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The Rise of Islam
Tracy Rosselle, M.A.T.
Newsome High School, Lithia, FL
 The Origins of Islam
 The Rise and Fall of the
Caliphate
 Muslim Culture
The origins of Islam
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Although vast empires emerged in the classical world (and they were
often linked through trade), no single civilization tied together large
portions of the Western or Eastern Hemisphere until followers of a
new religion – Islam – did so beginning in the seventh century.
Islam literally means “submission, the self-surrender to the will of the
one, true God, Allah.”
Within decades of its founding, Muslims (those who practiced Islam,
following the faith of its prophet, Muhammad) had conquered an
empire extending from Spain in the west to Central Asia in the east –
an empire combining the classical civilizations of Greece, Egypt and
Persia.
For this reason, some scholars refer to it as the first global
civilization, though it was not nearly global in the literal sense
because expansion a) was halted in Europe on the Iberian peninsula,
b) never reached northern or eastern Eurasia, and c) failed to
expand to the Americas.
Desert beginnings
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In the scrub zones on the edges of the
desert, a wide variety of Bedouin, or
nomadic, cultures had developed based
on camel and goat herding. Here tribes
and clans were dominant rather than
cities and regional kingdoms. This
bedouin world shaped the career of
Muhammad.
And it all arose from an
unlikely place – the Arabian
peninsula, most of which is
some of the most
inhospitable desert in the
world.
The peninsula is more than
a thousand miles from both
north to south and east to
west, but only a tiny strip of
fertile land in the south and
a few oases can support
agriculture.
Central location = trade

But Arabia is
a crossroads
of three
continents –
Africa,
Europe and
Asia –
perfectly
placed along
major ocean
and land
trade routes.
Oasis in
the sand
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Supplied by
underground springs
or small rivers, oases
were dotted by date
palms and became
the sites of towns that
attracted caravans so
that camels could be
watered and traders
fed and rested in the
shade.
With their
concentrated wealth,
food and water, oases
were often targeted
by Bedouin raiders.
Arabic religion before Islam
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After the camel was domesticated in the second century
BCE, Bedouins began participating in the caravan trade
themselves, becoming major carriers of goods between
the Persian Gulf and the Mediterranean Sea.
Each tribe – ruled by a sheikh, chosen from a leading
family by a council of elders – was autonomous but felt a
general sense of allegiance to the larger unity of all the
clans in the region.
In pre-Islamic times, Arabs were polytheistic, with the
supreme god Allah presiding over a community of spirits.
 The faith was communal, without priests.
 Spirits were believed to inhabit natural objects, such as
trees, rivers and mountains.
Arab religion
before Islam
(cont.)
 The supreme deity was

symbolized by a sacred
stone, and each tribe
claimed its own stone.
But by the time of
Muhammad (570-632), a
massive black meteorite –
housed in a central shrine
called the Ka’ba in the
commercial city of Mecca
– had come to possess
especially sacred qualities.
The Ka’ba is the most sacred site of the
Islamic faith. Wherever Muslims pray,
they are instructed to face Mecca … to
thus become a spoke of the Ka’ba, the
holy center of the wheel of Islam. All
Muslims are encouraged to visit the
Ka’ba at least once in their lifetime.
The role of Muhammad

Muhammad:
 was born in Mecca to a merchant family and orphaned
at 6 to be raised by his grandfather and uncle.
 received little schooling and began working in the
caravan trade as a very young man.
 at 25 became a manager for a wealthy widow – a 40

