History of Islam

The History of Islam involves the history of the Islamic faith as a religion and as a social institution.

Introduction

Like most world religions, Islam's historical development has had a clear impact on the political, economic, and military history of areas inside and outside what are considered its primary geographic zones of reach (see Islamic world). As with Christendom, the concept of an Islamic world may be more or less useful in looking at different periods of history. An important strain in Islamic culture encourages identification with a quasi-political community of believers or ummah, and this component is reflected in the behavior of a number of actors in history. The history of Islam as a religion is closely related to political, economic, and military history.

Islam arose in Arabia in the 7th century with the emergence of the prophet Muhammad. Within a century of his death, an Islamic state stretched from the Atlantic Ocean in the west to Central Asia in the east. This empire did not remain unified for long; the new polity soon broke into a civil war known to Islamic historians as the Fitna, and later affected by a Second Fitna. After this, there would be rival dynasties claiming the caliphate, or leadership of the Muslim world, and many Islamic states and empires offered only token obedience to a caliph unable to unify the Islamic world.

Despite this fragmentation of Islam as a political community, the empires of the Abbasid caliphs, the Mughals, and the Seljuk Turk Ottomans were among the largest and most powerful in the world. Arabs made many Islamic centers of culture and science and produced notable scientists, astronomers, mathematicians, doctors and philosophers during the Golden Age of Islam. Technology flourished; there was much investment in economic infrastructure, such as irrigation systems and canals; stress on the importance of reading the Qur'an produced a comparatively high level of literacy in the general populace.

Later, in the 18th and 19th centuries C.E., Islamic regions fell under the sway of European imperial powers. Following World War I, the remnants of the Ottoman empire were parcelled out as European protectorates. After many centuries, no major, widely-accepted claim to the caliphate (which had been at least claimed by the Ottomans) remained.

Although affected by various ideologies, such as communism, during much of the twentieth century, Islamic identity and Islam's salience on political questions have arguably increased during the late twentieth century and early twenty-first century. Rapid growth, western interests in Islamic regions, international conflicts and globalization have influenced Islam's importance in shaping the world of the twenty-first century.

Note on early Islamic historiography

There are several Muslim versions of early Islamic history, as written by the Sunni, Shi'a, and Ibadi sects. 19th century Western scholars tended to privilege the Sunni versions; the Sunni are the largest sect, and their books and scholars were easily available. Over the last hundred years, Western scholars have become much more willing to question the orthodox Sunni view and to advance new theories and new narratives. Still today, many parts of Islamic history are not as well known internationally as other components of history, such as that of the west.

Muhammad

Arabia before Muhammad was scantly populated by a number of Arabic-speaking peoples. Some were Bedouin, pastoral nomads organized in tribes. Some were agriculturalists, living either in oases in the north, or in the more fertile and thickly settled areas to the south (now Yemen and Oman). At that time the majority of Arabs followed various polytheistic religions, although a few tribes followed Judaism, Christianity (including the followers of Nestorius) or Zoroastrianism. The city of Mecca was a religious center for some of the northern Arabian polytheists, as it contained the sacred well of Zamzam and a small temple, the Ka'aba.

Muhammad was born on the outskirts of Mecca in the Year of the Elephant. Most Muslims equate this with the Western year 570 but a few prefer 571. He was orphaned at an early age and was raised by his uncle Abu Talib. He became a trader, married a wealthy widow, and could have looked forward to a life of ease and prosperity.

However, when he was some forty years old, he is said to have experienced a divine revelation while he was meditating in a cave outside Mecca. This would have been in 610 C.E. After an initial period of doubt and fear, he started to preach to his kinfolk and then in public, to all Meccans.

Muhammad claimed that he had been chosen by God, like the Hebrew prophets before him, to preach repentance, submission to God, and a coming day of judgment. He said he was not preaching a new religion, just reviving the old and pure tradition that the Christians and Jews had debased. He attracted followers, and also created enemies.

