Arabia At
Mecca,
Muhammad is said to have received repeated embassies from various tribes.
Greater Syria Like their Byzantine and late Sasanian predecessors, the Marwanid caliphs of the
Umayyad dynasty nominally ruled the various religious communities but allowed the communities' own appointed or elected officials to administer most internal affairs. Yet the Marwanids also depended heavily on the help of non-Arab administrative personnel and on administrative practices (e.g., a set of government bureaus). As the conquests slowed and the isolation of the fighters () became less necessary, it became increasingly difficult to keep Arabs garrisoned. As the tribal links that had so dominated Umayyad politics began to break down, the significance of tying non-Arab converts to Arab tribes as clients was diluted; moreover, the number of non-Muslims seeking to join the ummah was already becoming too large for this process to work effectively.
Palestine atop the
Temple Mount in the
Old City of Jerusalem The
Siege of Jerusalem (636–637) by the forces of the
Rashidun caliph Umar against the Byzantines began in November 636. For four months, the siege continued. Ultimately, the
Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem,
Sophronius, an ethnic Arab, agreed to surrender Jerusalem to Umar in person. The caliph, then in
Medina, agreed to these terms and travelled to Jerusalem to sign the capitulation in the spring of 637. Sophronius also negotiated a pact with Umar, known as
Umar's Assurance, granting Christians religious freedom in exchange for
jizya, a tax paid by conquered non-Muslims, known as
dhimmis. Under Muslim rule, the Jewish and Christian populations of Jerusalem in this period enjoyed the
usual tolerance given to non-Muslim theists. Having accepted the surrender, Umar then entered Jerusalem with Sophronius, "and courteously discoursed with the patriarch concerning its religious antiquities". When the hour for his prayer came, Umar was in the
Church of the Holy Sepulchre, but refused to pray there, lest in the future Muslims should use that as an excuse to break the treaty and confiscate the church. The
Mosque of Umar, opposite the doors of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, with the tall minaret, is known as the place to which he retired for his prayer. Bishop
Arculf, whose account of his seventh-century pilgrimage to the
Holy Land titled
De locis sanctis was transcribed by the monk
Adomnán, described the reasonably pleasant living conditions of Christians in Palestine during the first period of Muslim rule. The caliphs of Damascus (661–750) were tolerant princes who generally maintained good relations with their Christian subjects. Many Christians, such as
John of Damascus, held important offices in their court. The Abbasid caliphs in Baghdad (753–1242) were also tolerant of Christians while they ruled Syria. Harun Abu Jaʻfar (786–809) sent the keys of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre to
Charlemagne, who built a
hospice for Latin pilgrims near the shrine. In the initial invasion, the victorious Muslims granted religious freedom to the Christian community in
Alexandria, and the Alexandrians quickly recalled their exiled
monophysite patriarch to rule over them, subject only to the ultimate political authority of the conquerors. In such a fashion the city persisted as a religious community under an Arab Muslim domination more welcome and more tolerant than that of Byzantium. (Other sources question how much the native population welcomed the conquering Muslims.) Byzantine rule was ended by the Arabs, who invaded
Tunisia from 647 to 648 and
Morocco in 682 in the course of their drive to expand the power of Islam. In 670, the Arab general and conqueror
Uqba ibn Nafi established the city of
Kairouan (in Tunisia) and the Great Mosque (also known as the
Mosque of Uqba), which is the ancestor of all the mosques of the western Islamic world. The Arabs drew heavily on
Berbers for troops in the
Muslim conquest of the Iberian Peninsula, which began in 711. No previous conqueror had tried to integrate the Berbers, but the Arabs quickly
converted them and enlisted their aid in further conquests. Without their help, for example,
Andalusia could never have been incorporated into the Islamic empire. At first, only Berbers nearer the coast were involved, but by the 11th century, Muslim affiliation had begun to spread far into the
Sahara and
Sahel. The conventional historical view is that the
conquest of North Africa by the Islamic Umayyad Caliphate during 647–709 CE effectively ended Catholicism in Africa for several centuries. However, new scholarship has appeared that provides greater nuance and detail on the conversion of the Christian inhabitants to Islam. A Christian community is recorded in 1114 in Qal'a in central Algeria. There is also evidence of religious pilgrimages after 850 CE to the tombs of Catholic saints outside the city of Carthage, as well as of religious contacts with Christians in Arab Spain. In addition, the calendar reforms adopted in Europe at this time were disseminated among the indigenous Christians of Tunis, which would not have been possible without contact with Rome. During the reign of
Umar II, the governor of Africa, Ismail ibn Abdullah, was said to have won the Berbers to Islam through his just administration. Other notable early Muslim missionaries include
Abdallah ibn Yasin, who founded a movement that led thousands of Berbers to accept Islam.
