The first Islamic state was established by the Islamic prophet Muhammad in the city of Medina in 622 CE/1 AH under the Constitution of Medina. It represented the political unity of the Muslim Ummah (nation). After Muhammad's death, his companions known as the Rightly Guided Caliphs (the Rashidun) founded the Rashidun Caliphate (632–661) which began massive expansion and motivated subsequent Islamic states, such as the Umayyad Caliphate (661–750) and Abbasid Caliphate (750–1258).
According to the traditional sirah account, Muhammad was born in Mecca—an important caravan trading center—around the year 570 CE/52 BH to a family belonging to the clan of Quraysh, which was the chief tribe of Mecca and a dominant force in Hejaz region. When he was about 40 years old, he began receiving at mount Hira' what Muslims regard as divine revelations delivered through the Archangel Gabriel, which would later form the Qur'an. These inspirations urged him to proclaim a strict monotheistic faith, as the final expression of Biblical prophetism earlier codified in the sacred texts of Judaism and Christianity; to warn his compatriots of the impending Judgement Day; and to castigate social injustices of his city. Muhammad's message won over a handful of followers and was met with increasing resistance from Meccan notables. He had been invited to Medina by city leaders to adjudicate disputes between clans from which the city suffered. Muhammad came to the city of Medina following the migration of his followers in what is known as the Hijrah in 622 and received positively by the city's Jewish and pagan residents as an arbitrator. As a result, he was accepted by popular consensus as the city's political leader, establishing the first Islamic state with his role.
The first Islamic state was governed largely by the Constitution of Medina—in modern terminology—which dictated Muhammad's unification of Medina's tribes and the muhajirun (Muhammad's followers).
Historicity
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 (c. 700−1000 CE), and give a great deal of information on Muhammad.
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. 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.
Historicity can be based on sealed documents, orders, treaty texts, archaeological findings and internal and external correspondence of neighboring states or communities, as well as the discovery of Muhammad's genetic makeup and kinship through his personal belongings and physical remains (hair, beard, etc.) that are among his alleged legacies. Although the sources concerning the Sasanian realm of influence for the 6th century AD, which represents the time period before the beginning of Islam, are poor, the sources for the Byzantine provinces of Syria and Iraq in the same period, complemented by Syriac Christian writings, provide a relatively superior quality.
Most Islamic history was transmitted orally until after the rise of the Abbasid Caliphate. At the same time the study of the earliest periods in Islamic history is made difficult by a lack of sources. The stories were written in the form of “founding conquest stories” based on nostalgia for the golden age then. Humphrey, quoted by Antoine Borrut, explains that the stories related to this period were created according to a pact-betrayal-redemption principle.
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. Non-Islamic testimonies about Muhammad's life describe him as the leader of the Saracens, believed to be descendants of Ishmael, lived in the regions Arabia Petrae and Arabia Deserta in the north. According to some sources, Muhammad is not a name but a title.
History
Background
A delegation from Yathrib, consisting of the representatives of the twelve important clans of Medina, invited Muhammad as a neutral outsider to serve as the chief arbitrator for the community. There had been conflict in Yathrib between its Arab and Jewish tribes for around a hundred years prior. The recurring disagreements, fighting and killing over competing claims, especially after the Battle of Bu'ath in which all the clans were involved, rendered the tribal conceptions of blood-feud and eye for an eye justice unworkable without a neutral authority to adjudicate in disputed cases. The delegation from Medina pledged themselves and their fellow-citizens to accept Muhammad into their community and to protect him as one of their own.
Muhammad instructed his followers to emigrate to Medina until virtually all of his followers had left Mecca. Being alarmed at the departure of Muslims, according to the tradition, the Meccans plotted to assassinate him. He instructed his cousin and future son-in-law Ali to sleep in his bed to trick the assassins that he had stayed (and to fight them off in his stead) and secretly slipped away from the town. By 622, Muhammad had emigrated to Medina, then known as Yathrib, a large agricultural oasis. Following the emigration, the Meccans seized the properties of the Muslim emigrants in Mecca.
Among the things Muhammad did in order to settle the longstanding grievances among the tribes of Medina was drafting a document known as the Constitution of Medina (date debated), establishing a kind of brotherhood among the eight Medinan tribes and Muslim emigrants from Mecca, which specified the rights and duties of all citizens and the relationship of the different communities in Medina (including that of the Muslim community to other communities specifically the Jews and other "Peoples of the Book"). The community defined in the Constitution of Medina, umma, had a religious outlook but was also shaped by the practical considerations and substantially preserved the legal forms of the old Arab tribes.
Relationship with followers of Abrahamic religions
The first group of pagan converts to Islam in Medina were the clans who had not produced great leaders for themselves but had suffered from warlike leaders from other clans. This was followed by the general acceptance of Islam by the pagan population of Medina, apart from some exceptions. This was, according to Ibn Ishaq, influenced by the conversion to Islam of Sa'd ibn Mua'dh, one of the prominent leaders in Medina.
In the course of Muhammad proselytizing in Mecca, he viewed Christians and Jews (both of whom he referred to as "People of the Book") as natural allies, part of the Abrahamic religions, sharing the core principles of his teachings, and anticipated their acceptance and support. Muslims, like Jews, were at that time praying towards Jerusalem. In the Constitution of Medina, Muhammad demanded the Jews' political loyalty in return for religious and cultural autonomy in many treaties.