In 622 C.E., Muhammad and many of his followers fled to the neighboring city of Medina. This migration is called the Hijra; it was the first year of Muhammad's "reign" as a secular ruler as well as a religious leader. Following the custom of the time, later historians took that year as the start of the Muslim calendar.

The two cities of Mecca and Medina went to war. Muhammad and his followers won one battle (Battle of Badr) and managed to stalemate a Meccan attack in the Battle of the Trench. Through conquest and conversion, Muhammad was able to unite the surrounding tribes behind him and eventually assembled such a large force that Mecca capitulated without a fight. By the time Muhammad died, on June 8, 632, he and his followers had united the entire Arabian peninsula under his leadership, and had started to expand into the areas now known as Syria and Iraq.

The spread of Islam

After Muhammad's death, Abu Bakr, his father-in-law and one of the earliest converts, assumed leadership of the Muslim community. This is still a matter of contention among Muslims; the largest sect of Islam, the Sunnis, and the various Shi'a sects, disagree radically as to the history and significance of Abu Bakr's succession to what was later called the caliphate. For further discussion, see Succession to Muhammad.

Abu Bakr spent most of his brief caliphate fighting the Ridda Wars, bringing rebellious Arabian tribes to heel. After disaffection had been quelled, Muslim troops advanced into Syria, then a battleground between the Byzantine Empire and the Persian Sassanid empire. They won an unexpected victory against the Byzantines at the Battle of Yarmuk.

Abu Bakr's successor, Umar ibn al-Khattab, expanded the Islamic empire even further, conquering most of what is now known as the Middle East, Egypt, northern Africa, and the Persian plateau.

The Fitna

Umar was succeeded by Uthman ibn Affan, another of Muhammad's earliest followers. Under Uthman, the new empire fell into a civil war called the Fitna, or disorder. Many of Muhammad's family and earliest followers were unhappy with Uthman, feeling that he was unduly favoring his kinsfolk and acting less like a religious leader and more like king. Rebellious soldiers killed Uthman and offered the leadership to Ali ibn Abi Talib, Muhammad's cousin, foster-son, and son-in-law. Many Muslims refused to accept Ali as a leader; he spent his brief caliphate fighting against Muslim traditionalists and then against Uthman's relatives. Ali was killed by a Kharijite assassin and Uthman's family, the Umayyads, claimed the caliphate. They managed to retain leadership of the majority of Muslims for several generations, but save for a brief period, never again ruled over an undivided Islamic empire. The Islamic faith diverged as well, splitting into the three main traditions of today (Sunni, Shi'a, and Ibadi). (This is perhaps a gross over-simplification of a complex religious history.)

The Second Fitna

The zenith of Islamic power

The majority of the population of this new empire was non-Muslim, and aside from a protection tax (jizya) and other restrictions, the conquered people found their religions tolerated. Indeed, Muslim authorities often discouraged conversions, since this would erode the tax base. Under the Umayyads, would-be converts had to find an Arab patron who would adopt them into his tribe. Once they were honorary Arabs they could convert.

Nevertheless, most of the populace eventually converted to Islam. Whether this was a fast or a slow movement is a topic hotly debated in academia, and only to be settled by meticulous country-by-country studies.

The decline of political unity

The political unity of Islam began to disintegrate. The emirates, still recognizing the theoretical leadership of the caliphs, drifted into independence, and a brief revival of control was ended with the establishment of two rival caliphates: the Fatimids in north Africa, and the Umayyad's Caliphate of Cordoba in Spain (the emirs there being descended from an escaped member of that family). Eventually the Abbasids ruled as puppets for the Buwayhid emirs.

