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Genesis of Islam
Rise and expansion of Islam
Rise and expansion of Islam
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Islam came to North Africa as a result of missionary efforts, traders spreading the religion, and conquest of neighboring countries.
“There are about 1.6 billion Muslims, or 23% of the world’s population, making Islam the second-largest religion”(Desilver 1). When the religion first began it wasn’t as widely accepted as today. Followers of the Islamic religion worked very hard to spread the Muslim religion. Many Muslims would work day and night trying to spread the religion. Traders, that were already Islamic, would talk about the religion as the would trade with non-Islamic traders. This would make the religion seem more appealing because the traders have a biased view and only speak of the good parts of Islam. Many of the first people to
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A missionary effort is where the church would send a group of Muslims to near-by countries to spread the religion. “Starting around the beginning of the 10th century, religious Islamic regimes began appearing in North Africa” (“Spread of Islam” 117). These people had many points to persuade people to convert to Islam. Soon after the Arab army started conquering people and making them convert; “Conquest by Muslim Arabs gradually turned into a more general spread of Islam in its Middle Eastern-North African heartland and beyond” (“North Africa” 48). This was because of the missionary efforts the people who worked on them making the Muslim religion seem so …show more content…
Some of the story might be a little bit of a stretch to make him seem like a great man. When this was written people of the Islamic religion were trying to get people to convert, to do this you have to make the religion seem better than all other religions. They tried to do this by writing this story, now I’m not saying its all fake but some of it might be.
Islam spread to North Africa as a result of missionary efforts, trades spreading the religion, and conquering of neighboring countries. Missionary efforts helped convert because they made the Islamic religion seem better than all other religions because of their biased views which made them tell only the good sides of the religion. Traders would tell other traders how sense they had converted to the Muslim religion their trading bussiness has blossomed. This made many people convert; this was the most widespread and the fastest way if getting people to convert to Islam. Many people convert because of the Arab army. They would conquer African tribes and make them convert, or enforce a special tax upon non Muslims, or after conquering a few tribes other tribes would convert because of the power and wealth of the army. The Islamic religion wouldn’t be as influential today if it was for these people who wanted to spread the
Because of Islam’s holy book, The Qur’an revolved a lot around the sacred language, Arabic, which was very beneficial for trade. Since the text in The Qur’an was in Arabic, it helped spread language, religion and culture when people traded it (Outside Source: Spread of Islam Background Reading Packet). This helped spread Islam because a lot of people read it, they may have thought of the same way and told themselves that they should become and adherent (Adherent: “Sticking to” or “ Having Faith in”) to Islam (Doc
Islam is a very large and influential religion, it all originated from one man named Muhammad spreading his beliefs to the people of Mecca, and now it has become the second largest religion in the world. How did this come to be? How did a religion that started with one man spread so quickly? methods , purposeful or not, were used. There are a few methods that appeared to be most effective, and those methods can be classified under two categories. Islam expanded from forceful ways such as government laws and military conquest, and from peaceful ways like the religion being a reasonable jump for other religions and Islam being an easily acceptable religion.
Islam continued to spread by making the idea of being a Muslim sound great. The Muslim Empire didn’t force any Muslims to pay taxes(Doc 1). The idea of changing religions made a lot of sense money wise. The change to Islam was not a large difference, pray more, and eat a little less during sun up. The idea of going to paradise after your death seemed Marvelous (Doc 2). It also gave you an idea about fighting for the Muslim Army, if you died, you would be taken to Heaven with Allah and his Apostle. To some
One of the reasons why Islam spread so quickly was because of the trading that was happening about the time islam first began. The people how were trading goods with the muslims would spread the word about muhammad in their home towns. Muhammad lived in Mecca, which was a very important and rich town . Mecca was a major crossroads for for the caravan trade. Everything from silk to spices came through Mecca. People from every direction came to Mecca to trade. Muhammad and his followers would tell the traders about Islam and some
For example, the spread of Islam to the Byzantines and the Persians. The other caliphs (Umar, Uthman and Ali) expanded the Islamic empire rapidly and grew faster than any other religion. The Muslims conquered a massive amount of land from the Indus River, across North Africa and into Spain. There were many factors that helped Islam succeed; for example, people would rather fight for God and their salvation instead of fighting for a king, the use of military force by the Muslims and how easy it was to convert to Islam.
The modern world is linked through networks of communication and exchange between peoples. These exchanges between regions has changed cultures, economics, and politics. Through time the cultural influence between regions has consisted of many factors and elements but comes down to the spread of religion and religious teachings , movement of peoples, technological and cultural advancements affecting trade and commerce. Beginning with the Middle Ages in the years 1100-1500 , Africa, Asia, and Europe developed and influenced each other in several different ways. Starting with religion. The birth of Islam in the Middle East rapidly spread throughout Afro- Eurasia. Islam was attractive to people who were uninterested in the requirements of Christianity and the Church.
