Download 1 The Islamic religion accounts for the claimed religion of 20.12% of

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The Islamic religion accounts for the claimed religion of 20.12% of people worldwide.1
What has made this religion so appealing and spread to every corner of the globe? The answer
may lie in the spread of Islam after Muhammad. Was this spread a militant endeavor or a
peaceful conversion process? The spread of Islam began rather peacefully, but soon became a
militant conquest of land and converts.
In the beginning of the sixteenth century, it seemed as if the Muslim empire would
control all of humanity. Marshall Hodgson states, “In the sixteenth century of our era, a visitor
from Mars might well have supposed that the human world was on the verge of becoming
Muslim.”2 His reasoning is that the Muslims did have strategic and political advantages, but,
more importantly, they had a “vitality of their general culture.”3 The vitality in their culture in
the sixteenth century is far too often overlooked. This vitality and political control almost led to
an entire Muslim world. Where the Muslim people did not have a majority, they had political
influence and were socially dominant. States that were not controlled by Muslim rule were
subjected to the wills of the Muslim States around them. Muslim traders from the states
surrounding Christian and Buddhist states in the East were often the only connection to the
outside world.4 How did the Muslim world land itself in such a powerful position?
First of all, when dealing with expansion, a brief discussion of Muhammad is needed.
Hodgson states:
Mecca depended for its existence on commercial ties with the
Fertile Crescent and was keenly aware of the shifting political
forces in the region as a whole. Muhammad’s political policy
“The World Factbook,” https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/xx.html (updated 8 March 2007,
accessed 12 March 2007.
2
Marshall G. S. Hodgson, “The Role of Islam in World History,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 1,
no. 2 (April 1970) : 99-123.
3
Ibid.
4
Ibid.
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seems increasingly to have taken into account the regional balance
of power.5
Muhammad uses his political policy and understanding of the region to attempt to convert the
region. Hodgson goes on to say that the majority of the region had a Jewish or Christian basis,
and Muhammad knew that they had a basic knowledge of monotheism. Muhammad was
attempting to bring them to a correct knowledge of Abrahamic monotheism. Islam after
Muhammad encompassed the entire Arabian Peninsula.
Immediately after Muhammad’s death, his Islamic community took the entire region
from the Nile to Oxus. During this time, the Islamic religion did not seem strange, and people
were ready to adopt it. However, the people who were conquered were expected to continue
their old ways and old religions. Soon after this, an urban population majority demanded to adopt
Islam.6 These statements, made by Hodgson, suggest that, at least in these first few regions,
Islam was welcomed and not forced on the people. However, the peaceful means of conversion
is soon forgotten, and militant enforcement is brought in. Hodgson suggests the jump to
militarism may have a monetary gain as well. He claims that it was more about money than
about religion. He states, “The Muslim empire had been based on a pastoralist military force,
but that force had been led by urban merchants whose outlook was not incompatible with that of
the mercantile elements in the conquered lands.”7 This suggests that early expansion had a
monetary motivation.
After the early expansion in the seventh century, Islam continues to flourish under the
control of two dynasties known as Caliphates. The first is the Umayyad Caliphate. These rulers
moved the capital of the Muslim empire to Damascus. The Umayyads had the best military in
5
Ibid.
Ibid.
7
Ibid.
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the Arabic world and were a predominately Arab dynasty.8 The Umayyads continued to
conquer, and, in their treatment of conquered peoples, did not force them to convert but offered
incentives for doing so. The Umayyads, however, would force the people to undertake the
Arabic language rather than continue in their spoken, native language.9
The next Caliphate was the Abbasid Caliphate. Under the Abbasids, expansion continued
father still. They moved the capital to Baghdad, and the Abbasid rule is known as the Golden
Age of Islam. During their expansion, the treatment of conquered peoples differed from the
Umayyads. Christians and Jews were treated differently depending on which ruler was enforcing
the laws. Christians and Jews in the Muslim empire were known as protected minorities or
dhimmi.10 However, their fluctuation of treatment varied from allowing them to have high
positions in government to discriminatory acts, such as forcing Christians and Jews wear two
different colored sandals so as to tell them apart.11 Bernard Lewis comments on the treatment on
the Dhimmis at this time in history. He says, “The Dhimmis were second class citizens…But by
and large their position was infinitely superior to that of those communities who differed from
the established church in western Europe in the same period.”12 Peter Riddell and Peter Cotterell
claim that it was much better to be a Jew in the Islamic realm than to be a Jew in Europe at this
time in history.13 The basic idea here is that Christians and Jews in the Muslim empire were
treated better than those in Europe who went against the established church, which at this time
was the Roman Catholic Church in most nations.
