The history of Islam is believed, by most historians, to have originated with the Islamic prophet Muhammad's mission in Mecca and Medina at the start of the 7th century CE, although Muslims regard this time as a return to the original faith passed down by the Abrahamic prophets, such as Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, David, Solomon, and Jesus, with the submission () to the will of God. The early Muslim conquests were responsible for the spread of Islam. Following the deportation and enslavement of the Muslim Moors from the Emirate of Sicily and elsewhere in southern Italy, the Islamic Iberia was gradually conquered by Christian forces during the Reconquista.
In the early modern period, the gunpowder empires—the Ottomans, Timurids, Mughals, and Safavids—emerged as world powers. During the 19th and early 20th centuries, most of the Muslim world fell under the influence or direct control of the European Great Powers. The oil boom stabilized the Arab States of the Gulf Cooperation Council (comprising Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates), making them the world's largest oil producers and exporters, which focus on capitalism, free trade, and tourism.
Early sources and historiography
Most Islamic history was transmitted orally until after the rise of the Abbasid Caliphate. At the same time the study of the earliest periods in Islamic history is made difficult by a lack of sources. The stories were written in the form of “founding conquest stories” based on nostalgia for the golden age then. Humphrey, quoted by Antoine Borrut, explains that the stories related to this period were created according to a pact-betrayal-redemption principle. One of the most important historical sources for which the above-mentioned stories about the birth of Islam were compiled is the work of the Muslim historian Abū Jaʿfar al-Ṭabarī (839–923 CE). Although the sources concerning the Sasanian realm of influence for the 6th century AD, which represents the time period before the beginning of Islam according to the traditional understanding, are poor, the sources for the Byzantine provinces of Syria and Iraq in the same period, complemented by Syriac Christian writings, provide a relatively better quality. Regarding the depicting of early Islamic history, four trends are prominent concerning the utilization on available (irrational) sources;
thumb|230px|right|A [[Byzantine coinage|"Pseudo-Byzantine" coin with depictions of the Byzantine Emperor Constans II holding the cross-tipped staff and globus cruciger. There was no specific Islamic-religious identity and political stance with sharp boundaries in the early Islamic period.]]
- The descriptive method uses the outlines of Islamic traditions, adjusted for the stories of miracles and faith-centred claims within those sources. Edward Gibbon (1737–1794) and Gustav Weil (1808–1889) represent some of the first historians following the descriptive method.
- In the source critical method, scholars compare all available sources in order to identify which informants to the sources are weak and thereby to distinguish spurious material. The work of William Montgomery Watt (1909–2006) and that of Wilferd Madelung (1930–2023) exemplify source-critical study.
- In the tradition critical method, the sources are believed to be based on oral traditions with unclear origins and transmission history, and so are treated very cautiously. Ignác Goldziher (1850–1921) pioneered the tradition critical method, and Uri Rubin (1944–2021) continued this approach.
- The skeptical method doubts nearly all of the material in the traditional sources, regarding any possible historical core as too difficult to decipher from distorted and fabricated material. An early example of the sceptical method was the work of John Wansbrough (1928–2002).
Nowadays, the popularity of the different methods employed varies on the scope of the studies produced. Overview treatments of the history of early Islam tend to take the descriptive approach. Scholars who look at the beginnings of Islam in depth generally follow the source-critical and tradition-critical methods. Until the early 1970s, Non-Muslim scholars of Islamic studies—while not accepting mythical accounts, such as divine intervention—did accept its origin story in most of its details. Critical evaluation of sources is of particular importance in uncovering Muhammad's historical existence beyond the myths. Early sources for the life of Muhammad are authors from the 2nd and 3rd centuries AH (8th and 9th centuries CE), whose works constructed main biographical information to the Muslim traditions regarding his life, but the reliability of this information is very much debated in academic circles due to the oral gap between the recorded dates of Muhammad's life and the dates when these writings begin to appear in sources. John Burton summarizes the information provided by the multitude of available sources, from a historian's perspective: states <blockquote>In judging the content, the only resort of the scholar is to the yardstick of probability, and on this basis, it must be repeated, virtually nothing of use to the historian emerges from the sparse record of the early life of the founder of the latest of the great world religions ... so, however far back in the Muslim tradition one now attempts to reach, one simply cannot recover a scrap of information of real use in constructing the human history of Muhammad, beyond the bare fact that he once existed.</blockquote>
The quality of historical sources improves after the 8th century CE. Those sources which treated earlier times with a large temporal and cultural gap now begin to give accounts which are more contemporaneous, the quality of genre of available historical accounts improves, and new documentary sources—such as official documents, correspondence and poetry—appear.
