Spread of Islam

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The spread of Islam spans almost 1,400
years. The early Muslim conquests that
occurred following the death of Muhammad
in 632 CE led to the creation of the
caliphates, expanding over a vast
geographical area; conversion to Islam was
boosted by Arab Muslim forces expanding
over vast territories and building imperial
structures over time.[1][2][3][4] Most of the
significant expansion occurred during the
reign of the rāshidūn ("rightly-guided")
caliphs from 632 to 661 CE, which were the
first four successors of Muhammad.[4] These
early caliphates, coupled with Muslim
economics and trading, the Islamic Golden
Age, and the age of the Islamic gunpowder
empires, resulted in Islam's spread outwards
from Mecca towards the Indian, Atlantic, and
Pacific Oceans and the creation of the
Muslim world. The Islamic conquests, which
culminated in the Arab empire being
established across three continents (Asia,
Africa, and Europe), enriched the Muslim
world, achieving the economic preconditions
for the emergence of this institution owing to
the emphasis attached to Islamic teachings.
[5]
Trade played an important role in the
spread of Islam in some parts of the world,
such as Indonesia.[6][7] During the early
centuries of Islamic rule, conversions in the
Middle East were mainly individual or small-
scale. While mass conversions were favored
for spreading Islam beyond Muslim lands,
policies within Muslim territories typically
aimed for individual conversions to weaken
non-Muslim communities. However, there
were exceptions, like the forced mass
conversion of the Samaritans.[8]

First expansion of the Caliphate

Muslim dynasties were soon established and

subsequent empires such as those of the
Umayyads, Abbasids, Mamluks, Seljukids,
and the Ayyubids were among some of the
largest and most powerful in the world. The
Ajuran and Adal Sultanates, and the wealthy
Mali Empire, in North Africa, the Delhi,
Deccan, and Bengal Sultanates, and Mughal
and Durrani Empires, and Kingdom of
Mysore and Nizam of Hyderabad in the
Indian subcontinent, the Ghaznavids,
Ghurids, Samanids in Persia, Timurids, and
the Ottoman Empire in Anatolia significantly
changed the course of history. The people of
the Islamic world created numerous
sophisticated centers of culture and science
with far-reaching mercantile networks,
travelers, scientists, hunters,
mathematicians, physicians, and
philosophers, all contributing to the Islamic
Golden Age. The Timurid Renaissance and
the Islamic expansion in South and East Asia
fostered cosmopolitan and eclectic Muslim
cultures in the Indian subcontinent, Malaysia,
Indonesia and China.[9] The Ottoman Empire,
which controlled much of the Middle East
and North Africa in the early modern period,
also did not officially endorse mass
conversions, but evidence suggests they
occurred, particularly in the Balkans, often to
evade the jizya tax. Similarly, Christian
sources mention requests for mass
conversions to Islam, such as in Cyprus,
where Ottoman authorities refused, fearing
economic repercussions.[8]

As of 2016, there were 1.7 billion Muslims,[10]

[11]
with one out of four people in the world
being Muslim,[12] making Islam the second-
largest religion.[13] Out of children born from
2010 to 2015, 31% were born to Muslims[14]
and currently Islam is the world's fastest-
growing major religion .[15][16][17]

Terminology

Alongside the terminology of the "spread of

Islam", scholarship of the subject has also
given rise to the terms "Islamization",[a]
"Islamicization",[18] and "Islamification"
(Arabic: ‫أﺳﻠﻤﺔ‬, romanized: aslamah). These
terms are used concurrently with the
terminology of the "spread of Islam" to refer
to the process through which a society shifts
towards the religion of Islam and becomes
largely Muslim. Societal Islamization has
historically occurred over the course of many
centuries since the spread of Islam outside
of the Arabian Peninsula through the early
Muslim conquests, with notable shifts
occurring in the Levant, Iran, North Africa,
the Horn of Africa, West Africa,[19] Central
Asia, South Asia (in Afghanistan, Maldives,
Pakistan, and Bangladesh), Southeast Asia
(in Malaysia, Brunei, and Indonesia),
Southeastern Europe (in Albania, Bosnia and
Herzegovina, and Kosovo, among others),
Eastern Europe (in the Caucasus, Crimea,
and the Volga), and Southern Europe (in
Spain, Portugal, and Sicily prior to re-
Christianizations).[20] In contemporary
usage, "Islamization" and its variants too can
also be used with implied negative
connotations to refer to the perceived
imposition of an Islamist social and political
system on a society with an indigenously
different social and political background.

The English synonym of "Muslimization", in

use since before 1940 (e.g., Waverly
Illustrated Dictionary), conveys a similar
meaning as "Islamization". 'Muslimization'
has more recently also been used as a term
coined to describe the overtly Muslim
practices of new converts to the religion who
wish to reinforce their newly acquired
religious identity.[21]

History

Main articles: Early Muslim conquests and History

of Islam
Further information: Arab–Byzantine wars,
Ilkhanate, and Islamization of Iran

Muslim Arab expansion in the first centuries

after Muhammad's death soon established
dynasties in North Africa, West Africa, to the
Middle East, and south to Somalia by the
Companions of the Prophet, most notably
the Rashidun Caliphate and military advents
of Khalid Bin Walid, Amr ibn al-As, and Sa'd
ibn Abi Waqqas. The historic process of
Islamization was complex and involved
merging Islamic practices with local
customs. This process took place over
several centuries. Some scholars reject the
stereotype that this process was initially
"spread by the sword" or forced
conversions.[22]

Rashidun Caliphs and Umayyads

(610–750 CE)
Main articles: Rashidun Caliphate and Umayyad
Caliphate

Within the century of the establishment of

Islam upon the Arabian Peninsula and the
subsequent rapid expansion during the early
Muslim conquests, one of the most
significant empires in world history was
formed.[23] For the subjects of the empire,
formerly of the Byzantine and the Sasanian
Empires, not much changed in practice. The
objective of the conquests was mostly of a
practical nature, as fertile land and water
were scarce in the Arabian Peninsula. A real
Islamization therefore came about only
during the subsequent centuries.[24]

Ira M. Lapidus distinguishes between two

separate strands of converts of the time:
animists and polytheists of tribal societies of
the Arabian Peninsula and the Fertile
Crescent and the native Christians and Jews
existing before the Muslims arrived.[25]

The empire spread from the Atlantic Ocean

to the Aral Sea, from the Atlas Mountains to
the Hindu Kush. It was bounded mostly by "a
combination of natural barriers and well-
organized states".[26]