year-old businesswoman named Khadijuh (kah-DEEjuh) – who he later married.
apparently grew troubled by the widening gap
between the Bedouin values of honesty and
generosity and the greed of the commercial elites in
the city.
began to visit the nearby hills to meditate in isolation.
The role of Muhammad
A visit by the angel Gabriel
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At about 40, Muhammad is said to
have heard the voice of the angel
Gabriel, telling him he was the
messenger of Allah.
Muhammad became convinced
he was the last of the prophets 
familiar with Jewish and Christian
beliefs, he thought Allah had
already revealed himself in part
through Moses and Jesus … and
the final revelations were being
given to him.
The angel Gabriel
The Dome of the Rock
Muhammad and
Abraham
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Completed in Jerusalem in 691, the
Dome of the Rock marks a
convergence of Islam and Judaism.
The rock is where Muslims say
Muhammad ascended to heaven to
learn of Allah’s will before returning
to Earth to spread the message.
Situated on the site of the Jewish
temple destroyed by the Romans in
70 CE, the exact same spot is
where Jews say Abraham was
prepared to sacrifice his son Isaac.
The threat of monotheism
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Muhammad began preaching publicly in Mecca by 613
(his first followers were Khadijah, close friends and
relatives), but initially his message was resisted  many
Meccans either thought he was a charlatan or feared the
message of monotheism, thinking neglect of traditional
Arab gods would reduce the prestige of Mecca as a
pilgrimage center.
After three years, his proselytizing had yielded just 30
followers.
In 622, he and his closest supporters retreated north from
Mecca to Yathrib, which was later named Medina, or “city
of the Prophet”  this flight (or “migration”) is known in
history as the hijra and marks the first date on the official
calendar of Islam.
Forming the umma …
conquering Mecca
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At Medina, Muhammad initially failed to convert the
Jewish community but won support from others in the city
and Bedouins in the countryside … from which he formed
the first Muslim community, or umma.
By 630 he had marshaled enough supporters to bring an
army of 10,000 back to Mecca, which surrendered.
He declared the Ka’ba a sacred shrine of Islam and
ordered its hundreds of idols of the traditional faith
destroyed.
Muhammad died just two years later just as Islam was
beginning to spread throughout the peninsula, and his
revelations were later transcribed into the Quran – the
holy book of Islam.
The teachings of Muhammad:
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Like Christianity and Judaism, Islam is monotheistic.
Allah is the all-powerful being who created everything.
Those who seek salvation and an afterlife in eternal
paradise must subject themselves to the will of Allah.
Unlike Christianity, Islam makes no claim to the divinity of
its founder (i.e., Muhammad was just a man, a prophet
like Abraham, Moses and other figures of the Old
Testament).
The Quran contains 114 suras (chapters) drawn together
by a committee after Muhammad’s death … and
combines ethics, political theory and a code of law along
with its sacred texts.
The teachings of Muhammad
Fundamental tenets
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All Muslims must carry out five duties, properly known as
the Five Pillars of Islam:
 Faith – testify to the following: “There is no God but Allah,
and Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah.”
 Prayer – face toward Mecca and pray five times a day, at a
mosque or wherever; in public at mid-day Friday.
 Alms – give money for the poor, through a special religious
tax.
 Fasting – fast between dawn and sunset during holy month

of Ramadan (the ninth month of the Islamic lunar-based
calendar, when Allah is said to have revealed the
revelations of the Quran).
Pilgrimage – if physically and financially able, perform the
hajj, or pilgrimage to Mecca, at least once.
Ulama and the Sharia
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Every Muslim is expected to worship Allah directly, so
Islam has no priests or central religious authority …
though it does have a scholar class called the ulama (ooleh-MAH), which drew up a law code called the sharia, to
provide believers with a set of prescriptions for regulating
their daily lives.
The sharia combines the guidance from the Quran and
Muhammad’s example for the proper way of living
(including the Hadith, a collection of his sayings which
supplement the holy scriptures), which could be very
strict: Muslims were forbidden to gamble, to eat pork, to
drink alcohol … contacts between unmarried men and
women were discouraged, and marriages were to be
arranged ideally by the parents.
From religious doctrine to a
way of life
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The sharia also offered precise guidance on family life,
inheritance, slavery, business transactions, crime and
political authority in the dar al-Islam (a term used to refer
to those lands under Muslim government).
Thus, Islamic holy law developed into something more
than religious doctrine: a complete social and ethical
framework for living.
Interestingly, the historical analysis of the Quran remains
hampered by the fact that the earliest known versions of it
lack the diacritical marks that modern Arabic uses to
clarify meaning  so much of the text can be interpreted
in varying ambiguous ways.
The rise and fall of the
caliphate
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Following Muhammad’s death, Muslims saw no separation
between political and religious authority … and so what
would become the Islamic Empire was a theocracy.
Muslims have never agreed whether he named a
successor, and although he had several daughters, he left
no sons  in male-oriented society of the day, that left the
question: Who would lead the community of the faithful?
Closest followers selected Abu Bakr, a wealthy merchant
from Medina and Muhammad’s father-in-law, as the first
caliph (khalifa, literally “successor”).
Caliph – temporal leader of the Islamic community as well
as religious leader, or imam  rule known as caliphate.
Building an empire
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Muhammad had used the tribal custom of the razzia,
or raid, in struggling with his enemies, and now Abu
Bakr and his three elected successors (Umar,
Uthman and Ali – all associates of Muhammad and
together known as the “rightly guided” caliphs) used
the same custom to quell factional Bedouin
tendencies and expand the Islamic movement.
This is known as jihad, or “striving in the way of the
Lord,” (an inner struggle against evil) though it’s
sometimes translated as “holy war” (armed struggle
against unbelievers).
Reasons for early success
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The armies under the “rightly guided” caliphs made great
progress in fulfilling Muhammad’s desire to expand the
Islamic faith northward, conquering by 661 Syria and lower
Egypt, which were part of the Byzantine Empire, and parts of
the Sassanid Empire of Persia.
Several reasons explain the success:
 highly motivated Muslims believed dying in battle
guaranteed place in paradise.
 armies were well disciplined and expertly commanded.
 Byzantine and Sassanid empires were weakening.
Reasons for early success (cont.)
 those persecuted under the empires to the north (i.e.,

