Muhammad's Timeline
Around A.D. 570 Muhammad was born. Muhammad's early life was not easy. His father was a merchant and died before he was born, and his mother died later, when he was six. At A.D. 595, Muhammad was twenty-five years old when he married Khadija, a forty-year-old wealthy woman, who was his only wife until her death in 619. This gave him financial security, enabling him to pursue his own inclinations, which included long periods of introspection in solitude and involvement in trade. They had two sons, who died in infancy, and four daughters named Zaynad, Ruqayya, Fatima and Umm Kulthum. Then in A.D. 610, when Muhammad went to meditate in a cave when he was about 40 years old, an angel appeared and told him to tell the people that there is only one God. Muhammad was scared to tell anyone except for his wife. A few years later in A.D. 613, Muhammad began to spread out the messages. The messages form the basis of the religion called Islam, which means to submit to God. In A.D. 619, Muhammad's wife Khadija died and in A.D. 622 Muhammad was 52 years old when him and his followers left Mecca for Medina in the hegira, this event marks the beginning of the Islamic calendar. In A.D. 624 Muhammad had heard that Abu Sufyan, at the head of a caravan from Syria, was taking a vast quantity of wealth and merchandise to Makkah to help the Quraish in their fight against the Muslims. Moreover, the whole economic life of the Makkans was dependent on camel caravans with the main trade centres in the north. Muhammad died in A.D. 632 at his home in Medina. Then in A.D 633 Muthana ibn Haritha, a new convert to Islam after the Prophet's death, from the north-eastern Arab tribe called Bakr, was sent on a campaign in Iraq with Khalid ibn al-Walid and later took over the command.