For the polytheistic and pagan societies,

apart from the religious and spiritual reasons
that individuals may have had, conversion to
Islam "represented the response of a tribal,
pastoral population to the need for a larger
framework for political and economic
integration, a more stable state, and a more
imaginative and encompassing moral vision
to cope with the problems of a tumultuous
society."[25] In contrast, for tribal, nomadic,
monotheistic societies, "Islam was
substituted for a Byzantine or Sassanian
political identity and for a Christian, Jewish
or Zoroastrian religious affiliation."[25]
Conversion initially was neither required nor
necessarily wished for: "(The Arab
conquerors) did not require the conversion
as much as the subordination of non-Muslim
peoples. At the outset, they were hostile to
conversions because new Muslims diluted
the economic and status advantages of the
Arabs."[25]

Only in subsequent centuries, with the

development of the religious doctrine of
Islam and with that the understanding of the
Muslim ummah, would mass conversion take
place. The new understanding by the
religious and political leadership in many
cases led to a weakening or breakdown of
the social and religious structures of parallel
religious communities such as Christians and
Jews.[25]

The caliphs of the Arab dynasty established

the empire's first school, which taught the
Arabic language and Islamic studies. The
caliphs furthermore began the ambitious
project of building mosques across the
empire, many of which remain today, such as
the Umayyad Mosque, in Damascus. At the
end of the Umayyad period, less than 10% of
the people in Iran, Iraq, Syria, Egypt, Tunisia
and Spain were Muslim. Only the Arabian
Peninsula had a higher proportion of Muslims
among the population.[27]

Abbasids (750–1258)
Main article: Abbasid Caliphate

The Abbasids are known

to have founded some of
the world's earliest
educational institutions,
such as the House of
Wisdom.

The Abbasids replaced the expanding

empire and "tribal politics" of "the tight-knit
Arabian elite[26] with cosmopolitan culture
and disciplines of Islamic science,[26]
philosophy, theology, law and mysticism
became more widespread, and the gradual
conversions of the empire's populations
occurred. Significant conversions also
occurred beyond the extent of the empire
such as that of the Turkic tribes in Central
Asia and peoples living in regions south of
the Sahara and north of the Sahel in Africa
through contact with Muslim traders active in
the area and Sufi orders. In Africa, Islam
spread along three routes, across the Sahara
and Sahel via trading towns such as
Timbuktu, up the Nile Valley through the
Sudan up to Uganda and across the Red Sea
and down East Africa through settlements
such as Mombasa and Zanzibar. The initial
conversions were of a flexible nature.

The reasons that by the end of the 10th

century, a large part of the population had
converted to Islam are diverse. According to
the British-Lebanese historian Albert
Hourani, one of the reasons may be that

"Islam had become more

clearly defined, and the
line between Muslims and
non-Muslims more sharply
drawn. Muslims now lived
within an elaborated
system of ritual, doctrine
and law clearly different
from those of non-
Muslims. (...) The status of
Christians, Jews and
Zoroastrians was more
precisely defined, and in
some ways it was inferior.
They were regarded as the
'People of the Book', those
who possessed a revealed
scripture, or 'People of the
Covenant', with whom
compacts of protection had
been made. In general,
they were not forced to
convert, but they suffered
from restrictions. They
paid a special tax; they
were not supposed to wear
certain colors; they could
not marry Muslim
women;."[27]

Most of those laws were elaborations of

basic laws concerning non-Muslims
(dhimmis) in the Quran, which does not give
much detail about the right conduct with
non-Muslims, but it in principle recognises
the religion of "People of the Book" (Jews,
Christians and sometimes others as well)
and securing a separate tax from them that
replaces the zakat, which is imposed upon
Muslim subjects.

Ira Lapidus points towards "interwoven terms

of political and economic benefits and of a
sophisticated culture and religion" as
appealing to the masses.[28] He noted:

"The question of why

people convert to Islam
has always generated the
intense feeling. Earlier
generations of European
scholars believed that
conversions to Islam were
made at the point of the
sword, and that conquered
peoples were given the
choice of conversion or
death. It is now apparent
that conversion by force,
while not unknown in
Muslim countries, was, in
fact, rare. Muslim
conquerors ordinarily
wished to dominate rather
than convert, and most
conversions to Islam were
voluntary. (...) In most
cases, worldly and
spiritual motives for
conversion blended
together. Moreover,
conversion to Islam did
not necessarily imply a
complete turning from an
old to a totally new life.
While it entailed the
acceptance of new
religious beliefs and
membership in a new
religious community, most
converts retained a deep
attachment to the cultures
and communities from
which they came."[28]

The result, he points out, can be seen in the

diversity of Muslim societies today, with
varying manifestations and practices of
Islam.

Conversion to Islam also came about as a

result of the breakdown of historically-
religiously organized societies: with the
weakening of many churches, for example,
and the favouring of Islam and the migration
of substantial Muslim Turkish populations
into the areas of Anatolia and the Balkans,
the "social and cultural relevance of Islam"
were enhanced and a large number of
peoples were converted. This worked better
in some areas (Anatolia) and less in others
(such as the Balkans in which "the spread of
Islam was limited by the vitality of the
Christian churches".)[25]

During the Abbasid period, economic

hardships, social disorder, and pressure from
Muslim attackers, led to the mass conversion
of Samaritans to Islam.[29]

Along with the religion of Islam, the Arabic

language, Arabic numerals and Arab
customs spread throughout the empire. A
sense of unity grew among many though not
all provinces and gradually formed the
consciousness of a broadly Arab-Islamic
population. What was recognizably an
Islamic world had emerged by the end of the
10th century.[30] Throughout the period, as
well as in the following centuries, divisions
occurred between Persians and Arabs, and
Sunnis and Shias, and unrest in provinces
empowered local rulers at times.[27]

Conversion within the empire: Umayyad

vs. Abbasid period

There are a number of historians who see

the rule of the Umayyads as responsible for
setting up the "dhimmah" to increase taxes
from the dhimmis to benefit the Arab Muslim
community financially and to discourage
conversion.[31] Islam was initially associated
with the Arabs' ethnic identity and required
formal association with an Arab tribe and the
adoption of the client status of mawali.[31]
Governors lodged complaints with the caliph
when he enacted laws that made conversion
easier since that deprived the provinces of
revenues from the tax on non-Muslims.

