The leading order hadronic contribution to the muon magnetic moment anomaly, $a^{HAD}_mu$, is determined entirely in the framework of QCD. The result in the light-quark sector, in units of $10^{-10}$, is $a^{HAD}_mu|_{uds} =686 pm 26$, and in the heavy-quark sector $a^{HAD}_mu|_{c} =14.4 pm 0.1$, and $a^{HAD}_mu|_{b} =0.29 pm 0.01$, resulting in $a^{HAD}_mu = 701 pm 26$. The main uncertainty is due to the current lattice QCD value of the first and second derivative of the electromagnetic current correlator at the origin. Expected improvement in the precision of these derivatives may render this approach the most accurate and trustworthy determination of the leading order $a^{HAD}_mu$.