80
years violence had broken out
between the established powers
there and Muhammad’s supporters.
Muhammad outmaneuvered the
Qurayshi, first by raiding their
caravans, then defeating them in
a pitched battle in 627, and finally
negotiating the right to return to
Mecca on a pilgrimage in 629. By
the time he died in 632, Muhammad
was re-established in Mecca, and
his diplomatic and military
successes in attracting other tribes
to his cause had made his position
unassailable. As his authority
spread, so too did the reach of his
religious message and the numbers
of new Muslim converts.MUHAMMAD RECEIVES THE DIVINE REVELATION
The Battle of Uhud (in 625) was one
of several bloody conflicts fought
between the Muslims of Medina,
led by Muhammad, and the larger
Qurayshi army from Mecca.Conquests beyond Arabia
Having secured their position,
Muhammad’s successors, in
particular Umar (634–44), initiated
campaigns of conquest further
afield. They were fortunate in that
profound changes had occurred
on the northern fringes of Arabia.
Between 602 and 628, the two long-
established empires in the area—
the Byzantines to the northwest
and the Persian Sassanids to the
northeast—had been engaged
in a long, vicious war that ended in
catastrophe for both parties. Their
coffers had been drained by the
costs of the conflict and some
regions within their territories had
been utterly devastated. Both sides
had also become reliant on Arabs
to defend their borders and small,
semi-independent Arab states had
emerged on the peripheries of the
two empires.Rapid defeat
The Arab armies that swept
northward in the 630s faced far less
resistance than they would have
half a century earlier. Provinces fell
easily as weakened garrisons and
the doubtful loyalty of citizens
undermined resistance. Although
relatively small in number and
lightly armed, the Arab armies
were very mobile and did not need
to defend fixed positions, giving
them a huge advantage over their
opponents. When they defeated the
Byzantines at Yarmuk in 636, the
whole edifice of imperial control in
Palestine and Syria came crashing
down. In the case of Persia, it took
Arab generals just nine years to
dismember the Sassanid Empire.After Muhammad’s death, Islam
entered a crisis and the fledgling
religion might easily have been
crushed. Tribes in the east broke
away from the Muslim religious
community (the umma) and
declared allegiance to their own
prophet, while the Medinans were
unhappy about the dominance of
Meccans in the movement. The
choice of Abu Bakr, Muhammad’s
father-in-law, as caliph (successor)
signaled that the leadership would
remain in the Prophet’s family and
this, together with a series of
successful military campaigns
against the malcontents, enabled
the umma to survive.US_078-081_Mohammed_divine_revelation.indd 80 15/02/2016 16:41
81
Islamic society
The newly conquered lands became
part of an Islamic caliphate. Many
of its inhabitants converted, while
those who did not were tolerated
if they were Christians, Jews, or
Zoroastrians, provided they paid a
special tax. Islam transformed the
lands it absorbed in many ways.
As well as sweeping away the old
imperial structures, it imparted a
new sense of religious community,
often uniting the conquerors and
the conquered. Islamic scholars
resurrected the works of Greek
philosophers and scientists that
had languished forgotten for
centuries, translating them into
Arabic, and beautiful mosques
began to adorn the towns. Areas
that had been marginalized under
the Byzantine or Sassanid Empires
now found themselves at the heart
of a new, vibrant civilization.
Success, however, brought its
own problems for Islam. Acquiring
lands far more urbanized than
Arabia meant that the caliphs had
to adapt from being warrior chiefs
commanding a tight-knit group of
followers, to monarchs ruling over a
huge area with complex economies
and societies. In addition to this,
Muslims were initially in the
minority, and not wholly united.Growing divisions
Tensions over the succession to the
caliphate resulted in a major schism
in Islam. A struggle between Ali,
Muhammad’s son-in-law, and
Muawiya, the Governor of Syria,
led to a civil war that ended in
Ali’s murder and Muawiya taking
control of the caliphate in 661.
While Muawiya’s descendants
(the Umayyads) ruled from the
Syrian city of Damascus, Ali’s
followers opposed their authority,
claiming the caliph should be
chosen from among Ali’s offspring.
After the murder of Ali’s son Husayn
at Karbala in 680, the split between
the Shia (those who supported
the right of Ali’s descendents to
rule the caliphate) and the moreTHE MEDIEVAL WORLD
mainstream Sunni (who rejected
this) became definitive—a division
that continues to this day.
Islamic unity was fractured in
other ways too; ruling over such a
vast empire was almost impossible
when messages from the eastern
and western extremities might take
months to reach the caliph’s court.
Independent Muslim dynasties
emerged in peripheral areas and
rival caliphs appeared in the 10th
century in Spain, Tunisia, and
Egypt. Yet even though its political
unity had been shattered, and its
religious unity compromised,
Muhammad’s creed was so popular
and successful that by the 21st
century there were about 1.5 billion
Muslims worldwide. ■Muhammad
receives the divine
revelation.Traditional political and religious
allegiances are weakened.Islam continues to spread but divides into Sunni
and Shia factions and competing caliphates.Expansion of Islam
raises tensions over who
has supreme authority.Arab armies make swift
conquests in the Middle
East; Islam spreads.Islam rapidly gains adherents among Arab tribes.Recite in the name of
your Lord who created,
Created man from a blood-clot.
Qur’an (Surah 96)
The first words revealed
to Muhammad (c.610 ce)US_078-081_Mohammed_divine_revelation.indd 81 15/02/2016 16:41