During the following Abbasid period, an

enfranchisement was experienced by the
mawali and a shift was made in the political
conception from that of a primarily-Arab
empire to one of a Muslim empire.[32] Around
930 a law was enacted that required all
bureaucrats of the empire to be Muslims.[31]
Both periods were also marked by significant
migrations of Arab tribes outwards from the
Arabian Peninsula into the new territories.[32]

Conversion within the empire:

"Conversion curve"

Richard Bulliet's "conversion curve" shows a

relatively low rate of conversion of non-Arab
subjects during the Arab centric Umayyad
period of 10%, in contrast with estimates for
the more politically-multicultural Abbasid
period, which saw the Muslim population
grow from around 40% in the mid-9th
century to close to 100% by the end of the
11th century.[32] That theory does not explain
the continuing existence of large minorities
of Christians during the Abbasids. Other
estimates suggest that Muslims were not a
majority in Egypt until the mid-10th century
and in the Fertile Crescent until 1100. What is
now Syria may have had a Christian majority
until the Mongol invasions of the 13th
century.

Emergence of the Seljuks and

Ottomans (950–1450)
See also: History of Islam in southern Italy

The expansion of Islam continued in the

wake of Turkic conquests of Asia Minor, the
Balkans and the Indian subcontinent.[23] The
earlier period also saw the acceleration in the
rate of conversions in the Muslim heartland,
and in the wake of the conquests, the newly-
conquered regions retained significant non-
Muslim populations. That was contrast to the
regions in which the boundaries of the
Muslim world contracted, such as the
Emirate of Sicily (Italy) and Al Andalus (Spain
and Portugal), where Muslim populations
were expelled or forced to Christianize in
short order.[23] The latter period of that
phase was marked by the Mongol invasion
(particularly the Siege of Baghdad in 1258)
and, after an initial period of persecution, the
conversion of those conquerors to Islam.

Ottoman Empire (1299–1924)

Main article: History of the Ottoman Empire

CentralEurope
duringtheshort-termexistenceofimreThököly's
PrincipalityofUpperHungary

Territories in Central Europe

under the Ottoman Empire,
1683

The Ottoman Empire defended its frontiers

initially against threats from several sides:
the Safavids in the east, the Byzantine
Empire in the north until it vanished with the
Conquest of Constantinople in 1453, and the
great Catholic powers from the
Mediterranean Sea: Spain, the Holy Roman
Empire, and Venice with its eastern
Mediterranean colonies.

Later, the Ottoman Empire set on to conquer

territories from these rivals: Cyprus and
other Greek islands (except Crete) were lost
by Venice to the Ottomans, and the latter
conquered territory up to the Danube basin
as far as Hungary. Crete was conquered
during the 17th century, but the Ottomans
lost Hungary to the Holy Roman Empire, and
other parts of Eastern Europe, which ended
with the Treaty of Carlowitz in 1699.[33]

The Ottoman sultanate was abolished on 1

November 1922 and the caliphate was
abolished on 3 March 1924.[34]

Modern
Further information: Islamization § Modern day
(1970s to present)
See also: International propagation of Salafism and
Wahhabism, Islamism, and Petro-Islam

Islam has continued to spread through

commerce and migrations, especially in
Southeast Asia, America and Europe.[23]

Modern day Islamization appears to be a

return of the individual to Muslim values,
communities, and dress codes, and a
strengthened community.[35]

Another development is that of transnational

Islam, elaborated upon by the French Islam
researchers Gilles Kepel and Olivier Roy. It
includes a feeling of a "growing universalistic
Islamic identity" as often shared by Muslim
immigrants and their children who live in
non-Muslim countries:

The increased integration

of world societies as a
result of enhanced
communications, media,
travel, and migration
makes meaningful the
concept of a single Islam
practiced everywhere in
similar ways, and an Islam
which transcends national
and ethnic customs.[36]

This does not necessarily imply political or

social organizations:

Global Muslim identity

does not necessarily or
even usually imply
organized group action.
Even though Muslims
recognize a global
affiliation, the real heart of
Muslim religious life
remains outside politics—
in local associations for
worship, discussion,
mutual aid, education,
charity, and other
communal activities.[36]

A third development is the growth and

elaboration of transnational military
organizations. The 1980s and 90s, with
several major conflicts in the Middle East,
including the Arab–Israeli conflict,
Afghanistan in the 1980s and 2001, and the
three Gulf Wars (1980–88, 1990–91, 2003–
2011) were catalysts of a growing
internationalization of local conflicts.
[citation needed]
Figures such as Osama bin
Laden and Abdallah Azzam have been
crucial in these developments, as much as
domestic and world politics.[36]

By region

Age of the Caliphs

Expansion under Muhammad, 622–632/A.H. 1–11
Expansion during the Rashidun Caliphate, 632–
661/A.H. 11–40
Expansion during the Umayyad Caliphate, 661–
750/A.H. 40–129

Arabia
Further information: Early social changes under
Islam

At Mecca, Muhammad is said to have

received repeated embassies from Christian
tribes.

Greater Syria
Main article: Muslim conquest of the Levant

Like their Byzantine and late Sasanian

predecessors, the Marwanid caliphs
nominally ruled the various religious
communities but allowed the communities'
own appointed or elected officials to
administer most internal affairs. Yet the
Marwanids also depended heavily on the
help of non-Arab administrative personnel
and on administrative practices (e.g., a set of
government bureaus). As the conquests
slowed and the isolation of the fighters
(muqatilah) became less necessary, it
became more and more difficult to keep
Arabs garrisoned. As the tribal links that had
so dominated Umayyad politics began to
break down, the meaningfulness of tying
non-Arab converts to Arab tribes as clients
was diluted; moreover, the number of non-
Muslims who wished to join the ummah was
already becoming too large for this process
to work effectively.

Palestine

Further information: Islamization of Jerusalem

The Dome of the Rock atop the

Temple Mount in the Old City of
Jerusalem.

The Siege of Jerusalem (636–637) by the

forces of the Rashid Caliph Umar against the
Byzantines began in November 636. For four
months, the siege continued. Ultimately, the
Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem,
Sophronius, an ethnic Arab,[37] agreed to
surrender Jerusalem to Umar in person. The
caliph, then in Medina, agreed to these terms
and travelled to Jerusalem to sign the
capitulation in the spring of 637.

Sophronius also negotiated a pact with Umar

known as Umar's Assurance, allowing for the
religious freedom for Christians in exchange
for jizya, a tax to be paid by conquered non-
Muslims, called dhimmis. Under Muslim rule,
the Jewish and Christian population of
Jerusalem in this period enjoyed the usual
tolerance given to non-Muslim theists.[38][39]

Having accepted the surrender, Omar then

entered Jerusalem with Sophronius "and
courteously discoursed with the patriarch
concerning its religious antiquities".[40]
When the hour for his prayer came, Omar
was in the Anastasis church, but refused to
pray there, lest in the future Muslims should
use that as an excuse to break the treaty and
confiscate the church. The Mosque of Umar,
opposite the doors of the Church of the Holy
Sepulchre, with the tall minaret, is known as
the place to which he retired for his prayer.

