The Main Issues Confronting the Rightly Guided Caliphs from 632-661
A) After the death of the prophet, the city of medina and Mecca was
under a form of chaos, as the Islamic empire were with out a leader to
guide or to lead the people of Islam. Therefore the Muslim committee
elected Abu Bakr, as he was the closest companion of the prophet, and
so become the first caliphate, also known as ‘The Rightly Guided
Caliphs’ because a caliph is someone who truly followed the footsteps
of the prophet. Abu Bakr’s first dilemma as a caliph was the
dismemberment of the alliances of the following kingdoms ‘Yemen’ and
‘Oman’. Also the false revelations of new prophets seemed to emerge
through out of Arabia. To deal with this problem Abu Bakr had no
choice but to send out the Muslim armies to conquer the following
kingdoms and also destroy any allegations of prophet hood. These
problems were dealt swift and quick, and in two years the whole of
Arabia was united by one signal Caliph by the year 633 AC. The final
internal problem that Abu Bakr had to deal with was the creation of
the written Qur’an, it took about two years for the holly verses
scathed through out Mecca and Medina to be united and be created into
one book. Also at which time Abu Bakr had to deal with external
problem, which was the constant oppression from the Roman Empire,
causing Abu Bakr to appoint Khalid bin Waleed a military genius to
lead the Muslim army to invade the kingdoms of Syria and Iraq.
“I shall send usama’s army on its way as ordered by the prophet, even
if I am left alone.”
At the age of sixty-three Abu Bakr passed away never witnessing the
accomplishment ...
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...ph remained was Ali, Ali in my point of
view is remembered more as a religious figure then a military leader,
but yet Ali had no choice but intervene with Mu’awiya in battles to
secure his caliphate as Mu’awiya would not recognise him as a caliph
until the assassins of his uncle Uthman brought to justice, but the
assassins where mostly made of Ali’s supporters. You could argue the
fact that Ali could not expand the empire as the other three caliphs
but regardless he did intervene as a caliph to make changes to the
rules of taxing and the revenues.
Ali out of all the other caliphs had pressing matter to deal with the
instance he became a caliph, and these pressing mater affects now in
our time then at Ali’s time, as because of Ali’s events of becoming a
caliph the Islamic world was divided into two, shi’a and sunnis.
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.
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The Early Islamic Empire was a place with Muslims, Muhammad, Abu Bakr, and other very significant phenomenonical things
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Politics is important to any civilization for the reason that it influences how a civilization governs their people and expands their belief system upon its citizens. Both Byzantine and Islamic civilization had used politics in a manner that provided them the success accomplished during their expansion throughout Europe. The Byzantine Empire was a form of an autocratic government that was governed by one ruler at a time, known as an emperor. The emperor had made most of the decisions that pushed the Byzantine regime forward. The Islamic civilization governed its people under one ruler known as a caliph. The caliph had the position as a leader of an Islamic community. The caliph had used Islam to promote his authority over the community and across wider fields. Muhammad used tribal methods of jihad, referred to “holy war”, to expand its authority of the movement. Both ...
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Most people have heard the timeless adage “The enemy of my enemy is my friend.” This sentiment applies perfectly when describing the relationship between Charles the Great’s Carolingian Dynasty and the Abbasid Caliphate in the eighth century CE. These two expanding empires faced mutual enemies in both the Ummayad Caliphate as well as the Byzantine Empire. The Ummayad Caliphate had been disrupting Charlemagne’s empire from Spain; this eventually led to the creation of the Spanish March, a buffer zone intended to control his Muslim enemies. This caliphate also was naturally against the Abbasid Caliphate, as the two different groups each sought to be the dominant Caliphate in the Muslim world. Additionally, the Byzantines under Empress Irene inhibited
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.
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The world you once knew is falling to ashes and food is become such a scarcity that people are fighting over a few pieces of bread. The political class is too busy fighting among themselves to care for anyone else. Children are roaming the streets and begging for work to feed their dying, hungry stomachs. This is not a scene from a horror movie, but rather the reality of the beginning of post classical era. In these times of hardship the people turned to a higher power, which resulted in a religious boom. The main religion during the post classical era that had the greatest impact on people was Islam due to Muhammad, trade routes, the Black Plague, conquests and Islamic culture.
Islam is a monotheistic and Abrahamic religion alongside Judaism and Christianity. It is currently the second largest religion in the world today. Its beliefs come from the Qur'an which literally means "the recitation" which is believed to be a literal transcription of the word of God. Its main prophet is named Muhammad who began Islam by speaking with the angel Gabriel in a cave during his meditation and then acting as an instrument of God to help write the Qur’an. Muhammad then spread Islam to the scattered tribes of Arabia by becoming the leader of Yathrib and using his wonderful leadership abilities to then grow his influence over virtually all of Arabia. Muhammad is known by Muslims to be the seal of the profits because no profits after Muhammad should be considered legitimate. Muhammad also left behind the Hadith or “tradition” which is a collection of writings compiled of reports of Muhammad’s actions as leader of Yathrib. These reports are used as a more specific code of ethics in day to day life and from these reports the 5 Pillars of Islam are derived (Smith 160). Although Islam shares many similarities to Judaism and Christianity it is often viewed in the US with hate derived from preconceived notions following the attack on September 11th 2001. This paper seeks to provide an overview of Islam’s history as well as its two major sects and 5 main pillars to remove preconceived notions and provide a glance into the minds of the Islamic people.
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