extermination of Banu Qurayza males because
some of them conspired with the Quraysh against
Muhammad. The Muslims and the Quraysh nego-
tiated a peace in 628 that allowed Muslims to
go to Mecca the following year for the
umra
, or
“lesser” pilgrimage. A minor infraction of the
treaty was used by Muhammad to justify an attack
on Mecca, the city of his birth. It fell to Muslim
forces with minimal loss of life in January 630.
One of the factors contributing to their triumph
was the conversion of Abu Sufyan, the leader of
Muhammad’s Quraysh opponents. Muhammad
then launched a campaign to destroy the idols
worshipped in Mecca and the surrounding towns,
but some reports say that he exempted pictures
of Jesus and Mary that had been kept inside the
Kaaba with other idols. Even though Mecca was
now under Muslim rule, Muhammad declared
that he preferred to keep his home in Medina.
During this phase in Muhammad’s career he
established alliances with Arabian tribes, which
included their conversion to Islam. He also
ordered successful attacks on oases and towns
along the roads that led northward into Syria and
Iraq. In 627–28 Byzantine forces defeated the Per-
sians who had been the main power in the region.
This created a situation that Arab Muslim forces
would take advantage of after Muhammad’s death
to defeat both the Byzantines and the Persians and
create a new empire in their place.
Muhammad performed a “farewell
haJJ
” to
Mecca in 632. Muslim commentators say that it
was on this occasion when he pronounced the fol-
lowing verse from the Quran: “Today I perfected
your religion (din) for you, perfected my grace
for you, and desired that Islam be your religion”
(Q 5:2). According to the account furnished by
Ibn Ishaq in the Sira, Muhammad instructed the
faithful on how to perform the rites of the hajj
and gave a sermon in which he stated, “Time has
completed its cycle and is as it was on the day God
created the heavens and the earth” (Ibn Ishaq, p.
651). After completion of the hajj he returned to
Medina, where he suddenly fell ill and died in
the lap of Aisha, his wife, on June 8, 632. He was
buried by his Companions in his house, where his
grave is now marked by the Green Dome of his
mosque in Medina.
MuhAMMAD’S lEGACy
The Quran lays the foundations for Muslim under-
standings of Muhammad. It not only places him in
the ranks of former prophets known to the Bible
and the Arabs, but it also sets him apart from them
at a higher rank. It declares him to be the Seal of
the Prophets “who has knowledge of everything”
(Q 33:40), which Muslims interpret to mean that
he is the last of the prophets to bring God’s word to
humankind. Muhammad is called al-nabi al-ummi
(Q 7:158), which has been widely understood by
Muslims as an affirmation of his being an “unlet-
tered prophet” who received his religious knowl-
edge only from God and not from human sources.
Additionally, the Quran calls him the “beautiful
model” (al-urwa al-hasana) for those who hope for
God and the last day” (Q 33:21).
Muhammad is believed to excel in the quali-
ties of moral excellence and physical perfection,
serving as the example for others to emulate
through his
sUnna
, as recorded in the hadith. All
of the Islamic schools of law regard the sunna as
one of the “roots” of
fiqh
(jurisprudence), sec-
ond only to the Quran. ln addition to countless
biographies written about him, a sizeable body
of Islamic literature concerned with detailing his
virtues, known as the shamail, was composed by
Muslim writers, one of the most prominent of
whom was Qadi Iyad (d. 1149), a Maliki jurist in
Andalusia and Ceuta. The Shia venerate Muham-
mad both as the last prophet and as the father of
the Imams. He is one of the five members of the
People of the House (
ahl
al
-
bayt
), together with
Fatima, his daughter, Ali, his cousin and son-in-
law, and their sons Hasan and Husayn. All of the
Sufi brotherhoods traced their spiritual lineage to
Muhammad. Moreover, those influenced by i
bn
al
-a
rabi
(d. 1240) and Islamic Neoplatonism,
identified the Prophet’s beauty and excellence
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