Interaction of Christianity and Islam Prior to the 20th Century

Your post is fairly accurate, Faith, as far as it goes. Well done. This is as good a place as any to elaborate a bit on the early, pre-Islamic state of affairs in the region. Please don't consider this reply as arguing against what you wrote, except as noted. Rather, it is intended to elaborate some of what you wrote, and clarify some of the information for people who've subsequently responded (correctly or incorrectly). Faith is quite correct. At the turn of the 1st Century AD, there were two great civilizations in the region: the Persians and the Romans. Nearly incessant warfare between various Western civilizations (Greek, Macedonian, etc) and the Persians had characterized at least the previous 700 years, since the consolidation of Persia by Cyrus I.Synopsis of pre-Islamic history
Cyrus' wars were, interestingly enough, based in large measure on religion: Cyrus was a devotee of Zoroastrianism, a dualistic religion at least related to if not derived from Vedic India. Cyrus saw it as his duty to conquer the known world in the name of Zoroaster (Zarathustra). Not, I hasten to add, with the intent of forcibly converting everybody (one of the reasons he was so successful), as Zoroastrianism recognizes all other gods as being subordinate to either Ahura-Mazda or Ahriman. Therefore, religious tolerance was a hallmark. One result of Cyrus' conquests was the release of the Hebrew tribes from Babylon in ~539 BC - one of the few aspects of the OT that is historically reasonably accurate. Cyrus' son continued his father's conquests, eventually adding Syria, Palestine and Egypt to the Persian Empire.Cyrus' grandson, Darius I, was the one who made the mistake of trying to conquer Greece itself. However, it was not religion, but geopolitics that drove him. When the Hellenized city-states of Asia Minor rose in revolt against the Persians (after the Chaldean and Medean revolts were quashed - Darius and his father never had it very easy), Athens moved in support. Darius invaded mainland Greece in retaliation. The invasion was halted at the Battle of Marathon (ring any bells?) by the former Persian-general-turned-Athenian-mercenary Miltiades after most of northern Greece - including Athens - had been overrun. Ten years after Marathon, Darius' son and successor Xerxes I got booted out of Europe completely (after being forced to deal with revolts in Egypt, Babylon, etc). The Persians were first defeated at the naval battle of Salamis (480 BC), and later at Plataea in Greek Boetia (479 BC). There followed nearly 1000 years of nigh-incessant warfare between East and West. Conquest and counter-conquest, revolt, and seige. Greece, Macedonia, Rome all fought against various incarnations of Persia, from Darius II (who fell to Alexander) to the Sassanid wars against Byzantium.I have gone over the above in a little detail to demonstrate that, with the exception of Cyrus I, the entire history of the region was centered on geopolitical rivalry between Western powers and Persia - not religion. Until, that is, the rise of Islam. You will note that in all this history, not one single mention is made of "arabs". This is primarily because "there weren't no such animal". In fact, justifiably, “there ain’t no such animal” even today. At the time in question, the Arabian peninsula and the Syrian desert were occupied by a vast assortment of Semitic and Mediterranean peoples - from Nabateans to Phoenicians to Bedouins to Greeks to “Persians” (another non-specific ethnic grouping). Religions in the region during the first 500 years of the current era were a mixture of polytheists, Jews (the Himyarite Kingdom), a rather unique monotheist religion known as Hanif, and Christians. These latter had two large kingdoms: the Ghassanid Kingdom, allied with Byzantium, and the Lakhmid Kingdom (which changed hands several times) allied with the Sassanid Persians (at least after Shapur II conquered the place, put most of the population to death, and proclaimed it a satrapy of Persia). In neither case would their version of Christianity be recognized as such today, and in fact was considered heretical by the Catholics of both Rome and Byzantium. The Ghassanids were Monophysites (like many early Egyptian Christians, who become important later on), and the Lakhmids were Nestorians.On the peninsula itself, both Persian and Byzantine control remained tenuous. The power vacuum this created was filled - more or less - by quasi-independent city-states which primarily owed their existence to their location on the great trade routes of the Hejaz (now known as the Arabian Peninsula): Mecca, Yathrib (later known as Al-Medinah: the City of the Prophet), Jeddah, Taif and Aden. However, until the rise of Islam, the primary rivalry was east-west, not north-south, between the great civilizations of Byzantium with its capitol at Constantinople, and the Sassanid Persians, with their capitol at Ctesiphon (near modern-day Baghdad). The Hejaz remained a backwater of empire until an obscure (albeit well-off) Meccan merchant had a revelation.How's that for covering 1000 years of history in four paragraphs? My next post on this thread will cover the what and how of the rise of early Islam. For now, I’m off to Egypt and the great Anglo-French rivalry that had so much to do with the emergence of the modern states of Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt.

