Islam Expands

Muhammad’s Death

632 – Begins the split within the Muslim community

• Muslims elect Abu-Bakr (a friend of Muhammad) as the “successor” or CALIPH

Rightly Guided Caliphs

• 4 “elected caliphs”– Abu-Bakr, Umar, Uthman, and Ali– Their rule was called a CALIPHATE– They used the Qur’an and Muhammad’s actions to

guide their leadership

Problems

• Soon after Muhammad’s death some Muslims in the Arabian peninsula abandoned Islam, some stopped paying taxes, and some even called themselves prophets.

• What did Abu-Bakr do??

Jihad

• “Jihad” means “striving”

• There are two forms of “jihad”– The inner struggle against evil OR– An armed struggle against unbelievers

Expansion

• The Four Rightly Guided Caliphs used “jihad” to spread Islam throughout the M.E., Europe, and parts of Asia.

Why was Islam able to spread??• Empires surrounding the Muslim empire were weak (Byzantine and Sassanid Empires)

• People in these empires were sick of being mistreated

• People were attracted to the economic benefit for Muslims not having to pay a poll tax

Treatment of Conquered People

• Muslims allowed people to follow their own religion as long as they paid taxes

• Christians and Jews did not have to perform military duties

• Christians and Jews were not able to spread their religion w/i the Muslim Empire

Assassinations

• The assassination of Uthman in 656 and Ali (Muhammad’s cousin) in 661 was a huge turning pt.

• A family known as the Umayyads take power and the idea of electing caliphs is over.

Umayyads

• They did two things that angered many Muslims– Moved capital from Mecca

to Damascus– Began surrounding

themselves with wealth and ceremonies

**Split within Islam**• Sunni – Shi’a Split – Sunni – group of Muslims (majority) who accept

Umayyads’ rule to preserve peace• They claimed that people just needed to follow

Muhammad’s example

– Shi’a – group of Muslims that resisted Umayyads’ rule • They claimed that the caliph needed to be a

descendant of Muhammad• Meaning the “party” of Ali• Members are known as “Shi’ites”

Abbasids

• 750 – Abbasid family takes control of Muslim Empire and kill almost every Umayyad

• Moved capital to Baghdad

Abbasids

• Rule from 750 – 1258

– They create a large and prosperous empire

– It gets too large to control and local leaders began taking control

Fatimid – a caliphate formed by Shi’a Muslims (N. Africa) who claimed descent from Muhammad’s daughter Fatima

Muslim Trade• Merchants spoke one lang. – Arabic

-Created banks throughout the empire-Banks offered letters of credit to merchants called “sakks”-Europeans called these letters “checks”

Muslim Empire

• By the 10 Century Baghdad had a pop. of almost 1 million when Paris had a pop. of only 38,000!!

• At this time the Muslim Empire was extremely prosperous and advanced compared to the rest of the world!