How Was Islam Founded?

Islam was promulgated by the Prophet Muhammad in Arabia in the 7th century ce. According to tradition, Muhammad received a revelation from the angel Gabriel at the age of 40, marking the beginning of his role as a prophet in the legacy of Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and others. The revelations continued over 22 years and came to be known as the Qurʾān, the holy book of Islam and the literal word of God (Allāh).

A key moment in the consolidation of a Muslim community (ummah) took place in 622 when Muhammad and his followers, facing persecution in his hometown of Mecca, migrated to the town of Yathrib in an event known as the Hijra. Renamed Medina (Arabic Al-Madīnah, “The City”), the city was organized around Islamic principles under Muhammad’s spiritual and political leadership and united various tribes under the banner of Islam.

The establishment of Islam in Medina coincided with great turmoil taking place between the Byzantine and Sasanian empires to the northwest and northeast, respectively. The empires’ border regions in the Middle East had weakened significantly by the decades of conflict just as Arab forces were becoming emboldened by the unifying and energizing spirit of the new Islamic movement. Arab forces were able to spread rapidly northward into the cities of Syria and Mesopotamia and take hold in key places like Damascus (635) and Jerusalem (638). They eventually caused the collapse of the Sasanian Empire altogether by 651, although the Byzantine Empire survived for many more centuries albeit with a diminished presence in the Middle East. That initial expansion provided a strong foothold for an Islamic empire to take shape, which under the Umayyad dynasty (661–750) stretched as far west as Morocco and Spain and as far east as Sindh and Transoxania.