Thanks for your kind words, Faith. I hope to have something substantive up by tomorrow. Absolutely correct. If I remember correctly, there are only two vague references to "arab" in the Qu'ran, for example. Both of them refer to "those who speak the language of the Qu'ran" as Arab. Beyond that, I'd probably go with the modern concensus: anyone who speaks Classical Arabic or one of the modern derivatives, and who self-identifies as "arab", is an Arab. There literally weren't any back in the day. There's even quite a bit of contention within that grouping - some claim that only those who can trace their ancestry back to the Semitic nomads that roamed the Hejaz are Arab. Others claim Arab heritage based on language, etc. For me, it's all one.

To understand the rise of Islam, we must first understand the political and social conditions that existed in the Arabian Peninsula in the 6th Century As noted previously, two great civilizations - Byzantium and Sassanid Persia - are vying for power in what we now call the Middle East. The last of the great, independent South Arabian kingdoms - the Jewish Hamyarite Empire - has collapsed due to natural disaster and an invasion by Ethiopian Christians (followed by brutal repression) that has rendered it little more than a small dependency. Three Christian - all heretics by Orthodox standards - tribes variously allied to the Byzantines, Persians and Ethiopians occupy much of the arable areas of the Peninsula, and provide the bulk of the desert armies of all three. Bedouin tribes - the majority of the population - constantly raid each other, the merchant caravans from the north and south, or the oasis cities of the Hejaz, which are in turn protected by other well-paid Bedouin tribes. Most of these cities are at least quasi-independent, as no one has ever been able to effectively control the region for long.The most important of these cities was Mecca. Under the overall control of the Quraysh tribe (town-dwelling Bedouin former nomads - remember the name), located inland from the Red Sea and about halfway up the Hejaz, the oasis of Mecca had long been a caravanserai and center for hajji (pilgrims), both pagan and not. It was a truce-city where normally hostile Bedouin tribes could come together and trade without fear of attack. It was the site of an annual poetry festival (more on this below) that attracted people from all over the Peninsula. And it had been the location of pagan (there were supposedly over 360 idols in the Ka’bah, for instance, representing the various deities, spirits and djinni revered, reviled or propitiated by the Bedouins), Jewish (legend has it that the Ka’bah was originally built by Abraham and Ishmael) and Christian shrines for centuries. Nearby Mount Arafat, for example, had been a place of pilgrimage since the Sabaean Empire period nearly 1000 years before. Latter-day Islamic apologists have painted Mecca as a den of iniquity and villainy (like Los Isley Spaceport in Star Wars). However, the reality is probably quite different. Mecca was what it was, good, bad and indifferent: a merchant haven, cross-roads of critical international trade, and a place where multiple cultures - all tolerated - rubbed shoulders. The individual leaders of Mecca were of all religious stripes and persuasions, but all were merchants, and all were from various Quraysh clans. The city abounded with Christians from a half-dozen or more sects, Jews, animists, Zoroastrians, Hanifa, and every ethnic group extant in the ancient world. Just like the Palestine of Jesus, the place also abounded with ascetics, holy men, itinerant soothsayers, fortune tellers, self-proclaimed prophets, and preachers. Mostly, everybody got along fairly well, by all accounts.It was into this wild mélange of cultures and peoples that Mohammed was born. Moslems generally fix the year of Mohammed’s birth as 570 CE. To me, however, it seems just a bit too convenient. That year, an invasion force of Ethiopians, including war elephants, surged north out of Yemen and tried to take Mecca. Due to an outbreak of what may have been small pox which decimated their army, they failed. Arabs in general and Meccans in particular call that “The Year of the Elephant”, and consider it a “lucky” year, even today. Be that as it may, and whatever the truth of the matter is, the fact is somewhere around 570 CE Mohammed was born into the Hashemite merchant clan of the Quraysh in Mecca.
