Muhammad, the final Islamic prophet, was born and lived in Mecca for the first 53 years of his life (c. 570–622 CE) 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 Sawdah bint Zam'a and Aisha.
Muslims believe Muhammad began receiving revelation sometime in the year 610 CE. Initially, the ranks of the Muslims only included Muhammad and some of his close friends and relatives. However, as more members of the Quraysh and other Arab tribes respected his words and accepted his message, the vast majority of them, including tribal leaders and some of his relatives, such as Abū Lahab, opposed, ridiculed and eventually boycotted his clan, the Banu Hashim, and Muhammad and his followers were harassed, assaulted and forced into exile in Abyssinia. After experiencing the Isra and Mi'raj in 620 and receiving delegations from Medina and pledges of protection from the two Arab tribes that lived in the city at al-'Aqabah, Muhammad instructed his companions to gradually migrate to the city, before doing so himself in 622.
Historicity / Geography
Prophetic biography, known as sīra, along with attributed records of the words, actions, and the silent approval of Muhammad, known as hadith, survive in the historical works of writers from the second and third centuries of the Muslim era (−1000 CE),William Montgomery Watt, Muhammad at Mecca, 1953, Oxford University Press, p.xi and give a great deal of information on Muhammad, but the reliability of this information is very much debated in academic circles due to the gap (oral tradition) between the recorded dates of Muhammad's life and the dates when these events begin to appear in written sources.
The general Islamic view is that the Quran has been preserved from the beginning by both writing and memorization, and its testimony is considered beyond doubt. The earliest Muslim source of information for the life of Muhammad, the Quran, gives very little personal information and its historicity is debated.Encyclopaedia of Islam, Muhammad A group of researchers explores the irregularities and repetitions in the Quranic text in a way that refutes the traditional claim that it was preserved by memorization alongside writing. According to them, an oral period shaped the Quran as a text and order, and the repetitions and irregularities mentioned were remnants of this period.Bannister, "Retelling the Tale", 2014: p.1-4 John Burton summarizes the information provided by the multitude of available sources, from a historian's perspective: states In judging the content, the only resort of the scholar is to the yardstick of probability, and on this basis, it must be repeated, virtually nothing of use to the historian emerges from the sparse record of the early life of the founder of the latest of the great world religions ... so, however far back in the Muslim tradition one now attempts to reach, one simply cannot recover a scrap of information of real use in constructing the human history of Muhammad, beyond the bare fact that he once existed.John Burton: Bulletin of the Society of Oriental and African Studies, vol. 53 (1990), p. 328, cited in
There are a relatively small number of contemporaneous or near-contemporaneous non-Muslim sources which attest to the existence of Muhammad and are valuable both in themselves and for comparison with Muslim sources. As in the case of Mecca, these sources cannot be said to support the traditional Islamic narrative; where there is a lack of pre-Islamic sources that mention it as a pilgrimage center in historical sources before 741 here the author places the region in "midway between Ur and Harran" rather than the Hejaz- and lacks pre-Islamic archaeological data.The ancient history of the holy city of Mecca (Makkah) has been wiped out, and Makkah has been attacked as a city without a pre-Islamic history, due to the lack of archaeological evidence. See here.
Modern scholarship on Mecca The early history of Mecca is still largely shrouded by a lack of clear sources. The city lies in the hinterland of the middle part of western Arabia of which there are sparse textual or archaeological sources available. This lack of knowledge is in contrast to both the northern and southern areas of western Arabia, specifically the Syro-Palestinian frontier and Yemen, where historians have various sources available such as physical remains of shrines, inscriptions, observations by Greco-Roman authors, and information collected by church historians. The area of Hejaz that surrounds Mecca was characterized by its remote, rocky, and inhospitable nature, supporting only meagre settled populations in scattered oases and occasional stretches of fertile land. The Red Sea coast offered no easily accessible ports and the oasis dwellers and bedouins in the region were illiterate.
Possible earlier mentions are not unambiguous. The Greek historian Diodorus Siculus writes about Arabia in the 1st century BCE in his work Bibliotheca historica, describing a holy shrine: "And a temple has been set up there, which is very holy and exceedingly revered by all Arabians".Translated by C.H. Oldfather, Diodorus Of Sicily, Volume II, William Heinemann Ltd., London & Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 1935, p. 217. Claims have been made this could be a reference to the Ka'bah in Mecca. However, the geographic location Diodorus describes is located in northwest Arabia, around the area of Leuke Kome, within the former Nabataean Kingdom and the Roman province of Arabia Petraea.Jan Retsö, The Arabs in Antiquity (2003), 295–300Photius, Diodorus and Strabo (English): Stanley M. Burnstein (tr.), Agatharchides of Cnidus: On the Eritraean Sea (1989), 132–173, esp. 152–3 (§92).)
