how did islam spread through military conquest
The Spread of Islam | Encyclopedia.com Arab Muslim forces conquered vast territories and built imperial structures over time. Sayyid Ajjal Shams al-Din Omar, a court official and general of Turkic origin who participated in the Mongol invasion of Southwest China, became Yuan Governor of Yunnan in 1274. Why Did Islam Spread So Quickly - 877 Words | 123 Help Me Hi Evan, thanks for the question! Image credit: During the Rashidun caliphates, Arab Muslim forces expanded outward beyond the Arabian peninsula and into the territories of the neighboring Byzantine and Sasanian Empires. The 1980s and 90s, with several major conflicts in the Middle East, including the ArabIsraeli conflict, Afghanistan in the 1980s and 2001, and the three Gulf Wars (198088, 199091, 20032011) were catalysts of a growing internationalization of local conflicts. Direct link to David Alexander's post You make a good point and, Posted a year ago. Image credit: Before the Umayyads, Islamic rule was non-centralized. Indeed, it was the later Persian Safavid and Turkish Ottoman empires, neither of which was Arab, out of which the modern Islamic world was carved. He isn't supposed to be worshipped in any way, so covering Muhammad's features really prevents action of putting any kind of physical image behind him. From and ethnic point of view, there also seems to be a The Watcher's ans, Posted 5 years ago. [80] One by one, the Balkan nationalities asserted their independence from the Empire, and frequently the presence of members of the same ethnicity who had converted to Islam presented a problem from the point of view of the now dominant new national ideology, which narrowly defined the nation as members of the local dominant Orthodox Christian denomination. Image credit: Eventually, multiple small states emerged where the Abbasids once ruled exclusively. this actually becomes a contentious issue that we'll talk about in other videos. [4] These trends are the conversions from the state religion that had already plagued the Zoroastrian authorities that continued after the Arab conquest, coupled with the migration of Arab tribes into the region during an extended period of time that stretched well into the Abbasid reign. [39] (Other sources question how much the native population welcomed the conquering Muslims.)[40]. Is it? they have expelled you, "and persecution is worse than killing. This was the start of a distinctly Spanish Muslim society, where large Christian and Jewish populations coexisted with an increasing percentage of Muslims. [82], A panorama in 12 folds showing a fabulous Eid ul-Fitr procession by, Rashidun Caliphs and Umayyads (610750 CE), Conversion within the empire: Umayyad vs. Abbasid period, Conversion within the empire: "Conversion curve", Emergence of Seljuks and Ottomans (9501450), Flags of the Sultanates in the East Indies, The preaching of Islam: a history of the propagation of the Muslim faith By Sir Thomas Walker Arnold, pp.125-126, Gibbon, ci, ed. Another driving force for the change of the ruling class in the region was the concept among the increasing Muslim communities of the region when ruling dynasties to attempt to forge such ties of kinship by marriage. Through commerce, Islam spread amongst the Somali population in the coastal cities. Considerable controversy exists as to how conversion to Islam came about in the Indian subcontinent. During the seventh century, after subduing rebellions in the Arabian peninsula, Arab Muslim armies began to swiftly conquer territory in the neighboring Byzantine and Sasanian empires and beyond. excerpts is this one. Fortunately the community immediately chose the Prophet's close companion and father-in-Law Abu Bakr, as his successor. Muhammad died in Medina (after his pilgrimage in Mecca on March, 632) by a brief illness on June 8, 632. Like all other empires, the first Arab Muslim empires were built within the context of the political realities of their neighboring societies. [79] The Naqshbandis are the most prominent of these orders, especially in Kashgaria, where the western Chagatai Khan was also a disciple of the order.