The early, formative years of Mohammed’s life are so obscured by myth, legend and subsequent accretion that discerning fact from fiction is challenging. However, several key events have been attested by multiple scholars and are consistent with the culture and practice of the time. The first occurred when his mother died at about age 6 (his father had died just before he was born, allegedly). Mohammed went to live with his grandfather, who sent him on to live with an allied tribe of Bedouin nomads. Although it’s hard to say with certainty whether this occurred (some have claimed this was propaganda designed to attract the desert nomads to Islam - kind of a “he’s one of us” thing), the practice was fairly common at the time, so it would be consistent if Mohammed was sent out as well. Analogous to the practice of “fostering” which often occurred in medieval Europe, middle and upper class townsmen of the period often sent their children out to “understand their roots” with the Bedouins. It was undoubtedly here that Mohammed became imbued with the pre-Islamic code of the Bedouin - the muruwwah. Roughly analogous to the chivalric code of medieval Europe, the muruwwah was an ideal of virtue: bravery in battle, patience in misfortune, persistence in revenge, protection of the weak, defiance toward the strong, hospitality to visitors, generosity toward the poor, loyalty to the tribe, and fidelity in keeping promises.After the death of his grandfather, Mohammed was sent to live with his uncle, Abu Talib. Abu Talib is an interesting figure. He was a relatively well-off (read powerful) Meccan merchant and member of the ruling council. He undoubtedly had a profound effect on Mohammed’s education. Besides the ins and outs of being a successful merchant, it is also likely that Abu Talib encouraged the young Mohammed to read and learn of other cultures. (Note: Islamic apologists have long held that Mohammed was illiterate, a claim reinforced by the Qu’ran, (c.f. Sura 96). I call bs. At least some rudimentary reading and ciphering would have been de rigeur for a successful merchant even then. In addition it is quite clear that Mohammed was very familiar with both the Jewish Old Testament and the Christian New Testament. Whereas he may have “heard” them recited, it makes more sense that he read at least part of them because of the details that he incorporated into the Qu’ran). Finally, Abu Talib used his position to shelter and protect the budding Prophet from being quashed by the Meccan leadership. Funny thing - Abu Talib remained an unreconstructed pagan until his dying day. He never converted to Islam, but still protected his young nephew.A cultural asideThe muruwwah is critical to understanding both Arab culture of the time, and Islam itself. It is embodied in pre-Islamic poetry, and was the ideal to which Bedouins supposedly ascribed. Poetry was the main form of language and cultural tradition. Poets were held in high honor. There is even a story that truces of up to a month were declared during inter-Bedouin wars so that a competition between poets of each side could take place. The most popular poetry of the time was centered around themes related to the muruwwah. The prescriptions of the Qu’ran are very heavily based on this code.The RevelationThis is where legend, myth and accretion come into full play. I’m not going to try and explain the mystical bits, or spend a lot of time on things like angels and divine revelation. Rather, I’m going to take what is fairly certain, and extrapolate what I think happened. Where I have doubts, I’ll include a “?” to so indicate.Mohammed is now in his early twenties. Partly through his uncle’s tutelage, and partly from an innate honesty, Mohammed has gained the reputation of being an honest, forthright merchant. His is married to a rich merchant’s widow supposedly 15 years his senior - who supposedly broke with tradition (?) and proposed to him - and who becomes his first great and undying love: Khadijah. Her support over the next several decades is crucial. Even though he ultimately ends up with 13 wives, Khadijah remains number one in fact and in his heart.He is also highly idealistic - as many young people become at that age. Remember, he has been exposed to and completely embraced the code of muruwwah. He is disillusioned with the materialism of the Meccans, whose only motive is profit in his eyes. His explorations of Judaism, Christianity and the Hanifa give him to believe that these religions may have had something to offer: a cure for what he saw of the ills of his society. However, he also feels something is missing in each: the muruwwah code of the Bedouin. He begins to speak out.It is now that Moslems claim the angel Gabriel began to speak to him of his future mission (during meditations in a cave, no less - how’s that for standard prophetic symbolism? Right out of the manual). Being who I am, I can perhaps be forgiven for seeking a somewhat more prosaic explanation. I believe that somewhere during this time frame he managed a syncretization: taking the “God’s judgement for sin” parts of the Judaic and Christian traditions, and wrapping them in the flowery symbolism of the muruwwah. Some corroboration for this comes from the Qu’ran (Sura 109:1-8): Sound familiar? In any case, Mohammed called his message Islam, which means “submission to God”. Whatever the source or cause, however, the message resonated with a number of other young men. These early converts, mostly middle- and upper-middle class Meccans - the social class from which so many other revolutions have arisen in history - began to listen. The message also touched others: important men who had failed to attain the status they felt they deserved, clan outsiders with no protection, etc. These folks included people like Ali, Mohammed’s son-in-law (possibly the first “born” Moslem); Abu-Bakr, Mohammed’s best friend; Arkam, a member of a powerful clan who allowed the early Moslems to meet in his home; Omar, an ambitious man from a weak clan; Othman, a young idealist from the ruling Umayyid clan; Bilal, a freed Ethiopian slave; and Zayd ibn Harithah, a very young Christian Arab whom Mohammed had adopted (and who later converted). Several of these names are important ones in the future of the new religion, and you’ll be seeing them again later. The first convert to Islam, however, was his wife Khadijah. According to legend, after Mohammed’s first encounter with the angel, he told Khadijah of his visitation. She supposedly doubted him, and went to consult a Hanifa holy man. The holy man, who is occasionally described as a Christian rather than a Hanifa, reportedly proclaimed that not only was Mohammed not crazy, but that he was God’s appointed messenger to the Arabs, just as God had sent earlier prophets to warn the Jews and Christians of the consequences of failing to submit to the Will of God. Pretty powerful endorsement. Anyway, Khadijah thus became Mohammed’s first convert.As I’m sure you will notice, there are an amazing number of parallels between the earliest beginnings of Islam, and the earliest beginnings of Christianity, including a bunch of early followers (Apostles) from all walks of life, and a powerful female figure (Khadijah = Mary of Magdala?); even preaching against the moneylenders (or merchants) in the Temple. However, this is about all. The appearances are only superficial. Mohammed’s early adherents were friends and neighbors - not master and students. He envisioned his new religion as a group of equals submitting to God without leaders and followers. Finally, neither he nor any of his fellow Moslems down through the ages have ever proclaimed him in any way divine. He was a man, a Prophet not a Messiah. The key tenets of this new religion were: God is good and all powerful; God will call all men and women to Himself on the last day and will judge them and reward them on the basis of how they acted on Earth; people should thank God, through worship, for the blessings He has given the Earth; God expects people to share their worldly goods with others needier than themselves; and Mohammed is God’s designated messenger to his own people, the Arabs (this was modified somewhat later on to encompass all men).In my next post, I’ll cover the rise of Islam from these first beginnings to conquest of the known world - and finally get to the topic of Islam’s early relationship to the other religions, including Christianity.

