Early Islamic Empire Expansion The early Islamic Empire expanded by war, and making peace. In Document A: Battle of the Yarmuk, it talks about the war going on between the Muslims and The Greeks. Then Document B: Treaty of Tudmir, it talks about a treaty that the Muslims made with Theodemir, which was the Christian King of the region in southern Spain. The early Islamic Empire expanded by war. For example the Battle of the Yarmuk (Document A) showed how the Muslims (despite having less people fighting) took the Greeks down. There was about 24,000 Muslims who took part. And in the text it states “By Allah’s help, some 70,000 of them [the Greeks] were put to death” meaning that the Muslims killed a lot of the Greeks. It also said that the
The political structure of the Arabian and Byzantine empires greatly differed from each other. The Arabian empire was ruled over by a Caliphate. The Caliphate was the successor to the great prophet Muhammad. Politically, the Caliphate sometimes caused trouble for the stability of the empire. With multiple groups such as the Umayyad and the Abbasid believing the were in charge of the Caliphate led to conflicts and violence. An example of conflict would be towards the end of the Abbasid empire when the death of Harun al-Rashid brought several full scale revolutions. Another example would be at the beginning of Abbasid empire when they went as far as too kill off all of the remaining Umayyad leaders to sustain full control with little to no interference. Politically, the Arab/Muslim empire stretched from India and the Middle East into the Africa, the Mediterranean, and Iberia. They also had a large influence in Southeast Asia. When they conquered these areas, there was no forced conversion. On the other hand, they did enforce a higher tax for non-Muslims which prompted people to convert. Only later were there violently forced conversions. A testimony to this would be when the Muslims invaded India and did not touch the Buddhist or Hindus already there. They even respected the Hindu leadership and allowed them to continue. The Muslim empire was successful in other parts of the world due to tolerance, and continued to operate in the face of power struggles.
The town of Mecca was the birthplace of Islam, at first the leaders of the city refused the changing of this new religion and forced Muhammad to leave. Muhammad returned and preached to the people about what he had heard, that there is only one god. Islam spread quickly for two main reasons they are the message and military conquest.
Three Muslim empires rose during the spread of Islam. These empires are different, yet also similar. They are the Ottomans, Safavids, and Mughals. They united other Muslims but also conquered other territories to form their own empires.
All across cultures in history, varying groups of beliefs have come into contact with one another. As for early Muslims, military expansion and travel were key components for spreading the Islamic religion to foreign nations. However, not all exchanges were hostile or wholly based on the conquest of exotic lands. Some interactions solely were based on capturing lands to control, while allowing non-converters to remain in the area as the military continued forward gaining new territory. The primary sources, The Viking Rus, Peace Terms with Jerusalem, and The Pact to Be Accorded to Non-Muslim Subjects provide insight on how Muslims interacted with other religious groups. Early Muslims saw the expansion of Islam through conquest, travel, and trade with foreign cultures and beliefs, all while having unusual exchanges with each faith.
We see in the mid-7th century the Muslim Invasions conquering Cathage, Alexandria, and Spain. By the Muslims increasing their empire, this led to a spread not only people, but also Islam. The Sunnah encourages Muslims to trade and make money to support themselves, such
The early Islamic empire expanded drastically. This happened due to conquering done by the Muslim people. Evidence of this being a contribution towards the expansion of the empire is on Document A. It states, “The Muslims gathered together, and the Greek army marched against them.” This shows that the Muslim army fought and that they were strong, playing a big role in the expansion of Islam.
War was a way of life for these people, they fought throughout their history and basically their empires died without it. They were always expanding the empires through war and when they could no longer do this they fought with themselves within their own empires. When this happened they rapidly declined and where easy prey for the Europeans when they arrived.
