The Rise of Islam

The new faith preached by the prophet Muhammad in the 600s changed the course of history. Muhammad’s followers spread their religion, Islam, by preaching and conquest. By the 700s, Muslims (followers of Islam) ruled most of the Middle East and North Africa.

Before Muhammad, the Arab peoples were not united in any way. Different groups worshipped gods. Muhammad was a merchant of Mecca, in Arabia. At the age of about 40, he began to preach of belief in one God, after a dream in which an angel told him he was the prophet of Allah (God). The new religion became Islam, which means ‘submission to the will of Allah’.

Muhammad had to leave Mecca when some townspeople objected to his new teaching. His journey in 622 to Yathrib (now Medina) is commemorated still as the Hegira, which begins the Muslim calendar. In Medina, Muhammad and his followers built the first mosque. His teachings and revelations were written down in what became the Koran, the holy book of Islam.

In 630, Muhammad’s followers captured Mecca, and Islam became the new religion of Arabia.

When Muhammad died in 632, his father-in-law, Abu Bakr, was chosen as first caliph (successor). A group called the Shiites thought only the descendants of Muhammad’s daughter Fatima could lead Islam. Others, known as Sunnis, thought any Muslim could do so. This spilt continues today.

By 644, the Arabs had conquered most of Syria, Palestine and Persia. After 661, the Ummayad family controlled the growing empire from their capital, Damascus, in Syria. Islam’s advance into Europe was halted by the Frankish army of Charles Martel in 732. In 762, the new Abbasid dynasty moved the empire’s capital to Baghdad (in what is now Iraq). This city became the centre of the Islamic world.