Movements advocating social or political action in the name of religion or ideology are often founded by charismatic individuals. Where the movement survives, and the founder's charisma is gradually appropriated by institutional structures (or ‘routinised’), claims about the memory of his or her example become crucial to the legitimation of those same institutions. The Qur’an and other seventh-century sources suggest that Muhammad's authority had depended above all upon his claim to direct access to God, that is, to ‘prophecy’ (nubuwwa) and to being a ‘messenger’ (rasūl). Such direct divine inspiration was always perceived as threatening by established religious authorities and so most (but not all) prophets in the late antique Roman and Sasanian world before Muhammad had come to be remembered merely as ‘false prophets’ or ‘heretics’. However, Muhammad's prophetic authority was perpetuated by members of the community of the Faithful who not only survived him but prospered. As a result, his legacy became the focus of intense political competition.

One consequence of Muhammad's prophetic authority was the importance of close association with him as the basis for a claim to lead the Faithful. Muhammad's first four successors are all said to have joined him in the 610s, before the emigration to Yathrib/Medina, and they were all related to him by marriage – the first two as fathers-in-law, and their successors as sons-in-law. However, there is no evidence for prophecy being attributed to any of them in the same way that it had been for Muhammad. This suggests that some aspects of the process of ‘routinising’ Muhammad's prophetic authority were widely accepted by the first leaders of the Faithful. God did not speak directly to leaders after Muhammad, but they did retain authority as military commanders, as judges of disputes and as moral exemplars. This ‘routinisation’ was probably bound up with the Meccans’ determination to retain control of Muhammad's movement after his death – prophecy is an inherently destabilising force.

Besides the legacy of the charismatic authority of Muhammad himself, three further features of the early political history of his movement stand out. The first is the dynamic of military and political expansion upon which the unity of the wider federation depended. The second and third points are noted above: the political power of the Meccan relatives of Muhammad – the Quraysh – was dominant from the outset and Muhammad's legacy was politically central.