Horn of Africa The history of commercial and intellectual contact between the inhabitants of the
Somalia and the
Arabian Peninsula may help explain the
Somali people's connection with
Muhammad. The early Muslims fled to the port city of
Zeila in modern-day
Somaliland to seek protection from the Quraysh at the court of the
Aksumite Emperor in present-day
Ethiopia. Some of the Muslims granted protection are said to have settled in several parts of the Horn region to promote the religion. The victory of the Muslims over the Quraysh in the 7th century had a significant impact on local merchants and sailors, as their trading partners in Arabia had then all adopted
Islam, and the major trading routes in the
Mediterranean and the
Red Sea came under the sway of the
Muslim Caliphs. Through trade, Islam spread among the Somali population in coastal cities. Instability in the Arabian Peninsula saw further migrations of early Muslim families to the Somali seaboard. These clans came to serve as catalysts, forwarding the faith to large parts of the Horn region.
East Africa held sway from
Cape Correntes in the south to
Malindi in the north. , made of
coral stones, is the largest Mosque of its kind. On the east coast of Africa, where Arab mariners had for many years journeyed to trade,
mainly in slaves, Arabs founded permanent colonies on the offshore islands, especially on
Zanzibar, in the 9th and 10th centuries. From there, Arab trade routes into the interior of Africa helped the slow acceptance of Islam. By the 10th century, the
Kilwa Sultanate was founded by
Ali ibn al-Hassan Shirazi (one of seven sons of a ruler of
Shiraz, Persia, his mother was an
Abyssinian slave girl). Upon his father's death, Ali was driven out of his inheritance by his brothers. His successors would rule the most powerful of
sultanates on the
Swahili coast. During the peak of its expansion, the Kilwa Sultanate stretched from
Inhambane in the south to
Malindi in the north. The 13th-century Muslim traveller
Ibn Battuta noted that the great mosque of
Kilwa Kisiwani was built of
coral stone (the only such structure in the world). In the 20th century, Islam grew in Africa through both births and conversions. The number of Muslims in Africa grew from 34.5 million in 1900 to 315 million in 2000, rising from roughly 20% to 40% of Africa's total population. However, in the same time period, the number of Christians also grew in Africa, from 8.7 million in 1900 to 346 million in 2000, surpassing both the total population as well as the growth rate of Islam on the continent.
Western Africa The spread of Islam in Africa began in the 7th to 9th centuries, initially brought to North Africa under the
Umayyad dynasty. Extensive trade networks throughout North and West Africa created a medium through which Islam spread peacefully, initially through the merchant class. By sharing a common religion and a common transliteration (
Arabic), traders showed greater willingness to trust, and therefore invest, in one another. Moreover, toward the 19th century, the northern
Nigeria-based
Sokoto Caliphate, led by
Usman dan Fodio, exerted considerable efforts in the spread of Islam. While there were cases of en masse conversions to Islam, such as the Sassanid army division at Hamra, which had converted before pivotal battles (e.g., the
Battle of al-Qādisiyyah), conversion was fastest in
urban areas where Arab forces were garrisoned, slowly leading to Zoroastrianism becoming associated with rural areas. In the coming centuries, relatively large parts of the
Caucasus were Islamicized, while the majority of its population would remain adherents of local pagan traditions (e.g., the
Adyghe Xabze of the
Circassians) or Christianity (notably Armenia and Georgia) for centuries. By the 16th century, most of the populations of what became Iran and
Azerbaijan had adopted Shia Islam through the
conversion policies of the Safavids. Islam was readily accepted by Zoroastrians who were employed in industrial and artisan positions because, according to Zoroastrian purity law, such occupations that involved defiling fire made them impure.
