A single, continuous timeline of the Prophet Muhammad's ﷺ life — 570 CE to 632 CE, 63 lunar years — pulling together the events covered separately in pages 1–8 of this theme so you can revise the full Sīrah in one pass, in order, and answer any "trace the life of the Holy Prophet ﷺ" question chronologically instead of thematically.
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How to use this page: Read top to bottom for the full narrative. For deeper analytical treatment of any single event (e.g. Hijrah, Badr, Ḥudaybiyah), go to the numbered sub-topic pages 1–8 above, which already carry full 20-Mark Enrichment sections. This page is the spine; those pages are the muscle.
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| Age | Year (CE) | Year (AH) | Event |
|---|---|---|---|
| — | 570 | — | Born in Makkah, 12 Rabī' al-Awwal, the "Year of the Elephant" (ʿĀm al-Fīl); father ʿAbdullāh had already died |
| 0–2 | 570–572 | — | Nursed by Ḥalīmah al-Saʿdiyyah of Banū Saʿd in the desert |
| 6 | 576 | — | Mother Āminah dies at al-Abwāʾ; raised by grandfather ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib |
| 8 | 578 | — | ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib dies; guardianship passes to uncle Abū Ṭālib |
| 12 | 582 | — | First trade journey to Syria with Abū Ṭālib's caravan; meets the monk Baḥīrā |
| ~20 | 590 | — | Participates in Ḥarb al-Fijār and the Ḥilf al-Fuḍūl (Pact of the Virtuous) |
| 25 | 595 | — | Marries Khadījah bint Khuwaylid after a successful trade venture to Syria on her behalf |
| 35 | 605 | — | Rebuilding of the Kaʿbah; resolves the Black Stone dispute; earns the titles al-Amīn and al-Ṣādiq |
| 40 | 610 | — | First revelation in the Cave of Ḥirāʾ — Sūrah al-ʿAlaq 96:1–5; start of Prophethood |
| 40–43 | 610–613 | — | Fatrah (pause in revelation) then private preaching (Daʿwat-e-Khafī) |
| 43 | 613 | — | Public preaching begins (Daʿwat-e-ʿĀmm); open persecution of Muslims starts |
| 45 | 615 | — | First migration to Abyssinia, led by Jaʿfar ibn Abī Ṭālib, under the protection of the Negus |
| 46–48 | 616–619 | — | Social and economic boycott of Banū Hāshim and Banū al-Muṭṭalib in the Shiʿb Abī Ṭālib |
| 49 | 619 | — | ʿĀm al-Ḥuzn — the "Year of Sorrow": deaths of Khadījah (RA) and Abū Ṭālib |
| 50 | 620 | — | Journey to Ṭāʾif seeking support — rejected, stoned |
| 50 | 620/621 | — | Al-Isrāʾ wal-Miʿrāj (Night Journey and Ascension) — Sūrah al-Isrāʾ 17:1; the five daily prayers are prescribed |
| 51 | 621 | — | First Pledge of ʿAqabah — 12 men from Yathrib pledge allegiance |
| 52 | 622 | — | Second Pledge of ʿAqabah — 73 men and 2 women pledge; formal invitation to migrate |
| 52 | 622 | 1 AH | Al-Hijrah — migration to Madīnah; the cave of Thawr; arrival at Qubāʾ then Madīnah; the Prophet's Mosque built; Muʾākhāt (brotherhood pact) between Muhājirūn and Anṣār; the Constitution/Charter of Madīnah |
| 54 | 624 | 2 AH | Qiblah changed from Jerusalem to Makkah; Battle of Badr (17 Ramaḍān) — decisive victory; fasting of Ramaḍān and Zakāh formally legislated |
| 55 | 625 | 3 AH | Battle of Uḥud — reversal after archers leave their post; the Prophet ﷺ is wounded |
| 56 | 626 | 4 AH | Expulsion of Banū al-Naḍīr; consolidation of the Madinan state |
| 57 | 627 | 5 AH | Battle of the Trench (al-Khandaq/al-Aḥzāb) — defensive trench on Salmān al-Fārisī's advice; the siege is broken; dealing with Banū Qurayẓah after their treaty breach |
| 58 | 628 | 6 AH | Treaty of Ḥudaybiyah — 10-year truce; Sūrah al-Fatḥ revealed; letters sent to Heraclius, Khusraw, the Negus, al-Muqawqis and Arab rulers inviting them to Islam |
| 59 | 628–629 | 7 AH | Battle of Khaybar — the last major Jewish stronghold falls; ʿUmrat al-Qaḍāʾ (the compensatory ʿUmrah) performed |
| 59 | 629 | 8 AH | Battle of Muʾtah against Byzantine forces — Zayd, Jaʿfar and ʿAbdullāh ibn Rawāḥah martyred in succession; Khālid ibn al-Walīd leads the retreat |