[79]. Early Muslim conquests - Wikipedia In other places, religious needs are met by other religions. according to Islamic tradition, built on the traditions interesting is to think about how and why it was able The Muslim community spread through the Middle East through conquest, and the resulting growth of the Muslim state provided the ground in which the recently revealed faith could take root and flourish. After the death of Muhammad in 632 CE, the young Muslim federation came under strain. If there's a Muslim ruling class, and if you want to be associated of the disbelievers. the end of that at 750 CE, you see Islam has now spread or conquered from modern-day Spain and Portugal, all the way to modern-day Does anyone know what was the connection between religion and trade in Afro-Eurasia between the 13th and 16th centuries ?? At the outset, they were hostile to conversions because new Muslims diluted the economic and status advantages of the Arabs. If you lived in the Islamic empire, and were not Muslim, what did you have to do? As is well known, the Arabs made no attempt to impose their faith on their new subjects, and at first in fact discouraged conversions on the part of non-Arabs. In the 20th century, Islam grew in Africa both by birth and by conversion. were given the choice "of conversion or death." From there, Islam spread to modern-day Malaysia and Indonesia. Most conquests happened during the reign of the second caliph, Umar, who held power from 634 to 644. Some Ismaili missionaries traveled to India and employed effort to make their religion acceptable to the Hindus. "In some cases, the diffusion of Islam "depended on its adoption Hugh Kennedy, The Armies of the Caliphs: Military and Society in the Early Islamic State, 2001. Within a few years the Muslims had also conquered parts of Egypt to the South and Anatolia and Armenia to the North. He changes his name to reflect his new religion. "And kill them wherever you overtake them "and expel them from wherever from a religious point of view, you can look at some of the By the year 1000 it is believed that nearly eighty percent of the population in the Dar-al-Islam (Islamic territory) had converted to faith in Allah as it had been revealed to the Prophet Muhammad in the seventh century and handed down through succeeding generations by way of the holy Koran (Qur'an). Tariq ibn Ziyad was a Muslim general who led the Islamic conquest of Visigothic Hispania in 711-718 A.D. [26] Both periods were also marked by significant migrations of Arab tribes outwards from the Arabian Peninsula into the new territories.[27]. Torah, written in Hebrew, is that the translation itself can also give you various nuance. "[21], Only in subsequent centuries, with the development of the religious doctrine of Islam and with that the understanding of the Muslim ummah, would mass conversion take place. [45] At times, Muslim leaders in their effort to win converts encouraged attendance at Muslim prayer with promises of money and allowed the Quran to be recited in Persian instead of Arabic so that it would be intelligible to all. Indeed, it was the later Persian Safavid and Turkish Ottoman empires, neither of which was Arab, out of which the modern Islamic world was carved. taking territory from them. happen at the sacred mosque. 205. [27] That theory does not explain the continuing existence of large minorities of Christians during the Abbasids. which is now dynastic, the Umayyad Caliphate, by The Islamic conquests, which culminated in the Arab empire being established across three continents (Asia, Africa, and Europe), enriched the Muslim world, achieving the economic preconditions for the emergence of this institution owing to the emphasis attached to Islamic teachings. interested in conversion. Even though Muslims recognize a global affiliation, the real heart of Muslim religious life remains outside politicsin local associations for worship, discussion, mutual aid, education, charity, and other communal activities. about in most cases worldly and spiritual motives for property contract rights, but different political rights. The Arab merchants and traders became the carriers of the new religion and they propagated it wherever they went. Not having a shared religion spawns disagreement. "Such is the recompense [21], The caliphs of the Arab dynasty established the empire's first school, which taught the Arabic language and Islamic studies. "In others, it appealed to Quora - A place to share knowledge and better understand the world Direct link to Jazlynn Valles 's post at 0:13 how did Mohammed , Posted 2 years ago. Under the Rashidun caliphs and the Ummayad Caliphate until about 750, it makes sense to think about it in terms of a more unified Islamic empire. The Mongols destroyed the caliphate and persecuted Islam, replacing it with Buddhism as the official state religion. The Rashidun can be credited for military expansion, but did Islam truly spread through their conquests? The initial conversions were of a flexible nature. Palestine once again became a battleground as the various enemies of the Fatimids counterattacked. A map depicting the extent of the Umayyad caliphate in 750 CE, which extended from Spain in the west to northern India in the East and covered northern Africa, southern Europe, Anatolia, and the Arabian Peninsula. Dome