Excerpts from the booklet of the World History Chart: The expansion of Islam
(from page 16)

THE CALIPHATES

Amidst the chaos during the sixth century, when the entire Middle East was in an uproar fed by the exhausting struggle between Persia and Byzantium - the people everywhere began to lose confidence in worldly government. Sensational prophecy had long been current in the bazaars of the Middle East. Here the times seemed ripe for a new apocalypse, but within the two great empires few peoples as yet dreamt of the storm that was gathering in the desert of Arabia. Then - suddenly, the Arabs flared out for a brief century of splendor and put an end to the chronic struggle between Persia and Byzantium.

    Mohammed
    570 - 632
    The man, Mohammed, who fired this Arab flame, had a vision in which he was taken on a journey to Jerusalem and thence through the Heavens to Allah and instructed in his mission. In Mecca, he began to preach the omnipotence of Allah, the impending day of judgment, and the necessity of complete obedience to Allah's will. He summed up his message under the name of Islam, that is 'submission to Allah'. The strength of Islam lay in its freedom of theological complication and in its insistence of the equality before God of all believers, whatever their color, origin or status. The new Prophet was at first rejected by the people of Mecca and he had to flee to the friendly town of Medina. This event, the Hegira (=emigration) marks the beginning of the Islamic calendar (622). Eventually Mohammed returned to Mecca and then went on to unite all of Arabia under the banner of Islam. (1)
      Footnote 1
      After a failed attempt to convert the Jews of Medina, Mohammed was content to tolerate the inconvertibles - their only penalty being a hefty monetary tribute.
      As Islamic armies moved out of Arabia, a tribute similar to that imposed on Arabia's Jews was levied against the conquered populations.This encouraged conversion on the part of the pagan tribes as they would recognize the economic advantage to themselves by espousing Islam.
      But it also ensured a steady flow of money from unbelievers to the caliphate. Hence little attempts were made to impose the new religion by the sword, for the acceptance of Islam meant a reduction in tribute. Islam, therefore, developed a tradition of tolerance for rival beliefs.
After Mohammed died, an assembly of Moslems chose as his successor - or caliph - Abu Bekr, who was himself succeeded by his friend Omar. There followed the most amazing story of conquest in history. Inspired with a conviction that God was with them, and the belief that death in battle assured a life in Paradise, the Arabs challenged the large but spiritless armies of the great empires, and defeated them. Omaršs armies overran Syria, Mesopotamia and Persia. Another army took Egypt and advanced into North Africa. The third caliph, of the aristocratic family of the Omayyads, laid the foundation for a hereditary Caliphate, and though the next caliph - Ali - was the son-in-law of the Prophet, he was unable to break the power of the Omayyads. The Omayyads ruled the Islamic Empire from their capital at Damascus for the next century. But the feeling, nurtured by the opposition to the Omayyads, that Ali and his descendants were the rightful heirs of the Prophet became incorporated in the religious dogma of the discontented factions. The schism between Orthodox (Sunnite) and Alid (Shiite) Islam has continued to run throughout Islam down to the present day.

After the Moslem invasion of Spain and an advance to the Indus valley easy victories stopped and pious Arabs began to look scornfully at the luxury displayed by the caliphs in Damascus. A revolt in 750 swept away the Omayyad family and the Abbasid victors moved the capital to Baghdad. Influenced by the surrounding Persian culture the Islamic empire took on a more Oriental coloration. No longer was the caliph patterned on a tribal sheikh, rather he became an Oriental despot - a successor to the ancient kings of Persia. Mecca was now only of importance as a pilgrimage center, but because it was the language of the Koran, Arabic continued to spread until it replaced Greek as the language of educated men throughout the Moslem world. The rising prosperity of the Abbasids led to a brilliant civilization at the time when Charlemagne and his courtiers could barely write their names. Charlemagne's contemporary was Harun al-Rashid, the fifth Abbasid caliph, whose world is reflected in the pages of 'Arabian Nights'. (2)

