June 8 - Death of Prophet Muhammad

This Day in History: 8 June 2020

 

8 June 632

 

1388 years ago, today, Muhammad, the founder of Islam, died in the arms of his third and favourite wife, Aisha. This influential leader was first inspired to preach the religion of Islam in 610, when he experienced a vision in which he heard God command him to become the Arab prophet of the 'true religion'.  Thus, began a lifetime of religious revelations, which was collected in the form of the Qur'an, and provided the foundation for Islam. According to Muhammad himself, he was the last prophet of the Judaic-Christian tradition, and he adopted the theology of these older religions while introducing new rules.

 

By 622, Muhammad had gained a great amount of converts in Mecca, leading the city's authorities to plan his assassination. Muhammad fled to Medina, where he was given a position of political power, allowing him to build a model theocratic state. 7 years later, numerous Arab tribes converted to his new religion, and by his death, he was essentially ruler of all southern Arabia. Even after his death, the Muslim advance was not stopped until the Battle of Tours in France in 732, when the Muslim empire was now among the largest the world had ever seen. The spread of the religion continued voluntarily throughout African and Asian cultures, and thanks to Muhammad, is now the world's second-largest religion.

 

Want to find out more about Muhammad's life? Click here for more, or here for a history of the Islamic faith. Click here for a 10-minute video on how Islam began.