of the Clocks, Umayyad Mosque, Damascus, Syria. This does not necessarily imply political or social organizations: Global Muslim identity does not necessarily or even usually imply organized group action. Kurdish leaders, like. [45] At other times, converts were won in conjunction with the propagation efforts of rulers. A caliph such as Umar seems to have regarded himself, first and foremost, as the leader of the Arabs, and their monotheistic creed as the religious component of their new political identity. Moreover, conversion to Islam did not necessarily imply a complete turning from an old to a totally new life. - [Instructor] Other the Chinese, and the Hindus, and getting scholars Muslim Heritage - were Muslim rulers to blame for the decline? Direct link to Zob Rombie's post In the image of Muhammad , Posted 4 years ago. In the initial invasion, the victorious Muslims granted religious freedom to the Christian community in Alexandria, and the Alexandrians quickly recalled their exiled Monophysite patriarch to rule over them, subject only to the ultimate political authority of the conquerors. Many different groups ruled areas previously held by the Abbasids. The caliphs of Damascus (661-750) were tolerant princes who were on generally good terms with their Christian subjects. For example, Islam initially spread through the military conquests of Arab Muslims, which happened over a very short period of time soon after the beginning of Islam. Muslims controlled parts of the western silk road and were influential on trans-Saharan trade routes. Jihad and War in Islam and Christianity [71], In the mid 7th century AD, following the Muslim conquest of Persia, Islam penetrated into areas that would later become part of European Russia. From the 9th century onwards, the Turks (at least individually, if not yet through adoption by their states) began to convert to Islam. A long period of instability and dissatisfaction had left them ambivalent toward their previous rulers. Caliphate | History, Empire, Meaning, & Definition | Britannica conversion blended together, he's referring to these ideas that maybe for some people it just appealed to them. As a result, vast areas of the Balkans remained mostly Christian during the period of Ottoman domination. There are many accounts from the period about the early Muslim conquests, but much of the material is unreliable and written to present things in a way that glorified the victors and their God As explanations for the great events of the seventh century these are at best partial. That might have meant controlling more land, but it was about power. It is believed that Islam first arrived in these South-eastern regions by the 7th century. So according to Ira Lapidus, [19] The earlier period also saw the acceleration in the rate of conversions in the Muslim heartland, and in the wake of the conquests, the newly-conquered regions retained significant non-Muslim populations. The first Indian mosque is thought to have been built in 629CE, purportedly at the behest of an unknown Chera dynasty ruler, during the lifetime of Muhammad (c.571632) in Kodungallur, in district of Thrissur, Kerala by Malik Bin Deenar. On this timeline here, the Ottoman Connections to the Malay World: Islam, Law and Society, Kuala Lumpur: The Other Press, 2011 (, This page was last edited on 21 April 2023, at 00:45. have Muslim conquest of India included Hindus and Buddists as well, and it also included Zoroastrians, who the early Muslims at the sacred mosque "until they fight you there. Conversion was a combination, initially by violence, threat or other pressure against the person. They would say, look, this and unto my religion." The result, he points out, can be seen in the diversity of Muslim societies today, with varying manifestations and practices of Islam. Following the decisive Battle of Yarmouk in 636, the former Byzantine states of Syria, Palestine, and Lebanon were conquered by the Muslim armies. Main articles: Arab-Byzantine Wars, Byzantine-Seljuq wars, Byzantine-Ottoman Wars. Ismailis were instructed to speak potential converts in their own language. A kebatinan talisman, which is meant to increase spiritual power. Direct link to hamidkastir's post Well, the four caliphs co, Posted 2 months ago. According to Thomas Walker Arnold, for the Persian, he would meet Ahura Mazda and Ahriman under the names of Allah and Iblis. are destroyed or killed, or God might command his To log in and use all the features of Khan Academy, please enable JavaScript in your browser. He did not beget and is not begot- IV.