Islam

The history of Islam concerns the political, social, economic, military, and cultural developments of the Islamic civilization. Most historians believe that Islam originated with Muhammad’s mission in Mecca and Medina at the start of the 7th century CE, although Muslims regard this time as a return to the original faith passed down by the Abrahamic prophets, such as Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, David, Solomon, and Jesus, with the submission (Islām) to the will of God.

According to the traditional account, the Islamic prophet Muhammad began receiving what Muslims consider to be divine revelations in 610 CE, calling for submission to the one God, preparation for the imminent Last Judgement, and charity for the poor and needy.[Note 1] As Muhammad’s message began to attract followers (the ṣaḥāba) he also met with increasing hostility and persecution from Meccan elites.[Note 2] In 622 CE Muhammad migrated to the city of Yathrib (now known as Medina), where he began to unify the tribes of Arabia under Islam, returning to Mecca to take control in 630 and order the destruction of all pagan idols. By the time Muhammad died c. 11 AH (632 CE), almost all the tribes of the Arabian Peninsula had converted to Islam, but disagreement broke out over who would succeed him as leader of the Muslim community during the Rashidun Caliphate.

The early Muslim conquests were responsible for the spread of Islam. By the 8th century CE, the Umayyad Caliphate extended from Iberian Al-Andalus in the west to the Indus River in the east. Polities such as those ruled by the Umayyad and Abbasid caliphates (in the Middle East and later in Spain and Southern Italy), the Fatimids, Seljuks, Ayyubids, and Mamluks were among the most influential powers in the world. Highly Persianized empires built by the Samanids, Ghaznavids, and Ghurids significantly contributed to technological and administrative developments. The Islamic Golden Age gave rise to many centers of culture and science and produced notable polymaths, astronomers, mathematicians, physicians, and philosophers during the Middle Ages.

By the early 13th century, the Delhi Sultanate conquered the northern Indian subcontinent, while Turkic dynasties like the Sultanate of Rum and Artuqids conquered much of Anatolia from the Byzantine Empire throughout the 11th and 12th centuries. In the 13th and 14th centuries, destructive Mongol invasions, along with the loss of population due to the Black Death, greatly weakened the traditional centers of the Muslim world, stretching from Persia to Egypt, but saw the emergence of the Timurid Renaissance and major economic powers such as the Mali Empire in West Africa and the Bengal Sultanate in South Asia. Following the deportation and enslavement of the Muslim Moors from the Emirate of Sicily and elsewhere in southern Italy, the Islamic Iberia was gradually conquered by Christian forces during the Reconquista. Nonetheless, in the early modern period, the gunpowder empires—the Ottomans, Timurids, Mughals, and Safavids—emerged as world powers.

During the 19th and early 20th centuries, most of the Muslim world fell under the influence or direct control of the European Great Powers. Some of their efforts to win independence and build modern nation-states over the course of the last two centuries continue to reverberate to the present day, as well as fuel conflict-zones in regions such as Palestine, Kashmir, Xinjiang, Chechnya, Central Africa, Bosnia, and Myanmar. The oil boom stabilized the Arab States of the Gulf Cooperation Council (comprising Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates), making them the world’s largest oil producers and exporters, which focus on capitalism, free trade, and tourism

Origins of Islam

According to the traditional account, the Islamic prophet Muhammad was born in Mecca, an important caravan trading center, around the year 570 CE. His family belonged to the Arab clan of Quraysh, which was the chief tribe of Mecca and a dominant force in western Arabia.

Most likely Muhammad was “intimately aware of Jewish belief and practices,” and acquainted with the Ḥanīf. Like the Ḥanīf, Muhammad practiced Taḥannuth, spending time in seclusion at mount Hira and “turning away from paganism.” When he was about 40 years old, he began receiving at mount Hira’ what Muslims regard as divine revelations delivered through the angel Gabriel, which would later form the Quran. These inspirations urged him to proclaim a strict monotheistic faith, as the final expression of Biblical prophetism earlier codified in the sacred texts of Judaism and Christianity; to warn his compatriots of the impending Judgement Day; and to castigate social injustices of his city.

In Yathrib, where he was accepted as an arbitrator among the different communities of the city under the terms of the Constitution of Medina, Muhammad began to lay the foundations of the new Islamic society, with the help of new Quranic verses which provided guidance on matters of law and religious observance. The surahs of this period emphasized his place among the long line of Biblical prophets, but also differentiated the message of the Quran from the sacred texts of Christianity and Judaism. Armed conflict with the Arab Meccans and Jewish tribes of the Yathrib area soon broke out. After a series of military confrontations and political manoeuvres, Muhammad was able to secure control of Mecca and allegiance of the Quraysh in 629 CE. In the time remaining until his death in 632 CE, tribal chiefs across the Arabian peninsula entered into various agreements with him, some under terms of alliance, others acknowledging his claims of prophethood and agreeing to follow Islamic practices, including paying the alms levy to his government, which consisted of a number of deputies, an army of believers, and a public treasury