In the year 2060, the followers of Islam are expected to expand to nearly 3 billion, making it the dominant religion of the world. Islam currently has about 1.7 billion followers, the second largest religion in the world. Although Muslims can live anywhere, the religion is most popular in the Asia Pacific region. The people who follow Islam are called Muslims, meaning “persons who submit” in Arabic. Muslim teachings are similar to Christian and Jewish teachings in many ways. Christians, Jews and Muslims all believe they are the descendants of Abraham’s exiled son, Ishmael.
When Muhammad was born around the year 570 AD, his family was not as wealthy as they had been in the past. Not only did Muhammad have money issues among his family, he was also an orphan. After the age of seven,
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However, moving to a new place helped Muhammad greatly. The Islamic army became so large that tribes in the area began to see Islam as a threat. One tribe, the Quraysh, was the tribe that took action. The tribe set out to destroy the Muslims. The Quraysh were confident in themselves because the Muslims were greatly outnumbered. Although Muhammad had just 300 followers at the time, they managed to put up a great fight against the Quraysh. People nearby saw the success when the Quraysh were defeated and believed God was on the side of the Muslims. Muhammads army grew to 10,000 strong. Next on the great expansion of the Muslims came the conquering of Mecca. At the time, when new lands were conquered, the people who remained in the conquered city were killed or taken into slavery. This was not the case when Muhammad conquered Mecca. Instead, Muhammad did not kill any of the innocent people, he and his remaining army marched to the Kaaba and destroyed the idols inside. The Kaaba was now the new direction of prayer for Muslims, previously