Kurdistan Central Asia ruled by
Muhammad of Ghor and
Ghiyath al-Din Muhammad A number of the inhabitants of
Afghanistan accepted Islam through
Umayyad missionary efforts, particularly under the reign of
Hisham ibn Abd al-Malik and
Umar ibn Abdul Aziz. Later, starting from the 9th century, the
Samanids, whose roots stemmed from Zoroastrian theocratic nobility, propagated
Sunni Islam and Islamo-Persian culture deep into the heart of Central Asia. The population within its areas began firmly accepting Islam in significant numbers, notably in
Taraz, now in modern-day
Kazakhstan. The first complete translation of the Quran into
Persian occurred during the reign of the Samanids in the 9th century. According to historians, through the zealous missionary work of the Samanid rulers, as many as 30,000 tents of
Turkish people came to profess Islam, and later, under the
Ghaznavids, the number rose to more than 55,000 (under the
Hanafi school of thought). After the
Saffarid dynasty and Samanids, the
Ghaznavids re-conquered Transoxania and invaded the
Indian subcontinent in the 11th century. This was followed by the powerful
Ghurid dynasty and
Timurid dynasty, who further expanded Islam's culture and the
Timurid Renaissance, reaching as far as
Bengal.
Turkey Main articles:
Arab-Byzantine Wars,
Byzantine-Seljuq wars,
Byzantine-Ottoman Wars.
Indian subcontinent dominating western, central and South Asia Islamic influence first became felt in the
Indian subcontinent during the early 7th century with the arrival of Arab traders. Arab traders used to visit the
Malabar region, which served as a link between them and the ports of
South East Asia for trade, even before Islam had been established in Arabia. According to Historians Elliot and Dowson in their book
The History of India as told by its own Historians, the first ship bearing Muslim travelers was seen on the Indian coast as early as 630 CE. The first Indian mosque is thought to have been built in 629 CE, purportedly at the behest of an unknown Chera dynasty ruler, during the lifetime of Muhammad () in
Kodungallur, in the district of
Thrissur, Kerala, by
Malik Bin Deenar. In Malabar, Muslims are called
Mappila. In
Bengal, Arab merchants helped found the
Port of Chittagong. Early
Sufi missionaries settled in the region as early as the 8th century. H. G. Rawlinson, in his book
Ancient and Medieval History of India, claims the first Arab Muslims settled on the Indian coast in the last part of the 7th century. This fact is corroborated by J. Sturrock in his
South Kanara and Madras Districts Manuals, as well as by Haridas Bhattacharya in his 1956
Cultural Heritage of India Vol. IV. Arab merchants and traders became carriers of the new religion and propagated it wherever they went. It was, however, the subsequent expansion of the
Muslim conquest in the Indian subcontinent over the next millennia that established Islam in the region. , during the reign of the
Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan Embedded within these lies the concept of Islam as a foreign imposition and
Hinduism being a natural condition of the natives who resisted, failing the project to Islamicize the Indian subcontinent is highly embroiled with the politics of the
partition and
communalism in India. Considerable controversy exists as to how conversion to Islam came about in the Indian subcontinent. These are typically represented by the following schools of thought: , who memorised the
Quran, with the help of several Arab and Iraqi scholars compiled the
Fatawa-e-Alamgiri in 1500 Muslim missionaries played a key role in the spread of Islam in India, with some missionaries even assuming roles as merchants or traders. For example, in the 9th century, the
Ismailis sent missionaries across Asia in all directions under various guises, often as traders, Sufis, and merchants. Ismailis were instructed to speak to potential converts in their own language. Some Ismaili missionaries traveled to India and worked to make their religion acceptable to Hindus. For instance, they represented
Ali as the tenth avatar of
Vishnu and wrote hymns and a
mahdi purana in their effort to win converts. During the
Delhi Sultanate ruler
Ikhtiyar Uddin Muhammad bin Bakhtiyar Khilji's control of
Bengal, Muslim missionaries in India achieved their greatest success in terms of the number of converts to Islam. The
Mughal Empire, founded by
Babur, a direct descendant of
Timur and
Genghis Khan, was able to conquer almost the entirety of
South Asia. Although religious tolerance was seen during the rule of emperor
Akbar's, the reign under emperor
Aurangzeb witnessed the full establishment of Islamic
sharia and the re-introduction of the
jizya (a special tax imposed upon non-Muslims) through the compilation of the
Fatawa-e-Alamgiri. The Mughals, already suffering a gradual decline in the early 18th century, were
invaded by the
Afsharid dynasty ruler
Nader Shah. The Mughal decline provided opportunities for the
Maratha Empire,
Sikh Empire,
Mysore Kingdom,
Nawabs of Bengal and Murshidabad, and
Nizams of Hyderabad to exercise control over large regions of the Indian subcontinent. Eventually, after numerous wars sapped its strength, the Mughal Empire was broken into smaller powers like Shia
Nawab of Bengal, the
Nawab of Awadh, the Nizam of Hyderabad, and the Kingdom of Mysore, which became the major Asian economic and military power on the
Indian subcontinent.