A series of new invasions swept over the Islamic world. First, the newly converted Seljuk Turks swept across and conquered most of Islamic Asia, hoping to restore orthodox rule and defeat the Fatimids but soon falling prey to political decentralization themselves. After the disastrous defeat of the Byzantines at the Battle of Manzikert in 1071 the west launched a series of Crusades and for a time captured Jerusalem. Saladin however restored unity, defeated the Fatimids and recaptured the city. Later crusades were launched with at least the nominal intent to recapture the holy city. But hardly more was ever accomplished than the looting and occupation of Constantinople, leaving the Byzantine Empire severely weakened and ripe for later conquest.

During this time, great advancements were made in the areas of astronomy, poetry, philosophy science and mathematics.

By the early 13th century a far more serious threat had arrived. The Mongols, who invaded Baghdad in 1258, had conquered most Islamic territories east of Egypt. The Horde permanently ended the Abbasid caliphate and the Golden Age of medieval Islam, leaving the Islamic world damaged and confused. The Mongols later converted to Islam and developed their own sophisticated and diverse trade based culture, integrating elements from every corner of Eurasia.

The Islamic world reached a new peak (albeit not comparable to the Golden Age of the Abbasids) under the Ottoman Empire. The Ottomans migrated from the Central Asian steppe and at first established a tiny state in Anatolia (modern day Turkey). After a 1453 siege lasting two months, Ottoman janissaries and cannons overwhelmed Constantinople. The millennium-old Byzantine Empire was suddenly absorbed by the new Ottoman Empire, which would extend its influence over most of the Islamic world and reach deep into Christian Europe.

The Ottoman empire

The Ottoman empire, which was making great strides in conquering the East, threatened to conquer Central and Western Europe. In 1529, the Siege of Vienna failed, stopping any further advance of the Ottoman Empire into Eastern Europe. The Battle of Vienna in 1683 began the withdrawal of the Ottoman Empire from many parts of Eastern Europe and later the Balkans.

Three Muslim empires

In the 18th century there were three great Muslim empires: the aforementioned Ottoman in Turkey, Mesopotamia, the Red Sea, and the Mediterranean; the Safavid in Iran; and the Mogul in India. By the end of the 19th century, all three had been weakened or destroyed by massive Western cultural influence or military ambitions.

Muhammad ibn Abd al Wahhab (1703–1792) led a religious movement in the east of Arabia that saw itself as purifying Islam. His most important follower was the then leader of the family of ibn Saud, which came with massive funding and political support. This movement is controversial among Muslims, as its adherents claim to follow the Qur'an and Sunnah while rejecting traditional Islamic scholarship regarding Fiqh. But so, too, do other movements in more modern Islamic philosophy, some of which claim also to be purifying or restoring Islam, in particular, to be renewing ijtihad.

The 20th century

The modern age brought radical technological and organizational changes to Europe and Islamic countries found themselves less modern when compared to the many western nations. Europe's state-based government and rampant colonization allowed the West to dominate the globe economically and forced Islamic countries to question change.

The end of World War I: European powers control the Middle East

Islamic territories were granted at least nominal independence after the end of the First World War and full independence after the second. Many Muslim countries sought to imitate European political organization and nationalism began to emerge in the Islamic world. Countries like Egypt, Syria, and Turkey organized their governments with definable polities and sought to develop national pride among their citizens. Other places, like Iraq, weren't as successful due to a lack of unity.

The end of the Caliphate and the rise of the Saudis

Some Muslim countries, such as Turkey and Egypt, sought to separate Islam from the secular government. In other cases, such as Saudi Arabia, the new government brought out new religious expression in the reemergence of the puritanical form of Sunni Islam known to its detractors as Wahhabism which found its way into the Saudi royal family.

Partition of India and establishment of Pakistan

The creation of the state of Israel

Many Muslim countries were left looking for answers as their new Westernized governments continued to conflict with their Islamic societies. In most cases this search led to the reassertion of the values of their religious heritage.

With the introduction of Israel, non-Muslims populated a territory Muslims had considered theirs for centuries, making Arabs a minority. In order to oppose the Jewish "encroachment", Arab nations became united in their push for Pan-Arabism instead of nationalism, forming the League of Arab States in 1945. The coalition grew to 22 countires by 1992 with the failure of a series of wars launched against Israel only adding to the sense of common purpose among Muslim countries.