[58]. Poorer Muslims (Moriscos) who could not afford to leave ended up converting to Catholic Christianity and hiding their Muslim practices, hiding from the Spanish Inquisition, until their presence was finally extinguished. The Muslim ruling class definitely had better political rights. The early Muslim conquests or early Islamic conquests ( Arabic: , romanized : al-Futt al-Islmiyya ), [4] also referred to as the Arab conquests, [5] were initiated in the 7th century by Muhammad, the main Islamic prophet. Then it spreads even more. As the descendants of Visigoths and Hispano-Romans concentrated in the north of the peninsula, in the kingdoms of Asturias/Leon, Navarre and Aragon and started a long campaign known as the 'Reconquista' which started with the victory of the Christian armies in Covadonga in 722. The man has a beard and wears a red garment on his head. In Balkan history, historical writing on the topic of conversion to Islam was, and still is, a highly charged political issue. Charlemagne - Military campaigns | Britannica or peaceful resistance, and the notion of a Gandhi Whether or not Islam provided the motivation for early Muslim imperialism, it could be used to provide justification for it - in the same way that it had previously been used to support Muhammad's own actions against his opponents. Following the brutal Mongol invasion of Central Asia under Hulagu Khan and after the Battle of Baghdad (1258), Mongol rule extended across the breadth of almost all Muslim lands in Asia. Extensive trade networks throughout North and West Africa created a medium through which Islam spread peacefully, initially through the merchant class. [26] Governors lodged complaints with the caliph when he enacted laws that made conversion easier since that deprived the provinces of revenues from the tax on non-Muslims. Direct link to Ricshawna Williams's post who did the first four ca, Posted 4 years ago. If you're seeing this message, it means we're having trouble loading external resources on our website. In fact, the Eastern Orthodox Churches had a higher position in the Ottoman Empire, mainly because the Patriarch resided in Istanbul and was an officer of the Ottoman Empire. advocating to kill other people, and fight those who are [69], Islam came to the Southeast Asia, first by the way of Muslim traders along the main trade-route between Asia and the Far East, then was further spread by Sufi orders and finally consolidated by the expansion of the territories of converted rulers and their communities. Or, is it simply saying that people within the given areas gradually began to accept Islam more and more? They are famous for inaugurating the Islamic golden age. A drawing of a group of people traveling on horseback in a straight line. Islam spread through military conquest, trade, pilgrimage, and missionaries. Direct link to Ameen Aldubaisi's post Through the trades with o, Posted 3 years ago. [53] Later, starting from the 9th century, the Samanids, whose roots stemmed from Zoroastrian theocratic nobility, propagated Sunni Islam and Islamo-Persian culture deep into the heart of Central Asia. Direct link to Brent Steele's post Were Muslims and Christia, Posted a month ago. Religious scholars, called, Posted 6 years ago. This process took place over several centuries. Instability in the Arabian peninsula saw further migrations of early Muslim families to the Somali seaboard. Because back in ancient times, the Arabian Peninsula was about as close to the middle of the world as possible. contacts among merchants "or through the preaching of missionaries. For instance, they represented Ali as the tenth avatar of Vishnu and wrote hymns as well as a mahdi purana in their effort to win converts. Spread of Islam | World Civilization - Lumen Learning Muslims of Central Asian origin played a major role in the Mongol conquest of China. These new political structures diminished Abbasid power. Sufism emerged early on in Islamic history, partly as a reaction against the worldliness of the early Umayyad Caliphate (661750) and mainly under the tutelage of Hasan Al-Basri. P. M. ( Peter Malcolm) Holt, Bernard Lewis. Without a doubt, military conquest was key in Islam's rapid spread. It was perhaps this political decentralization and destabilization that led to the spread of Islam beyond the massive Abbasid empires borders. Military conquest because a large amount of land was conquered by Islam military. Societal Islamization has historically occurred over the course of many centuries since the spread of Islam outside of the Arabian Peninsula through the early Muslim conquests, with notable shifts occurring in the Levant, Iran, North Africa, the Horn of Africa, West Africa,[15] Central Asia, South Asia (in Afghanistan, Maldives, Pakistan, and Bangladesh), Southeast Asia (in Malaysia, Brunei, and Indonesia), Southeastern Europe (in Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Kosovo, among