none of the Qurʾānic messenger’s contemporaries are mentioned by name (a rare exception is at 33:37). Hence, even if one accepts that the Qurʾānic corpus authentically documents the preaching of Muhammad, taken by itself it simply does not provide sufficient information for even a concise biographical sketch.
Most of the biographical information that the Islamic tradition preserves about Muhammad thus occurs outside the Qurʾān, in the so-called sīrah (Arabic: “biography”) literature. Arguably the single most important work in the genre is Muḥammad ibn Isḥāq’s (died 767–768) Kitāb al-maghāzī (“Book of [the Prophet’s] Military Expeditions”). However, this work is extant only in later reworkings and abridgements, of which the best known is ʿAbd al-Malik ibn Hishām’s (died 833–834) Sīrat Muḥammad rasūl Allāh (“Life of Muhammad, the Messenger of God”). Ibn Isḥāq’s original book was not his own composition but rather a compilation of autonomous reports about specific events that took place during the life of Muhammad and also prior to it, which Ibn Isḥāq arranged into what he deemed to be their correct chronological order and to which he added his own comments. Each such report is normally introduced by a list of names tracing it through various intermediaries back to its ultimate source, which in many cases is an eyewitness—for example, the Prophet’s wife ʿĀʾishah. Variants of the material compiled by Ibn Isḥāq, as well as further material about events in Muhammad’s life, are preserved in works by other authors, such as Abd al-Razzāq (died 827), al-Wāqidī (died 823), Ibn Saʿd (died 845), and al-Ṭabarī (died 923).
The fact that such biographical narratives about Muhammad are encountered only in texts dating from the 8th or 9th century or even later is bound to raise the problem of how confident one can be in the sīrah literature’s claim to relay accurate historical information. This is not to suggest that there was necessarily an element of deliberate fabrication at work, at least at the level of a compiler like Ibn Isḥāq, who was clearly not inventing stories from scratch. Nonetheless, some accretion of popular legend around a figure as seminal as Muhammad would be entirely expected. At least to historians who are reluctant to admit reports of divine intervention, the problem is reinforced by the miraculous elements of some of the material included in Ibn Isḥāq’s work. Moreover, some of the narratives in question are patently adaptations of biblical motifs designed to present Muhammad as equal or superior to earlier prophetic figures such as Moses and Jesus. For example, before Muhammad’s emigration to Medina he is said to have received an oath of allegiance by twelve inhabitants of the city, an obvious parallel to the Twelve Apostles, and during the digging of a defensive trench around Medina Muhammad is said to have miraculously sated all the workers from a handful of dates, recalling Jesus’ feeding of the multitude. Finally, it is distinctly possible that some reports about events in Muhammad’s life emerged not from historical memory but from exegetical speculation about the historical context of particular verses of the Qurʾān.
By carefully comparing alternative versions of one and the same biographical narrative, scholars have been able to show that a certain number of traditions about Muhammad’s life—for instance, an account of the Prophet’s emigration from Mecca to Medina—were in circulation already by the end of the 7th century. An important collector of such early traditions was ʿUrwah ibn al-Zubayr, a relative of ʿĀʾishah who was probably born in 643–644 and who is plausibly viewed as having had firsthand access to former companions of the Prophet. Moreover, a number of rudimentary details about Muhammad are confirmed by non-Islamic sources dating from the first decades after Muhammad’s traditional date of death. For instance, a Syriac chronicle dating from about 640 mentions a battle between the Romans and “the Arabs of Muhammad,” and an Armenian history composed about 660 describes Muhammad as a merchant who preached to the Arabs and thereby triggered the Islamic conquests. Such evidence provides sufficient confirmation of the historical existence of an Arab prophet by the name of Muhammad. Certain tensions with the Islamic narrative of the Prophet’s life remain, however. For example, some of the non-Islamic sources present Muhammad as having still been alive when the Arab conquerors invaded Palestine (634–640), in contrast to the Islamic view that the Prophet had already passed away at this point.
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All things considered, there is no compelling reason to suggest that the basic scaffolding of the traditional Islamic account of Muhammad’s life is unhistorical. At the same time, the nature of the sources is not such as to inspire confidence that we possess historically certain knowledge about the Prophet’s life that is as detailed as many earlier scholars tended to assume. Especially the customary chronological framework for Muhammad’s life appears to have been worked out by later transmitters and collectors such as Ibn Isḥāq, rather than being traceable to the earliest layer of Islamic traditions about Muhammad. Thus, statements of the sort that on March 21 of the year 625, Meccan forces entered the oasis of Medina are inherently problematic. The following section will nonetheless provide a concise digest mainly of Ibn Isḥāq’s version of the life of the Prophet. This digest does not aim to separate historical fact from later legend. For instance, unlike many earlier Western accounts, no attempt will be made to remove supernatural elements from the narrative in the interest of transforming it into an account that appears plausible by modern historiographical standards.
