I.

Introduction

Muhammad, chief prophet of Islam. He is sometimes described as the founder of Islam but that is an oversimplification from both a religious and an historical point of view. In a religious perspective, Islam is understood by Muslims as the original pure monotheism which Allah (God) has made known to mankind since the Creation and which was revealed through many prophets before Muhammad. Historically, Islam as we know it is a complex religion which should not be seen as the creation of one man.

Our sources for the life of Muhammad are texts written in Arabic by Muslim scholars. The earliest of them date, in the form in which we have them, from more than 100 years after his death (632). The earliest account of his life to have survived is that compiled by Ibn Ishaq, who died in 768. All the versions of this work we have come from a generation or so later than Ibn Ishaq.

The accounts given in such works are not always consistent or uniform. They often contain different accounts of the same event, sometimes contradicting one another. Any attempt to summarize the life of Muhammad as it is given in Muslim tradition, is in effect a selection from the mass of available details.