Muhammad (religion)

:This page is reserved for the depictions of Muhammad from the holy book The Qur'an and its related works. Please do not confuse this character with that of the historical figure of the same name.
Muhammad is the founder of Islam and the main protagonist of the Muslim faith as the final prophet of God, who has also revealed the Qur'an to him via the Archangel Gabriel or through himself.
He was once a merchant living hailing from Arabia before he encountered God, who told him that he was the last prophet of the Abrahamic faith and it was his destiny to spread His true message across the world. He would unite the Arabian peninsula under the Islamic polity before dying of illness.
==Enlightenment==
Muhammad was a merchant living in Mecca in what is now Saudi Arabia when he communed with God. Muhammad wished to find the true religious path to Allah, God. Muhammad would retreat to a cave in the mountains outside Mecca to pray and meditate to become closer to God. At the age of 40 Muhammad was said to be visited by the messengers of god Gabriel and Al-Burāq. Gabriel revealed the true nature of Allah's plans to Muhammad and Al-Burāq would carry Muhammad into heaven to commune with the souls of the departed prophets such as Moses, Jesus and Abraham. When Muhammad returned to earth he was a wiser and enlightened man and made it his mission to spread the true word of God which he felt had been lost to the world through the translations of present day man.
==Marriage and the Qur'an==
Through serendipitous circumstance, Muhammad would be approached by a rich widowed merchant named Khadija who wished to marry him. Muhammad refused the marriage at first feeling romantic companionship would be out of place for him. Khadija stated she would gladly support Muhammad in any pursuits he had for his company if his pride would allow it, Muhammad took the attentions of the generous merchant as a sign and agreed to the marriage. Muhammad revealed to Khadija his communion with Gabriel on behalf of Allah, Khadija would be the first convert to Islam. With the enlightenment of Allah, the wings of Al-Burāq as his transport and the financial support of Khadija, Muhammad journeyed around the Arab and Jewish world to spread the true message of Allah through the Qur'an - One of devotion and humility. While little is known as to Muhammad's precise view into the imperfections of Christianity and Judaism, he stressed that the message of God had become lost in the texts and claims to still view prophets such as Jesus and Moses as holy figures whom he consulted with in heaven.
==The Hijra and the Muslim Empire==
Muhammad spread Islam as an "umma" - a community. Muhammad wanted the Muslim umma to break apart all barriers of race, class and nationality. While somewhat appealing to the people  in the lands he visited, especially ones with oppressive social structures, the concept made him the enemy of many tribe leaders who gained political power from such systems. Ironically Islam made Muhammad an enemy first and foremost with his birth clan, the Banu Qaynuqa of the Quraysh tribe. The, Quraysh were the most powerful tribe in Mecca and saw Islam as a splitting off of their tribe and competing tribe which made Muhammad a hated radical in their eyes. The Quraysh leaders were merchant lords, most of their power came from managing tourism and trade in Mecca. As Mecca had many different polytheistic religions in it at the time Muhammad was alive, the Quraysh believed that claiming there was only one god would drive away their customers. The Quraysh would force Muhammd and his followers out of Mecca in 622 AD to minimize the impact of Islam on local economics. Muhammad re-established a home for his followers in Ythrab/Madina. The event the Muslim expulsion from Mecca to Madina is called the Hijra is important to Muslim culture, so important it is the marking of the year 0 on the Muslim calendar.
Muhammad would not only be a prophet in his time, but after the Hijra he was in essence a theocratic king of his own country and commanding general. Muhammad, unlike other prophets, -did- approve of warfare and violence, however only as a means of recovering freedom and even then only where no other methods are available. Muhammad had tried to mediate the return of the Muslim people to Mecca however the Quraysh would never acknowledge the Muslim nation, let alone negotiate with it. In the year 630/8 AD/CE Muhammad lead his army to reclaim Mecca. Though there was much enmity between Islam and Judaism, Muhammad was more concerned with reclaiming Mecca than Jerusalem and had no quarrels with Judaism as a way of life. Muhammad's confrontation with Judaism began and ended with the Quraysh which happened to be Jewish and even then, only because they were prepared to kill his people out of competing prestige, not over any religious difference.
