The Spread of Islam
After The Prophet's death in AD 632, the leadership of the Muslim communinity passed to his great friend and companion, Abu Bakr, the first of the four "rightly-guided" Caliphs (successor of the prophet). At the very moment in time, Islam was threatened with disintegration, but within a year, Abu Bakr was strong enough to attack the Persian Empire to the north-east and the Byzantine Empire in the north-west. In his History of the Arabs, Professor P.K Hitti observes:
"If someone in the first third of the seventh Christian century had the audacity to prophesy that within a decade some unheralded, unforeseen power from the hitherto barbarians and little known land of Arabia was to make its appearance, hurl itself against the only two powers of the ages, fall heir to the one - The Sassanids, ond strip the other, the Byzantine, of its fairest province, he would undoubtedly be declared a lunatic. Yet that was what happened."
During Abu Bakr's caliphate, and that of his succesor, Omar, many further victories were gained over Byzantium and the Byzantine Empire was considerably reduce in extent by Muslim armies during the seventh and eighth centuries. It was under the next Caliph, Othman, that islam began to spread southwards through Nubia into sub-Saharan Africa, as well as across the Straits of Gibraltar into the southern part of Spain (Al-Andalus). The Mediteranian island of Crete, Cyprus, and Rhodes were also occupied during this period.
Over the next five hundred years, Islam continued
to expand through sub-Saharan Africa and Asia Minor, though the Moors in Spain were on
the retreat from the twelfth century. The Final defeat of Byzantium
came in 1453 when the Greek Orthodox city of Constantinople
(known today as Istanbul)
fell to Ottoman Turks led by Mehmed II. At this point in time, the Islamic
world stretched in a broad swathe across North Africa, through Asia Minor, to
Afganistan and Armenia, with
outposts scattered along the maritime trade routes of South-east Asia -
Sumatra, Java and the Spice Islands of Tidore and Ternate.
The Moors still had a foothold in southern Spain, but this would only be for
another forty years; they were expelled in 1492.
Arab Domination Under The Umayyads
The first three caliphs of Islam were chosen in consultation with the
elders and leaders of the Islamic community, and a pattern was established for
selecting the caliph from the Karaysh tribe of Mecca. The fourth caliph, Ali, who was the
son-in-law of Muhammad, was devoted to Islam and convinced that leadership of
the Islamic community should remain in the family of the Prophet. The followers
of Ali were later called Shii or Shiites (after Shiat-u-Ali, or "party of
Ali"), and believed that the first three caliphs had been usurpers to
legitimate power. Ali and his followers were opposed first by Muslims under the
leadership of Muhammad's widow Aisha, daughter of Abu Bakr, and later by the
forces of Muawiyah, the governor of Syria and a relative of the third
caliph. In 661 Muawiyah proclaimed himself caliph, made Damascus his
capital, and founded the Umayyad Dynasty, which lasted until 750. Thus the caliphate became in fact, although never in law, a hereditary office, not, as previously, a position filled by election.
Umayyad military campaigns of conquest for the most part were highly successful. The Umayyad navy held Cyprus, Rhodes, and number of Aegean islands, which served as bases for annual seaborne attacks on Constantinople from 674 to 678. With the aid of Greek fire Constantinople was successfully defended, and the Arab advance was checked for the first time. Westward across North Africa, however, the Umayyad armies had much greater success. The Berbers, a warlike nomadic people inhabiting the land between the Mediterranean and the Sahara, resisted stubbornly but eventually converted to Islam. The next logical expansion for Islam was across the Strait of Gibraltar into the weak kingdom of the Visigoths in Spain. The governor of Muslim North Africa sent his general, Tarik, and an army across the Strait into Spain in 711. Seven years later the kingdom of the Visigoths completely crumbled. The Muslims advanced across the Pyrenees and gained a strong foothold in southwest France, where they carried out a major raid to explore the possibility of a further northward advance. However, they were defeated by Charles Martel near Tours in 732, in a battle which, together with their defeat by the Byzantine emperor Leo III in 718, proved decisive in halting their northward expansion into Europe. Meanwhile the Muslims had been expanding eastward into Central Asia, and by the eighth century they could claim lands as far as Turkestan and the Indus valley.