Bishop Arculf, whose account of his

pilgrimage to the Holy Land in the seventh
century, De locis sanctis, written down by
the monk Adamnan, described reasonably
pleasant living conditions of Christians in
Palestine in the first period of Muslim rule.
The caliphs of Damascus (661-750) were
tolerant princes who were on generally good
terms with their Christian subjects. Many
Christians, such as John of Damascus, held
important offices at their court. The Abbasid
caliphs at Baghdad (753-1242), as long as
they ruled Syria, were also tolerant to
Christians. Harun Abu Jaʻfar (786-809), sent
the keys of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre
to Charlemagne, who built a hospice for
Latin pilgrims near the shrine.[38]

Rival dynasties and revolutions led to the

eventual disunion of the Muslim world. In the
ninth century, Palestine was conquered by
the Fatimid Caliphate, whose capital was
Cairo. Palestine once again became a
battleground as the various enemies of the
Fatimids counterattacked. At the same time,
the Byzantines continued to attempt to
regain their lost territories, including
Jerusalem. Christians in Jerusalem who
sided with the Byzantines were put to death
for high treason by the ruling Shiʻi Muslims.
In 969, the Patriarch of Jerusalem, John VII,
was put to death for treasonous
correspondence with the Byzantines.

As Jerusalem grew in importance to Muslims

and pilgrimages increased, tolerance for
other religions declined. Christians were
persecuted and churches destroyed. The
Sixth Fatimid caliph, al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah,
996–1021, who was believed to be "God
made manifest" by his most zealous Shiʻi
followers, now known as the Druze,
destroyed the Holy Sepulchre in 1009. This
powerful provocation helped ignite the flame
of fury that led to the First Crusade.[38] The
dynasty was later overtaken by Saladin of
the Ayyubid dynasty.

Africa

North Africa

See also: Umayyad conquest of North Africa,

Islamization of Egypt, and Islamization of Sudan

The Great Mosque of Kairouan,

founded in 670 AD (The year 50
according to the Islamic calendar)
by the Arab general and
conqueror Uqba Ibn Nafi, is the
oldest mosque in western Islamic
lands[41] and represents an
architectural symbol of the spread
of Islam in North Africa, situated
in Kairouan, Tunisia.

In Egypt conversion to Islam was initially

considerably slower than in other areas such
as Mesopotamia or Khurasan, with Muslims
not thought to have become the majority
until around the fourteenth century.[42] In the
initial invasion, the victorious Muslims
granted religious freedom to the Christian
community in Alexandria, and the
Alexandrians quickly recalled their exiled
Monophysite patriarch to rule over them,
subject only to the ultimate political authority
of the conquerors. In such a fashion the city
persisted as a religious community under an
Arab Muslim domination more welcome and
more tolerant than that of Byzantium.[43]
(Other sources question how much the
native population welcomed the conquering
Muslims.)[44]

Byzantine rule was ended by the Arabs, who

invaded Tunisia from 647 to 648[45] and
Morocco in 682 in the course of their drive to
expand the power of Islam. In 670, the Arab
general and conqueror Uqba Ibn Nafi
established the city of Kairouan (in Tunisia)
and its Great Mosque also known as the
Mosque of Uqba;[46] the Great Mosque of
Kairouan is the ancestor of all the mosques
in the western Islamic world.[41] Berber
troops were used extensively by the Arabs in
their conquest of Spain, which began in 711.

No previous conqueror had tried to

assimilate the Berbers, but the Arabs quickly
converted them and enlisted their aid in
further conquests. Without their help, for
example, Andalusia could never have been
incorporated into the Islamic state. At first
only Berbers nearer the coast were involved,
but by the 11th century Muslim affiliation had
begun to spread far into the Sahara and
Sahel.[47]

The conventional historical view is that the

conquest of North Africa by the Islamic
Umayyad Caliphate between CE 647–709
effectively ended Catholicism in Africa for
several centuries.[48] However, new
scholarship has appeared that provides more
nuance and details of the conversion of the
Christian inhabitants to Islam. A Christian
community is recorded in 1114 in Qal'a in
central Algeria. There is also evidence of
religious pilgrimages after 850 CE to tombs
of Catholic saints outside of the city of
Carthage, and evidence of religious contacts
with Christians of Arab Spain. In addition,
calendar reforms adopted in Europe at this
time were disseminated amongst the
indigenous Christians of Tunis, which would
have not been possible had there been an
absence of contact with Rome.

During the reign of Umar II, the then

governor of Africa, Ismail ibn Abdullah, was
said to have won the Berbers to Islam by his
just administration, and other early notable
missionaries include Abdallah ibn Yasin who
started a movement which caused
thousands of Berbers to accept Islam.[49]

Horn of Africa

See also: Islam in Somalia and Islam in Ethiopia

The port and

waterfront of Zeila.

The history of commercial and intellectual

contact between the inhabitants of the
Somalia and the Arabian Peninsula may help
explain the Somali people's connection with
Muhammad. The early Muslims fled to the
port city of Zeila in modern-day Somaliland
to seek protection from the Quraysh at the
court of the Aksumite Emperor in present-
day Ethiopia. Some of the Muslims that were
granted protection are said to have then
settled in several parts of the Horn region to
promote the religion. The victory of the
Muslims over the Quraysh in the 7th century
had a significant impact on local merchants
and sailors, as their trading partners in
Arabia had then all adopted Islam, and the
major trading routes in the Mediterranean
and the Red Sea came under the sway of the
Muslim Caliphs. Through commerce, Islam
spread amongst the Somali population in the
coastal cities. Instability in the Arabian
peninsula saw further migrations of early
Muslim families to the Somali seaboard.
These clans came to serve as catalysts,
forwarding the faith to large parts of the
Horn region.[50]

East Africa

See also: Shirazi people

Principal cities of East

Africa, c. 1500. The
Kilwa Sultanate held
sway from Cape
Correntes in the south
to Malindi in the north.

The Great Mosque of

Kilwa Kisiwani, made of
coral stones is the
largest Mosque of its
kind.

On the east coast of Africa, where Arab

mariners had for many years journeyed to
trade, mainly in slaves, Arabs founded
permanent colonies on the offshore islands,
especially on Zanzibar, in the 9th and 10th
century. From there Arab trade routes into
the interior of Africa helped the slow
acceptance of Islam.

By the 10th century, the Kilwa Sultanate was

founded by Ali ibn al-Hassan Shirazi (was
one of seven sons of a ruler of Shiraz, Persia,
his mother an Abyssinian slave girl. Upon his
father's death, Ali was driven out of his
inheritance by his brothers). His successors
would rule the most powerful of Sultanates in
the Swahili coast, during the peak of its
expansion the Kilwa Sultanate stretched
from Inhambane in the south to Malindi in the
north. The 13th-century Muslim traveller Ibn
Battuta noted that the great mosque of Kilwa
Kisiwani was made of coral stone (the only
one of its kind in the world).

