Religion in pre-Islamic Arabia included indigenous Arabian polytheism, ancient Semitic religions, Christianity, Judaism, Mandaeism, and Zoroastrianism.
Mecca is the capital of Mecca Province in the Hejaz region of western Saudi Arabia and is considered the holiest city in Islam. It is 70 km (43 mi) inland from Jeddah on the Red Sea, in a narrow valley 277 m (909 ft) above sea level. Its last recorded population was 1,578,722 in 2015. Its estimated metro population in 2020 is 2.042 million, making it the third-most populated city in Saudi Arabia after Riyadh and Jeddah. Pilgrims more than triple this number every year during the Ḥajj pilgrimage, observed in the twelfth Hijri month of Dhūl-Ḥijjah.
The Battle of Badr, also referred to as The Day of the Criterion in the Qur'an and by Muslims, took place on 15 March 624 CE, near the present-day city of Badr, Al Madinah Province in Saudi Arabia. Muhammad, commanding an army of his Sahaba, defeated an army of the Quraysh led by Amr ibn Hishām, better known among Muslims as Abu Jahl. The battle marked the beginning of the six-year war between Muhammad and his tribe. Before the battle, the Muslims and the Meccans had fought several smaller skirmishes in late 623 and early 624.
The Quraysh were a grouping of Arab clans that historically inhabited and controlled the city of Mecca and its Kaaba. The Islamic prophet Muhammad was born into the Hashim clan of the tribe. By 600 CE, the tribe were affluent merchants who dominated commerce between the Indian Ocean and East Africa on one side and the Mediterranean on the other. They organized caravans that traveled to Gaza and Damascus in the summer and to Yemen in the winter. On those routes, they were also engaged in mining and other enterprises. They were known for their hilm, or "absence of hotheadedness," because, despite their rivalries, they put commercial interests and unity first.
Banu Abd Shams refers to a clan within the Meccan tribe of Quraysh.
The Treaty of Hudaybiyyah was an event that took place during the lifetime of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. It was a pivotal treaty between Muhammad, representing the state of Medina, and the tribe of the Quraysh in Mecca in January 628. The treaty helped to decrease tension between the two cities, affirmed peace for a period of 10 years, and authorised Muhammad's followers to return the following year in a peaceful pilgrimage, which was later known as The First Pilgrimage.
In Islam, a ḥanīf, meaning "renunciate", is someone who maintains the pure monotheism of the patriarch Abraham. More specifically, in Islamic thought, renunciates were the people who, during the pre-Islamic period or Jahiliyyah, were seen to have renounced idolatry and retained some or all of the tenets of the religion of Abraham, which was submission to God in its purest form. The word is found twelve times in the Quran and Islamic tradition tells of a number of individuals who were ḥanīfs. According to Muslim tradition, Muhammad himself was a ḥanīf and a descendant of Ishmael, son of Abraham.
The historiography of early Islam is the scholarly literature on the early history of Islam during the 7th century, from Muhammad's first purported revelations in 610 until the disintegration of the Rashidun Caliphate in 661, and arguably throughout the 8th century and the duration of the Umayyad Caliphate, terminating in the incipient Islamic Golden Age around the beginning of the 9th century.
Patricia Crone was a Danish historian specialised in early Islamic history. Crone was a member of the Revisionist school of Islamic studies and questioned the historicity of the Islamic traditions about the beginnings of Islam.
William Montgomery Watt was a Scottish Orientalist, historian, academic, and Anglican priest. From 1964 to 1979, he was Professor of Arabic and Islamic studies at the University of Edinburgh.
Muhammad at Mecca is a book about the Islamic prophet Muhammad, specifically about the first phase of his public mission, which concern his years in Mecca until the hijra to Medina. It was written by the non-Muslim Islamic scholar W. Montgomery Watt and published by Oxford University Press in 1953.
Muhammad at Medina is a book about early Islam written by the non-Muslim Islamic scholar W. Montgomery Watt. Published at 418 pages by Oxford University Press in 1956, it is the sequel to Watt's 1953 volume, Muhammad at Mecca.
The Islamic State of Medina was a theocratic sovereign state on the Arabian Peninsula from 622 when the Islamic prophet Muhammad came to the city of Medina following the migration of his followers in what is known as the Hijrah till his death in the year 632. The State of Medina is considered to be the first Islamic State and the precursor to the Rashidun Caliphate.
Muhammad, the final Islamic prophet, was born and lived in Mecca for the first 53 years of his life until the Hijra. This period of his life is characterized by his proclamation of prophethood. Muhammad's father, Abdullah ibn Abd al-Muttalib, died before he was born. His mother would raise him until he was six years old, before her death around 577 CE at Abwa'. Subsequently raised by his grandfather, Abd al-Muttalib, and then his uncle, Abu Talib ibn ‘Abd al-Muttalib, Muhammad's early career involved being a shepherd and merchant. Muhammad married Khadija bint Khuwaylid after a successful trading endeavour in Syria. After the death of Khadija and Abu Talib in the Year of Sorrow, Muhammad married Sawda bint Zam'a and Aisha.
The Najdat were the sub-sect of the Kharijite movement that followed Najda ibn 'Amir al-Hanafi, and in 682 launched a revolt against the Umayyad Caliphate in the historical provinces of Yamama and Bahrain, in central and eastern Arabia.
The Kaaba, also spelled Ka'ba, Ka'bah or Kabah, sometimes referred to as al-Ka'ba al-Musharrafa, is a stone building at the center of Islam's most important mosque and holiest site, the Masjid al-Haram in Mecca, Saudi Arabia. It is considered by Muslims to be the Bayt Allah and is the qibla for Muslims around the world. The current structure was built after the original building was damaged by fire during the siege of Mecca by Umayyads in 683.
Sakhr ibn Harb ibn Umayya, commonly known by his kunyaAbu Sufyan, was a prominent opponent turned companion of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. He was the father of the first Umayyad caliph Mu'awiya I and namesake of the Sufyanid line of Umayyad caliphs which ruled from 661 to 684. He was a first-cousin-once-removed of the third Rashidun caliph Uthman; Abu Sufyan's uncle Abu al-As ibn Umayya was the grandfather of Uthman. Abu Sufyan was also a third-cousin of Prophet Muhammad; both men being great-great-grandsons of Abd Manaf ibn Qusai. One of his daughters, Ramla, was married to Muhammad, but this occurred before Abu Sufyan's own conversion and without his consent.
Allah as a Lunar deity refers to a historical postulation that 'Allah' originated as a moon god. The claim first arose in 1901 in the scholarship of archeologist Hugo Winckler, who identified the name Allah with a pre-Islamic Arabian deity known as Lah or Hubal, which he called a lunar deity.
The Revisionist school of Islamic studies, is a movement in Islamic studies that questions traditional Muslim narratives of Islam's origins.
The Muslim–Quraysh War was a six-year military and religious war in the Arabian Peninsula between the early Muslims led by Muhammad on one side and the Arab pagan Quraysh tribe on the other. The war started in March 624 with the Battle of Badr, and concluded with the Conquest of Mecca.
