I.

Introduction

Islam, Spread of, rapid expansion of the religion of Islam through conversion and military conquest in the 7th and 8th centuries. Muhammad, the founder and prophet of Islam, began preaching his visions in Mecca in 610. Within 25 years, he and his followers, now called Muslims, had gained control of the entire Arabian Peninsula, and Islam was fast becoming the world’s third great monotheistic religion, after Judaism and Christianity. By 650 an organized Islamic state ruled Arabia (also known as the Arabian Peninsula), the entire Fertile Crescent (Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Palestine), and Egypt; by the early 700s Islam dominated a wide area, stretching from the fringes of China and India in the east to North Africa and Spain in the west.

The remarkable speed of this religious expansion can be attributed to the fact that it was accomplished primarily through military conquest. Muhammad drew Arabs of the Arabian Peninsula to Islam by his forceful personality, the promise of salvation for those who died fighting for Islam, and the lure of fortune for those who succeeded in conquest. The call of the faithful to conquest in the name of Allah became the most widely known form of jihad. The caravan raids of the early years of Islam soon become full-scale wars, and empires and nations bowed to the power of this new religious, military, political, economic, and social phenomenon.