Be happy to. The above post is derived primarily from:Goldschmidt A, 1999, A Concise History of the Middle East, Perseus PressPolk WR, 1981, The Arab World, Harvard Uni PressBerkey JP, 2003, The Formation of Islam: Religion and Society in the Near East, 600-1800, Cambridge Uni PressAs you can see, one of the reasons it takes me so long between posts is because I have to dig through a lot of material in my library before being able to come up with something concise enough for an internet forum. The Muddle East isn't my main interest, so I don't have the facts and figures at my fingertips like I would with Africa, for instance. Wanna discuss the Bantu Conquest of southern Africa?

Thank you, sir! *bows*

The HijrahAs noted previously, the new message had a strong pull and attraction to the idealistic, disgruntled, and disenfranchised among a segment of Meccan society. The early years were pretty low-key. The first Moslems (I will be using various transliterations and/or translations of the term al-Islami - “Those who submit” - throughout this post but they all mean the same thing), kept a fairly low profile by all accounts. This was not a street religion - the adherents didn’t preach in the marketplace. What they did was talk - to each other, to friends, to neighbors. The word spread. More people came to hear Mohammed speak. Not lots - there were no multitudes - but enough for the new religion to become at least a little disruptive. There were a lot of doom-sayers and prophets floating around Mecca at the time, but it was the appeal of the muruwwah - Mohammed’s unique contribution to monotheism - that brought them around. Families were split, and the Meccan leadership started to feel that the new religion was becoming a threat to the established order. Supposedly, they interrogated Mohammed along the lines of “Why would God speak through a merchant from an unimportant clan and not us if the message is true?” Several members were arrested (more or less for misdemeanors in the nature of disturbing the peace.) No overt moves were made against Mohammed himself - he was still protected by Abu Talib, and other members of the group were also from powerful families.Much of what I am about to relate may be apocryphal. A cynic would say it all is - whitewash designed to excuse some of Mohammed’s and his followers’ later actions. Indeed, that is exactly the way some latter-day Moslems use the story. Be that as it may, true or not, exaggerated or not, the events are at least logically consistent. Besides the concern of the secular authorities, the newly-minted religion also begins to run afoul of the local religious authorities. Legend has it that Mohammed’s first confrontation came when he attempted to convince the local Jewish authorities that he was a rabbi - a teacher - because allegedly the Jews were the first “People of the Book” (i.e., the oldest monotheist religion). Since his knowledge of the Talmud was at best superficial (and probably for other, more earthly reasons), the Jews rejected his claim. This rejection was to be used repeatedly throughout the hundred years or so as an excuse - when various Islamic leaders wanted - to persecute the Jews. Although most Moslems then and now are/were fairly tolerant (indeed, tolerance is enshrined in the Qu’ran), remember the muruwwah code “persistence in revenge”. History is often a question of perception - the Moslems certainly perceived that the Jews had done this, regardless of whether they even noticed Mohammed in reality.Upon the death in 619 of both Abu Talib and Khadijah, Mohammed lost almost all of his protectors in the Hashemite clan, who had already been under boycott by the Umayyid merchants because of him (in other words, the clan wasn’t all that well-disposed towards him anyway). Harassment by the secular authorities increased. The writing was clear on the wall for all to see: the Moslems had to leave Mecca. An abortive attempt to resettle his followers in Taif, an oasis further south, failed because the Taif merchants had close ties to the Meccan leadership. Then, out of the blue, in 620 Mohammed got a job offer. A group of merchants from the town of Yathrib (approx. 