Researchers
The Rise of Islam
The rise of Islam: from the cave of Hira above Mecca, revelation came down on the Prophet around 610 with the call of tawhid — singling God out in worship. The call began hidden, then rose; the Quraysh persecuted the early believers until the Muslims migrated to Yathrib in 622, and there the first Muslim community stood up with its charter and mosque. From Medina came Badr, the Confederates and the conquest of Mecca in 630, and people entered God's religion in throngs. In one century the call spread from al-Andalus to the Indus: a rightly-guided then an Umayyad caliphate standing across three continents, and a faith binding Arabs, Persians, Turks and Berbers into one ummah. That is the great story — from a cave to a continent. And the beginning stays the lesson: that one strong idea, in one faithful person, can change the world's map in less than a human lifetime.