| 60 | 630 | 8 AH | Conquest of Makkah (Fatḥ Makkah) — near-bloodless, general amnesty declared, idols of the Kaʿbah destroyed; Battle of Ḥunayn and siege of Ṭāʾif follow immediately after |
| 60–61 | 630–631 | 9 AH | Expedition of Tabūk against the Byzantine threat (no battle fought); ʿĀm al-Wufūd — the "Year of Delegations", as tribes across Arabia embrace Islam |
| 62 | 631–632 | 10 AH | Ḥajjat al-Wadāʿ — the Farewell Pilgrimage; the Farewell Sermon delivered at ʿArafah, 9 Dhū al-Ḥijjah; Sūrah al-Māʾidah 5:3 revealed, completing the religion |
| 63 | 632 | 11 AH | Illness begins in Ṣafar; Abū Bakr (RA) appointed to lead prayers; death on Monday, 12 Rabīʿ al-Awwal 11 AH (8 June 632 CE); buried in ʿĀʾishah's (RA) chamber, now part of al-Masjid al-Nabawī |
Muḥammad ﷺ was born into the clan of Banū Hāshim of the Quraysh in Makkah in the "Year of the Elephant", named for Abrahah's failed expedition against the Kaʿbah that year — an event referenced in Sūrah al-Fīl. His father ʿAbdullāh had died before his birth; his mother Āminah died when he was six. He was raised first by his grandfather ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib, chief of the Quraysh, and after his death at Muḥammad's age eight, by his uncle Abū Ṭālib.
As a boy he worked as a shepherd, and at twelve accompanied Abū Ṭālib's trade caravan to Syria, where the Christian monk Baḥīrā is reported to have recognised signs of prophethood in him. In young adulthood he took part in the Ḥarb al-Fijār and, more significantly, the Ḥilf al-Fuḍūl — a pact among Makkan clans to defend the wronged and oppressed, which he later praised even after Prophethood. He conducted trade on behalf of the wealthy widow Khadījah bint Khuwaylid, whose honesty and success impressed her enough to propose marriage; they married when he was twenty-five and she forty, and it remained a monogamous marriage of twenty-five years until her death. By the time the Kaʿbah was rebuilt when he was thirty-five, he was already known across Makkah as al-Amīn (the Trustworthy) and al-Ṣādiq (the Truthful) — titles his own enemies never revoked even after rejecting his message — and it was this reputation for honesty that let him resolve the dispute over placing the Black Stone by wrapping it in a cloth held jointly by the clan chiefs.
In the years before revelation he increasingly withdrew to the Cave of Ḥirāʾ on Jabal al-Nūr for solitary reflection — the taḥannuth — a practice that culminated, at age forty, in the first revelation.
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Qur'anic Evidence — the first revelation:
اقْرَأْ بِاسْمِ رَبِّكَ الَّذِي خَلَقَ ﴿١﴾ خَلَقَ الْإِنسَانَ مِنْ عَلَقٍ ﴿٢﴾ اقْرَأْ وَرَبُّكَ الْأَكْرَمُ ﴿٣﴾ الَّذِي عَلَّمَ بِالْقَلَمِ ﴿٤﴾ عَلَّمَ الْإِنسَانَ مَا لَمْ يَعْلَمْ ﴿٥﴾
"Read, in the name of your Lord who created — created man from a clinging substance. Read, and your Lord is the most Generous — Who taught by the pen — taught man that which he knew not." — Sūrah al-ʿAlaq 96:1–5, revealed via Jibrāʾīl (AS) in the Cave of Ḥirāʾ. Khadījah (RA) took him to her cousin Waraqah ibn Nawfal, a Christian scholar, who confirmed this was the same revelation given to Mūsā (AS).
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After a brief pause (Fatrah), revelation resumed and preaching began privately for about three years among family and close friends — Khadījah (the first to believe), ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib (first among the young), Abū Bakr (first among free men), and Zayd ibn Ḥārithah (first among former slaves) were the earliest converts. Public preaching (Daʿwat-e-ʿĀmm) then began, commanded by Sūrah al-Shuʿarāʾ 26:214 ("And warn your closest kindred"), starting with the gathering at Mount Ṣafā.