Biography according to the Islamic tradition
Muhammad is born as a member of the tribe of Quraysh and the clan of Hāshim. His hometown of Mecca houses an ancient and famous pilgrimage sanctuary, the Kaʿbah. Although founded by Abraham, worship there has over time become dominated by polytheism and idolatry. Muhammad’s conception is preceded by a dramatic crisis: his grandfather ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib narrowly fails to implement a vow to sacrifice his favourite son and Muhammad’s future father, ʿAbd Allāh, an obvious adaptation of the biblical story of the binding of Isaac (Genesis 22). Muhammad himself is born in 570, the same year in which the South Arabian king Abraha attempts to conquer Mecca and is thwarted by a divine intervention later alluded to in sūrah 105 of the Qurʾān. Muhammad’s father passes away before his birth, leaving him in the care of his paternal grandfather, ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib. At the age of six Muhammad also loses his mother Āminah, and at eight he loses his grandfather. Thereupon responsibility for Muhammad is assumed by the new head of the clan of Hāshim, his uncle Abū Ṭālib. While accompanying his uncle on a trading journey to Syria, Muhammad is recognized as a future prophet by a Christian monk.
At the age of 25, Muhammad is employed by a rich woman, Khadījah, to oversee the transportation of her merchandise to Syria. He so impresses her that she offers marriage. Khadījah is said to have been about 40, but she bears Muhammad at least two sons, who die young, and four daughters. The best known of the latter is Fāṭimah, the future wife of Muhammad’s cousin ʿAlī, whom Shiʿi Muslims regard as Muhammad’s divinely ordained successor. Until Khadījah’s death some three years before Muhammad’s emigration (hijrah) to Medina in 622, Muhammad takes no other wife, even though polygamy is common.
Muhammad’s prophetic initiation occurs at the age of 40. During a period of devotional withdrawal atop one of the mountains in the vicinity of Mecca, the angel Gabriel appears to him in an awe-inspiring encounter and teaches him the opening verses of sūrah 96 of the Qurʾān: “Recite in the name of your Lord who creates, / creates man from a clot! / Recite for your lord is most generous….” Muhammad is greatly perturbed after this first revelation but is reassured by Khadījah and her cousin, Waraqah ibn Nawfal, a learned Christian who confirms Muhammad’s prophetic status. Muhammad continues to receive revelations but for three years limits himself to speaking about them in private. When God finally commands him to take up public preaching, he initially encounters no opposition. However, after the Qurʾānic proclamations begin to deny the existence of gods other than Allāh and thereby to attack the religious beliefs and practices of the Quraysh tribe, tensions arise between Muhammad and his small circle of adherents, on the one hand, and the remaining inhabitants of Mecca, on the other. As a result, some of Muhammad’s followers are forced to seek temporary refuge with the Christian ruler of Ethiopia. For some years, the other chief clans of Mecca even refuse to trade and intermarry with Muhammad’s clan, since the latter continues to offer him protection. Sometime after the end of this boycott, one of the most famous events in the Prophet’s ministry takes place: his so-called Night Journey, during which he is miraculously transported to Jerusalem to pray with Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and other prophets. From there Muhammad continues to ascend to heaven, where God imposes on him the five daily prayers of Islam.
Muhammad: Mountain of LightMountain of Light (Jabal al-Nūr), near Mecca, Saudi Arabia, where Muhammad experienced the presence of the archangel Gabriel and where the process of the Qurʾānic revelation began.Adiput (A Britannica Publishing Partner)
About 619, both Khadījah and Muhammad’s uncle Abū Ṭālib die, and another uncle, Abū Lahab, succeeds to the leadership of the clan of Hāshim. Abū Lahab withdraws the clan’s protection from Muhammad, meaning that the latter can now be attacked without fear of retribution and is therefore no longer safe at Mecca. After failing to win protection in the nearby town of Al-Ṭāʾif, Muhammad secures a pledge of protection from a representative number of the inhabitants of the oasis town of Yathrib, also known as Medina (from its Qurʾānic appellation al-madīnah, “the town”). This promise enables Muhammad and his followers to leave Mecca for Medina, which, unlike Mecca, is partly inhabited by Jewish tribes. Together with Abū Bakr, the future first caliph, Muhammad is the last to depart. It is only because he is warned by Gabriel that he narrowly escapes an assassination plot by the Quraysh.
At Medina, Muhammad has a house built that simultaneously serves as a prayer venue for his followers. He also drafts a covenant that joins together “the Believers and Submitters [or Muslims] of Quraysh and of Yathrib” as well as some of Medina’s Jewish tribes into a community (ummah) recognizing Muhammad as the “Messenger of God.” However, relations with the Jews of Medina steadily worsen. Eighteen months after the emigration, a revelation bids the Muslims to pray in the direction of the Meccan Kaʿbah, rather than to continue facing toward Jerusalem as is Jewish practice. At about the same time, the Medinan Muslims begin raiding Meccan caravans. When, during one of these raids, they are surprised by a Meccan relief force at Badr in 624, the Muslims, aided by angels, score a surprising victory. In response, the Meccans try to capture Medina, once in 625 in the Battle of Uḥud and again in 627 in the so-called Battle of the Trench; both attempts to dislodge Muhammad are ultimately unsuccessful. After each of the three major military encounters with the Meccans, Muhammad and his followers manage to oust another of the three main Jewish tribes of Medina. In the case of the last Jewish tribe to be displaced, the Qurayẓah, all adult males are executed, and the women and children are enslaved.