In the 20th century, Islam grew in Africa both

by birth and by conversion. The number of
Muslims in Africa grew from 34.5 million in
1900 to 315 million in 2000, going from
roughly 20% to 40% of the total population
of Africa.[51] However, in the same time
period, the number of Christians also grew in
Africa, from 8.7 million in 1900 to 346 million
in 2000, surpassing both the total population
as well as the growth rate of Islam on the
continent.[51][52]

Western Africa

Further information: Islamization of the Sudan

region

The Great Mosque of

Djenné.

The spread of Islam in Africa began in the

7th to 9th century, brought to North Africa
initially under the Umayyad Dynasty.
Extensive trade networks throughout North
and West Africa created a medium through
which Islam spread peacefully, initially
through the merchant class. By sharing a
common religion and a common
transliteralization (Arabic), traders showed
greater willingness to trust, and therefore
invest, in one another.[53] Moreover, toward
the 19th century, the Northern Nigeria based
Sokoto Caliphate led by Usman dan Fodio
exerted considerable effort in spreading
Islam.[49]

Persia and the Caucasus

Main articles: Islamization of Iran, Muslim conquest
of Armenia, and Muslim conquest of Azerbaijan
See also: Muslim conquest of Persia, Islam in
Azerbaijan, Arab rule in Georgia, and Arab–Turkic
Khazar Wars

Courtiers of the Persian

prince Baysunghur playing
chess in Ferdowsi's epic
work known as the
Shahnameh.

It used to be argued that Zoroastrianism

quickly collapsed in the wake of the Islamic
conquest of Persia due to its intimate ties to
the Sassanid state structure.[7] Now
however, more complex processes are
considered, in light of the more protracted
time frame attributed to the progression of
the ancient Persian religion to a minority; a
progression that is more contiguous with the
trends of the late antiquity period.[7] These
trends are the conversions from the state
religion that had already plagued the
Zoroastrian authorities that continued after
the Arab conquest, coupled with the
migration of Arab tribes into the region
during an extended period of time that
stretched well into the Abbasid reign.[7]

A Persian miniature of
Shah Abu'l Ma‘ali, a
scholar.

While there were cases such as the Sassanid

army division at Hamra, that converted en
masse before pivotal battles such as the
Battle of al-Qādisiyyah, conversion was
fastest[54] in the urban areas where Arab
forces were garrisoned slowly leading to
Zoroastrianism becoming associated with
rural areas.[7] Still at the end of the Umayyad
period, the Muslim community was only a
minority in the region.[7]

Through the Muslim conquest of Persia, in

the 7th century, Islam spread as far as the
North Caucasus, which parts of it (notably
Dagestan) were part of the Sasanid domains.
[55]
In the coming centuries, relatively large
parts of the Caucasus became Muslim, while
the larger swaths of it would still remain
pagan (paganism branches such as the
Circassian Habze) as well as Christian
(notably Armenia and Georgia), for centuries.
By the 16th century, most of the people of
what are nowadays Iran and Azerbaijan had
adopted the Shia branch of Islam through
the conversion policies of the Safavids.[56]

Islam was readily accepted by Zoroastrians

who were employed in industrial and artisan
positions because, according to Zoroastrian
dogma, such occupations that involved
defiling fire made them impure.[49] Moreover,
Muslim missionaries did not encounter
difficulty in explaining Islamic tenets to
Zoroastrians, as there were many similarities
between the faiths. According to Thomas
Walker Arnold, for the Persian, he would
meet Ahura Mazda and Ahriman under the
names of Allah and Iblis.[49] At times, Muslim
leaders in their effort to win converts
encouraged attendance at Muslim prayer
with promises of money and allowed the
Quran to be recited in Persian instead of
Arabic so that it would be intelligible to all.
[49]

Robert Hoyland argues that the missionary

efforts of the relatively small number of Arab
conquerors in Persian lands led to "much
interaction and assimilation" between rulers
and ruled, and to descendants of the
conquerors adapting the Persian language
and Persian festivals and culture,[57] (Persian
being the language of modern-day Iran,
while Arabic is spoken by its neighbors to the
west.)

Central Asia
See also: Islamic conquest of Afghanistan and
Muslim conquest of Transoxiana
Ghurid Empire ruled by
Muhammad of Ghor and Ghiyath
al-Din Muhammad.

A number of the inhabitants of Afghanistan

accepted Islam through Umayyad missionary
efforts, particularly under the reign of
Hisham ibn Abd al-Malik and Umar ibn Abdul
Aziz.[58] Later, starting from the 9th century,
the Samanids, whose roots stemmed from
Zoroastrian theocratic nobility, propagated
Sunni Islam and Islamo-Persian culture deep
into the heart of Central Asia. The population
within its areas began firmly accepting Islam
in significant numbers, notably in Taraz, now
in modern-day Kazakhstan. The first
complete translation of the Qur'an into
Persian occurred during the reign of
Samanids in the 9th century. According to
historians, through the zealous missionary
work of Samanid rulers, as many as 30,000
tents of Turks came to profess Islam and
later under the Ghaznavids higher than
55,000 under the Hanafi school of thought.
[59]
After the Saffarids and Samanids, the
Ghaznavids re-conquered Transoxania, and
invaded the Indian subcontinent in the 11th
century. This was followed by the powerful
Ghurids and Timurids who further expanded
the culture of Islam and the Timurid
Renaissance, reaching until Bengal.

Turkey

Main articles: Arab-Byzantine Wars,

Byzantine-Seljuq wars, Byzantine-Ottoman
Wars.

Indian subcontinent
See also: Islam in South Asia and Muslim conquests
in the Indian subcontinent

A panorama in 12 folds showing a fabulous Eid ul-Fitr

procession by Muslims in the Mughal Empire.

The Age of the Islamic Gunpowders dominating the

western, central and South Asia.

Islamic influence first came to be felt in the

Indian subcontinent during the early 7th
century with the advent of Arab traders.
Arab traders used to visit the Malabar region,
which was a link between them and the ports
of South East Asia to trade even before Islam
had been established in Arabia. According to
Historians Elliot and Dowson in their book
The History of India as told by its own
Historians, the first ship bearing Muslim
travelers was seen on the Indian coast as
early as 630 CE. The first Indian mosque is
thought to have been built in 629 CE,
purportedly at the behest of an unknown
Chera dynasty ruler, during the lifetime of
Muhammad (c. 571–632) in Kodungallur, in
district of Thrissur, Kerala by Malik Bin
Deenar. In Malabar, Muslims are called
Mappila.