Muhammad did not force non-Muslims to convert to Islam once he had established the first Muslim Empire, rather he simply granted mosques massive tax breaks while non-Muslim temples had moderate taxes. The easier economic burdens of Islam in combination with just seeing how much prosperity Allah afforded Muhammad was the main thing to convert non-Muslims within the empire to Islam. One of Muhammad's primary concerns outside of reclaiming Mecca, was the gathering and protecting of knowledge. He asked Muslims from across his empire to save any and all writing they could of history to be cataloged within his palace's ever expanding library. Because of this, many invaluable writings otherwise lost to history, such as Roman historical records still floating around in the middle-east, were saved and would be re-spread to Europe in the Renaissance when literacy started to become common place. Great Greek works such as the Iliad and the Odyssey, the Nordic Poetic Edda, and records confirming Italian birth, death and tax records would be kept alive thanks to Muhammad's reverence for ancient writings and keeping them safe. Among these otherwise seemingly benign records is follow-up birth, death, and tax records that confirm the historical existence of the man Joshua Joseph - AKA Jesus Christ, records which matched, until then secret, Roman archives, seemingly confirming the real-life existence of one of Muhammad's primary heavenly consults.
==Death, Sunni and Shi'a==
Muhammad was not only a prophet but a self-made ruler, there is little to no division between religious ethics and political ones in Islam. Muhammad died after a long illness in the year 10 Hijra (632 CE), with succession not given by Muhammad. When Muhammad died, the entire muslim community was in shock. As such the naming of Muhammad's heir was the first great division of Islam. Abu Bakr - one of Muhammad's first father-in-laws, was named his caliph - political heir, however some companions initially disagreed with this appointment before agreeing later. The Sunni Muslims accept that Abu Bakr was the first caliph, while the Shi'a Muslims believe the position was meant for Ali. Ali would eventually become the forth caliph after the turbulent death of Uthman, but disagreements on issues related to the killing of Uthman led to his eventual assassination by the extremist group known as the Kharijites. 
Today, the results of this conflict led to two groups. The first, and overwhelming majority follow Sunni Islam, which is based on following "Ahul-Sunnah" and agree in the status of Abu Bakr and Umar. Shi'a Islam is about following "Ahul Bayt", the family of Muhammad (Notably Ali and his descendants), and have a negative image of various figures such as Abu Bakr, his daughter Aisha, and Umar. 
A century after Muhammad, the Arab warriors spreading the orders of Muhammad lead to one of the largest empires in history. The Arab empire controlled a land from Portugal in the west to India in the east, in that time, Islam slowly spread among the conquered peoples, forming what we know as the Islamic world.
==Skills & Abilities==
Muhammad was quite charismatic and able to inspire whole crowds of strangers. One of Muhammad's greatest feats was establishment of a treaty between Muslims and the tribe of Quraysh. Muhammad had tremendous endurance and made many pilgrimages on foot by himself. To those that would follow him he asked only that they pack well and travel with perseverance as he did. Muhammad journeyed across the land not only spreading the word of Allah but helping those plagued by evil and pain. Muhammad was said to preform rites upon flames that sanctified them to burn away evil and sickness, without causing those burdened by them, harm or pain.
Muhammad was famous for a long list of miracles in Islamic tradition. Numerous miracles are mentioned in Islamic tradition, but they include: Splitting the moon into 2 pieces, healing sick people with his saliva, causing supernatural occurrences in the weather, trees and inanimate objects to support him or greet him which was witnessed by his companions, causing a well to emerge from Tabuk, causing the barren land of Halima to become fresh and to restore her livestock, and others. 
Muhammad is also credited with a series of prophecies about future events, these prophecies reportedly made by Muhammad include: the Arab Conquests, the first muslim civil war, Suraqah bin Malik acquiring the rings of Khosroes, how Umar and Uthman would die, the fate of Umm Habeebah, the Umm Rahhat eruption of 1256, the clashes with the Turgesh people, the spots where those in Badr would die, the emergence of the Kharijite group and his cousin Ali's dispute with these people, and others.
==Trivia==
*"Islam" means "submission", so called by Muhammad as it represented complete submission to God.
*Hadiths are ancillary writings about Muhammad and Islam which are said to come from the companions of Muhammad regarding what Muhammad said or did. in Islam, as they are second most important authority after the Qur'an. Multiple branches of science and study are used to study their chain of narration (Isnad) and to determine the authenticity and classification of the Hadith, their content, as well as the meaning of the Hadith, and others. Hadiths are extremely important for every branch of Islamic study, from theology, to Tafsir of the Quran, and the Hadith, along with the Qur'an, are the 2 main evidences in Islamic jurisprudence. 
*One of the tenets of Islam is that the faces of human holy figures never be recreated. This includes not only Muhammad but Jesus, Moses and Abraham. It however technically only applies to the face, not the form as a whole. There is much debate on the source of this but a primary reason cited is Muhammad saw the way Christianity morphed from Jesus's original intent to what it was in his life-time so he wanted to minimize exaggerations. 
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