The Spread of the Faith

The Spread of the Faith

Prophet Muhammad(Peace Be Upon Him) had forged the nomadic Arabs into a cohesive fighting force united by a bond of common religion and instilled with an undying zeal to conquer the world and convert humanity to the faith. The prophetʹs march to the border of Syria in 630 left his followers poised for territorial expansion beyond the arid Arabian peninsula. The particular ethos of the creed, fusing together spiritual and secular aspects of life, as well as its uncompromising attitude toward other religions, were expressed in its official policy of conquest of the lands of nonbelievers. Islam makes a distinction among followers of other religions. The least objectionable form of infidelity is being practiced by the so‐called ʺPeople of the Book,ʺ who are guilty not of an absolute denial of truth as revealed by the Quran but of a partial perversion of it. This status of the People of the Book was originally reserved for the Jews and the Christians, and later, the Zoroastrians, the Buddhists, and implicitly, for the sake of political expediency, even the idolatrous Hindus. Upon agreeing to follow their own religion quietly and paying a compulsory poll tax called the jizyah, non‐Muslim subjects could sometimes become protected community or dhimmi. Only in this manner could they technically receive any protection of person and property in an Islamic state. For Muslims, an incumbent religious duty commissioned of Muslims by God is to persist in holy crusade, or jihad, for the purpose of bringing the entire world ultimately under Islam. Jihad is generally viewed (although not universally practiced for practical reasons) by the Muslim community as sacred warfare to convert the dar ul‐harb (ʺa land of warfare,ʺ or more precisely, any infidel country not yet under the secure rule of the Sharia) into the universal dar ul‐Islam (ʺland of Islamʺ or, more specifically, the part of the world where the edicts of Islam are fully promulgated). This doctrine provided the Muslims with their ideology for territorial conquest and religious conversion beyond Arabia.

However, military subjugation alone did not bring the vast variety of races and cultures into the fold of Islam. Missionary activities of the Sufis, or mystics, spread Islam in sub‐Saharan Africa, Turkey, South and Central Asia, while Muslim merchants transported their faith through the long Silk Road to China, and through the Indian Ocean to Southeast Asia. Yet Islam owes its widespread conquests and millions of converts during the first few centuries of its phenomenal expansion largely to the sword. Within two decades of Muhammadʹs death, Islam forged its first empire, which, in the course of a little more than a hundred years, stretched from Spain in the west to Central Asia in the east, with Arabic, the language of the Quran as the lingua franca in the conquered lands. First, in 640, the arms of Islam conquered Syria from the Roman Empire, marking a series of spectacular military and political successes. The Sassanid Empire of Persia fell in 651; but by that time Palestine, Lebanon, Egypt, and Libya were already under Islamic dominion. Within another twenty years the Muslims had occupied Algeria and Morocco, and within a further forty, invaded Spain in the west and India in the east. By 751, Central Asia as far as Tashkent was under the banner of Islam. In the west, the Muslims advanced as far as Tours, where in 732 they were beaten back by a Christian army led by Charles Martel. Then they spread to southern France, northern Italy, Corsica, and Sardinia, from where they withdrew only during the middle of the eleventh century. Although the Muslim dominance in southwestern Europe declined from the middle of the tenth century onward, they were not completely ousted until 1492 with the fall of their stronghold at Granada in Spain. By the end of the seventh century in the east, the Muslims had occupied Afghanistan. By 715 they conquered Chinese Turkestan, and in 1206, after a long series of invasions, they established a Sultanate (empire under a ʺSultanʺ) in northern India. Moreover, Islam contributed to the downfall of the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire with its final capture of Constantinople (modern Istanbul) in 1453.

Shiaism

Today the Muslim community, or ummah, comprises many sects, the principal among which are the Sunni, or traditionalists, who constitute the majority of the faithfuls, and the minority Shia, or legitimists. Nowadays, the Shia Muslims are mostly found in Iran, Iraq, and the Indian subcontinent. The split between the two parties occurred almost immediately after Muhammadʹs death in 632, over the question of leadership in the Islamic world as the prophet himself had designated no successor. Subsequently, there also developed, in the course of centuries, substantial theological differences between these two main sects of Islam. As soon as Muhammad died, the inhabitants of Medina, at the behest of the closest kinsmen of the prophetʹs tribe (the Quraysh), consented to elect Abu Bakr, father of the prophetʹs favorite surviving wife, Aishah, as the successor (Khalifah, hence caliph) of Muhammad, and the spiritual and temporal leader of the Muslim community. They overlooked the claims of the prophetʹs actually preferred successor, Ali, husband of his daughter, Fatimah, his only surviving offspring. The Shias, or partisans of Ali, reluctantly accepted this for the sake of unity in the community of believers. Abu Bakr (632‐634) was succeeded at Medina by Umar I (634‐644), and Uthman (644‐656). After the assassination of Uthman during a period of civil strife, Ali (656‐661) became the fourth