In Bengal, Arab merchants helped found the

Port of Chittagong. Early Sufi missionaries
settled in the region as early as the 8th
century.[60][61]

H. G. Rawlinson, in his book Ancient and

Medieval History of India (ISBN 978-81-
86050-79-8), claims the first Arab Muslims
settled on the Indian coast in the last part of
the 7th century. This fact is corroborated, by
J. Sturrock in his South Kanara and Madras
Districts Manuals,[62] and also by Haridas
Bhattacharya in Cultural Heritage of India
Vol. IV.[63]

The Arab merchants and traders became the

carriers of the new religion and they
propagated it wherever they went.[64] It was,
however, the subsequent expansion of the
Muslim conquest in the Indian subcontinent
over the next millennia that established Islam
in the region.

Mir Sayyid Ali, portrait of a young

Indian Muslim scholar, writing a
commentary on the Quran, during
the reign of the Mughal Emperor
Shah Jahan.

Embedded within these lies the concept of

Islam as a foreign imposition and Hinduism
being natural condition of the natives who
resisted, resulting in the failure of the project
to Islamicize the Indian subcontinent is
highly embroiled with the politics of the
partition and communalism in India.
Considerable controversy exists as to how
conversion to Islam came about in the Indian
subcontinent.[65] These are typically
represented by the following schools of
thought:[65]

1. Conversion was a combination, initially by

violence, threat or other pressure against
the person.[65]

2. As a socio-cultural process of diffusion

and integration over an extended period
of time into the sphere of the dominant
Muslim civilization and global polity at
large.[66]

3. A related view is that conversions

occurred for non-religious reasons of
pragmatism and patronage such as social
mobility among the Muslim ruling elite or
for relief from taxes[65][66]

4. Was a combination, initially made under

duress followed by a genuine change of
heart[65]

5. That the bulk of Muslims are descendants

of migrants from the Iranian plateau or
Arabs.[66]

Emperor Aurangzeb, who

memorised the Quran, with the
help of several Arab and Iraqi
scholars compiled the Fatawa-e-
Alamgiri

A map of the Bruneian Empire

in 1500.[67]

Muslim missionaries played a key role in the

spread of Islam in India with some
missionaries even assuming roles as
merchants or traders. For example, in the 9th
century, the Ismailis sent missionaries across
Asia in all directions under various guises,
often as traders, Sufis and merchants.
Ismailis were instructed to speak to potential
converts in their own language. Some Ismaili
missionaries traveled to India and employed
effort to make their religion acceptable to the
Hindus. For instance, they represented Ali as
the tenth avatar of Vishnu and wrote hymns
as well as a mahdi purana in their effort to
win converts.[49] At other times, converts
were won in conjunction with the
propagation efforts of rulers. According to
Ibn Batuta, the Khaljis encouraged
conversion to Islam by making it a custom to
have the convert presented to the Sultan
who would place a robe on the convert and
award him with bracelets of gold.[68] During
Delhi Sultanate's Ikhtiyar Uddin Bakhtiyar
Khilji's control of the Bengal, Muslim
missionaries in India achieved their greatest
success, in terms of number of converts to
Islam.[69]

The Mughal Empire, founded by Babur, a

direct descendant of Timur and Genghis
Khan, was able to conquer almost the
entirety of South Asia. Although religious
tolerance was seen during the rule of
emperor Akbar's, the reign under emperor
Aurangzeb witnessed the full establishment
of Islamic sharia and the re-introduction of
Jizya (a special tax imposed upon non-
Muslims) through the compilation of the
Fatawa-e-Alamgiri.[70][71] The Mughals,
already suffering a gradual decline in the
early 18th century, was invaded by the
Afsharid ruler Nader Shah.[72] The Mughal
decline provided opportunities for the
Maratha Empire, Sikh Empire, Mysore
Kingdom, Nawabs of Bengal and
Murshidabad and Nizams of Hyderabad to
exercise control over large regions of the
Indian subcontinent.[73] Eventually, after
numerous wars sapped its strength, the
Mughal Empire was broken into smaller
powers like Shia Nawab of Bengal, the
Nawab of Awadh, the Nizam of Hyderabad,
and the Kingdom of Mysore, which became
the major Asian economic and military power
on the Indian subcontinent.[citation needed]

Southeast Asia
Main articles: Spread of Islam in Southeast Asia
and Spread of Islam in Indonesia

Minaret of the Menara Kudus

Mosque, influenced by both
Islamic and mainly Hindu-
Buddhist temple-like Javanese
structure.

Even before Islam was established amongst

Indonesian communities, Muslim sailors and
traders had often visited the shores of
modern Indonesia, most of these early
sailors and merchants arrived from the
Abbasid Caliphate's newly established ports
of Basra and Debal, many of the earliest
Muslim accounts of the region note the
presence of animals such as orang-utans,
rhinos and valuable spice trade commodities
such as cloves, nutmeg, galangal and
coconut.[74]

A Muslim "Food jar"

from the Philippines,
also known as gadur,
well known for its brass
with silver inlay.

Islam came to the Southeast Asia, first by the

way of Muslim traders along the main trade-
route between Asia and the Far East, then
was further spread by Sufi orders and finally
consolidated by the expansion of the
territories of converted rulers and their
communities.[75] The first communities arose
in Northern Sumatra (Aceh) and the
Malacca's remained a stronghold of Islam
from where it was propagated along the
trade routes in the region.[75] There is no
clear indication of when Islam first came to
the region, the first Muslim gravestone
markings year 1082.[76]

When Marco Polo visited the area in 1292 he

noted that the urban port state of Perlak was
Muslim,[76] Chinese sources record the
presence of a Muslim delegation to the
emperor from the Kingdom of Samudra
(Pasai) in 1282,[75] other accounts provide
instances of Muslim communities present in
the Melayu Kingdom for the same time
period while others record the presence of
Muslim Chinese traders from provinces such
as Fujian.[76] The spread of Islam generally
followed the trade routes east through the
primarily Buddhist region and a half century
later in the Malacca's we see the first
dynasty arise in the form of the Sultanate of
Malacca at the far end of the Archipelago
form by the conversion of one Parameswara
Dewa Shah into a Muslim and the adoption
of the name Muhammad Iskandar Shah[77]
after his marriage to a daughter of the ruler
of Pasai.[75][76]

In 1380, Sufi orders carried Islam from here

on to Mindanao.[citation needed] Java was the
seat of the primary kingdom of the region,
the Majapahit Empire, which was ruled by a
Hindu dynasty. As commerce grew in the
region with the rest of the Muslim world,
Islamic influence extended to the court even
as the empires political power waned and so
by the time Raja Kertawijaya converted in
1475 at the hands of Sufi Sheikh Rahmat, the
Sultanate was already of a Muslim character.
In Vietnam, the Cham people proselytized
due to contact with traders and missionaries
from Kelantan.

