How did Islam get started?
Mecca is a small city in the country of Yemen on the western side of the Arabian Peninsula. Before Muhammed was born the Arabs of the desert had built there an eclectic temple called the Kabaa, which grew up around a meteorite which they held in great reverence. In this temple they placed all of their varying idols. In AD 570, a while after the collapse of the Western Roman Empire, Muhammed was born at Mecca. Growing up he worked as a camel-driver accompanying the merchant caravans, whence he learned about the religions of the Jews and Christians who inhabited the formerly Roman lands of Northern Africa and Syria. When he turned 25 he married a rich widow and used her money to propagate his Islam. Islam was a concoction of Catholicism with those old desert superstitions and the more elevated beliefs of the Persians and Jews. Muhammed gathered about him some questionable followers, and together they turned commotion into religious persecution, which forced them to flee north to the city