400 km north of Mecca) approached him and asked that he come to them to arbitrate an inter-tribal dispute. According to legend, the tribal leaders claimed that they were under threat from three local Jewish (!) tribes, and that without an unbiased, honest judge, the Bedouins would be unable to solve their differences and resist them. Mohammed told his followers to quietly slip away and make their separate ways to Yathrib. In 622, Mohammed himself snuck out of Mecca and made his way north. This emigration - or hijrah - is considered so important to Moslems that their calendar dates from this moment: July 16th, 622 AD. It was in Yathrib that Mohammed’s followers first became a true community (ummah - which unfortunately doesn’t translate really well).From Yathrib to Madinat al-nabiThe early days in Yathrib weren’t exactly easy. The ex-Meccans couldn’t farm (they were merchants for goodness sakes), they couldn’t trade (the Meccans had sealed the southern trade route against them), the dispute seemed intractable, and the locals rapidly got tired of supporting the extra mouths (donor fatigue?). {Side note: I personally believe there was yet another reason for the early problems: although Mohammed still preached the equality and brotherhood of the new religion, it is clear that the ex-Meccans didn’t all agree with this idea. They were the ummah. They were the first among equals. This may have caused some bad feeling among his new Yathribi converts.} Worse yet, another attempt to win over the powerful Jewish tribes (the Bani al-Nadir, Bani Qaynuqa’, and Bani Quraytha clans were very rich merchants, mostly) utterly failed. By this time the religion was becoming somewhat more sophisticated - and the shape of the Qu’ran was beginning to take form. Mohammed tried to convince the Jews that Abraham was Moslem (in the sense of someone who submitted to the Will of God - al-islami), he incorporated Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement) into the religion, Moslems prayed toward Jerusalem, etc. The tribes didn’t buy it. Strike two.In spite of some success in converting members of the local Bedouin clans (later known as the ansari, or “helpers”), Mohammed and his followers were in pretty bad shape. Fortunately, as with many religions (sorry, a bit of cynicism there), especially one so heavily influenced by the muruwwah, an answer suggested itself from within (Sura 29:39): Mohammed decided to raid the Meccan caravans as a career move. Unfortunately, his followers were merchants, not warriors. They basically had to learn desert warfare from scratch. After a few spectacular failures against the heavily-armed Meccan merchant caravans, however, they got lucky - or smart, depending on your point of view. The Moslems attacked a large caravan during the month of pagan pilgrimage, and captured it. Although this incensed a lot of people (it was forbidden by tradition to raid then), once again “divine revelation” came to the rescue (Sura 2:213): Ain’t religion fun? Needless to say, this move REALLY ticked off the Meccans, who dispatched a Bedouin army to put an end to the raids once and for all. In March 624 AD, the Meccans met the Moslems at the Battle of Badr Oasis, and lost. Nothing, absolutely nothing, sells like success. The local Bedouins, townsmen and nomads alike, took this signal victory (the Moslems were outnumbered as much as 3-4 to 1, depending on who you ask) as a sign the God was on Mohammed’s side. Rather than the trickle of converts he’d enjoyed up to that point, his followers really did become a multitude. The majority of the non-Jewish townspeople of Yathrib spontaneously converted, including the Christians. The city was renamed Madinat al-nabi, the City of the Prophet (today, Madinah or Medina).The Conquest beginsAlthough the Moslems didn’t exactly enjoy an unbroken string of successes (the Meccans got their revenge for Badr in 625 at the Battle of Uhud), they won enough to actually begin to erode the Meccan trade monopoly. After the failure of another Meccan army to seize Madinah in 627 (foiled by a ditch their horses couldn’t cross), large numbers of Bedouin clans began breaking with Mecca and allying with Mohamed. One significant factor in this (besides the raiding strategy), was Mohammed’s policy of distributing the loot from the raids to his followers, less a 20% tithe to the Prophet (of which almost 100% went to the needy - Mohammed really did believe). Loot was likely a large factor in his popularity, especially with the desert tribesmen. The more successes, the more loot. The more loot, the more converts. The more converts, the larger the raids. Pretty clever, I’d say.There is a dark side to Mohammed’s early years in Madinah, however. His relationship with the local Jewish tribes deteriorated as his popularity increased. Part of it is, indeed, religiously based, but not as we might think today. Mohammed never understood why the Jews didn’t accept him as God’s messenger - after all, he’d accepted all their prophets. Everybody else accepted him, right? Since history is written by the winners, it is literally impossible to tell the truth about the claims and counterclaims of “who’s at fault” of what happened. What is clear is that following the Battle of Badr, Mohammed expelled the Bani al-Nadir for allegedly conspiring with the Meccans, although he allowed them to keep all their possessions. Following the loss at Uhud, he expelled the Bani Qaynuka’ for the same pretext, only requiring them to pay a large bribe. Finally, he used the pretext that the Bani al-Quraytha