Another driving force for the change of the

ruling class in the region was the concept
among the increasing Muslim communities
of the region when ruling dynasties to
attempt to forge such ties of kinship by
marriage.[citation needed] By the time the
colonial powers and their missionaries
arrived in the 17th century the region up to
New Guinea was overwhelmingly Muslim
with animist minorities.[76]

Flags of the Sultanates in the East

Indies

Sultanate of Banten

Cirebon Sultanate

Yogyakarta Sultanate

Sultanate of Mataram

Sulu

Minangkabau

Deli

Inner Asia and Eastern Europe

Ilkhanate Empire ruler, Ghazan,

studying the Quran
(Azerbaijani culture).

In the mid 7th century AD, following the

Muslim conquest of Persia, Islam penetrated
into areas that would later become part of
European Russia.[78] A centuries later
example that can be counted amongst the
earliest introductions of Islam into Eastern
Europe came about through the work of an
early 11th-century Muslim prisoner whom the
Byzantines captured during one of their wars
against Muslims. The Muslim prisoner was
brought[by whom?] into the territory of the
Pechenegs, where he taught and converted
individuals to Islam.[79] Little is known about
the timeline of the Islamization of Inner Asia
and of the Turkic peoples who lay beyond
the bounds of the caliphate. Around the 7th
and 8th centuries some states of Turkic
peoples existed - like the Turkic Khazar
Khaganate (see Khazar-Arab Wars) and the
Turkic Turgesh Khaganate, which fought
against the caliphate in order to stop
Arabization and Islamization in Asia. From
the 9th century onwards, the Turks (at least
individually, if not yet through adoption by
their states) began to convert to Islam.
Histories merely note the fact of pre-Mongol
Central Asia's Islamization.[80] The Bulgars
of the Volga (to whom the modern Volga
Tatars trace their Islamic roots) adopted
Islam by the 10th century.[80] under Almış.
When the Franciscan friar William of Rubruck
visited the encampment of Batu Khan of the
Golden Horde, who had recently (in the
1240s) completed the Mongol invasion of
Volga Bulgaria, he noted "I wonder what
devil carried the law of Machomet there".[80]

Another contemporary institution identified

as Muslim, the Qarakhanid dynasty of the
Kara-Khanid Khanate, operated much further
east,[80] established by Karluks who became
Islamized after converting under Sultan
Satuq Bughra Khan in the mid-10th century.
However, the modern-day history of the
Islamization of the region - or rather a
conscious affiliation with Islam - dates to the
reign of the ulus of the son of Genghis Khan,
Jochi, who founded the Golden Horde,[81]
which operated from the 1240s to 1502.
Kazakhs, Uzbeks and some Muslim
populations of the Russian Federation trace
their Islamic roots to the Golden Horde[80]
and while Berke Khan became the first
Mongol monarch to officially adopt Islam and
even to oppose his kinsman Hulagu Khan[80]
in the defense of Jerusalem at the Battle of
Ain Jalut (1263), only much later did the
change became pivotal when the Mongols
converted en masse[82] when a century later
Uzbeg Khan (lived 1282–1341) converted -
reportedly at the hands of the Sufi Saint
Baba Tukles.[83]

Some of the Mongolian tribes became

Islamized. Following the brutal Mongol
invasion of Central Asia under Hulagu Khan
and after the Battle of Baghdad (1258),
Mongol rule extended across the breadth of
almost all Muslim lands in Asia. The Mongols
destroyed the caliphate and persecuted
Islam, replacing it with Buddhism as the
official state religion.[82] In 1295 however,
the new Khan of the Ilkhanate, Ghazan,
converted to Islam, and two decades later
the Golden Horde under Uzbeg Khan
(reigned 1313–1341) followed suit.[82] The
Mongols had been religiously and culturally
conquered; this absorption ushered in a new
age of Mongol-Islamic synthesis[82] that
shaped the further spread of Islam in central
Asia and the Indian subcontinent.

In the 1330s, the Mongol ruler of the

Chagatai Khanate (in Central Asia) converted
to Islam, causing the eastern part of his
realm (called Moghulistan) to rebel.[84]
However, during the next three centuries
these Buddhist, Shamanistic and Christian
Turkic and Mongol nomads of the Kazakh
Steppe and Xinjiang would also convert at
the hands of competing Sufi orders from
both east and west of the Pamirs.[84] The
Naqshbandis are the most prominent of
these orders, especially in Kashgaria, where
the western Chagatai Khan was also a
disciple of the order.[84]

Muslims of Central Asian origin played a

major role in the Mongol conquest of China.
Sayyid Ajjal Shams al-Din Omar, a court
official and general of Turkic origin who
participated in the Mongol invasion of
Southwest China, became Yuan Governor of
Yunnan in 1274. A distinct Muslim
community, the Panthays, was established in
the region by the late 13th century.

Europe

Tariq ibn Ziyad was a Muslim general who led

the Islamic conquest of Visigothic Hispania
in 711-718 A.D. He is considered to be one of
the most important military commanders in
Iberian history. The name "Gibraltar" is the
Spanish derivation of the Arabic name Jabal
Tāriq (‫( ) &ﺣٮ&ﻞ ﻃﺎرق‬meaning "mountain of
Tariq"), named after him.

There are accounts of the trade connections

between the Muslims and the Rus,
apparently Vikings who made their way
towards the Black Sea through Central
Russia. On his way to Volga Bulgaria, Ibn
Fadlan brought detailed reports of the Rus,
claiming that some had converted to Islam.

According to the historian Yaqut al-Hamawi,

the Böszörmény (Izmaelita or Ismaili / Nizari)
denomination of the Muslims who lived in the
Kingdom of Hungary in the 10th to 13th
centuries, were employed as mercenaries by
the kings of Hungary.

Hispania / Al-Andalus

See also: Umayyad conquest of Hispania

The interior of the

Cathedral of Cordoba,
formerly the Great
Mosque of Córdoba was
built in 742. It is one of the
finest examples of Islamic
architecture in the
Umayyad style; inspired
the design of other
Mosques in Al-Andalus.

The history of Arab and Islamic rule in the

Iberian peninsula is probably one of the most
studied periods of European history. For
centuries after the Arab conquest, European
accounts of Arab rule in Iberia were negative.
European points of view started changing
with the Protestant Reformation, which
resulted in new descriptions of the period of
Islamic rule in Spain as a "golden age"
(mostly as a reaction against Spain's militant
Roman Catholicism after 1500)[citation needed].