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Byzantines not supporting the official religion of
Christianity and Persians not supporting
Zoroastrianism) welcomed the Muslim invaders and
were attracted by the appeal of the message of Islam,
which offered equality and hope in this world.
the Quran forbade forced conversion  Christians
and Jews seen as “people of the book” and received
special consideration … paid a poll tax each year in
exemption from military duties.
although non-Muslim lives were restricted in some
ways (e.g., Christians and Jews could not spread their
religions), Muslim conquerors treated their new
subjects in a fairly tolerant fashion for the day.
Internal conflict and a split
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Substantial battlefield gains in the decades following
Muhammad’s death couldn’t prevent political disunity.
Ali – the last of the “rightly guided” caliphs, and
Muhammad’s cousin and son-in-law – was elected
successor after Uthman’s murder in 656 … amidst a civil
war in which his right to rule was challenged by the
governor of Syria.
When Ali too was assassinated in 661, the elective
system of choosing a caliph died with him – becoming
instead a dynastic heritage.
The Umayyads (the family of the Syrian governor) then
came to power and ruled for more than a century.
The rule of the Umayyads:
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Internal factional disputes
 moved capital from Mecca to Damascus  easier to control
expanding territories but Arab Muslims felt it was too far away.
 moved away from the simple life of “rightly guided” caliphs and
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surrounded themselves with wealth, ceremony, even decadence …
like non-Muslim rulers, in the eyes of critics.
Sunni-Shia split – A group called the Shia (the “party” of Ali, of
which members are called Shiites) resisted Umayyad rule, insisting
the caliph should be descendant of the Prophet. Umayyads and
those who did not outwardly resist them later became known as
Sunni (more than 80% of today’s Muslims remain part of this
“orthodox” sect), meaning followers of Muhammad’s example.
Sufi – Another sect that rejected the luxurious life of the Umayyads;
these mystics became most effective Islamic missionaries.
The rule of the Umayyads:
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Continued Arab expansion
 launched new attacks at both