Many centuries ago in our history, before 1450, both the Byzantine Empire and the Islamic Caliphates both were born. The Byzantine Empire took place in the Eastern Mediterranean while the Islamic Caliphates were located in the Middle East and some parts of North Africa. Both of these empires used religion to govern in their empire, and while both empires didn’t take part in the same religion, both religions still had differences and similarities when it came to governing. Both of the empires were influenced by different religions. The Islamic Caliphates were influenced by the Prophet, Muhammed who taught them the ways of their religion, and on the other hand the Byzantine Empire was influenced by Christianity. The Both the Byzantine Empire and Islamic Caliphates
1. The three main factors that resulted in the Ottoman expansion of the 14th century were rooted in geopolitics, military technology a nd strategy, and political strategy. The Ottoman capital and center of economics (post-1453) was located at Istanbul, which was not only the geographical “gateway” to Europe, but also connected Asia and Europe, which made Istanbul an extremely important area for commerce and merchants travelling from one continent to the other. Even after the Ottoman takeover of the Byzantines, they were able to expand even more partly due to the capitol and funds gained through commerce in Istanbul. The Ottomans also created an army that was aided by new technologies such as firearms as well as horses, which helped them expand exponentially through the Middle East. The balance within their military, with the Calvary coupled with armed Janissaries, furthered their military might. Lastly, the political strategy of Osman and his heirs helped to further Ottoman goals including expansion.
Spielvogel, Jackson J. "The Muslim Empires: The Ottoman Empire.” Glencoe World History. New York, NY: Glencoe/McGraw-Hill, 2005. p.484-489. Print.
Why and how did Islam spread so quickly? I will give three reasons to answer this question. One answer is because of the large trading happening, two is that muslims are protected by Islam, three is because of the religion Muhammad created was attractive to people.
The Arabs charged with religious zeal from Mohammed conquered quickly over the Persians and were welcomed at Egypt and Syria. Egypt and Syria greeted the Arabs as liberators that promised toleration of religion rather than doctrinal disputes from the church at Constantinople. With these two key ports the Arabs had opened the East Mediterranean by 1641. The Muslims were unable to defeat the Byzantine Empire on land and move to the sea for victory, which allowed the Arabs control of Egypt across North Africa and into Spain by 1717.
In this case, conquest is when people take over other people’s land and force people to convert to Islam. In the 7th and 8th centuries the Muslims had conquered land in Northern Africa and the Middle East. During that time, there were four caliphs. Muhammad’s second successor, Umar (one of the four caliphs), took over the north part of Jerusalem. He gave people three options during conquest and they were: Convert to Islam, pay very heavy taxes, or die (Outside Source: Spread of Islam Background Reading Packet). Another method of conquest was from military campaigns. The military campaigns had spread from all over Europe to Asia. The cities Mecca, Medina, Jerusalem, Cairo, Baghdad, and Saragossa had come under Muslim control between 622 CE and 750 CE (Doc C). For centuries because of the Ghazu raids, the Arabs have been adding to their inadequate resources, but Islam came to the rescue and put an end to the raids because the Ummah (Muslim Community) was not allowed to attack others. Then, the Arabs tried to attack on the richer lands further out of the peninsula (the Persian Empire and the Byzantium Empire) and wanted to attack to preserve the unity of the Ummah. The two empires facilitated (Facilitated/Facilitate: to make something easier) for the Arabs to attack because the empires have been fighting wars for so long, they became very tired (Doc D). In the year 636 CE, the Byzantine fought against the Muslims
The failure of defensive development in Egypt, the Ottoman Empire, and Persia had a large and long-lasting effect on the Muslim world. The original goal of the reforms was to end European intervention, revive the weakening empires, and to be on equal standing with Europe. Yet, all three empires over-utilized the wealth and knowledge of Europe, leading to their ultimate demise. The empires wished to impose reforms in the military, economics, education, and law which the region had not experienced previously. This resulted in backlash, violence, and division within the empires eventually leading to bankruptcy, ironically, to those which they wished to separate themselves.
Much of past civilizations have endured many failures and triumphs throughout their existence. In the third century, there were many civilizations that started to flourish. One of these civilizations that started to expand was the Byzantine civilization. The Byzantine civilization, also regarded as Byzantium, was part of the Roman Empire which was divided in 395 AD. Byzantium had shared the same attitude, as the Roman Empire, toward exercising its authority over its citizens and throughout its empire. The Islamic civilization had started thrive in the fifth century. The Islamic civilization was unified together as unison by Islam and it has expanded its civilization throughout parts of Europe through jihad. Because of their expansions throughout parts of Europe, they shared various similarities which include their political system, social structure, and economy.