In 628 Muhammad makes the bold move of setting out to perform the pilgrimage to Mecca. The Meccans are determined to prevent the Muslims from entering the city, and Muhammad halts at Al-Ḥudaybiyyah, on the edge of the sacred territory of Mecca. A treaty is concluded between the two parties: hostilities are to cease, and the Muslims are given permission to make the pilgrimage to Mecca in 629. Two months later Muhammad leads his forces against the Jewish oasis of Khaybar, north of Medina. After a siege, it submits, but the Jews are allowed to remain on condition of sending half of their date harvest to Medina. The following year, Muhammad and his followers perform the pilgrimage as stipulated by the treaty of Al-Ḥudaybiyyah. Subsequently, however, an attack by Meccan allies upon allies of Muhammad leads to the latter’s denunciation of the treaty with the Meccans. In 630 he marches a substantial army on Mecca. The town submits, and Muhammad declares an amnesty.
After his return to Medina, Muhammad receives deputations from various Arabian tribes who declare their allegiance to the Muslim polity. Still in 630, Muhammad embarks on a campaign to the Syrian border and reaches Tabūk, where he secures the submission of various towns. Muhammad personally leads the pilgrimage to Mecca in 632, the so-called Farewell Pilgrimage, the precedent for all future Muslim pilgrimages. He dies in June 632 in Medina. Since no arrangement for his succession has been made, his death provokes a major dispute over the future leadership of the community he has founded.
Status in the Qurʾān and in post-Qurʾānic Islam of Muhammad
Unsurprisingly, the figure of Muhammad plays a seminal role in Islamic thought and practice. In certain respects, his post-Qurʾānic standing markedly surpasses the way in which he is presented in scripture. For example, the Qurʾān emphasizes that Muhammad, like earlier messengers of God, is a mere mortal (e.g., 14:11, 17:93), whereas Sufi thinkers of a speculative bent, such as Sahl al-Tustarī (died 896), describe him as the incarnation of a preexistent being of pure light, the “Muhammadan light” (al-nūr al-Muḥammadī). The Qurʾān also enjoins Muhammad to ask God for forgiveness of his sins (40:55, 47:19, 48:2), and one passage (80:1–10) bluntly reproaches him for disregarding a blind man who “came to you eagerly / and in fear [of God]” and preferring to attend to someone who haughtily “deemed himself to be self-sufficient.” In contrast to such scriptural statements, in later centuries there emerged the doctrine that Muhammad and other prophets were free of sin (although there was disagreement as to whether they could commit minor and unintentional infractions) and the belief that Muhammad exemplified “the perfect human being” (al-insān al-kāmil).
Another contrast between Qurʾānic and post-Qurʾānic images of Muhammad concerns the issue of miracles. The Qurʾān cites Muhammad’s opponents as demanding that he demonstrate his prophetic credentials by various miraculous achievements, such as being accompanied by an angel (e.g., 11:12, 43:53). In response, Muhammad is instructed to disclaim any pretense to “possess the treasures of God,” to “have knowledge of the unseen,” or to be an angel (6:50) and is described as a mere “warner” (e.g., 11:2). Thus, the Qurʾān patently does not present Muhammad as a miracle worker. The later tradition, however, frequently depicts him as having possessed extraordinary knowledge of commonly inaccessible matters—often said to have been mediated by the angel Gabriel—and as having performed sundry supernatural feats. Thus, the enigmatic reference to a splitting of the Moon in Qurʾān 54:1 is interpreted to mean a confirmatory miracle that Muhammad performed in response to a challenge by the Meccan pagans. As a matter of fact, classical Islamic theologians routinely adduced Muhammad’s miracles as one of the arguments establishing that he was a true prophet.
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In other respects, however, there is significant and crucial continuity between the Qurʾānic and post-Qurʾānic visions of Muhammad. Certain parts of the Qurʾān, normally dated to the Medinan period of Muhammad’s life, ascribe a much more elevated status to him than do earlier layers of scripture. Thus, the Qurʾān demands “belief in God and His Messenger” (emphasis added; e.g., 49:15), and one verse (9:128) ascribes to Muhammad two attributes—kindness and mercy—that the Qurʾān otherwise reserves for God. Furthermore, “God and His Messenger” must not be insulted (e.g., 9:61, 33:57), a demand that foreshadows the view of medieval Islamic jurists that insulting the Prophet is a punishable offense (even though the Qurʾān does not demand that such insults be avenged by humans).
Of particular importance are the frequent scriptural commands to obey “God and His Messenger” as well as the unequivocal statement that to obey Muhammad is to obey God (4:80). One Qurʾānic verse even describes Muhammad as an “exemplar” (uswah) to the believers (33:21). Such pronouncements form an important impetus for the later view that the “custom” (sunnah) of Muhammad holds normative significance for all Muslims and that in working out God’s commandments Islamic scholars are to rely on Prophetic precedent to supplement and interpret the relatively limited amount of legislation contained in the Qurʾān. Al-Shāfiʿī (died 820) influentially insisted that the Prophetic sunnah was to be accessed by recourse to a specific corpus of texts—namely, extra-scriptural reports about the utterances and actions of Muhammad, the so-called Prophetic ḥadīth. The challenge of determining which of the multitude of such traditions could be deemed to be authentic already exercised premodern Islamic scholars and led to a sophisticated philological weighing of the material, even though modern Western scholarship takes a rather less optimistic view of the feasibility of establishing the Prophetic origin of specific ḥadīth reports. Sunni Islam recognises six quasi-canonical collections of authentic ḥadīth, of which the most famous are those by al-Bukhārī (died 870) and Muslim ibn al-Ḥajjāj (died 875).