Ptolemy lists the names of 50 cities in Arabia, one going by the name of Macoraba. There has been speculation since 1646 that this could be a reference to Mecca. Historically, there has been a general consensus in scholarship that Macoraba mentioned by Ptolemy in the 2nd century CE is indeed Mecca, but more recently, this has been questioned. Bowersock favors the identity of the former, with his theory being that "Macoraba" is the word "Makkah" followed by the aggrandizing Aramaic adjective rabb (great). The Roman 4th-century historian Ammianus Marcellinus also enumerated many cities of Western Arabia, most of which can be identified. According to Bowersock, he did mention Mecca as "Geapolis" or "Hierapolis", the latter one meaning "holy city" potentially referring to the sanctuary of the Kaaba.
Procopius' 6th century statement that the Ma'add tribe possessed the coast of western Arabia between the Ghassanids and the Himyarites of the south supports the Arabic sources tradition that associates Quraysh as a branch of the Ma'add and Muhammad as a direct descendant of Ma'add ibn Adnan.
Background
The central and northern parts of the Arabian Peninsula were largely arid and volcanic, making agriculture difficult except near oases or springs. Thus the Arabian landscape was dotted with towns and cities near those oases, and in fertile Southern Arabia and in coastal areas such as Tihamah. Two prominent cities of the era were Mecca and Medina (then known as Yathrib).Watt (1953), pp.1–2 Communal life was essential for survival in desert conditions, as people needed support against the harsh environment and lifestyle. The tribal grouping was thus encouraged by the need to act as a unit. This unity was based on the bond of kinship by blood.Watt (1953), pp. 16–18 People of Arabia were either nomadic or sedentary, the nomadic element constantly traveling from one place to another seeking water and pasture for their flocks, while the sedentary inhabitants settled and focused on trade and agriculture. The survival of nomads (or bedouins) was also partially dependent on raiding caravans or oases; thus they saw this as no crime.Loyal Rue, Religion Is Not about God: How Spiritual Traditions Nurture Our Biological, 2005, p.224John Esposito, Islam, Expanded edition, Oxford University Press, p.4-5 Medina was a large flourishing agricultural settlement, while Mecca was an important financial center for many of the surrounding tribes.
In pre-Islamic Arabia gods or goddesses were viewed as protectors of individual tribes and their spirits were associated with sacred trees, stones, springs and wells. There was an important shrine in Mecca (called the Kaaba) that housed statues of 360 idols of tribal patron-deities and was the site of an annual pilgrimage. Aside from these tribal gods, Arabs shared a common belief in a supreme deity Allah (akin to "God" in English, as opposed to "god") who was however remote from their everyday concerns and thus not the object of cult or ritual. Three goddesses were associated with Allah as his daughters: al-Lat, Manat and al-Uzza. Some monotheistic communities also existed in Arabia, including Christians and Jews.See: Esposito, Islam, Extended Edition, Oxford University Press, pp.5–7 Qur'an 3:95Hanifs – native pre-Islamic Arab monotheists – are also sometimes listed alongside Jews and Christians in pre-Islamic Arabia, although scholars dispute their historicity - cf. Uri Rubin, "Hanif", Encyclopedia of the Qur'an
According to tradition, Muhammad himself was a descendant of Ishmael, son of Abraham.Louis Jacobs (1995), p.272
Tradition; Genealogy, birth and childhood
Muhammad was born in the month of Rabi' al-Awwal. Islamic historians place the year of Muhammad's birth as c. 570, corresponding with the Year of the Elephant. However, recent scholarship has suggested earlier dates for this event, including 568 and 569.Watt (1974), p. 7. The precise date of Muhammad's birth varies between different Islamic sects, with most Sunnis accepting the 12th of Rabi'-ul-Awwal as the date of his birth as posited by Ibn Ishaq. Other opinions claim dates like the 2nd, 8th, or the 10th of Rabi'-ul-Awwal while Shi'a Muslims believe it to have been the dawn of 17th day of same month.Allameh Tabatabaei, A glance at the life of the holy prophet of Islam, p. 20 Muhammad was born into the family of Banu Hashim, p. 34 one of the prominent clans forming the Quraysh tribe of Mecca, although the family seems to have not been as prosperous during Muhammad's early lifetime.See also cited in EoI; Muhammad His parents were 'Abdullah ibn 'Abd al-Muttalib of the Banu Hashim and Aminah bint Wahb, the sister of the then-chief of the Banu Zuhrah.Lings (1983), p. 17 Muhammad's paternal great-grandmother, Salma bint 'Amr, was an influential Jewish lady from the Khazraj tribe of Medina, thus Muhammad had mixed Arab-Jewish ancestry. According to Ibn Ishaq, an early biographer of Muhammad, 'Abd al-Muttalib, Muhammad's grandfather, came up with the child's name, which was quite unknown at the time in the Arabian Peninsula.