Q 01/05

Muhammad's birth year is named for which animal, recalling Abraha's failed march on Mecca?

A) Elephant

B) Camel

C) Antelope

D) Horse

Answer · why

A) Elephant

The Year of the Elephant, roughly 570 CE, is named for the war elephants Abraha brought to demolish the Kaaba, an army that tradition says was routed ...

Q 02/05

In which cave above Mecca, on the 'Mountain of Light', did Muhammad receive the first revelation?

A) Safa

B) Marwa

C) Hira

D) Mina

Answer · why

C) Hira

Hira is a chamber only about 3.7 m long and 1.6 m wide, 270 m up the mountainside, where Muhammad had withdrawn to meditate when the angel brought the...

Q 03/05

Which angel, said in hadith to have six hundred wings, brought Muhammad the Quran's revelations?

A) Michael

B) Gabriel

C) Israfil

D) Azrael

Answer · why

B) Gabriel

Gabriel, Jibril in Arabic, is also believed by Muslims to have announced the births of John the Baptist and Jesus, so the same angel spans the Gospels...

Q 04/05

Which merchant paid Muhammad double her usual commission for a trade trip, then proposed marriage?

A) Sawda

B) Khadijah

C) Maymunah

D) Zaynab

Answer · why

B) Khadijah

Khadijah became the first person to accept Islam, and the marriage lasted around 24 years until her death in 619.

Q 05/05

Which year saw Muhammad's migration from Mecca to Medina, the event that opens the Islamic calendar?

A) 622

B) 632

C) 640

D) 651

Answer · why

A) 622

622 became year one only later: the second caliph fixed the Hijra as the calendar's starting point around 638, some sixteen years after the journey it...