Lecture 23: The Rise of Islam and the Threat of Iconoclasm
o The Qur’ān provides a vision for the ordering of society,
with legislation concerning every aspect of life; subsequent
generations developed its statements and the hadith (example)
of the prophet into a system of law (shariah) governing an
Islamic state.o Unlike the earliest stages of Christianity, therefore, Islam was,
from the beginning, prepared to provide a religious ordering to
society as a whole.o A tradition holds that the prophet, before his death, issued a
summons to the other empires of the world, demanding their
submission to Allah. Whether or not the tradition is apocryphal,
the story indicates that Islam saw a path of world dominance as
grounded from the first in the ministry of the prophet.• After the prophet’s death, Arab armies spread Islam through a
remarkable swath of conquest.
o In 633, they attacked Persia. In the same year, the churches of
Jerusalem, Antioch, and Alexandria were lost to Christianity
because of Islamic conquest.o Between 634 and 637, Syria, Persia, Egypt, and Gaza were
conquered. In 639, the kingdom of Armenia was attacked and,
in 694, defeated.o Under this onslaught, Persia sought the aid of China in 638,
but by 641, it fell to the Arab army. Once the East was secured,
the Arab forces turned westward. In rapid order, Arab armies
conquered Tripoli, Cyprus, North Africa, Carthage, Algeria,
and Spain.o In 655, the Arab navies defeated the Byzantine fleet, and in 693,
the Arab army defeated the Byzantine army at Sebastopolis
in Cilicia.