The Effects of the Expansion in the Post Classical Period: the Islamic Civilization

In the Arabian peninsula, Islam had started. After Muhammad died, the Muslim community embarked on a series of military conquests that extended their control over much of Eurasia and north Africa. Muslim merchants also became a prominent figure in trade during this time. The Islamic empire extended to the Arabian Peninsula and many areas around it. These places were central in the Mediterranean sea, Indian Ocean, and silk road trade routes. The Muslim merchants became a very big part of trade because of their location at the center of many trade routes from Eurasia to Africa. They were also a prominent part of trade because the camel saddle started to be used frequently in 600 CE. Camels were more equipped to walk through the desert, and so the ability to control them made the Muslims a major part of silk road trade. In addition to this, the Muslim agricultural revolution occurred around 600 CE. This caused more crops like cotton to be cultivated and traded, causing a greater income and virtually more trade between Africa and Eurasia. In the Indian Ocean basin, the Gupta empire had declined and there was no centralized rule in India. However, there were still major trading cities and new technologies caused trade to increase. An example of the new technologies would be the dhows and junks that were used at around 800 CE.

After the Arab Slave trade, the European slave trade was formed. The European Slave trade was the process of Africans being taken/traded in Africa, piled in ships and shipped to America. According to some historians, “Islam prohibited freeborn Muslims from being enslaved, so it was not in the interest for Arab slavers to convert enslaved Africans to the religion. Since converting enslaved Africans to Muslim would grant them more rights and reduce the potential reservoir of people to enslave, propagators of Islam often revealed a cautious attitude toward proselytizing Africans."

Based on the three documents you looked at, write a paragraph to answer the following question: How did the early Islamic empire expand? Make sure to include evidence from at least two different documents.

“Muslim forces took control” (Document A: Battle of the Yarmuk, first sentence.)Document A is a historical document that shows how the Islamic Empire expanded. The early Islamic Empire expanded in many different ways but one is due to the Muslims winning the Battle of the Yarmuk.

Throughout time religion has been a common theme forever expanding empires and crusades. Countless societies flourished through campaigns forged in the name of religion. Examples of empires are the Hapsburg, Roman, and of course the Ottoman. The Ottoman Empire is particularly unique because it was the last great empire to fall. The Ottoman Empire is also special because through its military and geographical conquests it also introduced and spread Islam throughout the world. At one point the Ottoman Empire held territories from the Balkans to Indonesia rivaling the amount of land conquered and controlled by Alexander the Great. It is without doubt that the growth and impact of the Ottoman Empire changed our world in such a form that we

Despite Islam changing the development of African city-states in the turn of the 7th century, it continued the spread of languages through Trans-Saharan trade routes. Bantu migrations may have been wealthier after Islam, but their incredible journeys throughout Africa and their abilities to spread their language, knowledge of iron production, and their experience with settled tropical agriculture still made their impact throughout Africa. Islam proved to be a turning point for East Africa through its ability to link port cities together through common religious beliefs and encourage the uprising of

“In world history, the most important new factor in the eastern hemisphere was Islam,a religion that is linked to Judaic-Samaritan tradition of the Middle East.” Islam spread across North Africa to West Africa beginning from the eighth century onwards, by means of military conquest, enabling Muslims to wield tremendous political influence and power. The introduction of Islamic religion impacted social, political and cultural aspects of Africa by means of trade, politics, and conversion.

In the beginning of 7th century to the end of Abbasids in the 13th century, continuities and changes shape the cultural and political life of Islamic civilization which lead to Arab conquests (634-711), expansion, and untroubled trade and conversion which followed by diffusion of cultures lead to advancements of Arabian knowledge. Few factors that led to changes of cultural advancements in knowledge which was traded through trade routes across regions trade and throughout the sea, meanwhile the government became more centralized and bureaucratic and lastly, a cultural continuity was the religious laws: Quran, Hadith, Sharia which was practiced amongst the Muslims.

Early Rome began like many other early civilizations. Sometime between 1,500 and 1,000 B.C.E. groups of warlike people, speaking a common language we refer to as Italic, began moving into the Italian peninsula from across the Adriatic Sean. One of these peoples was the Latins. By 800 B.C.E. the Latins established Seven Hills near the Tiber River. Around this same time the Etruscans moved into present day Italy. The Etruscans turned seven villages into the city of Rome ruled by a monarchy. 509 B.C.E. the Romans overthrew the Etruscan king replacing the monarchy with a republic, in which citizens elect representatives to govern.