      Footnote 2
      An Arabian, Abu Hashem, had founded a Shiite sect that was ousted from Iraq in 670. The sect became known as Hashemites and, while in exile, they converted many Persians to the Shiite cause.
      Hashem was succeeded by Ali Al-Abbas, a descendant of one of Mohammed's uncles. He launched a rebellion against the Omayyads, and when he died the Hashemite sect was renamed and transformed into the Abbasid movement.
    The story of Baghdad evokes all of the civilized magnificence of the Islamic empire. Poets, doctors, theologians and philosophers flocked from all parts of the civilized globe to Baghdad to study at the famous 'House of Knowledge'. The intellectual stimulation of an empire which stretched form Spain to China was enormous. In Alexandria the Arabic mind came into contact with scientific Greek literature. In Central Asia it met Buddhism and learned the manufacture of paper from Chinese merchants, and finally it came into touch with Indian mathematics and philosophy.
In the 9th century learned men in the schools of Cordoba were corresponding with learned men in Cairo, Baghdad and Samarkand. Long after the political break-up of the Islamic Empire into several competing Caliphates the intellectual community of the Arabic-speaking world endured. The most important legacy of Moslem science and philosophy was in its function as a transmitter. While European learning declined sharply following the Barbarian invasion, Islamic civilization preserved and enhanced the knowledge of antiquity. And when the spirit of Moslem thinking diminished under the impact of Turkish infiltrations, it had already re-animated the medieval philosophy of Europe, when it emerged from the Dark Ages.
    Moorish Spain
    711 - 1250 (Granada until 1492)
    While Turkish infiltrations contributed to the decay of the Abbasid Caliphate in Baghdad the Arabs of Spain were building the western branch of Islamic civilization. The Omayyad dynasty in Spain was established in 756 by the only surviving prince of the bloodbath that had decimated the Omayyads in Damascus at the hands of the first Abbasids. In 929 Abd ar-Rahman III proclaimed himself Caliph, thereby challenging the spiritual authority of the Baghdad Caliphate. The armies of the Spanish Caliphate periodically devastated the Christian kingdoms which continued to exist in northern Spain. At the same time the brilliance of Moorish Spain began to profoundly affect European life. The Moorish capital of Cordoba had a library of over 400 000 volumes. Here the great optician Al Hassan investigated the functioning of the human eye and Abu Kasim wrote the first illustrated book on surgery. Moorish Spain, in fact, was the center from which medical education in Europe largely came from.

    Mahmud of Ghazni
    999 - 1030
    While Spain produced its civilization at one end of Islam a number of poets and scholars were about to appear at the other, when Mahmud of Ghazni established the first Turkish Moslem Empire (999) in Afghanistan. Mahmud made 17 predatory raids into northern India and used his booty to patronize his highly cultured court in Ghazni. Firdausi, the great Persian poet resided at his court; so did the mathematician al-Biruni. Al-Biruni had spent ten years in India and he became the most important interpreter of Hindu mathematics and philosophy to Islam.

    Delhi Sultanate
    1206 - 1526
    The successful campaigns of Mahmud of Ghazni initiated the rule of the Turks and the Afghans over northern India. The intruders concentrated on establishing themselves in Delhi, which had a strategic position allowing access both to the Ganges valley and to central India. The Turkish rule from Delhi is referred to as the Delhi Sultanate, and this phrase is often applied to the history of northern India in general from the 13th to the 16th century. (3)

      Footnote 3
      The Turkish title of Sultan implied complete sovereignity, relegating the role of the Caliph to spiritual matters.
Although the Islamic empire surpassed anything then known in Europe and rivalled the splendour of Tang China, internally it was plagued by recurring revolts. In the face of the luxury displayed by the Caliphs in Baghdad, many radical Shiite Moslems kept insisting in the early ideal of the totally holy community dedicated solely to the obedience to Allah. Throughout Islamic history such Shiite communities were always eager to take over power, whenever the established imperial authority weakened.
    The Fatimids
    969 - 1171
    The most serious threat came from the Karmatians, an Isma'ili sect, who harassed the Imperial armies with almost constant revolt. The revolt finally collapsed in Asia Minor, but it did succeed in North Africa under the leadership of the pro-Shiite Fatimids. By 911 their leader had been proclaimed the rightful caliph - or Imam as the Shiite preferred - and in 969 the Fatimids conquered Egypt, which they were to rule for 200 years.

    Islamic Africa
    The Arab conquest of north Africa and Moslem shipping in the Indian Ocean exposed both east and west Africa to outside influences. The northern coast of the continent shared in the classical history of the Mediterranean since Phoenicean times. The Sahara desert, however, kept the rest of Africa relatively isolated until about AD 300 when trans-Saharan camel caravans began to stimulate the establishment of sub-Saharan states, the first of which was the kdm of Ghana

    After the overthrow of Ghana in 1076 by a Moslem conqueror Islamic states dominated west Africa. The most important of the early Moslem empires was Mali at the midcourse of the Niger river. In East Africa the kdms of Nubia and Abyssinia had been in contact with the Roman world and became Christian states at an early date. Abyssinia resisted the Islamic assault, but Nubia succumbed to Moslem conquerors and Arab nomads began to move from Nubia all the way across the continent, and a number of states along the southern edge of the Sahara began to emerge.
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