Muhammad's public mission began in Mecca in the early seventh century. Islamic tradition dates the first revelations to around 610 and identifies them as messages from God conveyed through Gabriel. He preached divine unity, moral accountability, generosity, and care for vulnerable people. The Quran is the earliest central source for his teaching, while detailed biographical narratives and hadith were transmitted and compiled later. Their religious significance does not remove the need to distinguish differing kinds of historical evidence.

Opposition in Mecca and support from people at Yathrib led to the migration of Muhammad and his followers in 622. The city became known as Medina, and the Hijra supplied the starting point for the Islamic calendar. There he organized a community with religious, legal, and political responsibilities. Agreements associated with the Constitution of Medina addressed relations among groups, although the document's formation and interpretation are debated. His authority developed through teaching, arbitration, alliances, and military action rather than preaching alone.

Conflict with Meccan opponents included the battles conventionally known as Badr, Uhud, and the Trench. Relations with Jewish groups in Medina also deteriorated, leading in transmitted accounts to expulsions and severe punishment; details and assessments differ among sources. The agreement at Hudaybiyya in 628 created a period of accommodation that facilitated the community's expansion. Muhammad and his followers took control of Mecca in 630, and Islamic tradition describes the removal of idols from the sanctuary. Wider alliances and submissions then extended his influence across parts of Arabia.

He undertook the pilgrimage associated with his final teachings in 632 and died in Medina that year. His career established the religious community and practices from which Islam developed, linking revelation as understood by believers with the organization of a new political order. A historical account should neither present every later narrative as independently verified nor reduce his significance to military expansion. The Quran, early community, and remembered example became foundations for law, worship, and ethics through subsequent interpretation. His enduring influence therefore includes both the events of his lifetime and a later body of scholarship and tradition that gave those events continuing authority.