The Rise of Islam

About this topic

Islam began in the early 600s CE in Mecca on the Arabian Peninsula, when Muhammad received revelations that were later collected in the Quran. He taught belief in one God (Allah) and followed the Five Pillars: the declaration of faith, prayer five times a day, charity, fasting during Ramadan, and pilgrimage (hajj) to Mecca. In 622 CE he and his followers migrated to Medina, the hijra, which begins the Islamic calendar.

After Muhammad's death in 632, caliphs led the community. Within about a century, Arab armies and traders had spread Islam from Spain to Central Asia, creating a vast empire under the Umayyad caliphs from Damascus, followed by the Abbasids in Baghdad. A split over leadership produced the Sunni and Shia branches.

The expansion succeeded partly because the Byzantine and Persian empires were exhausted by war, and conquered peoples often were allowed to keep their faith while paying a tax. Arabic became a common language of religion, government and learning. Example: merchants carried Islam along trade routes to West Africa and Southeast Asia without armies. A misconception is that Islam spread only by force; trade, preaching and appealing ideas played big roles.