Muhammad

About Muhammad

Muhammad, who lived from 570 to 632 CE, is ranked by MIT's Pantheon project as the single most historically important figure globally, holding the #1 spot out of approximately 15,000 assessed individuals. His seminal contribution was the founding and unification of the Islamic faith and community, which rapidly expanded to shape the course of world history, culture, and politics across centuries and continents.

In terms of modern internet attention, Muhammad receives 4.4 million annualized Wikipedia views in 2025. This level of attention places him in a striking relationship with other highly ranked religious figures; for instance, Pope Francis (#8 importance) garners 16.7M views, and Pope Leo XIV (#127 importance) receives 17.6M views, demonstrating a significant divergence between the foundational historical significance attributed by the HPI and contemporary online engagement from the religious category.

While his overall attention is high in absolute terms, the data suggests a slight erosion of interest, as his view count dropped by 10.0% year-over-year, and his short-term momentum between Q1 and Q3 of 2025 was negative by 8%, suggesting a modest but measurable attention gap relative to his peerless historical rank.