The tide of Arab expansion after 630 rolled

through North Africa up to Ceuta in present-
day Morocco. Their arrival coincided with a
period of political weakness in the three-
centuries-old kingdom established in the
Iberian peninsula by the Germanic Visigoths,
who had taken over the region after seven
centuries of Roman rule. Seizing the
opportunity, an Arab-led (but mostly Berber)
army invaded in 711, and by 720 had
conquered the southern and central regions
of the peninsula. The Arab expansion pushed
over the mountains into southern France,
and for a short period Arabs controlled the
old Visigothic province of Septimania
(centered on present-day Narbonne). The
Arab Caliphate was pushed back by Charles
Martel (Frankish Mayor of the Palace) at
Poitiers, and Christian armies started
pushing southwards over the mountains,
until Charlemagne established in 801 the
Spanish March (which stretched from
Barcelona to present day Navarre).

A major development in the history of Muslim

Spain was the dynastic change in 750 in the
Arab Caliphate, when an Umayyad Prince
escaped the slaughter of his family in
Damascus, fled to Cordoba in Spain, and
created a new Islamic state in the area. This
was the start of a distinctly Spanish Muslim
society, where large Christian and Jewish
populations coexisted with an increasing
percentage of Muslims. There are many
stories of descendants of Visigothic
chieftains and Roman counts whose families
converted to Islam during this period. The at-
first small Muslim elite continued to grow
with converts, and with a few exceptions,
rulers in Islamic Spain allowed Christians and
Jews the right specified in the Koran to
practice their own religions, though non-
Muslims suffered from political and taxation
inequities. The net result was, in those areas
of Spain where Muslim rule lasted the
longest, the creation of a society that was
mostly Arabic-speaking because of the
assimilation of native inhabitants, a process
in some ways similar to the assimilation many
years later of millions of immigrants to the
United States into English-speaking culture.
As the descendants of Visigoths and
Hispano-Romans concentrated in the north
of the peninsula, in the kingdoms of
Asturias/Leon, Navarre and Aragon and
started a long campaign known as the
'Reconquista' which started with the victory
of the Christian armies in Covadonga in 722.
Military campaigns continued without pause.
In 1085 Alfonso VI of Castille took back
Toledo. In 1212 the crucial Battle of Las
Navas de Tolosa meant the recovery of the
bulk of the peninsula for the Christian
kingdoms. In 1238 James I of Aragon took
Valencia. In 1236 the ancient Roman city of
Cordoba was re-conquered by Ferdinand III
of Castille and in 1248 the city of Seville. The
famous medieval epic poem 'Cantar de Mio
Cid' narrates the life and deeds of this hero
during the Reconquista.

The Islamic state centered in Cordoba had

ended up splintering into many smaller
kingdoms (the so-called taifas). While
Muslim Spain was fragmenting, the Christian
kingdoms grew larger and stronger, and the
balance of power shifted against the 'Taifa'
kingdoms. The last Muslim kingdom of
Granada in the south was finally taken in
1492 by Queen Isabelle of Castille and
Ferdinand of Aragon. In 1499, the remaining
Muslim inhabitants were ordered to convert
or leave (at the same time the Jews were
expelled). Poorer Muslims (Moriscos) who
could not afford to leave ended up
converting to Catholic Christianity and hiding
their Muslim practices, hiding from the
Spanish Inquisition, until their presence was
finally extinguished.

Balkans

See also: Rumelia, Balkans, and Ottoman Empire

In Balkan history, historical writing on the

topic of conversion to Islam was, and still is,
a highly charged political issue. It is
intrinsically linked to the issues of formation
of national identities and rival territorial
claims of the Balkan states. The generally
accepted nationalist discourse of the current
Balkan historiography defines all forms of
Islamization as results of the Ottoman
government's centrally organized policy of
conversion or dawah. The truth is that
Islamization in each Balkan country took
place in the course of many centuries, and
its nature and phase was determined not by
the Ottoman government but by the specific
conditions of each locality. Ottoman
conquests were initially military and
economic enterprises, and religious
conversions were not their primary objective.
True, the statements surrounding victories
all celebrated the incorporation of territory
into Muslim domains, but the actual Ottoman
focus was on taxation and making the realms
productive, and a religious campaign would
have disrupted that economic objective.

Ottoman Islamic standards of toleration

allowed for autonomous "nations" (millets) in
the Empire, under their own personal law and
under the rule of their own religious leaders.
As a result, vast areas of the Balkans
remained mostly Christian during the period
of Ottoman domination. In fact, the Eastern
Orthodox Churches had a higher position in
the Ottoman Empire, mainly because the
Patriarch resided in Istanbul and was an
officer of the Ottoman Empire. In contrast,
Roman Catholics, while tolerated, were
suspected of loyalty to a foreign power (the
Papacy). It is no surprise that the Roman
Catholic areas of Bosnia, Kosovo and
northern Albania, ended up with more
substantial conversions to Islam. The defeat
of the Ottomans in 1699 by the Austrians
resulted in their loss of Hungary and
present-day Croatia. The remaining Muslim
converts in both elected to leave "lands of
unbelief" and moved to territory still under
the Ottomans. Around this point in time, new
European ideas of romantic nationalism
started to seep into the Empire, and provided
the intellectual foundation for new
nationalistic ideologies and the
reinforcement of the self-image of many
Christian groups as subjugated peoples.

As a rule, the Ottomans did not require

followers of Greek Orthodoxy to become
Muslims, although many did so in order to
avert the socioeconomic hardships of
Ottoman rule.[85] One by one, the Balkan
nationalities asserted their independence
from the Empire, and frequently the
presence of members of the same ethnicity
who had converted to Islam presented a
problem from the point of view of the now
dominant new national ideology, which
narrowly defined the nation as members of
the local dominant Orthodox Christian
denomination.[86] Some Muslims in the
Balkans chose to leave, while many others
were forcefully expelled to what was left of
the Ottoman Empire.[86] This demographic
transition can be illustrated by the decrease
in the number of mosques in Belgrade, from
over 70 in 1750 (before Serbian
independence in 1815), to only three in 1850.

Immigration

Since the 1960s, many Muslims have

migrated to Western Europe. They have
arrived as immigrants, guest workers, asylum
seekers or as part of family reunification. As
a result, the Muslim population in Europe has
steadily risen.

A Pew Forum study, published in January

2011, forecast an increase of the proportion
of Muslims in the European population from
6% in 2010 to 8% in 2030.[87]

See also

References

Last edited 19 hours ago by Stephen…

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