Muhammad and the beginning of Islam (570–632) According to Islamic tradition, Muhammad was born in
Mecca in
570 CE and was orphaned early in life. Growing up as a trader, he became known as the "
trusted one" () and was sought after as an impartial arbitrator. He later married his employer, the businesswoman
Khadija. In the year 610 CE, troubled by the moral decline and idolatry prevalent in Mecca and seeking seclusion and spiritual contemplation, Muhammad retreated to the
Cave of Hira in the mountain
Jabal al-Nour, near Mecca. It was during his time in the cave that he is said to have
received the first revelation of the
Quran from the angel
Gabriel. ''. Muhammad is shown with veiled face, . During this time,
while in Mecca, Muhammad preached first in secret and then in public, imploring his listeners to abandon
polytheism and worship one God. Many
early converts to Islam were women, the poor, foreigners, and slaves like the first
muezzin Bilal ibn Rabah al-Habashi. The Meccan elite felt Muhammad was
destabilizing their social order by preaching about one God and giving questionable ideas to the poor and slaves because they profited from the pilgrimages to the idols of the Kaaba. After 12 years of the
persecution of Muslims by the Meccans, Muhammad and his
companions performed the
Hijra ("emigration") in 622 to the city of Yathrib (current-day Medina). He established the
first Islamic state there with the Medinan converts (the
Ansar) and the Meccan migrants (the
Muhajirun). The
Constitution of Medina was signed by all the tribes of Medina. This established religious freedoms and freedom to use their own laws among the Muslim and non-Muslim communities as well as an agreement to defend Medina from external threats. Meccan forces and their allies lost against the Muslims at the
Battle of Badr in 624 and then fought an inconclusive battle in the
Battle of Uhud before unsuccessfully besieging Medina in the
Battle of the Trench (March–April 627). In 628, the
Treaty of Hudaybiyyah was signed between Mecca and the Muslims, but it was broken by Mecca two years later. As more tribes converted to Islam, Meccan trade routes were cut off by the Muslims. By 629 Muhammad was victorious in the nearly bloodless
conquest of Mecca, and by the time of his death in 632 (at age 62) he had united the
tribes of Arabia into a single religious
polity. – are known in Sunni Islam as ''al-khulafā' ar-rāshidūn'' ("
Rightly Guided Caliphs"). Some tribes left Islam and rebelled under leaders who declared themselves new prophets but were crushed by Abu Bakr in the
Ridda wars. Local populations of Jews and indigenous Christians, persecuted as religious minorities and heretics and taxed heavily, often helped Muslims take over their lands, resulting in rapid expansion of the caliphate into the
Persian and
Byzantine empires. Uthman
was elected in 644 and his assassination by rebels led to Ali being elected the next Caliph. In the
First Civil War, Muhammad's widow,
Aisha, raised an army against Ali, attempting to avenge the death of Uthman, but was defeated at the
Battle of the Camel. Ali attempted to remove the governor of Syria,
Mu'awiya, who was seen as corrupt. Mu'awiya then declared war on Ali and was defeated in the
Battle of Siffin. Ali's decision to arbitrate angered the
Kharijites, an extremist sect, who felt that by not fighting a sinner, Ali became a sinner as well. The Kharijites rebelled and were defeated in the
Battle of Nahrawan but a Kharijite assassin later killed Ali. Ali's son, Hasan ibn Ali, was elected Caliph and signed a
peace treaty to avoid further fighting, abdicating to Mu'awiya in return for Mu'awiya not appointing a successor. Mu'awiya began the
Umayyad dynasty with the appointment of his son
Yazid I as successor, sparking the
Second Civil War. During the
Battle of Karbala,
Husayn ibn Ali was killed by Yazid's forces; the event has been
annually commemorated by Shias ever since. Sunnis, led by
Ibn al-Zubayr and opposed to a dynastic caliphate, were defeated in the
siege of Mecca. These disputes over leadership would give rise to the
Sunni-
Shia schism, with the Shia believing leadership belongs to Muhammad's family through Ali, called the
ahl al-bayt. Abu Bakr's leadership oversaw the beginning of the compilation of the Quran. The Caliph
Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz set up the committee,
The Seven Fuqaha of Medina, and
Malik ibn Anas wrote one of the earliest books on Islamic jurisprudence, the
Muwatta, as a consensus of the opinion of those jurists. The
Kharijites believed there was no compromised middle ground between good and evil, and any Muslim who committed a grave sin would become an unbeliever. The term "kharijites" would also be used to refer to later groups such as
ISIS. The
Murji'ah taught that people's righteousness could be judged by God alone. Therefore, wrongdoers might be considered misguided, but not denounced as unbelievers. This attitude came to prevail into mainstream Islamic beliefs. The Umayyad dynasty conquered the
Maghreb, the
Iberian Peninsula,
Narbonnese Gaul and
Sindh. The
Early Muslim conquests have been described as
Islamic imperialism. The Umayyads struggled with a lack of legitimacy and relied on a heavily patronized military. Since the
jizya tax was a tax paid by non-Muslims which exempted them from military service, the Umayyads denied recognizing the conversion of non-Arabs, as it reduced revenue. While the Rashidun Caliphate emphasized austerity, with Umar even requiring an inventory of each official's possessions, Umayyad luxury bred dissatisfaction among the pious. The Kharijites led the
Berber Revolt, leading to the first Muslim states independent of the Caliphate. In the
Abbasid Revolution, non-Arab converts (
mawali), Arab clans pushed aside by the Umayyad clan, and some Shi'a rallied and overthrew the Umayyads, inaugurating the more cosmopolitan Abbasid dynasty in 750.