Even beyond the strictly legal purport of Muhammad’s example, the imitation of the Prophet has functioned as an important vehicle of ethical and spiritual growth for many Muslims across the centuries. Thus, pious Muslims through the ages have endeavoured to follow Prophetic precedent even in such seemingly mundane matters as using a toothpick or not trimming one’s beard. The presence of Muhammad in popular Islamic piety is also anchored in festive commemorations of his birth (mawlid) on the 12th or 17th of Rabīʿ al-Awwal (the third month of the Islamic calendar), during which the most famous panegyric on the Prophet, the so-called Mantle Poem by al-Būṣīrī (died 1295), is traditionally recited in many Islamic countries. Other festivals associated with Muhammad are the commemoration of his Night Journey to Jerusalem and ensuing ascent to heaven, celebrated on the 27th day of Rajab (the seventh month of the Islamic calendar), and his receipt of the first Qurʾānic revelation toward the end of the fasting month of Ramaḍān. Muhammad’s presence also extends to eschatology, for he is believed to have the power to intercede with God on behalf of the members of his community on the Day of Judgment.
The confrontation of the Islamic world with modern Western imperialism, science, and historiography from the early 19th century onward has led to manifold re-readings and re-imaginings of Muhammad’s biography in scholarship, literature, and even film. A particularly influential 20th-century biography of Muhammad is Ḥayāt Muḥammad (1935; “The Life of Muhammad”) by the Egyptian writer Muḥammad Ḥusayn Haykal (died 1956). Haykal emphasizes the rationality of Muhammad’s teaching and of the Qurʾān and aims to clear the traditional Islamic sources on the Prophet’s biography of what he perceives to be superstitious aspects. Muhammad remains an ideal character, although the ideals represented by him are strongly modernized. A much more daring literary adaptation of Muhammad’s biography than Haykal’s is Awlād Ḥāratinā (1959; Children of the Alley) by the Egyptian novelist Naguib Mahfouz (died 2006), an urban allegory of the history of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Common motifs in modern and contemporary writings about Muhammad by authors from the Islamic world are the Prophet’s political and social vision, issues of gender, the nature of the revelations received by him, and his attitude toward the use of violence. Problems of historical authenticity and reliability as well as the covert ideological tendencies underlying early Islamic sources are treated, for example, by the Moroccan sociologist and feminist Fatema Mernissi (died 2015) and in the Tunisian historian Hichem Djait’s (born 1935) works on the biography of Muhammad.
Western perceptions
In striking contrast to the standard Muslim view of the Prophet as a perfect embodiment of virtue and piety, medieval Christian polemicists like the Dominican monk Riccoldo da Montecroce (died 1320) condemned Muhammad as a deliberate imposter and a downright diabolical figure. Stock motifs in such polemics were Muhammad’s recourse to violence, the number of his wives, and the alleged indebtedness of his religious message to a Christian heretic. This attitude changed only in the 18th century, when various Western scholars—for instance, the Dutch theologian and Orientalist Adriaan Reland (died 1718)—began calling for a more impartial assessment of Muhammad. The gradual shift is illustrated by the British Orientalist George Sale’s (died 1736) translation of the Qurʾān into English (1734): even though its declared objective is polemical and the Qurʾān is dismissed as “so manifest a forgery,” Sale at least leaves it open whether Muhammad’s preaching sprang from genuine religious “enthusiasm” or “only a design to raise himself to the supreme government of his country.”
To call Muhammad an enthusiast was to imply that he had been genuinely convinced of the truth of his message and of his own prophetic calling, rather than having deliberately ensnared the Arabs in false doctrines in order to satisfy his craving for power. Throughout the 18th and early 19th centuries, the idea of Muhammad’s subjective truthfulness and sincerity increasingly spread. A particularly emphatic rejection of the erstwhile predominant view that Muhammad practiced conscious deception is found in Thomas Carlyle’s (died 1881) On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History (1841): given that a “greater number of God’s creatures believe in Mahomet’s word at this hour than in any other word whatever,” Carlyle wrote, it would be incorrect to dismiss Muhammad’s preaching as a “miserable piece of spiritual legerdemain.”
The valorization of the Islamic Prophet was intimately tied up with the beginnings of modern Western scholarship on Muhammad and the Qurʾān. According to Abraham Geiger (died 1874), whose Was hat Mohammed aus dem Judenthume aufgenommen? (1833; “What did Muhammad Borrow from Judaism?”) constitutes the ancestral monograph of modern Western Qurʾānic studies, Muhammad was a
genuine enthusiast, who was himself convinced of his divine mission…. He so fully worked himself into this idea in thought, in feeling and in action, that every event seemed to him a divine inspiration.
