Muhammad was born in the year 570 in the town of Mecca, a town in the desert of western Arabia. His name derives from the Arabic verb hamada, meaning "to praise, to glorify."
Muhammad returned to live in Medina. In March, 632, he returned to Mecca one last time to perform a pilgrimage, and tens of thousands of Muslims joined him. After the pilgrimage, he returned to Medina. Three months later on June 8, 632 he died there, after a brief illness. He is buried in the mosque in Medina. Within a hundred years Muhammad's teaching and way of life had spread from the remote corners of Arabia as far east as Indo-China and as far west as Morocco, France and Spain.
When Muhammad was five or six his mother took him to, an oasis town a few hundred miles north of Mecca, to stay with relatives .On the return journey, Amina took ill and died. Halima, his nurse, returned to Mecca with the orphaned boy and placed him in the protection of his paternal grandfather, Abdul Al-Muttalib. In this man's care, Muhammad learned the rudiments of statecraft. Mecca was Arabia's most important pilgrimage center and Abdul Al-Muttalib was the most respected leader. He controlled important pilgrimage concessions and frequently presided over Mecca's Council of Elders.
Muhammad’s grandfather died in 578, Muhammad, aged about eight, passed into the care of a paternal uncle, Abu Talib. Muhammad grew up in the older man's home and remained under Abu Talib's protection for many years.
In 622, Muhammad and his few hundred followers left Mecca and traveled to Yathrib, the oasis town where his father was buried. The leaders there were suffering through a civil war, and they had invited this man well known for his wisdom to act as their mediator. Yathrib soon became known as Medina, the City of the Prophet. Muhammad remained here for the next six years, building the first Muslim community and gradually gathering more and more people to his side.
In his early twenties, Muhammad entered the service of a wealthy Meccan merchant, a widow named Khadija. Muhammad carried her goods to the north and returned with a profit.
When young boy, Muhammad worked as a shepherd to earn a living. In his teens he sometimes traveled with Abu Talib, who was a merchant, accompanying caravans to trade centers. On at least one occasion, he is said to have traveled as far north as Syria. Older merchants recognized his character and nicknamed him El–Amin, the one you can trust.
Impressed by Muhammad's honesty and character, Khadija eventually proposed marriage. They were wed in about 595. He was twenty-five. She was nearly forty.Six children were born to them, two sons who both died in infancy, and four daughters. Mecca prospered too, becoming a well–off trading center in the hands of an elite group of clan leaders who were mostly successful traders
Mecca's new materialism and its traditional idolatry disturbed Muhammad. He began making long retreats to a mountain cave outside town. There, he fasted and meditated. On one occasion, Muhammad was visited by an overpowering presence and instructed to recite words of such beauty and force that he and others gradually attributed them to God. It was several years before he dared to talk about it outside his family.
After several similar experiences, Muhammad finally began to reveal the messages he was receiving to his tribe. These were gathered verse by verse and later would become the Qur'an, Islam's sacred scripture. In the next decade, Muhammad and his followers were first belittled and ridiculed, then persecuted and physically attacked for departing from traditional Mecca's tribal ways.
The Meccans did not take Muhammad's new success lightly. In March, 628, a treaty was signed between Muhammad’s tribe and Madina, which recognized the Muslims as a new force in Arabia and gave them freedom to move throughout Arabia.
By now, the balance of power had shifted radically away from once-powerful Mecca, toward Muhammad and the Muslims. In January, 630, they marched on Mecca and were joined by tribe after tribe along the way. They entered Mecca without bloodshed.
