Although much of the Mecca and Medina region were pagan worshippers, Mohammed was drawn to the God of the Bible, Yahweh. Becoming increasingly obsessed with religious belief, he began to spend much of his time alone in a cave. At the age of 40, no coincidence to the obsession the Bible has with this number, a remarkable course of events (if you believe it) takes place.
The story, undoubtedly borrows its mythology from the Moses narrative, tells of a cloud descending upon his mountain. The voice of an angel summons him to wake, “Read!” Muhammad rubbed his eyes, and saw before him the angel Gabriel. “Read”, said the ghostly one, again. Mohammed again answered that he was illiterate, before asking, “What can I read?” The angel replied, “Read in the name of your Lord, the Creator, Who created man from a clot of blood! Read! Your Lord is most merciful, for he has taught men by pen, and revealed mysteries to them!”
The angel handed Mohammad a scroll, and when he awoke the next morning, the scroll was gone but he had memorized all that was written.
Excitedly, he told his wife, who assured him he wasn’t stark crazy mad, and it was she who encouraged him to evangelize the angel’s words to the people of his hometown, Mecca. Similar to the Jesus narrative, his people laughed him out of town, and he moved to Medina in 622 A.D.
Over the course of the next eight years, his small army of disciples had grown into a force to be reckoned with. The Muslims had arrived, and Mohammad was hell-bent on vengefully taking control of his home city, the town that had earlier rejected him. The Muslims attacked the pagan caravans and, before long, had forced their way to the shrine in Mecca. The Meccans surrendered without much of a fight, and the would-be prophet had prominent opponents (six men and four women) murdered.
(It’s hard to deny that Islam is rooted in conquest. This outlook permeates throughout the Koran; whereby for all practical purposes, a great majority of the verses, contained within each of the 114 Suras (chapters), begins with
“make war with the unbeliever”)
Mohammad’s show of power impressed Arabs everywhere, and thus it served to unite the Peninsula behind him.
Two years later, Mohammad announced he had “perfected” the new religion, Islam. Shortly afterwards, mass conversions began. Learning from Christianity’s appeal, Mohammad promised his followers an afterlife, encouraging the pagans to banish their time-consuming ceremonially weighty practices to follow the Jewish God version 2.1.