had failed to honor a treaty and help defend Madinah during the Meccan siege in 627 to descend upon them, seize all their property, and force them out into the desert: the first Islamic kristalnacht. Strike three.One note of caution: whatever the outcomes and relationship between Islam and Judaism in the 7th Century, we are well-advised to be circumspect in trying to draw parallels with today. The roots of the modern Moslem-Jewish conflict spring from seeds planted much later, in the geopolitics of the 19th Century. Although the Jews of the Arabian Peninsula were the great losers in the early Islamic conquests, of that there is no doubt, there is a long (1000 years!) history of at worst neutrality, and often cordiality between the two. Later Moslem caliphs often protected Jewish communities in their regions against persecution by Christians (as well as protecting Christians against other Christians).The fall of Mecca is almost anticlimactic, considering the violent opposition of the Meccan clans to Mohamed up to this point. In 628, during the hajj period, Mohammed led a group of pilgrims to the Ka’bah. Just outside Mecca, at the town of Hudaybiyah, he and his followers met with a large force of Meccan troops. Rather than fighting, the two sides worked out a treaty, wherein hajji from Madinah could visit the shrines in Mecca the following year. When the next pilgrimage took place, two of the greatest warriors of the Quraysh - Khalid ibn al-Walid and Amr ibn al-As (remember those names), who were to go on to lead Moslem armies in the conquest of the known world - converted to Islam. In 630, using the pretext that some Quraysh clans had violated the Treaty of Hudaybiyah (there had been a rather minor skirmish between some Bedouins and one of the Quraysh sub-clans), Mohammed amassed an army alleged to be 10,000 strong and marched on Mecca. Rather than fight, the Meccan authorities peacefully yielded the city. Very quickly, the majority of the Quraysh clans converted and embraced Islam. Mohammed had come home.Within a year, after adding the Meccan armies to his own, Mohammed met and defeated a large coalition of tribes near Taif, and defeated several other tribal groupings (Battles of Hunsin and Auras). Many warriors and whole clans flocked to his banner, others acknowledged his power and agreed to pay tribute to the fledgling Islamic nation. By 632, all of the Hejaz was under Moslem control. The first battles against the Christian kingdoms allied to Byzantium and Persia also occur at this time - fighting that was to herald the coming conquest. Moslem armies from Madinah are defeated by the Byzantine-allied Ghassanids at the Battle of Ma’ab (Muta) in 629, and again at the Battle of Tubuq in 631. Another Moslem army under the command of Usama ibn Zayd (remember? One of the early followers of Mohammed? I told you to remember those names . ), attempts an invasion of Persian Mesopotamia, with little success (632). Minor as these skirmishes were, the certainly represent the shape of things to come.Mohammed dies in Madinah on 8 June, 632 AD.

Heh. Yep, that's pretty much it. If you want my opinion on it (which you're gonna get whether you want it or not ), it likely stems more from questions of money and power, rather than religion. Although I admit that when you add religion into the mix, things get nasty all around - doesn't matter what religion it is. The Jewish clans in the Hejaz at the time were pretty powerful merchants, on average. There had even been a Jewish Empire in south Arabia (it was the Christian Ethiopians that wiped them out, not Moslems). Giving the Jews due credit - there were few converts from that faith to early Islam. They stood by their guns pretty consistently - to their detriment, unfortunately. Unlike, say, the Christians or pagans (or Zoroastrians or etc), who fairly readily converted when shown the benefits. Remember, however, that this is very early in the history of Islam. Much of later history (until the Ottomans) really IS fairly tolerant of all faiths - often for a price. Yep again. Just like the Bible. I'll admit that the Qu'ran is a bit more overt about it, especially in relation to Jews. Certainly not the viciousness of Christianity. You ought to read more of the history of your religion, Faith. Check out all the so-called heresies that the Christians brutally obliterated, the history of Jewish-Christian conflicts, the Crusades, the "kill them all, God will know his own" attitude, etc etc etc. Seems to me to be quite a normal facet of most major religions.

Whatever, Faith. This wasn't a discussion between you and I in the first place. I really couldn't care less whether you like what I write or not. If you're really not going to participate further, then I'd appreciate your forebearance in not cluttering up the thread.Thanks.

Ah, me. Best laugh I've had all week. Bye, Faith.