ends of Mediterranean world in
early 8th century.
armies moved across North
Africa, conquering the primarily
pastoral Berbers before crossing
the Strait of Gibraltar and
occupying southern Spain.
By 725 most of Iberian peninsula had become a Muslim state, with its
center in Andalusia … but seven years later, an Arab force pushing into
southern France was fought back by the Franks (with an army
commanded by Charles Martel) at the Battle of Tours  traditionally
viewed as saving Europe from falling into Muslim hands, but some
historians believe internal exhaustion would have forced retreat anyway.
The rule of the Umayyads:
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Continued Arab expansion (cont.)
 another Muslim force attacked Constantinople, hoping
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
to destroy the Byzantine Empire …
but Byzantines used Greek fire (petroleum-based
compound containing quicklime and sulfur) to destroy
the Muslim fleet, thereby blocking the Arab invasion of
Eastern Europe and indirectly Christian Europe 
uneasy frontier now between Byzantine Empire and
Islam in southeastern Asia Minor.
Islamic power was further consolidated in
Mesopotamia, Persia and Central Asia.
The rule of the Abbasids:
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Internal rebellion brought down the Umayyad caliphate in 750,
when the Abbasids took control of the empire.
The Abbasid caliphate would extend to 1258 – more than half a
millennium, before it was finally destroyed by the Mongols – but
politically it would begin to fragment by the second half of the
9th century, becoming essentially a figurehead as regional
principalities revealed the political diversity of its sprawling
empire.
The Abbasids murdered all the Umayyad rulers except a prince
who escaped to Spain, where he established what would
become a distinctively tolerant Islamic culture blending Roman,
Germanic and Jewish traditions with those of the Arabs and
Berbers  Muslims called the Iberian territories here alAndalus, and it was centered at Cordoba – a culturally rich and
thriving city with writers and artists and many more people than
elsewhere in Europe.
The rule of the Abbasids:
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The Abbasid caliphs brought political, economic, and
cultural change to the world of Islam.
They tried to break down distinctions between Arab
and non-Arab Muslims  all now allowed to hold
both civil and military offices, which opened up
Islamic culture to the influences of occupied
civilizations and thereby becoming more
cosmopolitan.
Many Arabs began to intermarry with the people they
had conquered, and now many people from North
Africa and the eastern Mediterranean began to
consider themselves Arab.
The rule of the Abbasids:
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When in 762 the Abbasids built a new capital city at Baghdad
– on the Tigris river much farther to the east than the
Umayyad capital at Damascus and more suitable as a nexus
for trade – Persian cultural influence came to the fore.
Judges, merchants and government officials now seen as
ideal citizens – rather than the previous warrior ideal … which
meant that the Abbasids were much less a conquering
dynasty than the Umayyads.
In designing their administration, they relied heavily on
Persian techniques of statecraft and bureaucracy (they ruled
autocratically, more as kings than spiritual leaders) … and
this increasingly regal pomp and circumstance was also
probably a natural consequence of the growing power and
prosperity of the empire.
The rule of the Abbasids:
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Instability lurked, however:
 disputes over succession were common.
 rising wealth (Baghdad became the center of an
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enormous commercial market and home to 900,000
people by 900 CE) bred financial corruption.
the luxurious and perhaps hedonistic life of the caliph
(rumored to have thousands of concubines) and of the
political and economic elites of Baghdad undermined
Arab society (e.g., divorce was common, alcohol was
consumed, etc.).
provincial rulers were breaking away, establishing own
independent dynasties.
The decline of the Abbasids:
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Into this mix moved the Saljuq Turks, a nomadic people
from Central Asia who had converted to Islam and
flourished as military mercenaries for the Abbasid
caliphate.
They moved gradually into Iran and Armenia, and by the
mid-11th century had occupied the eastern provinces of
the Abbasid empire.
In 1055, a Turkish leader captured Baghdad and
assumed command of the empire with the title of sultan
(“holder of power”).
The Abbasid caliph remained the chief representative of
Sunni religious authority, but the real military and political
power rested in the hands of the Saljuq Turks.
Muslims combined and preserved the
traditions of many peoples and also
advanced learning in a variety of areas.
City life
Society
MuslimCulture
culture
Muslim
House of Wisdom
Science
and math
Arts and
literature
City life, thanks to trade
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Much has been written about the cosmopolitan, urban aspects
of the Muslim civilization. As a point of comparison, around 900
CE Baghdad’s population approached 1 million when Rome’s
once-comparable population had plummeted to less than
50,000 … and when Cordoba had hit 200,000, Paris stood at
just 38,000.
Much of this had to do with the centrality of the Muslims to the
thriving interregional trade network.
To encourage the flow of trade, Muslim money changers in
cities throughout the empire set up banks, which issued letters
of credit called sakks (sakk was pronounced in Europe as
“check”). Thus a Muslim merchant in India didn’t have to carry
around vast sums of money but instead could cash a check
drawn on his bank in Baghdad.
City life
New foods, better diets and paper
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The growth of cities also came from:
 the introduction of new crops from the east – everything
from sugarcane and rice to eggplants and mangoes.
 improved agricultural methods, which increased the food
supply and improved diets.
Cities became home to industrial production, such as textiles
(thanks to the introduction of cotton from India), pottery,
glassware, leather (the importance of which to pre-modern
societies cannot be overstated), iron and steel.
Paper manufacturing also became important to urban centers
as records were increasingly complex (the technology was
introduced to the Arab world after Chinese prisoners of war
were taken in 751).
Society: classes and women

