Islam and it's expansion
Islam emerged during 570AD in Mecca during the time
of Mohammed Nabi. His childhood is not clear. He had similar story of Jesus.
Just like Jesus’ mother Mary, Amina, mother of Mohamed had a kind of vision and
oracle that you carry in the womb the lord
of these people. Islam came much
later after Mohammed in 8th Century. Writer Ibn
– Ishaq wrote when he was 12 years old while on the way to Syria he met
a Christian monk Bahira at Bosttra. This monk saw some sign of greatness and
significance in Mohamed. He stayed with the monk Bahira and he protected
Mohamed. He also says whatever Mohamed learned and developed because of the
initiative and effort one person called Jabaer.
During this time Mecca was important pace and people
were basically polytheistic. Mecca was center of all religious Practices. Kaaba
was the holy place for them. The Practice was that people from all places bring
their deities and keep in Kaaba and worship together. It was said that at one
point of time around 300 idols were brought into worship. However, there
started some changes after Mohammad started preaching against those
polytheistic Practices. They took pride in hosting those rituals.
He started preaching about the concept of one
God. This angered many people. Even the
rich people turned against t Mohamed. He managed to gather many people. Money
came from all these practices and rituals also declined when Mohamed preached
against these practices. He was casted
away from Mecca. He was from Quryash clan. They were dominant and powerful clan
in Mecca. His own people casted him out and he took refuge in Yathrab (Medina)
about 200 miles away from Micca in 622 AD which is the beginning of Muslim
history.
In the beginning Mohammad did not have any
problem with Christianity because Christianity was also Monotheist. He showed
highest respect for Jesus. He always addressed him as greatest prophet. Jesus
was referred in Quran as messenger, servant, prophet, spirit of God, Son of
man, Messiah, word of truth, etc. He attributed Jesus with all this titles in
Quran. He regarded himself as a new messenger after Jesus Christ. There was no
much problem initially. However, problem started coming out after his death in
632. His hope of attracting Jews and Christians failed miserable. When he died
he was succeeded by Caliph. The first Caliph was Umar (634-644) and the next
was Uthman (644-656). Quran and Muslims no longer recognized trinity and denied
the lordship of Jesus Christ.
Expansion
of Islam
The situation in east
was different. Islam began to grow rapidly in east. At this time there was no
eastern or western Church. East consists of Syria, Persian, and west meant
Europe. After Mohammad died Christianity was a kind of dominant faith in those
areas of the west. East was different. Islam dominated not only in terms of
faith but in cultural aspect also. In the east it is the place where Islam
began to grow rapidly. It is stated that Christianity halted for some time
because of Islam.
Even Mohammad took
violent means to spread his religion. Within short period of time by middle of
the seventh century Islam faith expanded to quite a lot of areas. By this time
it had spread to Syria, Egypt and North Africa. The battle of Poitiers in 732
did not allow Islam to advance to Europe. The effect of Muslim rule was that
Eastern part of Roman Empire was reduced to small place. After Mohammad some
peoples addressed Caliph took over in an attempt to spread religion while some
scholars suggest it as a territorial expansion.
First main center of
Muslim was headed by Caliph of Damascus. Then it was shifted to Bagdad and then
to Ottomans, Turkey and then to Istanbul.
Previous name was Constantinople and Bisantanole. The greatest Muslim
expansion lasted till fifteenth century because of this the east suffered a
lot. In the process there was violence also. The Christian had to pay huge
taxes to Muslim called Jizya. When we compare Christians and Muslims we
understand that Muslims were very tolerant to other religions.
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