clan of the Quraysh tribe and, as conditions deteriorated in Mecca, Muhammad eventually moved to Medina, where he and his followers established the first true Islamic ummah.
Before Muhammad began revealing the truths given to him in revelations from Allah, the Arab community was a fragmented and fractured community in which many gods were worshipped and in which no prophet and no scripture could be found (Armstrong, 3). Throughout Arabia, tribes fought each other in a murderous cycle of vendetta and counter-vendetta. Authority was vested in tribal leaders and in clans within specific tribes such as the Quraysh. Allegiance was owed not to God per se, but rather to the tribe and the clan. This was the situation i
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