Classical era (750–1258) Al-Shafi'i codified a method to determine the reliability of hadith. During the early Abbasid era, scholars such as
Muhammad al-Bukhari and
Muslim ibn al-Hajjaj compiled the major
Sunni hadith collections while scholars like
Al-Kulayni and
Ibn Babawayh compiled major Shia hadith collections. The four Sunni
Madh'habs, the Hanafi, Hanbali, Maliki, and Shafi'i, were established around the teachings of
Abū Ḥanīfa,
Ahmad ibn Hanbal, Malik ibn Anas and
al-Shafi'i. In contrast, the teachings of
Ja'far al-Sadiq formed the
Ja'fari jurisprudence. In the 9th century,
Al-Tabari completed the first commentary of the Quran, the
Tafsir al-Tabari, which became one of the most cited commentaries in Sunni Islam. Some Muslims began questioning the piety of indulgence in worldly life and emphasized poverty, humility, and avoidance of sin based on renunciation of bodily desires. Ascetics such as
Hasan al-Basri inspired a movement that would evolve into
tasawwuf or
Sufism. However, other
schools of
speculative theology –
Māturīdism founded by
Abu Mansur al-Maturidi and
Ash'ari founded by
Al-Ash'ari – were more successful in being widely adopted. Philosophers such as
Al-Farabi,
Avicenna and
Averroes sought to harmonize Aristotle's ideas with the teachings of Islam, similar to later
scholasticism within
Christianity in Europe and
Maimonides' work within Judaism, while others like
Al-Ghazali argued against such
syncretism and ultimately prevailed. from a manuscript dated c. 1200 This era is sometimes called the "
Islamic Golden Age".
Avicenna was a pioneer in
experimental medicine, and his
The Canon of Medicine was used as a standard medicinal text in the Islamic world and
Europe for centuries.
Rhazes was the first to identify the diseases
smallpox and
measles.
Public hospitals of the time issued the first medical diplomas to license doctors. Ibn al-Haytham is regarded as the father of the modern
scientific method and often referred to as the "world's first true scientist", in particular regarding his work in
optics. In engineering, the
Banū Mūsā brothers'
automatic flute player is considered to have been the first
programmable machine. In
mathematics, the concept of the
algorithm is named after
Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi, who is considered a founder of
algebra, which is named after his book
al-jabr, while others developed the concept of a
function. The government paid scientists the equivalent salary of professional athletes today.
Guinness World Records recognizes the
University of Al Karaouine, founded in 859, as the world's oldest degree-granting university. Many non-Muslims, such as
Christians,
Jews and
Sabians, and the institution known as the
House of Wisdom employed
Christian and
Persian scholars to both translate works into Arabic and to develop new knowledge. Soldiers broke away from the Abbasid empire and established their own dynasties, such as the
Tulunids in 868 in Egypt and the
Ghaznavid dynasty in 977 in Central Asia. In this fragmentation came the
Shi'a Century, roughly between 945 and 1055, which saw the rise of the
millennialist Isma'ili Shi'a missionary movement. One Isma'ili group, the
Fatimid dynasty, took control of North Africa in the 10th century and another Isma'ili group, the
Qarmatians, sacked Mecca and stole the
Black Stone, a rock placed within the Kaaba, in their unsuccessful rebellion. Yet another Isma'ili group, the
Buyid dynasty, conquered Baghdad and turned the Abbasids into a figurehead monarchy. The Sunni Seljuk dynasty campaigned to
reassert Sunni Islam by promulgating the scholarly opinions of the time, notably with the construction of educational institutions known as
Nizamiyyas, which are associated with al-Ghazali and
Saadi Shirazi. The expansion of the Muslim world continued with religious missions converting
Volga Bulgaria to Islam. The
Delhi Sultanate reached deep into the
Indian subcontinent and many converted to Islam, in particular
low-caste Hindus whose descendants make up the vast majority of Indian Muslims. Trade brought many
Muslims to China, where they virtually dominated the import and export industry of the
Song dynasty. Muslims were recruited as a
governing minority class in the
Yuan dynasty.
