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Islam Overview
In the last few centuries of the ancient world, Arabia was a divided and contested country. The
peninsula lay between the Roman Empire, and the Empire of Persia. Parts of it, at least, had
been ruled by one empire or another in a seesaw battle, that lasted for centuries. Internally, Arabia
was divided into many tribal areas, and the various tribes fought both the imperial powers and
each other. Some of the Arabian tribes were Christian, some were Jewish, and a few may have
been Zoroastrian, but the majority were pagan.
In 570 C.E., Muhammed was born into the Quraysh tribe, which was very influential in
Mecca. When Muhammed was about 40, he had gone into the mountains around Mecca to fast
and pray, when he received a revelation. The Angel Jibril (Gabriel) appeared to him and told
him that he was a prophet of Allah, and that his mission was to bring the true Word of Allah to
the Arab peoples. As a sign of the truth of this, Muhammed, who had been unable to read or
write previously, was suddenly literate.
Returning to Mecca, Muhammed began to preach the message he had been given: there was
only one God, Allah; that no image or idol was acceptable to Allah; that Allah was not born
from another god, and He did not have any son or daughter; that all who believed the Word of
Allah were as brother or sister; and that all the prophets, from the time of Adam to the time of
Jesus, had revealed the same message.
The people of Mecca were not very receptive to his message. Their own religious practices
were lax, and one of the major businesses of the Meccans was playing host to pilgrims from the
various other tribes, who came to worship their own gods at a shrine called the Ka’aba, which
was said to have been built by Abraham. Muhammed at frist was only able to covert his wife, his
cousin, and a handful of others.
Meeting considerable opposition, and fearing for the lives of his few followers, Muhammed
moved to Yethrib in 622C.E. – an event known as the Hejira , which marks the beginning of the
Muslim calendar. Here he was asked to mediate a conflict between the ruling clans and he
became, in effect, the ruler of the city. This city afterwards was called Medina – the City of the
Prophet. From this base Muhammed increased his efforts to convert the other tribes of Arabia,
using discussion, persuasion, and politics. He also began a jihad against the Mecca.
In 630 C.E., Muhammed and his armies captured Mecca. The Ka’aba was cleansed and the
idols within it destroyed – although it is said that Muhammed himself protected an icon of the
Virgin Mary with his own hands. The Ka’aba remains as a centre of devotion, and all Muslims
pray in the direction of the Ka’aba to this day.
Muhammed died in 632 C.E. and was succeeded by the first Caliph, Abu Bakr. The Caliph
had to deal with the War of Apostasy, an uprising among some of the tribes of Arabia who felt
that once Muhammed was dead, so was their obligation to worship Allah.
Under the second Caliph, Ummar, the Muslims began to expand out of Arabia. In battles
with the Persian Empire and the Byzantine Roman Empire, the armies of Islam proved to be
stronger. By his death in 644C.E., about 30 years after Muhammed had received his revelation,
the Muslim world – Dar ul Islam – was an empire in it’s own right.
The third Caliph, Uthman ben Affan, authorized the definitive version of the Qur’an – the
revelation Muhammed received from Allah.,. Later Caliphs collected the other sayings and
decrees of Muhammed into a collection known as the Hadith, which remains an important
source of Muslim law and teaching to this day.
By 732 Dar ul Islam stretched from the Pyrennes mountains in Europe to the borders of
India, and deep into central Asia.