Similar ideas were expressed by the German scholar Theodor Nöldeke (died 1930), author of the seminal Geschichte des Qorâns (1860; The History of the Qurʾān). Thus, the reconceptualization of Muhammad from a devious heretic to a sincere enthusiast paved the way for a novel scholarly interest in Muhammad as a major historical protagonist and in the Qurʾān as an important document of human religious experience. This is so even if older Orientalist scholarship is by no means devoid of some residues of traditional Christian polemics.William Montgomery WattNicolai Sinai
ʿĀʾishah
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ʿĀʾishah
wife of Muḥammad
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Alternate titles: ʿĀʾishah bint Abī Bakr
By Asma Afsaruddin • Edit History
Born: 614 Mecca Saudi ArabiaDied: July 678 (aged 64) Medina Saudi ArabiaNotable Family Members: spouse Muhammad father Abū Bakr
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ʿĀʾishah, in full ʿĀʾishah bint Abī Bakr, (born 614, Mecca, Arabia [now in Saudi Arabia]—died July 678, Medina), the third wife of the Prophet Muhammad (the founder of Islam), who played a role of some political importance after the Prophet’s death.
All Muhammad’s marriages had political motivations, and in this case the intention seems to have been to cement ties with ʿĀʾishah’s father, Abū Bakr, who was one of Muhammad’s most important supporters. ʿĀʾishah’s physical charms, intelligence, and wit, together with the genuine warmth of their relationship, secured her a place in his affections that was not lessened by his subsequent marriages. It is said that in 627 she accompanied the Prophet on an expedition but became separated from the group. When she was later escorted back to Medina by a man who had found her in the desert, Muhammad’s enemies claimed that she had been unfaithful. A subsequent Qurʾānic revelation asserted her innocence; the Qurʾān furthermore criticized and stipulated punishment for those who slander virtuous women.
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ʿĀʾishah had no important influence on her husband’s political or religious policies while he lived, but he is said to have recognized her knowledge of Islam by counseling his Companions to “take half your knowledge from Humayra,” Humayra (“Little Red One”) being his term of endearment for her.
When Muhammad died in 632, ʿĀʾishah was left a childless widow of about 18, although some sources suggest she was older. She remained politically inactive until the time of ʿUthmān (644–656; the third caliph, or leader of the Islamic community), during whose reign she played an important role in fomenting opposition that led to his murder in 656. She led an army against his successor, ʿAlī, when he refused to bring ʿUthmān’s murderers to justice, but she was defeated in the Battle of the Camel. The engagement derived its name from the fierce fighting that centred around the camel upon which ʿĀʾishah was mounted. Afterward she was allowed to return to Medina. She spent the rest of her days there in disbursing alms, transmitting Hadith (the sayings of the Prophet), and interpreting the Qurʾān.
Traditional sources describe ʿĀʾishah as learned in religion, issuing legal opinions and engaging in consultation with the older male Companions of the Prophet. About a sixth of the hadiths recorded by al-Bukhari in his famed work Al-Jāmiʿ al-Ṣaḥīḥ are cited on her authority. Modern Muslim feminists regard ʿĀʾishah as personifying an early Islamic idealization of women as the social and legal equal of men, valorized for their contributions in both the private and public spheres.
ʿUmar I
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ʿUmar I
Muslim caliph
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Alternate titles: ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭtāb
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Born: c.586 Mecca Saudi ArabiaDied: November 3, 644 Medina Saudi ArabiaTitle / Office: caliph (634-644), Caliphate
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ʿUmar I, in full ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭtāb, (born c. 586, Mecca, Arabia [now in Saudi Arabia]—died November 3, 644, Medina, Arabia), the second Muslim caliph (from 634), under whom Arab armies conquered Mesopotamia and Syria and began the conquest of Iran and Egypt.
A member of the clan of ʿAdī of the Meccan tribe of Quraysh, ʿUmar at first opposed Muhammad but, in about 615, became a Muslim. By 622, when he went to Medina with Muhammad and the other Meccan Muslims, he had become one of Muhammad’s chief advisers, closely associated with Abū Bakr. His position in the state was marked by Muhammad’s marriage to his daughter Ḥafṣah in 625. On Muhammad’s death in 632, ʿUmar was largely responsible for reconciling the Medinan Muslims to the acceptance of a Meccan, Abū Bakr, as head of state (caliph). Abū Bakr (reigned 632–634) relied greatly on ʿUmar and nominated him to succeed him. As caliph, ʿUmar was the first to call himself “commander of the faithful” (amīr al-muʾminīn). His reign saw the transformation of the Islamic state from an Arabian principality to a world power.
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Throughout this remarkable expansion, ʿUmar closely controlled general policy and laid down the principles for administering the conquered lands. The structure of the later Islamic empire, including legal practice, is largely due to him. ʿUmar established the dīwān (a register of warriors’ pensions that over time evolved into a powerful governmental body), inaugurated the Islamic Hijrī calendar, and created the office of the qadi (judge). He also established the garrison cities of Al-Fusṭāṭ in Egypt and Basra and Kūfah in Iraq.
In 644 ʿUmar was attacked by a Persian Christian slave named Abū Luʾluʾah and died from his wounds three days later. While he lay dying, ʿUmar appointed a six-man council that eventually selected ʿUthmān ibn ʿAffān as his successor.
A strong ruler, stern toward offenders, and himself ascetic to the point of harshness, ʿUmar was universally respected for his justice and authority. His role in decisively shaping the early Islamic community is widely acknowledged.