Open persecution followed: economic pressure, social boycott, and outright torture — Bilāl al-Ḥabashī, and the family of Yāsir, whose wife Sumayyah bint Khayyāṭ became Islam's first martyr. To protect the weakest converts, the Prophet ﷺ sent a group to Abyssinia in 615 CE under Jaʿfar ibn Abī Ṭālib, where the Christian king al-Najāshī (the Negus) refused Quraysh demands to hand them back. From roughly 616–619 CE, the Quraysh imposed a total social and economic boycott on the Prophet's own clan, Banū Hāshim, confining them to the Shiʿb Abī Ṭālib.
619 CE brought the "Year of Sorrow" (ʿĀm al-Ḥuzn) — the deaths, within weeks of each other, of Khadījah (RA) and Abū Ṭālib, the two people who had shielded him most. Seeking new support, he travelled to Ṭāʾif and was rejected and stoned by its people and children. Shortly after came al-Isrāʾ wal-Miʿrāj — the Night Journey from Makkah to Jerusalem and the Ascension through the heavens, during which the five daily prayers were prescribed. In the two Pledges of ʿAqabah (621 and 622 CE), delegations from Yathrib (Madīnah) accepted Islam and invited him to migrate, setting up the Hijrah.
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Hadith Evidence — patience under persecution:
لَقَدْ أُوذِيتُ فِي اللَّهِ وَمَا يُؤْذَى أَحَدٌ، وَأُخِفْتُ فِي اللَّهِ وَمَا يُخَافُ أَحَدٌ — "I have been hurt in the way of Allah as no one else has been hurt, and I have been frightened in the way of Allah as no one else has been frightened." — Sunan al-Tirmidhī 2472, showing the personal cost of the Makkan period before it is even discussed thematically.
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The Hijrah in 622 CE (1 AH) was not a flight but a state-founding act: the journey via the cave of Thawr with Abū Bakr (RA), arrival first at Qubāʾ then Madīnah, the building of the Prophet's Mosque as the first communal and administrative centre, the Muʾākhāt pairing every Muhājir with an Anṣārī, and the Constitution of Madīnah — often cited as history's first written constitution — which bound Muslims, Jews, and other Madinan clans into one political community.
The following decade was defined by a sequence of battles and treaties that moved the Muslim community from vulnerability to regional authority: the decisive victory at Badr (2 AH/624 CE) against a much larger Makkan force; the setback at Uḥud (3 AH/625 CE) when archers abandoned their post; the successful defence at the Trench (5 AH/627 CE) using a fortification tactic new to Arabia; and the Treaty of Ḥudaybiyah (6 AH/628 CE), a truce that looked like a concession but which the Qur'an itself calls a "clear victory" (fatḥan mubīnā, Sūrah al-Fatḥ 48:1), because it let Islam spread through preaching rather than warfare and produced more converts in two years than the previous nineteen. In this same period he sent letters to the Byzantine Emperor Heraclius, the Persian Emperor Khusraw, the Negus of Abyssinia, and other regional rulers, inviting them formally to Islam. Khaybar fell in 7 AH/628–629 CE, removing the last organised Jewish military threat in the Ḥijāz, and Muʾtah in 8 AH/629 CE was fought against Byzantine-aligned forces, with three commanders martyred in succession before Khālid ibn al-Walīd extracted the army.
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Qur'anic Evidence — the Hijrah and Badr:
إِلَّا تَنصُرُوهُ فَقَدْ نَصَرَهُ اللَّهُ إِذْ أَخْرَجَهُ الَّذِينَ كَفَرُوا ثَانِيَ اثْنَيْنِ إِذْ هُمَا فِي الْغَارِ إِذْ يَقُولُ لِصَاحِبِهِ لَا تَحْزَنْ إِنَّ اللَّهَ مَعَنَا
"If you do not aid him — Allah has already aided him when those who disbelieved had driven him out, as one of two, when they were in the cave and he said to his companion, 'Do not grieve; indeed Allah is with us.'" — Sūrah al-Tawbah 9:40, referring directly to Abū Bakr (RA) and the Prophet ﷺ in the cave of Thawr.
وَلَقَدْ نَصَرَكُمُ اللَّهُ بِبَدْرٍ وَأَنتُمْ أَذِلَّةٌ — "And already had Allah given you victory at Badr when you were few in number." — Sūrah Āl ʿImrān 3:123
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