As the world of trade developed over time, goods were not the only things that were traded throughout these routes. With the merchants that traveled the world, were the ideals and religions that had learned from foreign lands, and the major religions of Christianity, Islam, and Buddhism, spread like wildfire throughout the regions of Eurasia and Africa because of this. The spread of Islam throughout the continent of Africa acted as a major influence both politically and socially. After 1600, Islam began to make its mark on the newly centralized states in Africa and was spread through western land trade, and through merchants on the Swahili coast. The major gold trading center of the Kingdom of Ghana, attracted merchants, and was a center for the Muslim community . By the 10th century, the kings of Ghana had converted to Islam in order to improve the relation between the kings and merchants. The early converts of Central and West Africa did not e...
People are wondering how did Islam spread so quickly? We are going to find out how did Islam really spread so quickly in the Middle East.
In 400 B.C.E., Africa originally consisted of only about 3.5 million people; however, it grew up to 22 million people by 1000 C.E. As a result, this strong presence of the Bantu led to many near forest peoples engaging in the agricultural production or trade with their Bantu neighbors, and the Bantu community to become more urbanized. The merchants in the thriving overland and maritime trade of the sub-Saharan Africa influenced the spread of Islam in these states. Although Islam was a new foreign religion to the African society, the Africans gradually adapted this cultural belief to fit their own needs and interests. For example, they continued to maintain the almost equal relations between genders in the African society even though the traditional Muslims believed in male dominance. Islam was able to attract many converts in sub-Saharan Africa especially with merchants and members of the upper class because it led to an enhanced commercial relationship with Muslim merchants. The population pressure due to the rise in population of the Bantu society led to them further expanding and settling down in the coasts of east
Africans though hesitant, acquiescently submitted into the insistent requests of Arabians for Islamic conversion for several reasons. One reason is because Sundiata, ruler of Mali, practiced Islam. Sundiata practiced Islam intermixed with the traditional western African religions. This is known as syncretism, or combining two starkly different cultures or religions into one. The second reason was because during the fifteenth century, the Muslims took over the institution of trade and commerce. The spread of Islam was beneficial to the development of West Africa because it helped to unify the people. Most people are unified by religion, language, or excogitation. It was understood that power most gracefully exists when there is (one) central idea. Furthermore, they also believed that converting to Islam would bring them closer to the Arabian traders to get better deals on the goods. This proved to be true considering that in Sundiata, his adherence to Islam allowed him to network, negotiate policies, and form global
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 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.
The prophet Muhammad had a significant impact on the rise and spread of the religion Islam. According to World Civilizations, Muhammad “began receiving revelations transmitted from Allah,” and later these revelations became holy scripts in the Quran. Muhammad started off with very few followers but as the faith of Allah started to spread, he gained more followers and he became a threat to Mecca’s rulers. As mentioned in World Civilization, “in 622 Muhammad left Mecca for Medina where his skilled leadership brought new followers.” In Medina, Muhammad became the religious authority in the area and he used this power to conquer Mecca, a holy place for Islamic believers. By the time of his death, he was able to have created a religious empire that controlled all of the Arabian Peninsula.
In order for Islam to spread you have to have converts and people reception to the religion. Thus, Islam spread through different people converting over to the religion. People that converted had different reasons for being open to religion. It was not just about accepting Islam and wanting to be apart of it. people at motivates for converting. In North Africa for example Islam spread as a rebellion against the Byzantines and the Romans. It states that "The Christians of Egypt then saw the Muslims as liberators" (Gilbert & Reynolds 100). Also the similarities of Christianity and Muslims also made the conversion to Islam easy because the religion had similarities. Now in West Africa people had different reasons for converting. They did not convert to rebel but rather they converted because the did not want the traditional religion anymore. They converted because they thought Islam can help advance them as a society and individuals. Thus, the jihad movement started and Islam started to spread. Conversions also came to receive special privileges. In North Africa people converted so they didn 't have to pay taxes and they could have spiritual freedom (Gilbert & Reynolds 95). In West Africa they converted to Islam rather than face enslavement (Gilbert & Reynolds 205). Thus, the conversion of Islam happened because of different factors in different areas but the only way Islam could spread is if people were receptive of it. Even though people had different reason for converting they were still open and recipient of it, which lead to the
The conversion to Christianity took place when Christian supporters visited Africa during trading deals and Christianity was the source of commercial development in the African nation” (Bentley et al, 2008 p 297). Along with the arrival of Christianity, (Bentley et al, 2008 ) states that “Islam, also a religion of salvation, reached Africa via trade routes as well and that some merchants were fascinated by Islam’s cultural establishment, which enable them to conduct business relationships with other Muslim merchants” (p 297). While Christianity established a foothold in the African kingdom, (AllAboutReligion, 2010) points out that “The spread of Christianity throughout Egypt and Northern Africa… was rapid and intense… “(para 3).