8
Peter G. Riddell and Peter Cotterell, Islam in Context: Past, Presnt, and Future (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker
Academic, 2003), 87.
9
Ibid.
10
Ibid, 89.
11
Ibid, 90
12
Bernard Lewis, The Arabs in History, 5th ed. (London: Hutchinson University Library, 1970), 94; quoted in Peter
G. Riddell and Peter Cotterell, Islam in Context: Past, Presnt, and Future (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic,
2003), 90.
13
Peter G. Riddell and Peter Cotterell, Islam in Context: Past, Presnt, and Future (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker
Academic, 2003), 90.
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The great Abbasid Empire began a period of gradual decline in the tenth century. The
Crusades had weakened the Empire in the West, but the Mongols were a greater threat from the
East. Eventually, the Mongols conquered the Abbasids in 1260. However, the Mongols were
not immediately receptive to Islam. In the Eastern Mongol Empire, the rulers and people never
accepted the religion. Nevertheless, the Western Empire did adopt Islam and restore Islamic law
under the ruler Ghazan.14
The Mongol Empire leads to the uprising of the Ottomans. The Ottoman Empire sprang
out of Turkey. The ideal Muslim situation was to inherit the lands of the Roman Empire. The
Ottoman Empire was able to do that. The Ottoman Empire rapidly expanded through Bulgaria,
Macedonia, and Serbia from 1360 to around the 1380s. The Ottomans took over Constantinople
in 1453. From there they continued conquest into the Balkans, taking over Greece, Bosnia,
Herzegovina, and Albania. Next the Ottomans took the Mamluk dynasty, which was based in
Cairo and ruled most of the near East. The Ottomans set up a Caliph from that dynasty, and now
virtually controlled almost the entire world.15
So why was Islam able to spread so rapidly? One figure from Riddell and Cotterell’s
book puts the percent of Muslims at ninety percent after the Ottomans conquered the then
Christian Byzantine Empire. This could have been due to the “traveling Muslim.” Muslim
society was stratified, but there was opportunity for social mobility and geographical mobility.
Muslims constantly traveled, and wherever they went, they immediately set up the makings of a
Muslim society. People would convert to Islam because in this society one could advance only
through conversion.16 Another reason could have been purely monetary. As stated earlier,
14
Ibid, 104.
Ibid, 107-109.
16
Marshall G. S. Hodgson, “The Role of Islam in World History,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 1,
no. 2 (April 1970) : 99-123.
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Muslims expanded control for purely monetary reasons, and people may well have converted to
Islam so as to do business with these wealthy merchants.
However, it cannot be denied that the expansion of Islam was extremely militant. Even
in the monetary motivation, the wealthy merchants used militant shepherds to carry out their
goals. The question simply becomes whether conversion comes as a result of immigrants’
influence or a fear of a sword. In different areas and under different rulers, both can be argued.
Nevertheless, when analyzing all the evidence the sword was a possible tool for conversion and
could have been used in that way. The Qur’an certainly endorses fighting to convert people.
“But when these months, prohibited (for fighting), are over,
slay the idolaters wheresoever you find them, and take them
captive and besiege them, and lie in wait for them at every likely
place, but if they repent and fulfill their devotional obligations and
pay the zakat, the let them go their way, for God is forgiving and
kind.” (Surah 9:5)
Statements such as these made in the Qur’an cannot be ignored. When analyzing
whether the expansion of Islam was a forced militant conversion to Islam or not, it is difficult to
conclude. The reason is that the sources have a bias on the side of peaceful Islam. However,
history cannot deny the violence of the military campaigns. As far as one can tell, Muslims did
not force Christians and Jews to convert to Islam; however, they did make it especially hard for
them not to.