caliph, but soon an open schism occurred within the religious community over his succession. By 661, Ali himself was assassinated, and the caliphate was taken by his rival, a member of Uthmanʹs Umayyad clan. The Umayyad caliphate ruled from Damascus until 750, supported by the majority of Muslims. It was opposed by the dissenting Shias, who claimed their loyalty to the descendants of Ali, and sought the restoration of the caliphate to them. The Shias maintain that the true successors of Ali were his two murdered sons, Hasan (d. 669) and Husayn (d. 680). According to them, after Muhammadʹs death, there have been twelve holy imams, or divinely appointed and guided, and exemplary, spiritual leaders. These imams are entirely immune from any sin or error and continue the tradition of prophethood in every respect except in so far as they cannot formulate a new scripture after the Quran. The Shias consider these imams as the bestowers of the true and secret meaning of the Quran, and the only legitimate successors of Muhammad, and hold the vast majority of the Muslims (the Sunnis) to be apostatic for failing to recognize them as such. Ali, Hasan, and Husayn are the first three imams, while the twelfth and last imam, the Mahdi, is believed by the Shias to be the ruler of the world. The Mahdi disappeared in 941, but he will reappear at a time when it will be necessary to destroy all the evils of the world and establish the rule of justice in perfect accord with the divine law. Meanwhile, the Shia divines interpret doctrine and law presumably under the guidance of the disappeared imam.

Sunnism

In contrast to Shiaism, Sunnism is the path of the consolidated majority of the Muslim community, and the Sunnis consider the Shias as having a fluid doctrine and belonging to a peripheral sect within the Muslim community. Sunnism is catholic (that is, universal) by nature, and theologically, the more orthodox of the two. The most important formulators of the Sunni creed and theology sought to compromise between divine omnipotence and human free will.

Other Sects

Shiaism has, over the centuries, produced a variety of sects out of itself; the two most important during the first five hundred years are the Ismailis and the Druze. Both are considered heterodox by some and have considerable number of adherents even today. The Ismailis recognize Ismail (the elder brother of the Shia imam, Musa) as the seventh imam, instead of Musa, and uphold the legitimacy of the descendants of Ismail. Some Ismailis, called the Sabiyahs or the Seveners, believe Ismail to be the last of the imams. The Ismailis became prominent in the ninth century, and their teachings spread from the Nile to the Indus River. The Ismaili Fatimid dynasty ruled in Egypt between 969 and 1171. The Fatimid caliph, al‐Hakim of the eleventh century, has been deified by a cult, the members of which are known as the Druzes, who now live mostly in Lebanon, and who are sometimes regarded as a sect independent of Islam.