The Islamic Empire expanded so quickly because they were fierce warriors, and they offered incentives to their soldiers. The Islamic army was a very powerful group of Muslim warriors, who were very capable of destroying armies much larger than their own. It is said that an army of 24,000 defeated a Greek army of 70,000, "By Allah's help, some 70,000 of them [the Greeks] were put to death, and the rest of their army fled, reaching as far as Palestine, Antioch, Aleppo, Mesopotamia, and Armenia," (Document A). This shows how strong the Muslim warriors were. If the statistics of the document were correct, each Muslim soldier would have had to kill 2.91 Greek soldiers. Conquering armies so easily would lead to spread of Islamic culture. Also,

The administration adapted the empire to except different languages, religious ideas from their pastoral and tribal roots, spreading the Islamic faith, showing the way that the Arabic word spread to other areas where local culture, geography, language and ethnicity influenced beliefs and practices. The establishment of Arab rule in the Middle East led to the development of trade routes that were controlled by Muslim merchants, bringing in much wealth to the rapidly growing empires. With political and economic expansion, the Arabic language evolved into an international language of administration, culture, learning and commerce. As Arab power extended over more areas in the Middle East and the Mediterranean region the Persian and the Greco-Roman were integrated. The result was a civilization in which Arabic culture played an important part of many different ethnic and religious backgrounds. The Arab Islamic civilization came to draw upon the institutions and cultures that already existed in the Middle East, including the heritage of the Byzantine and Persian civilizations. Many nomadic Arabs were integrated into urban communities inhabiting new cities and towns established by Arab rulers. The Arabic language was transformed into a language which was used far beyond the geographic borders of Arabia as a language of administration, religion, literature and

In 610 CE, Muhammad was meditating near Mecca when he received a vision from the angel Gabriel that he was the last prophet of Allah that he would spread faith in him, which resulted in the birth of the religion Islam. The religion spread rapidly through trade, military conquest, and treaties/taxation/toleration. Although it was very popular, most poor people were drawn to Islam because one of the Five Pillars was giving money to the poor. Islam spread quickest thanks to trade.

Before the emergence of Islam in the 7th century, Arabia was home to groups of quarreling tribes with extremely varying cultures. These tribes would often raid caravans traveling through the desert, and would rely on this practice to sustain themselves. The Persian and Byzantine empires

Bedouin tribes were traditionally nomadic peoples of the Arabian Peninsula and North Africa who migrated between the desert and cultivated land according to the season. It is this itinerant lifestyle that equipped this group with a vast knowledge of survival skills and enabled their endurance in harsh desert environments for centuries. Through the harvest of water and trade of goods and services in exchange for food, water and currency, they were able to migrate across Europe and ultimately to unite under a single cultural identity in the seventh century. United under the Islamic faith prior to the death of the Prophet Muhammad in 632CE, what had been a small cluster of nomadic tribes and traders became a formidable force. With direction from

There are many methodologies used by scholars to interpret and analyze Islamic civilization. A few of the different methodologies used by prominent religious scholars such as Carl Ernst and Fred Donner are the uses of a non-fundamentalist view and textual evidence to describe a broad view of Islamic civilization that speaks to non-Muslims and explains the concept of Islam better to the general readers in comparison to using archeological and religious texts to explain a specific time period of the Believers’ movement and how it was solely a religious movement, regardless of disputes by other scholars. Fundamentalists are those who believe in the literal translation of religious texts. Therefore, when Ernst says that he is going to use a non-fundamentalist view he means that he will not be biased while discussing Islamic civilization. However, Donner is trying to cancel out the ideas of those who say the Believer’s movement was hardly a religious one such as the statement “the movement that grew into what we know as Islam was produced almost without religious faith” from Ernest Renan, a prominent Islamic scholar (Fred Donner, xi). Through using archeological evidence and religious texts Donner aims to demonstrate the role religion had in the Believer’s movement. Their interpretations and methodologies used show how they use the same religious texts or archeological evidence but portray them using a different bases to frame their arguments. Thus, this paper will argue