Abstract
The Muslim calendar begins in the year A.D. 622, when Muhammad fled from his hometown of Mecca, on the west coast of the Arabian peninsula, to Medina, a city about 200 miles to the north. The doctrines of one God, called in Arabic Allāh = The God, which he announced had been revealed to him by the angel Gabriel, had created considerable dissension in Mecca. This was because Mecca was at that time a thriving center of pilgrimage whose chief attraction was a shrine called the Ka‘ba, dedicated to the worship of many gods. Eight years later Muhammad returned in triumph to Mecca, an event which marked the beginning of the spread of the religion of Islam, based on the idea of submission to the will of God, which is the meaning of the Arabic word Islām.
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Bibliography
The following texts are basic references, which are useful for further reading on any of the topics in this book
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Berggren, J.L. (1986). Introduction. In: Episodes in the Mathematics of Medieval Islam. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4612-4608-4_1
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