what factors led to the rapid expansion of islam? quizlet

Learning Objective

• Discuss the spread of Islam and identify how the caliphs maintained authority over conquered territories

Central Points

• The expansion of the Arab Empire in the years following the Prophet Muhammad'south death led to the creation of caliphates, who occupied a vast geographical area and sought converts to Islamic religion.
• The people of the Islamic world created numerous sophisticated centers of culture and science with far-reaching mercantile networks, travelers, scientists, hunters, mathematicians, doctors, and philosophers.
• Historians distinguish between two carve up strands of converts of the time. I is animists and polytheists of tribal societies of the Arabian Peninsula and the Fertile crescent; the other is the monotheistic populations of the Heart Eastern agrarian and urbanized societies.
• The Arab conquerors generally respected the traditional middle-Eastern pattern of religious pluralism with regard to the conquered populations, respecting the practice of other faiths in Arab territory, although widespread conversions to Islam came near as a result of the breakdown of historically religiously organized societies.

Terms

Imam

An Islamic leadership position, near commonly in the context of a worship leader of a mosque and Sunni Muslim community.

Zoroastrianism

an ancient Iranian religion and religious philosophy that arose in the eastern aboriginal Farsi Empire, when the religious philosopher Zoroaster simplified the pantheon of early Iranian gods into two opposing forces.

Overview

The expansion of the Arab Empire in the years post-obit the Prophet Muhammad'due south expiry led to the creation of caliphates occupying a vast geographical area. Conversion to Islam was boosted past missionary activities, particularly those of Imams, who hands intermingled with local populace to propagate religious teachings. These early on caliphates, coupled with Muslim economics and trading and the later expansion of the Ottoman Empire, resulted in Islam's spread outwards from Mecca towards both the Atlantic and Pacific oceans and the creation of the Muslim earth. Trading played an important role in the spread of Islam in several parts of the globe, notably southeast Asia.

Muslim dynasties were soon established and subsequent empires such as those of the Abbasids, Fatimids, Almoravids, Seljukids, and Ajurans, Adal and Warsangali in Somalia, Mughals in India, Safavids in Persia, and Ottomans in Anatolia were among the largest and most powerful in the world. The people of the Islamic world created numerous sophisticated centers of civilisation and scientific discipline with far-reaching mercantile networks, travelers, scientists, hunters, mathematicians, doctors, and philosophers, all contributing to the Golden Historic period of Islam. Islamic expansion in South and East asia fostered cosmopolitan and eclectic Muslim cultures in the Indian subcontinent, Malaysia, Indonesia, and China.

Within the first century of the establishment of Islam upon the Arabian Peninsula and the subsequent rapid expansion of the Arab Empire during the Muslim conquests, one of the near significant empires in world history was formed. For the subjects of this new empire, formerly subjects of the greatly reduced Byzantine and obliterated Sassanid empires, not much changed in practice. The objective of the conquests was of a practical nature more than than annihilation else, equally fertile land and h2o were scarce in the Arabian Peninsula. A real Islamization therefore only came about in the subsequent centuries.

Conversions to Islam

Historians distinguish between two separate strands of converts of the time. One is animists and polytheists of tribal societies of the Arabian Peninsula and the Fertile crescent; the other is the monotheistic populations of the Heart Eastern agrarian and urbanized societies.

For the polytheistic and pagan societies, apart from the religious and spiritual reasons each private may accept had, conversion to Islam "represented the response of a tribal, pastoral population to the need for a larger framework for political and economic integration, a more stable state, and a more imaginative and encompassing moral vision to cope with the problems of a tumultuous club." In contrast, for sedentary and frequently already monotheistic societies, "Islam was substituted for a Byzantine or Sassanian political identity and for a Christian, Jewish or Zoroastrian religious affiliation." Initially, conversion was neither required nor necessarily wished for: "[The Arab conquerors] did non require the conversion as much as the subordination of non-Muslim peoples. At the first, they were hostile to conversions because new Muslims diluted the economic and status advantages of the Arabs."

But in subsequent centuries, with the evolution of the religious doctrine of Islam and with that the understanding of the Muslim Ummah, did mass conversion take place. The new understanding by the religious and political leadership led in many cases to a weakening or breakdown of the social and religious structures of parallel religious communities such as Christians and Jews. With the weakening of many churches, for example, and with the favoring of Islam and the migration of substantial Muslim Turkish populations into the areas of Anatolia and the Balkans, the "social and cultural relevance of Islam" were enhanced and a large number of peoples were converted.

During the Abbasid Caliphate, expansion ceased and the central disciplines of Islamic philosophy, theology, law, and mysticism became more than widespread, and the gradual conversions of the populations within the empire occurred. Pregnant conversions also occurred beyond the extents of the empire, such equally that of the Turkic tribes in Central Asia and peoples living in regions south of the Sahara in Africa through contact with Muslim traders active in the area and Sufi orders. In Africa it spread along three routes—beyond the Sahara via trading towns such equally Timbuktu, up the Nile Valley through the Sudan up to Uganda, and across the Crimson Sea and downwardly East Africa through settlements such as Mombasa and Zanzibar. These initial conversions were of a flexible nature.

The Arab-Muslim conquests followed a general pattern of nomadic conquests of settled regions, whereby conquering peoples became the new military machine aristocracy and reached a compromise with the old elites by allowing them to retain local political, religious, and financial authority. Peasants, workers, and merchants paid taxes, while members of the old and new elites collected them.

The Great Mosque of Kairouan, founded in 670 CE by the Arab general and conqueror Uqba Ibn Nafi, is the oldest mosque in western Islamic lands and represents an architectural symbol of the spread of Islam in North Africa, situated in Kairouan, Tunisia.

Policy Toward Non-Muslims

The Arab conquerors did not repeat the mistake made by the Byzantine and Sasanian empires, who had tried and failed to impose an official faith on subject populations, which had caused resentments that made the Muslim conquests more acceptable to them. Instead, the rulers of the new empire generally respected the traditional middle-Eastern pattern of religious pluralism, which was non one of equality but rather of dominance by one group over the others. After the terminate of armed forces operations, which involved the sacking of some monasteries and confiscation of Zoroastrian burn down temples in Syria and Republic of iraq, the early caliphate was characterized by religious tolerance, and people of all ethnicities and religions blended in public life. Earlier Muslims were ready to build mosques in Syria, they accepted Christian churches equally holy places and shared them with local Christians. In Republic of iraq and Egypt, Muslim regime cooperated with Christian religious leaders. Numerous churches were repaired and new ones built during the Umayyad era.

Some not-Muslim populations did experience persecution, however. After the Muslim conquest of Persia, Zoroastrians were given dhimmi (non-Muslim) condition and subjected to persecutions; bigotry and harassment began in the form of sparse violence. Zoroastrians were fabricated to pay an extra tax called Jizya; if they failed, they were killed, enslaved, or imprisoned. Those paying Jizya were subjected to insults and humiliation by the revenue enhancement collectors. Zoroastrians who were captured as slaves in wars were given their freedom if they converted to Islam.

smithsnew1954.blogspot.com

Source: https://courses.lumenlearning.com/suny-hccc-worldcivilization/chapter/spread-of-islam/

Share this post