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The Beginnings of Islam
Islam is the religion founded by Muhammad, the
prophet, in Arabia in the seventh century A.D. The
meaning of the Arabic word "Islam" is "surrender" or
"submission," which implies that a believer fully
accepts the will of Allah, or God, and surrenders to
that will. Islam as a religion and a form of government
is prevalent in the Near East, northern Africa, India,
Malaysia, and Indonesia. Like the other major world
religions, Christianity and Judaism, Islam has many
variations and sects, but the main divisions are
Sunnism and Shiism.
Muhammad was born in Mecca (in what is now Saudi
Arabia), a commercial center and major crossroads for
trade in the sixth and seventh centuries. All that is
known about the prophet's early life is that he was
poor and an orphan. In A.D. 610, when he was in his
forties, he began to have visions, or revelations from
God that put him into a trance-like state. One of the
things that God told him was that he was a messenger
equal to prophets like Abraham, Noah, and Jesus of
Nazareth.
Not everyone was quick to believe Muhammad's
message, and he was persecuted in Mecca so severely
that he and his followers fled to Medina in 622.
Medina was a lush oasis in the desert, north of Mecca,
where a group of people already followed Muhammad's
teachings and believed in his special powers. There,
Muhammad's religious ideas found a more receptive
audience, and before long he became the leader of
Medina. Islam permits fair and defensive warfare,
called jihad, or “struggle in the way of God.” From
raids against Meccan caravans, Muhammad and his
followers soon engaged the Meccans in open war. At
the Battle of Badr (624), the Meccans were defeated
and Muhammad's position was assured, though
conflicts with Mecca persisted until 630.
Muhammad died in 632 without an heir. In the century
following his death, Islamic adherents split into two
main groups, Sunnis and Shiites. The Shiites, a small
minority representing about 10-20% of Muslims today,
believe that Ali ibn Abi Talib (Mohammad’s son-in-law)
and his descendants are the true spiritual and political
heir to Muhammad. The family of the prophet should
be the leaders of islam. Shiite doctrine is
characterized most particularly by the recognition of
the imams: individuals regarded as the spiritual
leaders of the Muslim community. Each imam was
meant to guide the Muslim community, a task in which
he was assisted by the teachings of the one who
designated him and by a closer connection to God,
achieved through ilham (divine inspiration). Shiites
believe that Muhammad designated Ali as the first
imam, with a number of imams following him.
Source: www.wal-maps.com
The Sunni majority, on the other hand, believe that Mohammed did
not appoint a successor and instead recognize the first four caliphs—
Abu Bakr, father-in-law of Muhammad; Umar I; Uthman ibn Affan;
and Ali, son-in-law of Muhammad—as the rightful successors to
Muhammad. The first caliph was elected by a council of
Mohammed’s closest friends. The caliphs were initially, both military
commanders and religious leaders, although they were not prophets.
The Spread of Islam
Arabia was politically split, tribal, and ready for a strong centralized
movement familiar with both the terrain and cultures of the area.
Muhammad's military successes seemed to argue for the legitimacy
of his role as the prophet of a new faith. Many tribes, including the
powerful Bedouin, flocked to his banner, but not all. With the threat
from Mecca neutralized, the Muslims now advanced against other
cities and tribes that had not yet accepted Islam. While there are
provisions for spreading the faith even through conquest in the
Koran, there were other factors at play that help explain why
conquest played such a crucial role in the first generation of Islam,
and why conquest remained an important aspect of converting in
later centuries. One such reason was ghazw, the practice of raiding
caravans, encampments, and poorly defended towns for plunder, a
feature of tribal politics that had long characterized life in Arabia.
Early Muslims raided because it was a traditional practice. The
difference now was that many tribes were bound together by faith
and a single leader. With such direction, the practice of ghazw took
on new meaning. Larger targets were now within reach as well,
especially the outlying towns of both the Byzantine Empire and
Persian Empire.
The Spread of Islam: Taking on the Byzantines and
Persians
Due to the long, draining Byzantine-Persian Wars,
Islamic armies encountered fewer problems than they
might have had each state not been exhausted by longdrawn-out conflicts. To the Byzantines and Persians,
the initial struggles against Islamic armies did not
appear to be much different than the attacks each
empire had faced for generations. Islamic successes,
however, soon made it clear that these new attacks
were something different. For example, by 635,
Muslim forces had invaded Palestine and Syria and
seized control over much of the region. With the
crushing defeat of a Byzantine army at the Battle of
the Yarmuk River in 636, the Muslims cemented their
hold on Syria and gained key territories adjacent to it
as well. Jerusalem, which fell in 638, was holy to
Muslims just as much as it was to Christians and Jews.
The invasion of Persia met with similar success. With
much of Iraq already in Muslim hands, the invasion of
Sassanid Persia in 636 proceeded well. At the Battle
of Qadisiya the next year, Muslim forces captured the
Persian capital, Ctesiphon, though war with the
Persians would persist until 649. Consolidation of these
new lands occupied Islamic armies for some time. It
was not until ca. 711 that a major push east into India
began under the leadership of Muhammad ibn Qasim.
There, political division also aided conquest.
Ripe Conditions for Invasion: The Social and
Religious Context
These invasions illustrate not only the drive of an
enthusiastic, battle-hardened army tied together by
faith, but how such an army benefited from local
political, social, and religious conditions. The Byzantine
Empire was powerful, but like its long-time opponent,
Sassanid Iraq, it was weakened and unable to handle a
fresh enemy. In addition to that political context was a
social and religious dimension. The eastern
Mediterranean Sea region had been the site of some
of bitter and troublesome scriptural battles among
Christians. Heraclius, the Byzantine emperor at the
time that Islam first spread into Byzantine lands, had
persecuted those who did not follow accepted
Christian beliefs, treatment that made some of the
persecuted welcome the invaders. Generally, Islam was
tolerant of their religious cousins, allowing them to
practice their respective faiths so long as they paid a
special tax. Many of those who had suffered from
Byzantine hands viewed the invading Muslims as
saviors.
The Effect on Christian Europe
The Byzantines eventually counterattacked, but by the ninth
century, the Byzantine Empire had been reduced largely to modernday Turkey, parts of Greece, and southern Italy. Islamic success,
which had made a dramatic sweep across North Africa and into
Spain, brought them into possession of much of the former
Christian, Mediterranean world. Islamic forces were halted from
making further advances into Western Europe when Charles Martel
defeated an invading Islamic army at the Battle of Tours in 732
(modern day France).
One effect of the spread of Islam through former Christian lands
was that of the five great Christian leaders, only two remained: the
bishop of Rome and the patriarch of Constantinople. Those two
Christian leaders would go on to determine the course of
Christianity for centuries. Another effect was that in time, many
of the Greek and Roman classic works, particularly in science,
medicine, and philosophy, would be reintroduced to Christian Europe
by Islamic scholars in places like Córdoba in Spain. Islam helped
mold the medieval world, not only in the tragic wars of the
Crusades, but also through science, art and architecture, and trade.
Sharia Law
The sharia is the Islamic code of laws, drawn up by Muslim scholars
after the death of the prophet Muhammad to provide Muslims with
a practical guide to daily life. All Muslims are expected to lead
their lives according to the sharia, much of which is taken from the
Koran. The sharia differs from secular law in that it structures
adherents' relationships with not only one another but also with
God. The sharia includes guidelines for penal law, laws of
transactions, family law, succession law, and court procedures and
was usually administered by sharia courts.