The Prophetic Method

THE PROPHETIC METHOD Strengthening Oneself Inwardly The story of Islam began in A.D. 610 when the Prophet Muhammad received his first revelation. At that time, he was the only Muslim, the only believer, in the whole world. In A.D. 622, the Prophet emigrated from Makkah to Madinah. There he established an Islamic state, but its boundaries were limited. They extended only to a few parts of the small town of Madinah, the larger portion remaining under the control of Jewish tribes and Arabs who had not yet converted to Islam. The Prophet died eleven years later. By his death, the frontiers of Islam had spread throughout the Arabian Peninsula and reached southern Palestine. An Islamic empire covering 1 million square miles had come into existence. Islam had advanced through North Africa to Spain on the western front in just under one century and from Spain to the frontiers of China in the east. There are still signs of Islamic influence in such far-off places as Budapest, where a Muslim shrine, “Gul Baba,” still stands on the banks of the river Danube, and France, where many church steeples contain stones with Arabic engravings—a remnant of the 8th century A.H. when southern France was a European province of the Caliph in Damascus.