At a glance
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Walk this pathway
8steps · 75min · teacher · student · standard
Arabia before Islam
Tribes, trade and the surrounding powers: Byzantium, Persia and Abyssinia.
The Prophet Muhammad and the first revelation
A man of Quraysh at forty, a cave near Mecca, and the start of a message.
The Hijra
622: the community moves to Yathrib, and a calendar begins.
The Constitution of Medina
A pact between the emigrants, the Ansar and the Jews: what the document says about the new society.
Badr and after
The first battles with Quraysh: their causes and consequences as the sources tell them.
Hudaybiyya and the conquest of Mecca
A treaty, then an entry into Mecca almost without fighting: negotiation as a political tool.
The Treaty of Hudaybiyya · The Conquest of Mecca (Fath Makka)
The Rashidun caliphate
How the four caliphs were chosen, and how a land from Egypt to Persia was governed.
The Umayyads and Damascus
A hereditary state in an ancient capital: administration, coinage, language and the great mosques.
What you now know
Mastery check
Five questions on what you walked through. Marked on your device; nothing is kept but the stamp in your passport when you pass.
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Answer key (for the teacher)
- Which two great powers surrounded Arabia before Islam? — Byzantium and Persia(Learn it at step 1: Arabia before Islam)
- Why does 622 begin the Islamic calendar? — It was the year of the Hijra to Medina(Learn it at step 3: The Hijra)
- What did the Constitution of Medina regulate? — Relations and duties between the groups of Medina(Learn it at step 4: The Constitution of Medina)
- How did the Prophet enter Mecca in 630? — After a treaty, then almost without fighting(Learn it at step 6: Hudaybiyya and the conquest of Mecca)
- How did the Umayyads differ from the Rashidun in the transfer of power? — Rule became hereditary within one family(Learn it at step 8: The Umayyads and Damascus)
Tell it back
Tell what you learned in your own words. What you write stays on this device only, and no one else reads it.
- I can describe the social and political structures of the first Muslim community.
- I can explain three factors behind the state's stability and expansion to 750.
- I can distinguish what the Islamic sources relate from what historians debate.
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Write at least two sentences, or tick that you told it, to earn the stamp in your passport.
Overview
A CHW3M pathway following the rise of a new community in Arabia and its transformation within a century into a state stretching from al-Andalus to Central Asia: the setting, the revelation, the Hijra, the Constitution of Medina, the first battles, the Rashidun caliphate and Umayyad Damascus.
For the teacher
Seventy-five minutes over a lesson and a half: the eight steps are read in pairs, leaving twenty minutes for the worksheet. Traditional dates are marked as traditional in the museum: a good way into the concept of evidence in strand A.
Sources
- The Ontario Curriculum, Grades 11 and 12: Canadian and World Studies (2015)
Cite this page
islam.museum contributors. “The rise of Islam: from Mecca to Damascus (610–750)”. islam.museum, https://islam.museum/en/exhibits/pathway-g11-chw3m-rise-of-islam/. CC BY-SA 4.0. Last updated 2026-10-23.