"Say We believe in God and what is revealed to us and what was revealed to Abraham and Ishmael and I`saac and Jacob and the Tribes, and what was entrusted to Moses and Jesus and the prophets from their Lord. We make no distinction between any of them and to Him we have surrendered." (Quran 3: 84)

Bief History of Islam

Source: "The World of Islam" edited by Bernard Lewis

The Prophet Muhammad died in 11/632. At the time of his death, he had already established a Muslim state in a large part of Arabia. His successors were known as the caliphs; but after thirty years the state became split between the followers of 'Uthman, the third caliph, and those of 'Ali, the fourth, Muhammad's son-in-law.

This division led to the two great religious parties which still exist -- the Sunni [who go back to 'Uthman's followers] and the Shi'i [who go back to 'Ali's].

CHRONOLOGY

• Dynastic Caliphates
• Fatimids and Spanish Umayyids
• The Mongols
• After the Mongols: Five Centuries of the Islamic World
• The Last Five Hundred Years

Dynastic Caliphates

In 41/661, the orthodox or patriarchal caliphs, ruling from western Arabia, were succeeded by the first dynastic caliphate, that of the Umayyids. These had their main base in Syria, and under their rule the Islamic empire extended eastward as far as the borders of India and China, westwards to the Atlantic and the Pyrenees. The Ummayid caliphate was overthrown by a successful revolution in the year 132/750 and succeeded by the House of 'Abbas. The 'Abbasids transferred the capital from Syria to Iraq, and established their seat of government in the city of Baghdad. The 'Abbasid caliphs reigned until the year 656/1258. They were, however, effective rulers only for the first century or so of this period. In the east, local dynasties appeared in Persia, notably the Tahirids, the Saffarids and the Samanids, who succeeded in establishing an extensive domain in central Asia, where they greatly extended the borders of the Islamic empire. In the west, the first country to become independent of Baghdad was Spain, where an Umayyid prince fleeing from the east established an independent amirate in 138/756. This was followed by the rise of other independent dynasties in Morocco, in Tunisia and in Egypt.

In the early period effective control of the caliphate remained in the hands of the Arab conquerors and their descendants. Later they were compelled to share power with non-Arab converts to Islam and notably with Persians in the east and Berbers in the west. During the IV/10th and V/11th centuries Persian and Persianized dynasties became the centres of a Persian cultural renaissance.

At about the same time a third ethnic element entered Middle Eastern Islam -- the Turks. By the V/11th century they were migrating westwards both north and south of the Caspian and the Black Sea. In the central Islamic lands they were led by the family of Seljuq, which established a new institution, the universal sultanate claiming authority over the whole of Sunni Islam, and co-existing with the caliphate, which it recognized. During the period of Turkish domination, Islam was extended to new areas -- in Central Asia where the Turkish converts to Islam carried the new faith, by conquest and by preaching, to their still unconverted brethren; in India, where Turkish invaders from Iran and Central Asia created a new Islamic empire in the sub-continent; and in Asia Minor, which was successfully invaded by Turkish tribesmen and armies in the V/11th century. A new Muslim principality was set up here, governed by a branch of the House of Seljuq.

Fatimids and Spanish Umayyids

The independent dynasties which had arisen within the 'Abbasid caliphate, which excercising effective independence, were content to recognize the supremacy of the 'Abbasid caliph as the single legitimate head of all Islam. In the IV/10th century this was challenged in the west by the rise of the Fatimid dynasty, first in Tunisia, where it arose in 297/909, and then in Egypt, which the Fatimids conquered in 358/969. The Fatimids were not Sunnis but followers of Shi'ism, and denied the right of the 'Abbasid caliphs, whom they regarded as usurpers. Instead they established their own caliphate which for a while ruled over large areas of North Africa, Egypt, Syria and western and southern Arabia. The establishment of the Fatimid caliphate in North Africa provoked the Umayyad Amir of Cordoba in Spain, in self-protection, to proclaim himself a caliph; and there were thus for a time three caliphs in the Islamic world.