Ibn Isḥāq
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Ibn Isḥāq
Arab author
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Alternate titles: Muḥammad ibn Isḥāq ibn Yasār ibn Khiyār
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Born: c.704 Medina Saudi ArabiaDied: 767 Baghdad IraqNotable Works: “Kitāb al-maghāzī”
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Ibn Isḥāq, in full Muḥammad Ibn Isḥāq Ibn Yasār Ibn Khiyār, (born c. 704, Medina, Arabia—died 767, Baghdad), Arab biographer of the Prophet Muḥammad whose book, in a recension by Ibn Hishām, is one of the most important sources on the Prophet’s life.
Ibn Isḥāq was the grandson of an Arab prisoner captured by Muslim troops in Iraq and brought to Medina, where he was freed after accepting Islām. Ibn Isḥāq’s father and two uncles collected and transmitted information about the Prophet in Medina, and Ibn Isḥāq soon became an authority on the Prophet’s campaigns.
He studied in Alexandria and subsequently moved to Iraq, where he lived in the Jazīrah and Ḥīrah regions, and finally in Baghdad. Informants met on these travels furnished him with much of the information for his Sīrah, or life, of Muḥammad. Ibn Hishām, who died some 60 years after Ibn Isḥāq, made the revision through which it is known today (complete Eng. trans. by A. Guillaume, The Life of Muḥammad, 1955, and partial trans. by Edward Rehatsek as edited by Michael Edwardes, The Life of Muhammad Apostle of Allah, 1964). This extensive biography covers Muḥammad’s genealogy and birth, the beginning of his mission and of the revelation of the Qurʾān, his migration to Medina and campaigns of conquest, and concludes with his death. Citations from the Sīrah also appear in the works of Arabic historians such as aṭ-Ṭabarī.
Ibn Isḥāq was criticized by some Muslim scholars, including the theologian and jurist Mālik ibn Anas. Ibn Ḥanbal accepted Ibn Isḥāq as an authority for the campaigns but not for traditions about the Prophet having legal force, on the grounds that he was not always exact enough in naming his authorities.
ʿAbd al-Qādir Badāʾūnī
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ʿAbd al-Qādir Badāʾūnī
Indo-Persian historian
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Born: 1540 IndiaDied: c.1615 IndiaNotable Works: “Kitāb al-Ḥadīth” “Muntakhab al-tawārīkh”Subjects Of Study: Muhammad India Islam
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ʿAbd al-Qādir Badāʾūnī, (born 1540, Toda, India—died c. 1615, India), Indo-Persian historian, one of the most important writers on the history of the Mughal period in India.
As a young boy Badāʾūnī lived in Basāvar and studied at Sambhal and Āgra. In 1562 he moved to Badaun (hence his name) and then to Patiāla, where he entered the service of a local prince, Husayn Khān, with whom he remained for nine years. After leaving this post, he continued his education, studying with various Muslim mystics. In 1574 he was presented to the Mughal emperor Akbar, who appointed him to a religious office at the court and gave him a pension.
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Of the many works Badāʾūnī wrote on commission from the emperor, the most highly regarded were the Kitāb al-Ḥadīth (“Book of Ḥadīth”), the sayings of the Prophet Muhammad, no longer extant; a section of the Tārīkh-e alfī (“History of the Millennium”), commissioned by Akbar to celebrate the millenary of the Hijrah (Hegira) in 1591/92, on which more than 10 authors collaborated; and a summary translation of the work of the great historian Rashīd al-Dīn, Jāmiʿ al-tawārīkh (“Universal History”). His most important work, however, was the Muntakhab al-tawārīkh (“Selection from History”), often called Tārīkh-e Badāʾūnī (“Badāʾūnī’s History”), a history of Muslim India containing additional sections on Muslim religious figures, physicians, poets, and scholars. It aroused discussion because of its hostile remarks about Akbar and his religious practices and apparently was suppressed until the reign of Jahāngīr in the early 17th century. In addition to these works, Badāʾūnī also was commissioned to translate many Sanskrit tales and the Hindu epics the Rāmāyaṇa and the Mahābhārata.
Ḥasan
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Ḥasan
grandson of Muḥammad
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Alternate titles: Ḥasan ibn ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib
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Born: 624 Arabia Saudi ArabiaDied: 670 (aged 46) Medina Saudi ArabiaNotable Family Members: father ʿAlī mother Fāṭimah brother al-Ḥusayn ibn ʿAlī
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Ḥasan, in full Ḥasan ibn ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib, (born 624, Arabia—died 670, Medina), a grandson of the Prophet Muhammad (the founder of Islam), the elder son of Muhammad’s daughter Fāṭimah. He belongs to the group of the five most holy persons of Shīʿah, those over whom Muhammad spread his cloak while calling them “The People of the House.” After his father, ʿAlī, he was considered by many of his contemporaries to be the rightful heir to Muhammad’s position of leadership.
As a child, Ḥasan lived with Muhammad for seven years, and after the latter’s death in 632 he was politically inactive until the end of the reign of the caliph ʿUthmān ibn ʿAffān (the caliph was the titular leader of the Islamic community). ʿUthmān was murdered in 656, an action in which Ḥasan took no part. ʿAlī, Ḥasan’s father, became the next caliph, and in the civil wars that soon broke out Ḥasan was sent to the important Iraqi city of Kūfah to secure acceptance of ʿAlī’s rule and, if possible, obtain military reinforcements. Later he fought in the Battle of Ṣiffīn, which, although not a defeat, did mark the beginning of a steady deterioration in ʿAlī’s position. After ʿAlī was murdered in 661, never having chosen a successor, a large number of his followers pledged their loyalty to Ḥasan, and Ḥasan himself stressed his own close connections with the Prophet Muhammad.