others), Eastern Europe (in the Caucasus, Crimea, and the Volga), and Southern Europe (in Spain, Portugal, and Sicily prior to re-Christianizations). in different regions. Overview of the spread of Islam from the time of Muhammed to the Rashidun, Umayyad and Abbasid Caliphates. Having a shared religion means having a shared belief system and shared values, which facilitates trade. During the reign of Umar II, the then governor of Africa, Ismail ibn Abdullah, was said to have won the Berbers to Islam by his just administration, and other early notable missionaries include Abdallah ibn Yasin who started a movement which caused thousands of Berbers to accept Islam. Islam traveled through these regions in many ways. It also helped make the religion more likeable by others and made joining the religion easier. at do hint at these early caliphates weren't that Debates raged about the nature of Islamic leadership and religious authority. Over a period of a few hundred years, Islam spread from its place of origin in the Arabian Peninsula all the way to modern Spain in the west and northern India in the east. By the 16th century, most of the people of what are nowadays Iran and Azerbaijan had adopted the Shia branch of Islam through the conversion policies of the Safavids. Sometimes it was carried in great caravans or sea vessels traversing vast trade networks on land and sea, and other times it was transferred through military conquest and the work of missionaries. Arab Muslim forces conquered vast territories and built imperial structures over time. Direct link to Steve Schroeder's post Hi Evan, thanks for the q, Posted 2 years ago. Arab or Turkish conquerors." Men fought for their religion, the prospect of booty and because their friends and fellow tribesmen were also doing it. New cultural relationships resulted in the transfer of technology, science, and other cultural forms. This cultural exchange seems obvious to our modern sensibilities, but at the time, it was an entirely new way of thinking about the world. In 1499, the remaining Muslim inhabitants were ordered to convert or leave (at the same time the Jews were expelled). Muslim conquests following Muhammad's death led to the creation of the caliphates, occupying a vast geographical area; conversion to Islam was boosted by Arab Muslim forces conquering vast territories and building imperial structures over time. Direct link to Angel's post Im not 100% sure, however, Posted 6 years ago. Islam spread through military conquest, trade, pilgrimage, and missionaries. [19] For the subjects of the empire, formerly of the Byzantine and the Sasanian Empires, not much changed in practice. Crete was conquered during the 17th century, but the Ottomans lost Hungary to the Holy Roman Empire, and other parts of Eastern Europe, which ended with the Treaty of Carlowitz in 1699. aren't showing on this map, those happened later on But their opponents also had firm ideological commitments and there is no reason to assume that individuals were likely to be any less brave. Muslims now lived within an elaborated system of ritual, doctrine and law clearly different from those of non-Muslims. [19], Modern day Islamization appears to be a return of the individual to Muslim values, communities, and dress codes, and a strengthened community.[31]. They paid a special tax; they were not supposed to wear certain colors; they could not marry Muslim women;."[23]. As a rule, the Ottomans did not require followers of Greek Orthodoxy to become Muslims, although many did so in order to avert the socioeconomic hardships of Ottoman rule. "In the Indian Ocean and West Africa, "it spread by peaceful Throughout a few hundred years it was able to spread from the Arabian Peninsula all the way to Spain in the west and India in the east (The rise of Islamic empires and states, n.d.). Please consider upgrading your browser software or enabling style sheets (CSS) if you are able to do so. This was followed by the powerful Ghurids and Timurids who further expanded the culture of Islam and the Timurid Renaissance, reaching until Bengal. I know one of them is Muslim, but what's the other one? "In most cases, worldly You may have this backwards. [18], Within the century of the establishment of Islam upon the Arabian Peninsula and the subsequent rapid expansion during the early Muslim conquests, one of the most significant empires in world history was formed. The Berbers embraced Islam rapidly, but their process of Islamization, which is not well documented, took a long time. One of the tricky things passage or see nuance here says, look, this is about being persecuted and fighting persecution, The Arab Caliphate was pushed back by Charles Martel (Frankish Mayor of the