Pre-modern era (1258 – 18th century) , 7
Ilkhanate ruler of the
Mongol Empire, converts to Islam. 14th-century depiction Through Muslim trade networks and the activity of Sufi orders, Islam spread into new areas and Muslims assimilated into new cultures. Under the
Ottoman Empire, Islam spread to
Southeast Europe. Conversion to Islam often involved a degree of
syncretism, as illustrated by Muhammad's appearance in
Hindu folklore. Muslim Turks incorporated elements of
Turkish Shamanism beliefs to Islam.
Muslims in Ming Dynasty China who were descended from earlier immigrants were assimilated, sometimes through laws mandating assimilation, by adopting Chinese names and
culture while
Nanjing became an important centre of Islamic study. Cultural shifts were evident with the decrease in Arab influence after the
Mongol destruction of the Abbasid Caliphate. The Muslim Mongol Khanates in
Iran and
Central Asia benefited from increased cross-cultural access to East Asia under
Mongol rule and thus flourished and developed more distinctively from Arab influence, such as the
Timurid Renaissance under the
Timurid dynasty.
Nasir al-Din al-Tusi (1201–1274) proposed the
mathematical model that was later argued to be adopted by
Copernicus unrevised in his
heliocentric model, and
Jamshīd al-Kāshī's estimate of
pi would not be surpassed for 180 years. After the introduction of gunpowder weapons, large and centralized Muslim states consolidated around
gunpowder empires, these had been previously splintered amongst various territories. The
caliphate was claimed by the
Ottoman dynasty of the Ottoman Empire and its claims were strengthened in 1517 as
Selim I became the
ruler of Mecca and Medina. The Shia
Safavid dynasty rose to power in 1501 and later conquered all of Iran. In South Asia,
Babur founded the
Mughal Empire. The religion of the centralized states of the gunpowder empires influenced the religious practice of their constituent populations. A
symbiosis between
Ottoman rulers and Sufism strongly influenced Islamic reign by the Ottomans from the beginning. The
Mevlevi Order and the
Bektashis had a close relation to the sultans, as Sufi-mystical as well as
heterodox and
syncretic approaches to Islam flourished. The often forceful
Safavid conversion of Iran to the Twelver Shia Islam of the Safavid Empire ensured the final dominance of the
Twelver sect within Shia Islam. Persian migrants to South Asia, as influential bureaucrats and landholders, helped spread Shia Islam, forming some of the largest Shia populations outside Iran.
Nader Shah, who overthrew the Safavids, attempted to improve relations with Sunnis by propagating the integration of Twelverism into Sunni Islam as a fifth
madhhab, called Ja'farism, which failed to gain recognition from the Ottomans.
Modern era (18th–20th centuries) , the last Caliph from the
Ottoman dynasty. Earlier in the 14th century,
Ibn Taymiyya promoted a
puritanical form of Islam, rejecting philosophical approaches in favor of simpler theology, but his writings only played a marginal role during his lifetime. During the 18th century in Arabia,
Muhammad ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab, influenced by the works of Ibn Taymiyya and
Ibn al-Qayyim, founded a movement called
Wahhabi to return to what he saw as unadultered Islam. He condemned many local Islamic customs, such as visiting the grave of Muhammad or saints, as later
innovations and sinful and destroyed sacred rocks and trees, Sufi shrines, the
tombs of Muhammad and his companions and the tomb of Husayn at Karbala, a major Shia pilgrimage site. He formed an alliance with the
Saud family, which, by the 1920s, completed their conquest of the area that would become
Saudi Arabia.