When Muʿāwiyah I, the governor of Syria and the man who had led the rebellion against ʿAlī, refused to acknowledge Ḥasan as caliph and began to prepare for war, Ḥasan was able to offer considerable resistance: he dispatched a force to meet Muʿāwiyah and then himself headed a larger force. With little money left, Ḥasan, not a warlike person, was plagued by defections from his army. Although some of his followers resented it fiercely, he opened peace negotiations and later in 661 abdicated the caliphate to Muʿāwiyah. Ḥasan ibn ʿAlī obtained a generous pension and was allowed to live quietly in Medina.
Ḥasan died in 670. Many early sources say his death was the result of poisoning by one of his wives, Jaʿdah bint al-Ashʿath, in conspiracy with Muʿāwiyah.This article was most recently revised and updated by Brian Duignan.
Fāṭimah
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Fāṭimah
daughter of Muḥammad
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Alternate titles: Fāṭima, Fatima, al-Zahrāʾ
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Born: c.605 MeccaDied: 633 MedinaNotable Family Members: spouse ʿAlī father Muhammad mother Khadījah son al-Ḥusayn ibn ʿAlī son Ḥasan...(Show more)
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Fāṭimah, also spelled Fatima, also called al-Zahrāʾ (Arabic: “the Radiant One”), (born c. 605, Mecca, Arabia [now in Saudi Arabia]—died 632/633, Medina), daughter of Muhammad (the founder of Islam) who in later centuries became the object of deep veneration by many Muslims, especially the Shiʿah. Muhammad had other sons and daughters, but they either died young or failed to produce a long line of descendants. Fāṭimah, however, stood at the head of a genealogy that steadily enlarged through the generations and which became venerated as Ahl al-Bayt.
To the Shiʿah, she is particularly important because she was married to ʿAlī, whom the Shiʿah considered to be the legitimate heir of the authority of the Prophet Muhammad and the first of their imāms. The sons of Fāṭimah and ʿAlī, Ḥasan and Ḥusayn, are thus viewed by the Shiʿah as the rightful inheritors of the tradition of Muhammad, a further ramification of Fāṭimah’s significance among Shiʿi believers. Accordingly, many Islamic traditions give a majestic if not miraculous quality to Fāṭimah’s life.
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Fāṭimah accompanied Muhammad when he emigrated from Mecca to Medina in 622 (see Hijrah). Soon after her arrival in Medina, she married ʿAlī, the Prophet’s cousin. Their first years were lived in abject poverty. When in 632 Muhammad was facing his last illness, Fāṭimah was there to nurse him. In general she was devoted to her domestic duties and avoided involvement in political affairs. Yet after Muhammad’s death she had a sharp clash with Abū Bakr, who had succeeded Muhammad as caliph and leader of the Muslim community (ummah), and Fāṭimah supported ʿAlī in his reluctance to submit to Abū Bakr’s authority. She came into conflict with the caliph a second time over property that she claimed Muhammad had left her. Abū Bakr refused to sanction her claim, and, according to most accounts, Fāṭimah refused to speak to him thereafter. She died months later from either illness or injury.The Editors of Encyclopaedia BritannicaThis article was most recently revised and updated by Adam Zeidan.
al-Ḥusayn ibn ʿAlī
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al-Ḥusayn ibn ʿAlī
Muslim leader and martyr
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Born: January 626 Medina Saudi ArabiaDied: October 10, 680 (aged 54) Karbala IraqNotable Family Members: father ʿAlī mother Fāṭimah brother ḤasanRole In: Battle of Karbala
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al-Ḥusayn ibn ʿAlī, (born January 626, Medina, Arabia [now in Saudi Arabia]—died October 10, 680, Karbalāʾ, Iraq), hero in Shiʿi Islam, grandson of the Prophet Muhammad through his daughter Fāṭimah and son-in-law ʿAlī (the first imam of the Shiʿah and the fourth of the Sunni Rashidun caliphs). He is revered by Shiʿi Muslims as the third imam (after ʿAlī and Ḥusayn’s elder brother, Ḥasan).
After the assassination of their father, ʿAlī, Ḥasan and Ḥusayn acquiesced to the rule of the first Umayyad caliph, Muʿāwiyah, from whom they received pensions. Ḥusayn, however, refused to recognize the legitimacy of Muʿāwiyah’s son and successor, Yazīd (April 680). Ḥusayn was then invited by the townsmen of Kūfah, a city with a Shiʿi majority, to come there and raise the standard of revolt against the Umayyads. After receiving some favourable indications, Ḥusayn set out for Kūfah with a small band of relatives and followers. According to traditional accounts, he met the poet al-Farazdaq on the way and was told that the hearts of the Iraqis were for him, but their swords were for the Umayyads. The governor of Iraq, on behalf of the caliph, sent 4,000 men to arrest Ḥusayn and his small band. They trapped Ḥusayn near the banks of the Euphrates River at a place called Karbalāʾ (October 680). When Ḥusayn refused to surrender, he and his escort were slain, and Ḥusayn’s head was sent to Yazīd in Damascus (now in Syria).
