Muslim expansion: Everything you should know
In the middle of the sixth century a new religion emerged that spread rapidly. From the Arabian Peninsula, the Muslim expansion went to the West throughout North Africa until it reached Europe on the Iberian Peninsula and even Central Asia by the East. Growth was such that today it is the second religion most often after Christianity.
In this article we want to present some of the fundamental data to understand Muslim expansion. An expansion that was not only at the spiritual level, but also affected all areas of society. Let’s see how the birth and expansion of Islam was.
Islam and the union of Arab peoples
Spell of the Quran
Even Muhammad’s preaching, the Arab people were made up of various groups very divided and faced with each other. Muhammad managed to unify them by giving them a mission, a destination, a common cause. Thanks to this, the development and growth of Islamic civilization was possible.
Most of the Arabian Peninsula was formed by deserts inhabited by independent nomadic tribes dedicated to grazing, looting and caravanero traffic that linked the territories of Yemen with Palestine and Egypt. This traffic promoted nomadic peoples to sedentarize along the route. The main centers were Mecca, Medina, Yanbo and Taima.
The city of Mecca was the most important of this commercial route. Thanks to the contacts established with merchants from Syria, Palestine and Persia, Mecca was drinking from Jewish and Christian influences. Muhammad himself grew in the midst of this confluence of ideas. Who was Muhammad and why it was decisive in the conformation of Islam?
Muhammad and Islam
Mecca
Muhammad was born around 570 and spent his childhood in Mecca. There he participated in caravaneras and commercial activities that contacted him with different cultural fields. He married a rich widow that allowed him to have some emotional and economic stability.
From this moment, Muhammad began to develop a political and religious thought that was based on the equality of human beings. He developed the idea of a final judgment where each man would be judged by his actions and not for his origin or social position.
This thought was very well received by the most disadvantaged populations that did not benefit from the revenues obtained by commercial traffic. Logically, the oligarchies saw in Muhammad’s words a great threat to their privileges and, therefore, they began a persecution towards their person.
That hostility towards Muhammad led him to change his city. He moved to the city of Medina in 622. This episode is known as the Hégira and marks the first year of the Islamic era. The city became the refuge of the followers of Muhamoma, who came to control the city.
Muhammad in Medina
During the ten years that Muhammad remained in Medina insisted on the equality of all men before God. This preaching of equality allowed to expand the social bases of the Muslim movement including very heterogeneous groups. Thus, he signed a pact with the inhabitants of Medina and after other populations.
This pact placed Muhammad as the leader of a political-religious community formed by his followers. This community, the UMMA, had a supratribal character and was the one that allowed starting a war against Mecca. Muhammad won the battle, pilgated Mecca in 629 and there was recognized as its leader. In the year 630 the entire Arabian peninsula was under Muslim control.
Muslim expansion outside the Arabian Peninsula
As we will see, the Muslim expansion was a process of occurring quickly and on territories where there were great consolidated empires whose military power was much higher than that of Arab forces.
Historiography has discussed a lot about the factors that enabled this expansion. There is talk of religious, political and economic reasons, and also of the weakness of the Byzantine and Persian empires. However, most likely the Muslim expansion materialized thanks to the conjunction of all these factors.
Expansion to Mesopotamia and the Middle East
Persepolis
The Muslim expansion outside the Arabian Peninsula began almost immediately after the taking of Mecca by Muhammad. The year 633 undertaken offensives in the territory that today is Iraq. Quickly, the Arab groups were done with the control of the territory because of the decadent state in which the Persian empire was.
From 638 the new conquerors would found large cities like Kufa and Basora. In 640 the invasion of Persia began. In just ten years the empire fell and a rapid process of Arabization of the territory began. The Zoroastric religion was lost, however, their language and culture remained alive.
The Byzantine empire was not completely overthrown, although it did lost many of its territories. It was also a process that started very early, in 633. Quickly, in 640, it was possible to conquer the territory that today belongs to Syria. The territory became a province with some autonomy, although fully Arabized.
In the year 661, Syria was the territorial base that created a dynasty and an empire, which is why Moavia moved the capital of Caliphate to Damascus. At this time, Islamic culture was definitely urbanized, becoming a model urban civilization.
Muslim expansion to the West
Occupation of Egypt and North Africa
Cairo
In the year 642, once the Syrian occupation was consolidated, the conquest of Egypt began. Occupation resistance was minimal. Despite the language and its ancient and splendorous history, the Islamization of Egypt was rapid and deep.
After Egypt they launched the rest of North Africa. These territories were inhabited by nomadic peoples: Libyans, Numids, Berbers, etc. The resistance offered by these peoples was greater, but the Muslims managed to quickly get economic and political control.
The occupants managed to impose their religion and the busy quickly assumed the Islamic culture, but they did not be Arabized. With the taking of these territories, the Maghreb was created, a territory that was increasingly disconnected from the capital of Caliphate, Damascus.
Occupation of the Iberian Peninsula
The Alhambra
From the Maghreb, the invasion of territories on the other side of the Mediterranean was thought. Thus, in 711 they crossed the Strait of Gibraltar and began the occupation of the Iberian Peninsula.
At this time, the Visigothic kingdom was in an internal division situation that was used by Muslims. After the victory of Guadalete, in 711, the occupants did not find excessive resistance to the conquest by the Spanish -Visigoda population.
In 714 almost the entire peninsula was under Muslim control. They also made an attempt to continue the occupation beyond the Pyrenees, but in the year 732, after the battle of Poitiers, the Muslims abandoned the expectations of continuing to the north.
On the other hand, in the Iberian Peninsula, from 718 a process of resistance by Christians began. In 722, Don Pelayo stopped the invasion of Covadonga and ten years later the Muslims began to lose territories north of the Duero. Despite this, Muslims managed to settle completely and Al-Andalus was their home for more than 700 years.
Islam also expanded through central and Indian Asia, but in those territories the resistance to the invasion was tenacious. In the year 670 what is Afghanistan was occupied today. In 762 the caliphate was moved to Baghdad and the conquest of India began, which was very complicated. Islamizo was largely.
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