Sufism, or Islamic Mysticism

Mysticism in Islam arose out of the early Islamic asceticism, which repudiated the increasing worldliness of the Umayyad dynasty. It also sought to discover the truth of the ultimate knowledge not through legalistic religious practices but through cultivation of the inner life and direct personal experience of God. By seeking to experience the infinitude of divine love and wisdom in this world, these mystics have strived to attain their own personal comprehension of the inner truth of Islam. With the realization of divine presence as its spiritual goal, Sufism focuses on esoteric spiritual knowledge and communion with God as means of personal salvation. Sufism is an anglicized expression for the Islamic mystic, Sufi (an ascetic who usually wore a garment of coarse wool or Suf, in early medieval Arabic). Fakir (from Arabic faqir) and dervish (from Persian darvish) are also English words, synonymous with poor Sufis. Sufism derives some of its roots from early Christian mysticism, called Gnosticism (its principle of intuitive knowledge), Buddhism (its rituals of meditative contemplation and chanting of prayers), and Hinduism (its trends of pantheism and loving devotion to a personal God). Since its inception, Sufism has emphasized strong devotionalism and asceticism, with a corresponding abnegation of both religious technicalities and materialism. Rabiyah, a late eighth‐century woman from Basra (in modern Iraq), first formulated the mystical Sufi ideal of a totally selfless love of, and devotion to, God. From this stemmed the eighth century Sufi al‐Bistamiʹs doctrine of annihilation (that is, of the human self in God). Perhaps the most celebrated among the Sufis is the poet‐mystic, Mansur al‐Hallaj, who was executed in 922 in Baghdad, becoming thus the Islamic martyr of love par excellence for uttering, ʺI am the Creative Truthʺ (often rendered as ʺI am Godʺ), an apparently blasphemous phrase in Islam, but really an expression of pantheistic vision of a man intoxicated by the divine spirit. The Sufis have created their own extensive literature, developed their own hierarchy of saints, and evolved their own fraternal orders with distinctive disciplines and rituals. Throughout the Islamic world, from Morocco to Indonesia, the Sufis are responsible for shaping parts of the Islamic society by means of the attraction of their mystical beliefs and diverse practices (like saint‐worship, performance of miracles, including healing, and adaptation of local, even non‐Muslim custom). The Sufis also have greatly contributed to large‐scale conversion of nonbelievers into the Islam faith, by dint of their local influence and spirit of accommodation. Besides, they have exerted strong political influence, as some Sufi orders extended Islamization in modern times to parts of western Africa and central Asia. Yet, their religious piety, faith in divine love, and veneration of the prophet have remained perennial hallmarks of their creed. The Sufi spiritual heritage is preserved at present by individuals, and in the Western world and among non‐Islamic peoples. Lastly, Sufism has permeated most of the rich Persian literature, and a great part of an equally rich Arabic literature.

General Characteristics of Islamic Civilization

Islam was destined to become a world religion and to create a civilization which stretched from one end of the globe to the other. Already during the early Muslim caliphates, first the Arabs, then the Persians and later the Turks set about to create classical Islamic civilization. Later, in the 13th century, both Africa and India became great centers of Islamic civilization and soon

thereafter Muslim kingdoms were established in the Malay‐Indonesian world while Chinese Muslims flourished throughout China.

Global religion

Islam is a religion for all people from whatever race or background they might be. That is why Islamic civilization is based on a unity which stands completely against any racial or ethnic discrimination. Such major racial and ethnic groups as the Arabs, Persians, Turks, Africans, Indians, Chinese and Malays in addition to numerous smaller units embraced Islam and contributed to the building of Islamic civilization. Moreover, Islam was not opposed to learning from the earlier civilizations and incorporating their science, learning, and culture into its own world view, as long as they did not oppose the principles of Islam. Each ethnic and racial group which embraced Islam made its contribution to the one Islamic civilization to which everyone belonged. The sense of brotherhood and sisterhood was so much emphasized that it overcame all local attachments to a particular tribe, race, or language‐‐all of which became subservient to the universal brotherhood and sisterhood of Islam. The global civilization thus created by Islam permitted people of diverse ethnic backgrounds to work together in cultivating various arts and sciences. Although the civilization was profoundly Islamic, even non‐Muslim ʺpeople of the bookʺ participated in the intellectual activity whose fruits belonged to everyone. The scientific climate was reminiscent of the present situation in America where scientists and men and women of learning from all over the world are active in the advancement of knowledge which belongs to everyone. The global civilization created by Islam also succeeded in activating the mind and thought of the people who entered its fold. As a result of Islam, the nomadic Arabs became torch‐bearers of science and learning. The Persians who had created a great civilization before the rise of Islam nevertheless produced much more science and learning in the Islamic period than before. The same can be said of the Turks and other peoples who embraced Islam. The religion of Islam was itself responsible not only for the creation of a world civilization in which people of many different ethnic backgrounds participated, but it played a central role in developing intellectual and cultural life on a scale not seen before. For some eight hundred years Arabic remained the major intellectual and scientific language of the world. During the centuries following the rise of Islam, Muslim dynasties ruling in various parts of the Islamic world bore witness to the flowering of Islamic culture and thought. In fact this tradition of intellectual activity was eclipsed only at the beginning of modern times as a result of the weakening of faith among Muslims combined with external domination. And today this activity has begun anew in many parts of the Islamic world now that the Muslims have regained their political independence.