Muhammad, the founder of Islam, was a member of the Quraish tribe, which controlled the Kaaba in Mecca. Before receiving the revelations that led to the founding of Islam, the predominant religion in Arabia was polytheism. According to Muslim tradition, Muhammad himself was a Hanif, which is defined as a native pre-Islamic Arab who professed a rigid monotheism, although the historicity of this is disputed among scholars
. Muhammad was born in approximately 570 CE in Mecca and spent his entire life in what is now the country of Saudi Arabia, where he eventually became the proclaimer of the Qurʾān, Islam's sacred scripture
