How did Muhammad's work as a merchant expose him to other religions?

Muhammad's hegira from Mecca marks the beginning of a new polity. For the first time in Arabia members of a community were bound together not by the traditional ties of clan and tribe but by their shared belief in the one true God. Later believers, looking back on this event, recognized its seminal importance by designating it as the first year of their new era. In further recognition of this great event, the oasis of Yathrib came to be called Medina, "the city [of the Prophet]."

the social contract theory