Ma Wanfu and Ma Debao promoted salafist movements in the 19th century such as
Sailaifengye in China after returning from Mecca but were eventually persecuted and forced into hiding by Sufi groups. Other groups sought to reform Sufism rather than reject it, with the
Senusiyya and
Muhammad Ahmad both waging war and establishing states in Libya and Sudan respectively. In India,
Shah Waliullah Dehlawi attempted a more conciliatory style against Sufism and influenced the
Deobandi movement. In response to the Deobandi movement, the
Barelwi movement was founded as a mass movement, defending popular
Sufism and reforming its practices. The
Muslim world was generally in political decline starting the 1800s, especially compared to non-Muslim European powers. Earlier, in the 15th century, the
Reconquista succeeded in ending the
Muslim presence in Iberia. By the 19th century, the British
East India Company had formally annexed the
Mughal dynasty in India. As a response to
Western Imperialism, many intellectuals sought to
reform Islam.
Islamic modernism, initially labelled by Western scholars as
Salafiyya, embraced modern values and institutions such as
democracy while being scripture oriented. Notable forerunners in the movement include
Muhammad 'Abduh and
Jamal al-Din al-Afghani.
Abul A'la Maududi helped influence modern
political Islam. Similar to contemporary
codification, sharia was for the first time partially codified into law in 1869 in the Ottoman Empire's
Mecelle code. The
Ottoman Empire dissolved after
World War I, the
Ottoman Caliphate was abolished in 1924 and the subsequent
Sharifian Caliphate fell quickly, thus leaving Islam without a
Caliph. The
Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), consisting of
Muslim-majority countries, was established in 1969 after the burning of the
Al-Aqsa Mosque in
Jerusalem. Contact with industrialized nations brought Muslim populations to new areas through economic migration. Many Muslims migrated as indentured servants (mostly from India and Indonesia) to the Caribbean, forming the largest Muslim populations by percentage in the Americas. Migration from Syria and Lebanon contributed to the
Muslim population in Latin America. The resulting urbanization and increase in trade in sub-Saharan Africa brought Muslims to settle in new areas and spread their faith, likely doubling its Muslim population between 1869 and 1914.
Contemporary era (20th century–present) in Istanbul, Turkey|upright=1.35 Forerunners of Islamic modernism influenced Islamist political movements such as the
Muslim Brotherhood and related parties in the Arab world, which performed well in elections following the
Arab Spring,
Jamaat-e-Islami in South Asia and the
AK Party, which has democratically been in power in Turkey for decades. In
Iran,
revolution replaced a
secular monarchy with an
Islamic state. Others such as
Sayyid Rashid Rida broke away from Islamic modernists and pushed against embracing what he saw as Western influence. The group
Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant would even attempt to recreate the modern gold dinar as their monetary system. While some of those who broke away were
quietist, others believed in violence against those opposing them, even against other Muslims. In opposition to Islamic political movements, in 20th century Turkey, the military carried out
coups to oust Islamist governments, and headscarves were legally restricted, as also happened in Tunisia. In other places, religious authority was co-opted and is now often seen as puppets of the state. For example, in Saudi Arabia, the state monopolized religious scholarship and, in Egypt, the state nationalized
Al-Azhar University, previously an independent voice checking state power. Salafism was funded in the Middle East for its quietism. Saudi Arabia campaigned against revolutionary Islamist movements in the Middle East, in opposition to Iran. Muslim minorities of various ethnicities have been persecuted as a religious group. This has been undertaken by communist forces like the
Khmer Rouge, who viewed them as their primary enemy to be exterminated since their religious practice made them stand out from the rest of the population, the
Chinese Communist Party in
Xinjiang and by nationalist forces such as during the
Bosnian genocide. Myanmar military's
Tatmadaw targeting of
Rohingya Muslims has been labeled as a crime against humanity by the UN and Amnesty International, while the
OHCHR Fact-Finding Mission identified
genocide, ethnic cleansing, and other crimes against humanity. The advancement of global communication has facilitated the widespread dissemination of religious knowledge. The adoption of the
hijab has grown more common and some Muslim intellectuals are increasingly striving to separate scriptural Islamic beliefs from cultural traditions. Among other groups, this access to information has led to the rise of popular "
televangelist" preachers, such as
Amr Khaled, who compete with the traditional
ulema in their reach and have decentralized religious authority. More "individualized" interpretations of Islam notably involve
Liberal Muslims who attempt to align religious traditions with contemporary secular governance, an approach that has been criticized by some regarding its compatibility. Moreover, secularism is perceived as a foreign ideology imposed by invaders and perpetuated by post-colonial
ruling elites, and is frequently understood to be equivalent to
anti-religion. == Demographics ==