The RiddahAfter the death of the Prophet, Islam came very close to extinction as a religion. The short reason is Mohammed never designated a successor. During his lifetime, he was the charismatic secular, military, AND religious leader of the new movement. Nearly every decision in these areas was referred to him directly. Many writers have criticized the oversight, including many Moslems. The truth is, in traditional Arab society, leaders simply didn’t choose their successors. Especially in Bedouin culture, leaders were selected, usually by clan elders, based on ability or some other criteria. No, this isn’t democracy as we understand it. There was no franchise, etc. However, the Bedouin amirs led by sufferance rather than obedience - they cajoled, bribed, advised and persuaded, they didn’t order. In addition, to compound the problem, there was no mechanism for secular, and worse yet, for religious succession. This was to prove a deadly combination.No one had ever managed to unite the Arab tribes - Mohammed was the first. Upon his death, the coalition he had forged collapsed almost overnight. Many of the tribes and clans claimed that Mohammed’s death nullified all extant treaties. Some went so far as to “deconvert” from Islam. A few even rallied around leaders proclaiming themselves new prophets. Literally almost overnight, the Moslems went from domination of the entire Peninsula to barely controlling the cities of Mecca and Madinah. The harab al-riddah, or Wars of Apostasy, had begun.The ansari of Madinah, using the old system of selecting leaders and concerned that a Madinan wouldn’t be acceptable to those clans still loyal, chose the Quraysh elder Abu Bakr (remember, one of the early followers of Mohammed and his best friend - I told you to remember those names) to lead them. Although this choice was to set the scene for the greatest schism in Islam, at the time it turned out to be nothing less than brilliant. Abu Bakr took the title of khalifat rasul Allah (Successor to the Messenger of God), which today we know in English as “caliph”. As military leader after Mohammed, he also became amir al-muminin, Commander of the Faithful.Abu Bakr’s first move as new caliph was to dispatch Islam’s two greatest generals, Khalid ibn al-Walid and Amr ibn al-As to put down the revolts. Khalid was given the task of defeating the two most powerful new prophets - Tulayha al-Asad and Musaylima al-Khatab, who had each gathered a collection of clans. Tulayha actually attacked Madinah at one point (Khalid was on the last raid into Palestine ordered by Mohammed himself and returned in the nick of time to raise the siege - a raid, btw, whose booty convinced several of the nearby clans to rejoin the confederation). While Amr and other Moslem commanders were leading cavalry columns across Arabia to “remind” the majority of the clans to pay the zakat tax (the major bone of contention), Khalid led the main Moslem armies against the apostates. He met and decisively defeated Tulayha at the Battle of Buzakha, and then moved on Musaylima, defeating him at the Battle of Akraba in 633.Side note: It was during these latter two battles that the infamous order from Abu Bakr was written: Khalid ruthlessly carried out this order - some say to excess. For his zeal, he earned the title Sayf Allah, or Sword of God. Be that as it may, although clearly aimed at the rebellious Arab tribes when written (and even then declaring the Bani Hanifa clan to which Musaylima belonged as “apostates” is specious, as the clan had never converted in the first place), modern Islamist radicals have used this order (and the rather ambiguous Qu’ranic verses supporting it) to justify murder, terrorism, and destruction by the simple expedient of redefining what “return to Islam” actually means. They take it out of context, and usually ignore the “return” issue completely. They hold up Khalid even to this day as a shining example of what to do with the unbelievers. Fortunately for Islam, they didn’t take this stance at the time, except against those tribes who had been declared apostate.The Conquest BeginsWithin two years, Arabia was once again under Moslem control. Abu Bakr was faced with a critical question: how to hold the shaky coalition together. Something was needed beyond the rather superficial adherence to Islam, and fear of the Moslem armies. This is when he made the second greatest decision of his career: harness the tribes’ warlike nature and turn it outward.After the death of Abu Bakr in 634, his successor Omar al-Khattab (like Abu Bakr selected from the Quraysh), two large armies were formed, and launched north. An army under Khalid attacked through the old Lakhmid Kingdom into Mesopotamia, and a second column under Amr attacked into Palestine.Although the Ghassanids had previously defeated a Moslem raid (at Mu’ta), this time Amr’s army was unopposed: the Byzantines could no longer afford to pay their nominal allies, and the Ghassanids - monophysite Christians whose co-religionists in Syria and Egypt were on the receiving end of one of Byzantium’s periodic pogroms against heresy - joined the Islamic armies in large numbers. It is interesting to note that some of the first interactions between Moslem conquerors and conquered Christians entailed the latter joining the former in their conquest! To quote from Goldschmidt (1999, A Concise History of the Middle East, pg 46), “Contrary to their image in popular histories, not all Arab warriors were fired up with Moslem zeal. A few were, but others belonged to Christian tribes estranged from the Byzantine Empire. Being Christian did not bar an Arab from fighting for the Caliphate. Some Moslem tribes and