Southeast Asia , influenced by both
Islamic and mainly
Hindu-
Buddhist temple-like
Javanese structure Even before Islam was established amongst Indonesian communities, Muslim sailors and traders had often visited the shores of modern Indonesia, most of these early sailors and merchants arrived from the
Abbasid Caliphate's newly established ports of
Basra and
Debal, many of the earliest Muslim accounts of the region note the presence of animals, such as
orangutans and
rhinoceroses, and valuable
spice trade commodities like
cloves,
nutmeg,
galangal, and
coconut. , also known as
gadur, well known for its
brass with
silver inlay Islam first came to Southeast Asia through Muslim traders along the main trade route between Asia and the
Far East, then through
Sufi orders, and finally consolidated through the expansion of the territories of converted rulers and their communities. The first communities arose in Northern
Sumatra (
Aceh) and the
Malacca's remained a stronghold of Islam from where it was propagated along the trade routes in the region. When
Marco Polo visited the area in 1292, he noted that the urban port state of
Peureulak was Muslim. A centuries later example that can be counted amongst the earliest introductions of Islam into
Eastern Europe came about through the work of an early 11th-century Muslim prisoner whom the
Byzantines captured during one of their wars against Muslims. The Muslim prisoner was brought into the territory of the
Pechenegs, where he taught and converted individuals to Islam. Little is known about the timeline of the Islamization of
Inner Asia and of the
Turkic peoples who lay beyond the bounds of the caliphate. Around the 7th and 8th centuries, some states of Turkic peoples existed—like the
Khazars and the
Turgesh, which fought against the caliphate in order to stop
Arabization and Islamization in Asia. From the 9th century onwards, the Turks (at least individually, if not yet through adoption by their states) began to convert to Islam. Histories merely note the fact of pre-
Mongol Central Asia's Islamization. The
Bulgars of the Volga (to whom the modern
Volga Tatars trace their Islamic roots) adopted Islam by the 10th century. which operated from the 1240s to 1502.
Kazakhs,
Uzbeks and some Muslim populations of the
Russian Federation trace their Islamic roots to the Golden Horde when a century later
Uzbeg Khan (lived 1282–1341) converted - reportedly at the hands of the
Sufi Saint Baba Tukles. Some Mongolian tribes adopted Islam. Following the brutal
Mongol invasion of Central Asia under
Hulagu Khan and after the
Battle of Baghdad (1258), Mongol rule extended across the breadth of almost all Muslim lands in Asia. The Mongols destroyed the caliphate and
persecuted Islam, replacing it with
Buddhism as the official state religion. However, during the next three centuries these
Buddhist,
shamanistic and
Christian Turkic and Mongol nomads of the
Kazakh Steppe and
Xinjiang would also convert at the hands of competing
Sufi orders from both east and west of the
Pamirs. One by one, the Balkan nationalities asserted their independence from the Empire, and frequently the presence of members of the same ethnicity who had converted to Islam presented a problem from the point of view of the now dominant new national ideology, which narrowly defined the nation as members of the local dominant Orthodox Christian denomination. This demographic transition can be illustrated by the decrease in the number of mosques in
Belgrade, from over 70 in 1750 (before Serbian independence in 1815), to only three in 1850.
Immigration Since the 1960s, many Muslims have migrated to Western Europe. They have arrived as immigrants,
guest workers, asylum seekers, or as part of
family reunification. As a result, the
Muslim population in Europe has steadily risen. A
Pew Forum study, published in January 2011, forecast an increase in the proportion of Muslims in the European population from 6% in 2010 to 8% in 2030. == See also ==