The mainstay of Umayyad dynastic power was the ruling class consisting of an Arab military aristocracy, who formed a privileged class greatly outnumbered by non-Arabic converts to Islam - Egyptians, Syrians, Persians, Berbers, and others. Many of these converted peoples possessed cultures much more advanced than that of the Arabs, and the economic and cultural life of the Arab empire came to be controlled by these non-Arab Muslims (mawali). Because they were not Arab by birth, they were treated as second-class citizens. High government positions were closed to them. They paid higher taxes than Arabs, and as soldiers they received less pay and loot than the Arabs. Resentment grew among the non-Arabic Muslims who objected to their lesser status as a violation of the Islamic laws of equality. Eventually the resentment of the mawali helped bring about the downfall of the Umayyads.
capital, and founded the Umayyad Dynasty, which lasted until 750. Thus the caliphate became in fact, although never in law, a hereditary office, not, as previously, a position filled by election.
Umayyad military campaigns of conquest for the most part were highly successful. The Umayyad navy held Cyprus, Rhodes, and number of Aegean islands, which served as bases for annual seaborne attacks on Constantinople from 674 to 678. With the aid of Greek fire Constantinople was successfully defended, and the Arab advance was checked for the first time. Westward across North Africa, however, the Umayyad armies had much greater success. The Berbers, a warlike nomadic people inhabiting the land between the Mediterranean and the Sahara, resisted stubbornly but eventually converted to Islam. The next logical expansion for Islam was across the Strait of Gibraltar into the weak kingdom of the Visigoths in Spain. The governor of Muslim North Africa sent his general, Tarik, and an army across the Strait into Spain in 711. Seven years later the kingdom of the Visigoths completely crumbled. The Muslims advanced across the Pyrenees and gained a strong foothold in southwest France, where they carried out a major raid to explore the possibility of a further northward advance. However, they were defeated by Charles Martel near Tours in 732, in a battle which, together with their defeat by the Byzantine emperor Leo III in 718, proved decisive in halting their northward expansion into Europe. Meanwhile the Muslims had been expanding eastward into Central Asia, and by the eighth century they could claim lands as far as Turkestan and the Indus valley.
The mainstay of Umayyad dynastic power was the ruling class consisting of an Arab military aristocracy, who formed a privileged class greatly outnumbered by non-Arabic converts to Islam - Egyptians, Syrians, Persians, Berbers, and others. Many of these converted peoples possessed cultures much more advanced than that of the Arabs, and the economic and cultural life of the Arab empire came to be controlled by these non-Arab Muslims (mawali). Because they were not Arab by birth, they were treated as second-class citizens. High government positions were closed to them. They paid higher taxes than Arabs, and as soldiers they received less pay and loot than the Arabs. Resentment grew among the non-Arabic Muslims who objected to their lesser status as a violation of the Islamic laws of equality. Eventually the resentment of the mawali helped bring about the downfall of the Umayyads.
The tolerance of Islam
The tolerance of Islam is another factor in the spread of Islam. Toynbee
praises this tolerance towards the Peoples of the Book after comparing it with
the attitude of the Christians towards Muslims and Jews in their lands. (A
Historian's Approach to Religion, p.246) T. Link attributes the spread of
Islam to the credibility of its principles together with its tolerance,
persuasion and other kinds of attractions. (A History of Religion)
Makarios, Orthodox Patriorch of Antioch in the seventeenth century, compared
the harsh treatment received by the Russians of the Orthodox Church at the
hands of the Roman Catholic Poles with the tolerant attitude towards Orthodox
christians shown by the Ottoman Government and prayed for the Sultans. (T.
Link, A History of Religion)
This is not the only example of preference by the followers of the religions
for Muslim rule over that of their own co-religionists. The Orthodox Christians
of Byzantium openly expressed their preference for the Ottoman turban in Istanbul to the hats of
the Catholic cardinals. Elisee Reclus, the French traveller of the nineteenth
century, wrote that the Muslim Turks allowed all the followers of different
religions to perform their religious duties and rituals, and that the Christian
subjects of the Ottoman Sultan were more free to live their own lives than the
Christians who lived in the lands under the rule of any rival Christian sect. (Nouvelle
Geographie Universelle, Vol. IX) Popescu Ciocanel pays tribute to the
Muslim Turks by stating that it was luck for the Romanian people that they
lived under the government of the Turks rather than the domination of the
Russians and Austrians. Otherwise, he points out, "no trace of the
Romanian nation would have remained." (La Crise de L'Orient}
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