received his first revelationfrom God through the Archangel Gabriel.
This revelation, which continued for twenty-threeyears, is known as
the Qur'an.
Muhammad began to recite the words he heard from Gabriel and to preach
the truth which God had revealed to him. The people of Makkah were
steeped in their ways of ignorance and opposed Muhammad and his small
group of followers in everyway. These early Muslims suffered bitter
persecution.
In the year 622 CE, God gave the Muslim community the command to
emigrate. This event, thehijrah or migration, in which they left
Makkah for the city of Madinah, some 260 miles to the North, marks the
beginning of theMuslim calendar.
Madinah provided Muhammad and the Muslims the safe and nurturing haven
in which the Muslim community grew. After several years, the Prophet
and his followers returned to Makkah, where they forgave their enemies
and dedicated the Ka'bah to theworship of the One God. Before the
Prophet died at the age of 63, the greater part of Arabia was Muslim,
and within a century of his death, Islam had spread to Spain in the
west and as far east as China.
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