city. Against the Meccans he fought a series of battles; the battle of Badr (624),
waged against a Meccan caravan, marked the first Islamic military victory. After
several other campaigns, Muhammad triumphed and took over Mecca in 630,
offering leniency to most of its inhabitants, who in turn converted to Islam.
Meanwhile, Muhammad allied himself with numerous nomadic groups, adding their
contingents to his army. Warfare was thus integrated into the new religion as a part of
the duty of Muslims to strive in the ways of God; jihad, often translated as “holy
war,” in fact means “striving.” Through a combination of military might, conversion,
and negotiation, Muhammad united many, though by no means all, Arabic tribes
under his leadership by the time of his death in 632.
OUT OF ARABIA
“Strive, O Prophet,” says the Qur’an, “against the unbelievers and the hypocrites,
and deal with them firmly. Their final abode is Hell; And what a wretched
destination” (9:73). Cutting across tribal allegiances, the Islamic ummah was itself a
formidable “supertribe” dedicated to victory over the enemies of God. After
Muhammad’s death, armies of Muslims led by caliphs—a title that at first seems to
have derived from khalifat Allah, “deputy of God,” but that later came to mean
“deputy of the Apostle of God, Muhammad”—moved into Sasanid and Byzantine
territory, toppling or crippling the once-great ancient empires. (See Map 2.2.) Islamic
armies captured the Persian capital, Ctesiphon, in 637 and continued eastward to take
Persepolis in 648, Nishapur in 651, and then, beyond Persia, to Kabul in 664 and
Samarkand in 710. To the west, they picked off, one by one, the great Mediterranean
cities of the Byzantine Empire: Antioch and Damascus in 635, Alexandria in 642,
Carthage in 697. By the beginning of the eighth century, Islamic warriors held sway
from Spain to India.
