Islam`

The Islam faith was a very predominant one in the world’s past history. When it first started to rise along with the teachings of Mohammed, it was very popular. Their military and cultural achievements were remarkable. When the Arabs first started conquering land, they had affected the language and cultures of those lands. Mohammed was a very spiritual man, who helped Islam rise and conquer.

Mohammed was born in 569 B.C.E. Mohammed had lost both of his parents by the age of 6, leaving him in the care of his grandmother and uncle. At 12 years old, his uncle took him on a caravan to Syria, where he picked up certain points from the Jewish and Christian religions. He married a wealthy woman at age 25, and they produced a few children together. When Mohammed was 40, he had a period of spiritual strain; he felt that God had chosen him to be a prophet. After answering to God and believing that the Koran was communicated to him, he believed he had a divine calling: to teach the power of Allah, he wanted to warn his people of the Day of Judgment, and let them know of Paradise and the rewards it held.

Shortly after he had passed away, his teachings were written down of this new religion, Islam, which meant “submission to God’s Will”. Mohammed called upon his followers to follow 5 pillars of Islam. In short, they are: 1. “There is no God but Allah; Mohamed is the Messenger of Allah”. 2. Pray five times daily-dawn, noon, midafternoon, dusk, and after dark. Facing the direction of Mecca, praying on a carpet, shoes removed and heads covered, 3. Moslems must give alms generously, 4. Moslems must fast from daybreak to sunset during the whole month of Ramadan, 5. Once in their lives Moslems, of they can, must make the pilgrimage to Mecca.

The rituals Mohammed created made a strong bond amongst the followers of Islam. They had to obey these five pillars together. Take care of their fellow Moslems who were economically challenged. They also had the Koran, which bound them together as followers, and they had their pilgrimage to Mecca, which they took together with fellow Moslems. The Koran gave guidance for all parts of life for the Moslems-“for manners and hygiene, marriage and divorce, commerce and politics, crime and punishment, peace and war” (Stavrianos, 178-179). Therefore you coul...

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...lind power complex of the Moslems because they thought they were unstoppable. They had a negative attitude towards those not part of their empire.

Egocentricity let down the iron curtain between the Moslems and the west, especially in the field of science. Scholars of the Moslem world were naïve to the achievements in anatomy, medicine and astronomy. Moslem science had festered with little drive for new discoveries in the years to come.

A final reason for the explanation of the decline of the Moslem empire were that the three greatest Moslem empires were land empires. These people ruling and taking charge in these empires had their backs to the ocean, so they never felt a need to go to sea. The rulers did not help by being uninterested in trading overseas. This situation let Europeans to jump past the Moslems and become leaders in the overseas trading industries. The Europeans controlled the world trade and the stimulated the economic, social and political development of this nation. Europe became increasingly wealthy, productive, and dynamic, completely leaving the Moslem empire following in its footsteps for centuries.