The basic creed of the more than a billion Muslims in the world is La ilaha illa Allah . . . Muhammad rasul Allah. This translates to "There is no god but Allah and Muhammad is the messenger of Allah" (Marston 7). Because Muhammad lived recently, compared to the founders of the other major religions, quite a bit is known about his life.
             Historians cannot figure out the exact date of Muhammad's birth, but the common consensus puts it around 570 AD (Phipps 34). His death, on the other hand, is well known to have occurred in 632 AD (Cook 14).
             Muhammad's father died shortly before his birth, so Muhammad's mother took him to live with husband's father (Marston 12). Muhammad's name means 'worthy of praise' or 'often praised' and was an unfamiliar name in Arabia (Salahi 23). He lived on the Arabian Peninsula, near the Red Sea (Martson 7). He was from the Quraysh. The Quraysh are an Arab tribe said to descend from a nobleman, Fihr ibn Malik, who lived eleven generations before Muhammad (Cook 12).
             As was common for young children, Muhammad was sent to live with a bedouin, or nomad, woman named Halima (Martson 14). Halima was from one of the poorest tribes, she had no milk for her own child and even her camels' were dried up. But when she took in Muhammad both her and her camels began to produce milk (Martson 14). It is also said that one day when Muhammad and one of Halima's children were playing out side, Halima's boy came running up to his mother in terror. Halima went and found Muhammad lying on the ground. And when he came to, he told them that two men in white had taken his heart from his body, washed it clean in a bowl of snow, and replaced it in his body, purified. Then, blessing him, the angelic creatures told him of his future greatness, and then they vanished (Martson 15).
             Shortly after returning to Mecca Muhammad's mother died and then ...