The Rise of Islam

622 CE — Arabia, Early Islamic community

Today: Arabia (Mecca and Medina, modern Saudi Arabia)

In 622 the prophet Muhammad and his followers migrated from Mecca to Medina — an event so pivotal it marks year one of the Islamic calendar. Within a single century, the community he founded had burst out of Arabia to rule an empire reaching from Spain to the borders of India, larger than Rome at its height.

Worth knowing: The Islamic calendar counts its years not from Muhammad's birth or death but from the moment he and his followers migrated to Medina — so a faith's founding year is dated, fittingly, to an act of flight.

Pattern: Ideological movement — A belief system rises, spreads, institutionalizes, and then schisms — changing the rules people accept as legitimate.

Entry 96 of 240 in Precedent, a walk through the whole human story in order.