In 622 CE Muhammad and his followers migrated from Mecca to the oasis settlement of Yathrib, thereafter known as Medina, the 'city of the Prophet'. There he established a political and religious community governed by an agreement, often called the Constitution of Medina, that bound together migrants, locals and other groups. The year of the migration became the start of the Islamic lunar calendar. From this base Islam spread rapidly across Arabia and beyond.
It founded the first Islamic polity as an explicitly urban community and set in motion the conquests and city-founding that would shape the form of cities across the Middle East, North Africa and Spain.
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