Oil wealth and petropolitics dominate the Middle East

Between 1953 and 1964, King Saud re-organized the government of the monarchy his father, Ibn Saud, had created. Saudi Arabia's new ministries included Communication (1953) Agriculture and Water (1953), Petroleum (1960), Pilgrimage and Islamic Endowments (1960), Labour and Social Affairs (1962) and Information (1963). He also put his Talal, one of his many younger brothers (by 29 years his younger) in charge of the Ministry of Transport.

In 1958-59, Talal proposed the formation of a National Council. As he proposed it, it would have been a consultative body, not a legislature. Still, he thought of it as a first step toward broader popular participation in the government. Talal presented this proposal to the king when the Crown Prince was out of the country. Saud simply forwarded the proposal to the ulama asking them whether a National Council was a legitimate institution in Islam. The idea seems to have died in committee, so to speak. It would be revived more than three decades later. A Consultative Council came into existence in 1992.

Meantime, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries came into existence in 1960. For the first decade or more of its existence, it was ineffectual in terms of increasing revenue for member nations. But it would have its day. Tension between Faisal and Saud continued to mount until a final showdown in 1964. Saud threatened to mobilize the Royal Guard against Faisal and Faisal threatened to mobilize the National Guard against Saud. It was Saud who blinked, abdicating and leaving for Cairo, later Greece. He would die there, in 1969. Faisal then became King.

In 1967, Israel won its whirlwind six day victory. In response, Arab leaders (including King Faisal) held a conference in Khartoum in August. They all agreed on three negative slogans with respect to Israel: “no recognition, no negotiations, no peace.” Faisal agreed that Saudi Arabia would use some of its oil wealth to finance the “front-line states,” those that bordered the hated Zionist entity, in their struggle.

The 1967 war had other effects. It effectively closed the Suez canal, it may have contributed to the revolution in Libya that put Muammar al-Qaddafi in power, and it led in May 1970 to the closure of the "tapline" from Saudi Arabia through Syria to Lebanon. These developments had the effect of increasing the importance of the petroleum in Libya, which is a conveniently short (and canal-free)[] shipping distance from Europe.

In 1970, it was Occidental Petroleum which constituted the first crack in the wall of oil company solidarity in dealing with the oil producing nations; specifically, in this case, with the demands for price increases of the new Qaddafi government.

In October 1973, another war between Israel and its Muslim neighbors, known as the Yom Kippur war, got underway just as oil company executives were heading to Vienna, Austria, site of a planned meeting with OPEC leaders. OPEC had been emboldened by the success of Libya's demands anyway, and the war strengthened the unity of their new demands.

The centrality of petroleum, the widespread Muslim animosity in the region regarding the Zionist entity in their midst, and the constant threat or reality of war ... these have remained constant features of the politics of the region.

Two Iranian revolutions

While the events chronicled above were underway, the Shah of Iran was pressing (what he considered to be) the modernization of his country. For example, in the white revolution of 1963 he abolished the feudal system of land ownership, and in the process reduced the income of some of the Shia clergy. The Shah's critics at the time said he was trying to secure his hold on power. By 1966, he had become more aggressive in his own dealings with the oil companies.

A decade later, the Shah decreed women's suffrage and eliminated the lunar (Islamic) calendar with the solar calendar for official use in 1976. Both moves alienated Shia clerics. These were among the conditions for the Iranian revolution of 1978-- 1979, which deposed the Shah and put Ayatollah Khomeini in power in Iran.

Present day

Reformist Islam vs. Islamism

See liberal movements within Islam, Islamic fundamentalism, Islam as a political movement and Islamism.

Islamism, the U.S. and the battle for oil wealth

See Islamist terrorism, militant Islam, and Jihad

Chronology

Dynasties of Islamic Rulers

References and further reading

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External links

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