Inception
thumb|Map of the [[tribes of Arabia in late antiquity]]
Early Islam arose within the historical, social, political, economic, and religious context of late antiquity in the Middle East. Religion in pre-Islamic Arabia may be summarized as follows; Judaism became the dominant religion of the Himyarite Kingdom in Yemen after about 380 CE, while Christianity took root in the Persian Gulf. Religious divisions played an important role in the crisis. There was also a yearning for a more "spiritual form of religion", and "the choice of religion increasingly became an individual rather than a collective issue." were looking for a new religious worldview to replace the pre-Islamic Arabian religions,
thumb|upright=0.8|A page from the [[Sanaa manuscript, with "subtexts" revealed under UV, very different from contemporary editions of the Quran. Puin argues that these variants indicate an evolving text, not a fixed one.]]
According to the traditional account, Muhammad was born in Mecca, an important caravan trading center, around the year 570 CE. His family belonged to the Arab clan of Quraysh, which was the chief tribe of Mecca and a dominant force in Hejaz region. They supported the establishment of sacred months in which all violence was prohibited and travel was safe, in order to prevent tribal raids for loot, to sustain the Hajj trade. Like the Ḥanīf, Muhammad practiced Taḥannuth, spending time in seclusion at the Cave Hira in the mountain Jabal al-Nour and "turning away from paganism." In 610 CE, when he was about 40 years old, he began receiving at mount Hira' what Muslims regard as divine revelations delivered through the angel Gabriel on the Laylat al-Qadr, which would later form the Quran. These inspirations urged him to proclaim a strict monotheistic faith, as the final expression of Biblical prophetism earlier codified in the sacred texts of Judaism and Christianity; to warn his compatriots of the impending Judgement Day; and to castigate social injustices of his city.|group=Note Muhammad's message won over a handful of followers (the ṣaḥāba) and was met with increasing persecution from Meccan notables. The surahs of this period emphasized his place among the long line of Biblical prophets, but also differentiated the message of the Quran from the sacred texts of Christianity and Judaism. After a series of military confrontations and political manoeuvres, Muhammad was able to secure control of Mecca and allegiance of the Quraysh in 629 CE, after which he ordered the destruction of pagan idols. In the time remaining until his death in 632 CE, tribal chiefs across the Arabian peninsula entered into various agreements with him, some under terms of alliance, others acknowledging his claims of prophethood and agreeing to follow Islamic practices, including paying the alms levy to his government, which consisted of a number of deputies, an army of believers, and a public treasury.
thumb|1314 Illustration by [[Rashid al-Din Hamadani|Rashid ad-Din, depicting the Negus of Medieval Abyssinia declining a Meccan delegation's request to surrender the early Muslims.]]
With an approach that has been developed and popularized recently, Muhammad established the first Islamic state in Medina and made radical reforms to create an Islamic society based on Quranic verses, in line with the new concept, and the Constitution of Medina, in which the rights and duties of the different communities were determined. with religion and prophethood, which are essentially advice, is a controversial issue. (See also:Al-Baqara 256) The real intentions of Muhammad regarding the spread of Islam, its political undertone, and his missionary activity (da'wah) during his lifetime are a contentious matter of debate, which has been extensively discussed both among Muslim scholars and Non-Muslim scholars within the academic field of Islamic studies. Poston Larry states;