Under Prophet Muhammad's prophethood for 22 years between 610 - 632 CE, he was famous for his astounding charisma as a religious, economic, military and political leader that enabled Islam to spread vastly. Within these years, Prophet Muhammad's prophethood could be divided up into two periods of which they are the Meccan Period and the Medinan Period. Prophet Muhammad's role as the leader of the Muslim community between these two periods contrasted greatly, whereby in the Meccan Period, Muhammad was not as prominent a leader as he was during the Medinan Period; and these progressions of roles between the periods are attributed to four aspects, which are political, religious, military and economics.
The first three years when Prophet Muhammad received his first revelation from God at Mount Hira in 610 CE, he only expounded these Godly messages secretly to close friends and family (Denny, 73). Muhammad was not the outstanding Islamic leader as we know him today during these years, as he had a modest conception of his role. In 613 CE, after Muhammad began to embark on the journey of delivering the message to the other Arabs in Mecca, he had no universal mission, and no notion of having any political function (Denny, 73). He was just "The Warner", cautioning others of the coming judgment and the necessities of doing good works (Denny, 73). On the religious context, Muhammad did manage to build up a small group of fervent believers and establish a form of religious ritual of salat each morning and evening; although Muhammad was not able to set up a proper and well-established Islamic and religious institution during the Meccan Period due to the boycott of the Hashim clan by the Quraysh tribe (Denny, 73-74). This conflict between the Meccans and the Muslims was further addressed after the death of Muhammad's uncle and protector, Abu Talib (Denny, 73). All these lack of support and Muhammad's own emergent qualities as a leader, are the most probably cause of the modest role that Muhammad has achieved as the leader of the Muslim community during the Meccan Period.