leaders may have believed in jihad. Most tribal Arabs believed in looting.” The reinforced army under Amr got caught by a Byzantine counteroffensive, and Khalid made a forced-march 500 km across the Syrian desert in time to defeat the Byzantines. At the Battle of the Yarmuk (August 636), the Byzantines are decisively defeated. Khalid then takes Damascus, and Emesa (Homs). Jerusalem falls in 637 after a Jewish and Coptic Christian revolt (the Jews were suffering heavily from retribution enacted following a Jewish massacre of Byzantine Orthodox Christians which in turn followed the temporary occupation of the city by the Sassanid Persians 40 years before, which in its turn followed a lengthy period of Jewish persecution by the Byzantines); Antioch (siege, 638), Aleppo (siege 639), Cesarea and Gaza (640), Ascalon (long, costly siege 644) and Tripoli (siege 645) fall in turn.Meanwhile, back in Persia, a new army under Sa’ad ibn abi-Waqqas, joined by Nestorian Christians from Lakcia, inflicted a series of stinging defeats on the Sassanids, culminating in the Battle of the Qadisiyah and the fall of Ctesiphon (637). The last two Persian armies were decisively defeated at the Battles of Ram Hormuz (640), and Nahavend (641). Although it took another decade to consolidate, the boundary of the ummah in the east now extended to the Oxus River - the borderlands of the Turkish tribes.Finally, while Khalid was completing his conquest of Syria, Amr gained permission from Omar to invade Egypt. He defeated the Byzantines at the Battle of Babylon (640), captured Babylon itself (641), and then Alexandria (642). The Byzantines abandoned all of their former lands, retreating to Constantinople.Another side note. Some of you may be wondering at this point where the hell all these armies came from. The early Moslem conquests should be viewed less in the light of what we normally consider conquest by armies, and more as the migration of a people. As news of the incredible wealth obtained by victory spread, clan after clan and tribe after tribe pulled up stakes and moved north, east or west. Men, women, children, sheep, goats and camels followed the vanguard into the newly conquered lands. As part of their consolidation policy, the Moslems built new garrison cities - many of which still stand today - both to keep their conquests in line, and to help control their own unruly tribesmen. Basrah in modern Iraq, and Cairo in Egypt are two cities that began life in this period as Arab garrisons.So how DID the early Islamic conquerors treat their captive populations? In general, pretty indifferently. There were no forced conversions. There was even some slight confusion over what to do with people who DID want to convert - many of the Arab Moslems of this period believed that Mohammed was a prophet to Arabs only. One of the humorous solutions was to declare recent converts “honorary Arabs”, and inducting them into an existing clan. These Syraic or Persic or Greek speaking mawali soon began to outnumber the pure “Arabs” locally. People could pretty much worship what and how they wished, manage their affairs pretty much unmolested. Payment of a poll tax (the jaziyah) and deference to their new rulers was about all the Moslems asked. The Arabs were uninterested in ruling - and in fact were quite inept at it (they’re desert tribesmen, not bureaucrats). They wanted conquest and tribute. Although Arab generals and Meccan merchants tended to hold the top positions in the new territories, civil administration was mostly left intact. Basically, most average people living in the region couldn’t tell the difference - except they paid taxes to Madinah and not Constantinople or Ctesiphon.Civil warBy the time of Omar’s murder in 644, signs of strain were beginning to be felt. Othman, Omar’s successor (and yet another Quraysh), was very different from his predecessors. Whereas Mohammed, Abu Bakr and Omar were ascetics, Othman liked being rich. During the course of his Caliphate, he managed to amass great estates and he appointed many of his family to positions of power within Madinah. However, the real problems derived from a temporary halt in the conquest, while something resembling consolidation took place. Border warriors do not make good policemen. The borders now extend from Cyrenaica on the frontier of Byzantine Carthage on the west, Anatolia on the north, and Kheresan on the Afghan frontier on the east. The governors of Syria and Egypt are building a fleet to contest with Byzantium in the Mediterranean. In spite of this success, rebellion from disenchanted Arabs explodes from Kufah in Iraq, and eventually engulfs the new Arab world. Othman is murdered in Madinah by mutineers from the Egyptian army. His main legacy is the establishment of an “official” version of the Qu’ran. His replacement, Ali, son of Mohammed’s uncle Abu Talib and husband of Mohammed’s daughter Fatimah, is proclaimed Caliph by the mutineers. His accession was opposed - violently - by the “old guard” of Mohammed’s original band, Mohammed’s wife Ayisha, and the now-entrenched Meccan oligarchs. Ali abandoned Madinah, and moved his capitol to Kufah in Iraq.The Arab civil war, known as the Great Schism, begins. Within 5 years Ali himself will be assassinated. He is succeeded by the rebel Mu’awiya ibn abi-Sufayn, governor of Syria and cousin to Othman. Mu’awiya becomes the first Umayyid Caliph.Never again will the Arabs be united. Never again will Islam be a single entity. Never again will its adherents speak with one voice, follow one leader, and fight with one vision. In spite of all the successes to come, the Great Schism marks the beginning of the end of Arab dominance of Islam.