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How Early Islamic Caliphates

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The first three caliphates to rule after the death of Muhammad shaped the foundation for the growth and development of the early Islamic community. The goal of the caliphates was to unify the Islamic people and spread the word of Islam as far as they could. Although their main goal was the same, the Rashidun Caliphate, the Umayyad Caliphate, and the Abbasid caliphate went about this goal in separate ways. The different techniques used by each caliphate was dependent on the individual caliphs. The treatment of groups of peoples inside the empires also differed between the caliphates. The Rashidun Caliphate, the Umayyad Caliphate, and the Abbasid Caliphate each employed styles of rule unique to their empires.
The Rashidun Caliphate was the first of the Islamic caliphates established after Muhammad’s death. After his death, the early Islamic community was almost torn apart due to a crisis of control. The Rashidun caliphate had the important job of keeping the community together and growing without the Prophet. Because of the Arab-Islamic conquests, the Muslims gained large amounts of territory; however, the Arab-Muslim leaders did not have the experience that was needed to rule an empire. In The Rise of Islam, Matthew Gordon writes, “a fundamental challenge for the caliphs, their governors, and the Arab military elite was to understand how large-scale agrarian economies functioned” (28). In order to rule an empire, the authority of the Rashidun caliphs had to be legitimized.

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