The Jewish clans however did not obey these treaties because of a feud with the Muslims though in the course of time there were a few converts from them. After his migration to Medina, Muhammad's attitude towards Christians and Jews changed "because of experience of treachery". Norman Stillman states:
During this fateful time, fraught with tension after the Hijra [migration to Medina], when Muhammad encountered contradiction, ridicule and rejection from the Jewish scholars in Medina, he came to adopt a radically more negative view of the people of the Book who had received earlier scriptures. This attitude was already evolving in the third Meccan period as the Prophet became more aware of the antipathy between Jews and Christians and the disagreements and strife amongst members of the same religion. The Qur'an at this time states that it will "relate [correctly] to the Children of Israel most of that about which they differ" 27:76.
Internal disputes
Economically uprooted by their Meccan persecutors, the Muslim migrants turned to raiding Meccan caravans to respond to their persecution and to provide sustenance for their Muslim families, thus initiating armed conflict between the Muslims and the pagan Quraysh of Mecca. Muhammad delivered Qur'anic verses permitting the Muslims, "those who have been expelled from their homes", to fight the Meccans in opposition to persecution (see Qur'an Sura 22 (Al-Hajj) Ayat 39-40). These attacks provoked and pressured Mecca by interfering with trade, and allowed the Muslims to acquire wealth, power and prestige while working toward their ultimate goal of inducing Mecca's submission to the new faith.
In March 624, Muhammad led some three hundred warriors in a raid on a Meccan merchant caravan. The Muslims set an ambush for the Meccans at Badr. Aware of the plan, the Meccan caravan eluded the Muslims. Meanwhile, a force from Mecca was sent to protect the caravan. The force did not return home upon hearing that the caravan was safe. The battle of Badr began in March 624. Though outnumbered more than three to one, the Muslims won the battle, killing at least forty-five Meccans and taking seventy prisoners for ransom; only fourteen Muslims died. They had also succeeded in killing many of the Meccan leaders, including Abu Jahl. Muhammad himself did not fight, directing the battle from a nearby hut alongside Abu Bakr. In the weeks following the battle, Meccans visited Medina in order to ransom captives from Badr. Many of these had belonged to wealthy families, and were likely ransomed for a considerable sum. Those captives who were not sufficiently influential or wealthy were usually freed without ransom. Muhammad's decision was that those prisoners who refused to end their persecution of Muslims and were wealthy but did not ransom themselves should be killed. Muhammad ordered the immediate execution of two Quraysh men without entertaining offers for their release. Both men, which included Uqba ibn Abu Mu'ayt, had personally attempted to kill Muhammad in Mecca. The raiders had won a lot of treasure, and the battle helped to stabilize the Medinan community. Muhammad and his followers saw in the victory a confirmation of their faith and a prime importance in the affairs of Medina. Those remaining pagans in Medina were very bitter about the advance of Islam. In particular Asma bint Marwan and Abu 'Afak had composed verses insulting some of the Muslims and thereby violated the Constitution of Medina to which they belonged. These two were assassinated and Muhammad did not disapprove of it. No one dared to take vengeance on them, and some of the members of the clan of Asma bint Marwan who had previously converted to Islam in secret, now professed openly. This marked an end to the overt opposition to Muhammad among the pagans in Medina.
Muhammad expelled from Medina the Banu Qaynuqa, one of the three main Jewish tribes. Jewish opposition "may well have been for political as well as religious reasons". On religious grounds, the Jews were skeptical of the possibility of a non-Jewish prophet, and also had concerns about possible incompatibilities between the Qur'an and their own scriptures. The Qur'an's response regarding the possibility of a non-Jew being a prophet was that Abraham was not a Jew. The Qur'an also stated that it was "restoring the pure monotheism of Abraham which had been corrupted in various, clearly specified, ways by Jews and Christians". According to Francis Edward Peters, "The Jews also began secretly to connive with Muhammad's enemies in Mecca to overthrow him."
Following the battle of Badr, Muhammad also made mutual-aid alliances with a number of Bedouin tribes to protect his community from attacks from the northern part of Hejaz.
Conflicts with the Quraish
The attack at Badr committed Muhammad to total war with Meccans, who were now eager to avenge their defeat. To maintain their economic prosperity, the Meccans needed to restore their prestige, which had been lost at Badr. The Meccans sent out a small party for a raid on Medina to restore confidence and reconnoitre. The party retreated immediately after a surprise and speedy attack but with minor damages; there was no combat. In the ensuing months, Muhammad led expeditions on tribes allied with Mecca and sent out a raid on a Meccan caravan. Abu Sufyan ibn Harb subsequently gathered an army of three thousand men and set out for an attack on Medina. They were accompanied by some prominent women of Mecca, such as Hind bint Utbah, Abu Sufyan's wife, who had lost family members at Badr. These women provided encouragement in keeping with Bedouin custom, calling out the names of the dead at Badr.
A scout alerted Muhammad of the Meccan army's presence and numbers a day later. The next morning, at the Muslim conference of war, there was dispute over how best to repel the Meccans. Muhammad and many of the senior figures suggested that it would be safer to fight within Medina and take advantage of its heavily fortified strongholds. Younger Muslims argued that the Meccans were destroying their crops, and that huddling in the strongholds would destroy Muslim prestige. Muhammad eventually conceded to the wishes of the latter, and readied the Muslim force for battle. Thus, Muhammad led his force outside to the mountain of Uhud (where the Meccans had camped) and fought the Battle of Uhud on March 23.