The Umayyad caliphate of Cordoba foundered in 422/1031, giving way to a number of small local dynasties. The Fatimid caliphate in Egypt was finally suppressed, after a long decline, by a Kurdish officer from the east, Saladin, in 566/1171. He set up a new dynasty, the Ayubbids, which ruled in Egypt, Palestine and Syria until the VII/13th century, when it gradually merged into a new institution, the sultanate of the Mamluks or military slaves.

The Mongols

The migration of the steppe peoples of Central and eastern Asia into the Middle East, which began during the IV/10th and V/11th centuries, reached its climax with the coming in the VII/13th century of the heathen Mongols, who conquered the whole of South-West Asia and incorporated it for the first time in an empire which had its capital in the East, first in Mongolia and later in Peking. The Mongols ruled over Central Asia, Iran and Iraq, extended their suzerainty to Anatolia, and several times invaded Syria. Later they were themselves converted to Islam, as a result of which several new Islamic states, with a strong Turko-Mongol character, appeared in the Middle East.

After the Mongols: Five Centuries of the Islamic World

In the period following the Mongol invasion there were five main political centres in the Islamic world. The first of these was that of the Ottomans. With their capture of Constantinople in 857/1453, this became the greatest of all the Islamic empires.

The second was the Mamluk sultanate of Egypt, Palestine and Syria, which survived the Mongol invasion, and was for a while the main citadel of the surviving older Arabo-Islam culture. It was conquered and its territories incorporated in the Ottoman empire in 922-3/1116-17.

The third Islamic state was based on Iran. At the beginning of the XI/17th century a new and powerful monarchy embracing the whole country was created by the Safavids, a dynasty originating in the north-west. The Safavids were Shi'ites, and made Shi'ism the state religion of Iran, which it has remained to the present day.

The fourth centre was in India, where a succession of Turkish Muslim dynasties ruled over most of the north. In the X/16th century these were succeeded by the Mughul house, founded by Babur, a descendant of Tamerlane who came to India from Central Asia. The empire he founded lasted until its final overthrow by the British.

The fifth and last centre of Islamic power in this period was in the Eurasian steppes, in what is now southern Russia and Soviet Central Asia. Here there were two large states of Islamicized Mongols, the khanate of the Golden Horde based on southern Russia, and the Chaghatay khanate based on Central Asia. Both states were later incorporated in the Russian empire.

During this period Islam had both advanced and retreated in various areas. In South-West Europe the Muslims were driven out of Spain, Portugal and Sicily, and even North Africa was for a while invaded by the victorious Spaniards and Portuguese. In Eastern Europe the Ottoman Turks brought Islam to the walls of Vienna but were in due course compelled to relinquish most of their conquests. In Eastern Europe, too, the Golden Horde for a while managed to extend its sovereignty over the princes of Moscow.

The most important area of Islamic colonization was in South-East Asia, to which Islam was brought by traders and others from Arabia and above all from India. By the X/16th century a large part of the Malay lands had already become Muslim.

The Last Five Hundred Years

From the X/16th century onwards, Islam was in retreat, and falling under the domination of a Europe which was expanding at both ends. The process began with the reconquest of Russia and Spain. Western Europeans circumnavigated the African continent and began to establish a growing hegemony in South-East, southern and ultimately South-West Asia. Islam was so to speak caught in a pincers movement between Russia from the north and the Western European peoples fromt he south. These changes were for a while disguised or delayed by the imposing military might of the Ottoman, Persian and Mughul empires; but in time these also weakened and cease to be able to resist the European advance.

Western domination continued until the aftermath of World War II, when the colonial empires of Britain, France, Holland and Italy were dismantled and their former territories became independent. The resulting national states, whose boundaries largely ignored ethnic division, produced a volatile situation which is still unresolved.

Prophet Muhammad (pbuh)'s Sermon About Ramadan