LogFAQs > #968348610

If I remember my history correct...
Muhammad had a dream with an angel talking to him. He waited for the angel to return, but he never did. His family believed him and were the first muslims.
Time went on without any angels so he started to be depressed, until he dreamed about one years later. After that, he started to spread the word of God and started to get some followers. His hometown, Mecca, had no problems with it. It was run by merchants that sold stuff for pagan parties. After a while they discovered that that new religion didnt have any expensive parties, so they decided to kick out him and his followers.
They went to a Jewish village where they were welcome. Back then, it was pretty close to Judaism, it pretty much only had more prayers. He added stuff from both Judaism and Christianity, but he was pretty good at misunderstanding the things he added. Like believing that Jesus mother was sister to Noah. Or how the Last Supper was about Jesus & CO being hungry so God gave them a table full of food. The Jews laughed behind his back, and children laughed him directly in his face when he tried to teach them about his religion in school. This made him angry, and he created a verse as a "take that" that said something about reading the holy book before laughing at others.
His followers grew bigger and he decided that they should kill all the Jews in the city. After that, he and his followers walked from city to city, killing everybody in them and take them over.
Outside one wellguarded city, he decided to destroy the palms outside the city walls. This made his army angry, because it was an unwritten law to not attack any foodsource in the desert. They would have killed him if he hadnt convinced them that God had told him that it was alright in this case. They decided to attack Mecca, and sent in a rich merchant kid that demanded them access to Mecca so they could pray, or else it would be war.
The kid didnt return, so he started to fire up his men, and just when they were about to run out and attack, the kid returned. He said that it was too short of a notice to allow them in this year, but they would allow them in next year if they promised 20 years of peace. Muhammed accepted it, which made his men sad because they wanted to fight.
They returned home. After some months he decided to attack Mecca because screw peace, and he took it over.

As for why they followed him... the old pagan religions were getting bored and people were looking for a new religion. He appeared at the right time and the right place, and he was good at convincing people that God had told him what they should do.