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In remembrance of the martyrdom of Ḥusayn, Shiʿi Muslims observe the first 10 days of Muḥarram (the date of the battle according to the Islamic calendar) as days of lamentation (see ʿĀshūrāʾ). Revenge for Ḥusayn’s death was turned into a rallying cry that helped undermine the Umayyad caliphate and gave impetus to the rise of a powerful Shiʿi movement.
The details of Ḥusayn’s life are obscured by the legends that grew up surrounding his martyrdom, but his final acts appear to have been inspired by a definite ideology—to found a regime that would reinstate a “true” Islamic polity as opposed to what he considered the unjust rule of the Umayyads.The Editors of Encyclopaedia BritannicaThis article was most recently revised and updated by Adam Augustyn.
Khadījah
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Khadījah
wife of Muhammad
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Alternate titles: Khadījah bint al-Khuwaylid
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Died: 619 Mecca Saudi ArabiaNotable Family Members: spouse Muhammad daughter Fāṭimah
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Khadījah, (died 619, Mecca, Arabia [now in Saudi Arabia]), merchant who was the first wife of the Prophet Muhammad. Little is known about her apart from the posthumous accounts of Muhammad’s life (sīrah) and teachings (Hadith).
Khadījah was born in the 6th century CE to merchants of the Quraysh tribe, which ruled Mecca. The Sīrah of ʿAbd al-Malik ibn Hishām characterizes her as “resolute and noble” and as commanding significant respect within the tribe. She inherited her wealth but continued to conduct trade after the deaths of her parents and, according to Sunni tradition, of her first two husbands. She employed Muhammad when he was in his early 20s to manage a caravan to Syria and subsequently offered him marriage. According to most sources, she was about 40 years old with children from her previous marriages and Muhammad was about 25. That she bore him several children, however, suggests that she may have been younger.
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Khadījah and Muhammad did not have any sons who survived childhood. According to the Sunni interpretation of the sources, they had four daughters: Umm Kulthūm, Ruqayyah, Zaynab, and Fāṭimah. Fāṭimah—their only daughter according to Shiʿi tradition—herself became an important figure in Islam, and her descendants (see Ahl al-Bayt), known as sharīfs and sayyids, have played important social roles to this day.
According to the traditional sources, Khadījah provided instrumental support in Muhammad’s early prophethood. Her wealth allowed him the leisure to meditate, and she reassured him of the authenticity of his first revelations. She is thus often considered the first person to have believed in Muhammad’s message. Moreover, she consulted her relative Waraqah ibn Nawfal, who is said to have likened Muhammad’s revelations to those of Moses, further providing Muhammad confidence in his revelations.
Khadījah died in 619, a few years before the Hijrah—the emigration to Medina wherein the Muslim community began crystallizing into a clear sociopolitical force in its own right. Muhammad had no other wives while she was alive and had no children by any of his later wives.Adam ZeidanThe Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
Abū Bakr
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Abū Bakr
Muslim caliph
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Alternate titles: Abū Bakr al-Ṣiddīq, al-Ṣiddīq
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Born: 573Died: August 23, 634 (aged 61)Title / Office: caliph (632-634), CaliphateNotable Family Members: daughter ʿĀʾishah
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Abū Bakr, also called al-Ṣiddīq (Arabic: “the Upright”), (born 573—died August 23, 634), Muhammad’s closest companion and adviser, who succeeded to the Prophet’s political and administrative functions, thereby initiating the office of the caliph.
Of a minor clan of the ruling merchant tribe of Quraysh at Mecca, Abū Bakr purportedly was the first male convert to Islam, but this view is doubted by a majority of Muslim historians. Abū Bakr’s prominence in the early Muslim community was clearly marked by Muhammad’s marriage to Abū Bakr’s young daughter ʿĀʾishah and again by Muhammad’s choosing Abū Bakr as his companion on the journey to Medina (the Hijrah, 622). In Medina he was Muhammad’s chief adviser (622–632) but functioned mainly in conducting the pilgrimage to Mecca in 631 and leading the public prayers in Medina during Muhammad’s last illness.
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On Muhammad’s death (June 8, 632), the Muslims of Medina resolved the crisis of succession by accepting Abū Bakr as the first khalīfat rasūl Allāh (“deputy [or successor] of the Prophet of God,” or caliph). During his rule (632–634), he suppressed the tribal political and religious uprisings known as the riddah (“political rebellion,” sometimes translated as “apostasy”), thereby bringing central Arabia under Muslim control. Under his rule the Muslim conquests of Iraq and Syria began, although it is not clear whether he himself was aware of these military forays from the beginning.
The first written compilation of the Quʾrān is said to have taken place during Abū Bakr’s caliphate, after the deaths of several Quʾrān reciters in the Battle of Yamama raised the possibility that parts of the text could be lost and ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb (Abū Bakr’s eventual successor as caliph) urged Abū Bakr to have the Quʾrān written down.
During his last illness, Abū Bakr was nursed by ʿĀʾishah. As he requested, he was buried in ʿĀʾishah’s apartment, close to where her husband, the Prophet Muhammad, had been buried in accordance with Muhammad’s reported utterance that a prophet should be buried where he dies.This article was most recently revised and updated by Noah Tesch.
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