Spread Of Islam Dbq Analysis

Expansion of Islam

Document Based Question (DBQ)

Question: Why did Islam Spread So Quickly?

In 610 CE, Muhammad, a merchant trader from Mecca (Mecca is also a site of a yearly pilgrimage where Muslims come to perform a rituals at the sacred Ka’ba a.k.a. the holy shrine of Mecca), made one of his frequent visits to a cave by Mount Hira. On his way to the cave, he decided to pray because of all the different causes that made him feel like he was losing his way. During this visit to Mount Hira, the Archangel Gabriel squeezed Muhammad hard forcing the words “Allah is one God” continuously coming out of his mouth. After having these words come out of his mouth for about two years, Muhammad decided that it was the time to encourage others to quote

the words that he had been saying on his visit. He shared different things with others, such as the importance of charity and Allah. All the cohesion (Cohesion: The action of fact of forming a united whole) from his teachings then came into religion called Islam, which means the “submission”. In the beginning, many people in Mecca resisted Muhammad’s preaching’s and by 622 CE, the resistance became so strong that it forced Muhammad to leave Mecca and emigrate north to a city named Medina, where he established a new base. Later on, in 624 CE during a prayer session, symbolically, Muhammad turned his body to the south away from Jerusalem and toward Mecca; this meant that a new religion had just begun. Later, Muhammad made a hard decision to come back to Mecca, assuming (Assumption/Assuming: A thing that is accepted as true or as certain to happen, without proof) there would be no opposition. He then had enough support to get the idols in the Ka’ba to be destroyed and the shrine dedicated to Allah. After Muhammad’s death in 632 CE, the words he recited had been written in The Qur’an (The holy book). In The Qur’an, it states one of the most integral (Integral: Necessary to make a whole complete) parts of Islam: The Five Pillars of Islam. The five pillars are: Shahadah (A public Declaration of Faith), Salat (Praying 5 times per day), Zakat (almsgiving, required to give 2.5% of their wealth for charity), Siyam (fasting during the month of Ramadan) and finally, Hajj (making a pilgrimage to Mecca at least once in their lifetime). Within 100 years of Muhammad’s death, Islam exploded and reached Europe and Asia. Why? Why did Islam diffuse so quickly? A few things that caused Islam to spread so quickly was because of Trade, Conquest, and Migration.
Like I said earlier, one of the reasons Islam spread so quickly was because trade.

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

B).

Another reason why Islam spread so quickly was because of conquest.

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

to prevent the expansion of Islam. In that war, the Muslims had won and the expansion continued to grow (Doc F).
Finally the last reason Islam spread really quickly was migration. Military campaigns spread north of Medina, West to Europe and East towards Asia. These military campaigns helped by advocating Islam (Doc C). Starting from Mecca, people migrated to other places through the trade routes. They went through Persia and the Byzantine Empire. People traveled on land and on water.
Analyzing what I said throughout the essay, after Muhammad died in 632 CE,
The words he has been continuously had been written in The Qur’an. After that, the trade had begun and people began to trade Islam’s holy book The Qur’an and that helped spread language, religion and culture. Then the next method of the expansion of Islam was from conquest. Muhammad’s second successor and one of the caliphs, Umar, had taken over the north part of Jerusalem. While conquering, Umar gave people three choices: pay heavy taxes, convert to Islam or die. And the final method was migration. People and military campaigns migrated which helped spread the religion. Islam exploded and in 2015 23% of the worlds population are followers of Islam.