The Birth of Islam
Learn about the birth of Islam — how the revelations of Prophet Muhammad in 7th-century Arabia created a new monotheistic faith that transformed world history.
The birth of Islam in 7th-century Arabia was one of the most consequential events in world history. In the span of a single century, a religious movement that began with one man's revelations in a cave near Mecca grew into a civilization stretching from Spain to Central Asia, reshaping the political, cultural, and intellectual landscape of three continents.
Muhammad ibn Abdullah, born around 570 CE in Mecca, began receiving what he believed were divine revelations around 610 CE. The core message was uncompromising monotheism: there is no god but God (Allah), and Muhammad is His messenger. The Quran — the collected revelations — demanded social justice, care for the poor, and submission (islam) to God's will. In a society organized around tribal loyalty and polytheism, this message was revolutionary and threatening.
Persecuted in Mecca, Muhammad and his followers emigrated to Medina in 622 CE — the hijra that marks the beginning of the Islamic calendar. In Medina, Muhammad became not just a prophet but a political and military leader, forging a new kind of community bound by faith rather than kinship. By the time of his death in 632, he had unified the Arabian Peninsula under Islam. The subsequent Arab conquests, driven by religious conviction, military innovation, and the exhaustion of the Byzantine and Sassanid empires, created one of history's most rapid imperial expansions.