Palace) at Poitiers, and Christian armies started pushing southwards over the mountains, until Charlemagne established in 801 the Spanish March (which stretched from Barcelona to present day Navarre). These early caliphates, coupled with Muslim economics and trading and the later expansion of the Ottoman Empire, resulted in Islam's spread outwards from Mecca towards both the Atlantic and Pacific oceans and the creation of the Muslim world. As Islamic ideas and cultures came into contact with new societies, they were expressed in unique ways and ultimately took on diverse forms. Learn about the Arab Muslim conquests and the establishment of the caliphate. After the death of Timur in 1405, power began to shift from migrating peoples to sedentary populations living in large centralized empires. The spread of Islam spans about 1,400 years. It is intrinsically linked to the issues of formation of national identities and rival territorial claims of the Balkan states. In 1212 the crucial Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa meant the recovery of the bulk of the peninsula for the Christian kingdoms. God those who fight you, "but transgress not the limits. However, the era that followed under the rule . Around the 7th and 8th centuries some states of Turkic peoples existed - like the Turkic Khazar Khaganate (see Khazar-Arab Wars) and the Turkic Turgesh Khaganate, which fought against the caliphate in order to stop Arabization and Islamization in Asia. The Ghurid Empire soon evolved into the Delhi Sultanate, ruled by Qutb ud-Din Aibak, the founder of the Mamluk dynasty. A depiction of a Mamluk training with a lance in the early 16th century. [2] Trade played an important role in the spread of Islam in some parts of the world, such as Indonesia. By the 10th century, the Kilwa Sultanate was founded by Ali ibn al-Hassan Shirazi (was one of seven sons of a ruler of Shiraz, Persia, his mother an Abyssinian slave girl. That is a similar form, method "But if they fight you, then kill them. from one conqueror to another, and oftentimes people are hopeful that the new conqueror might The victory of the Muslims over the Quraysh in the 7th century had a significant impact on local merchants and sailors, as their trading partners in Arabia had then all adopted Islam, and the major trading routes in the Mediterranean and the Red Sea came under the sway of the Muslim Caliphs. The military conquest was inspired by religion, but it was also motivated by greed and politics. Yet the Marwanids also depended heavily on the help of non-Arab administrative personnel and on administrative practices (e.g., a set of government bureaus). There is text in the Arabic script around the drawing. In the image of Muhammad and the Four Caliphs, I noticed that Muhammad isnt just wearing a veil, but his sleeves are covering his hands, his pant legs go over his shoe tops, and his attire seems to have a bit more volume. There's also worldly motives. notion of dhimmi status. The earliest forms of warfare by Muslims occurred after the migration of Muhammad and his small group of followers to Medina from Mecca and the conversion of several inhabitants of the city to Islam.At this time, Muslims had been persecuted and oppressed by the Meccans. Direct link to i 's post Women did contribute to I, Posted 2 years ago. was, in fact, rare, "Muslim conquerors But then when you eventually Arab traders used to visit the Malabar region, which was a link between them and the ports of South East Asia to trade even before Islam had been established in Arabia. But the Arab military adventures do not seem to have been intended as a religious war of conversion. military campaigns spread north of medina, west to europe and east towards asia. According to the British-Lebanese historian Albert Hourani, one of the reasons may be that, "Islam had become more clearly defined, and the line between Muslims and non-Muslims more sharply drawn. This is less than 30 years. Trade and the Spread of Islam in Africa | Essay | The Metropolitan But this next period, the Rashidun, or the Rightly Guided Kalifs, kalif means successors, A page from a manuscript on Islamic law from Spain, first half of the 11th century. Notably, an Arab hierarchy emerged, in which non-Arabs were accorded secondary status. The Arab Muslim conquerors were primed to take advantage of this; they were familiar with Byzantine and Sasanian military tactics, having served in both armies. You could find a situation in which people that had a shared religion benefitting form trade in the Indian Ocean Basin trade system, in which many merchants of small kingdoms got "muslim-ized" in order to better reap the benefits of muslim traders, since muslims would give better deals to muslims.