Baghdad’s multicultural population was typical of
Muslim cities of the 8th and 9th centuries. It was made
up of four classes: 1) upper class included those born
Muslim; 2) the second class were converts to Islam; 3)
third were “protected people” including Christians and
Jews; and 4) the lowest class consisted of slaves, all
non-Muslim and most prisoners of war working as
domestic servants or military warriors.
The role of women: Although the Quran and sharia
established a patriarchal society, in many ways Muslim
women had more economic and property rights than
European, Indian and Chinese women. They were seen
as honorable individuals, not property, and equal to
men before Allah.
Science and math
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Muslim scholars made advancements
in astronomy, optics, chemistry, math
and medicine. Among other things,
they preserved and later passed on to
Europeans the classical heritage of
Greek thinkers.
Muhammad stressed
learning and scholarship,
and both the Umayyads and
Abbasids preserved and
expanded scientific and
philosophical knowledge 
at House of Wisdom, a
library-academy-translation
center in Baghdad, scholars
of different cultures and
beliefs worked side by side
translating texts from
Greece, India, Persia and
elsewhere into Arabic.
Science and math
Astronomy and algebra
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Studying the skies was needed to get a
correct lunar calendar for marking
religious periods such as the month of
Ramadan, and it helped fix the
locations of cities so that worshippers
could face toward Mecca.
Muslims were aware the earth was
round centuries before European
mariners proved it.
Islamic scholars adopted and passed
on the numerical system of India, and a
9th-century Persian mathematician
founded the discipline of algebra (aljabr).
The astrolabe was
an early scientific
instrument that
could calculate
time, celestial
events and relative
position.
Arts and literature
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The art of Islam is a
blend of Arab, Turkish
and Persian traditions.
Arabs developed a
sense of rhythm and
abstraction  repetitive
geometric
ornamentation.
Turks  abstraction in
figurative and
nonfigurative designs.
Persians added lyrical,
poetical mysticism.
The famous 9th-century mosque in
Cordoba – with its 514 columns
supporting double horseshoe arches –
is considered one of the wonders of
world art and architecture.
Arts and literature
Persian influence
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Geometric designs can
be found in everything
from poetry to
architecture. The art of
beautiful, ornamental
handwriting – or
calligraphy – developed
because Muslims
believed only Allah can
create life … so images
of living things were
discouraged.

Arabic was the language of religion,
theology, philosophy and law, but
Persian was the principal language
of literature, poetry, history and
political reflection.
Poet Omar Khayyam (Rubaiyat)
didn’t write down his poems, but
rather composed them orally over
wine with friends at a neighborhood
tavern (many later transcribed years
after his death). Key themes:
impermanence of life, impossibility of
knowing God, disbelief in afterlife 
more popular among modern
skeptics in the West than in Middle
East.
Arts and literature
The Arabian Nights
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The Arabian Nights (or The
Thousand and One Nights) was
a collection of folk tales, fables
and romances from India and
Persia that Muslims elaborated
upon beginning in 10th century.
Translations became popular in
19th century as Western readers
developed taste for stories set in
exotic locales.
Story of Aladdin and the Magic
Lamp was an 18th-century
addition.
Sources
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The Earth and Its Peoples: A Global History
(Bulliet et al.)
Traditions & Encounters: A Global Perspective
on the Past (Bentley & Ziegler)
World History (Duiker & Spielvogel)
World Civilizations: The Global Experience
(Stearns et al.)
Patterns of Interaction (McDougal Littell,
publisher)