The Emergence of Islam - Research Paper Example

Task: The Emergence of Islam The world is dominated by various religions such as Christianity, Judaism, Islam and Buddhism among others and has a defining role in the life of the individual and his or her community. Islam, for instance, enjoys a rich history dating back to many centuries ago when Muslim conquerors took over lands from Arab settlers and established Islamic states and regions between 600 and 800 A.D. This entrenched the continuity of Islamic dominance in the Middle East region and helped convert non Muslims such as the minority Christians particularly those found in Egypt and Palestine (Bonner et al, p. 110). The emergence and success of Islam equally symbolized fundamental changes in the conduct and behavior of its adherents through open display of their scientific display of innovations and creativity. This resulted to civilization because it benefited the regions around for prosperity. It is arguable that the success of Islam in Palestine and Egypt is attributable to the effective administration that the Arabs employed in their conquered states. Religious accommodations largely influenced Islam in the ancient period thus establishing an empire that eventually spread to Egypt and Palestine among other countries. Egypt, for instance, since the beginning of the 700 A.D., embraced Islam to help define different features of its institutions and infrastructure. (Emon et al, p. 323). Additionally, Islam in Egypt found a public role in shaping the masses’ thinking and doctrines to aid them during the decision making periods. This was notable with the popularity of Islam amongst peasants and uneducated religious preachers in the rural areas unlike in the urban regions mostly inhabited by upper and upper middle class Muslims. According to these upper class Muslims, religion was a private affair. In this perspective, it was upon the person to identify effective ways of supplicating before Allah. However, this negative attitude did not stop the rise of Islamic religious revival movements in the country. The movements eventually transcended class lines because they acted as a unifying factor in facing challenges such as inequality, poverty and oppression among others. By permitting women to receive education and conduct business unlike for Christians, Islam thrived immensely and affirmed its Empire in Egypt and Palestine among other states. Ancient and Historical Mosques found in Egypt. It is crucial to highlight of Arab unity that helped Muslims challenge the surrounding empires. The initial Islamic caliphs viewed conquests as a means of deflecting their control out of Arabia. There were powerful motives that transcended mere need for having new converts. Both the Persian and Byzantine Empire were strategic for attack, but the Persian Empire was an easier option. A powerful monarchy controlled the empire and suppressed the powerful occupants. The authorities instituted an imperial religion, Zoroastrianism, which attracted limited enthusiasm from the populace. The Arabs experienced limited resistance from the empire and this enabled the armies to oust all the emperors by 650 CE. The Byzantine Empire, in Egypt and Palestine, faced limited resistance from the subtle Christians. Furthermore, the Arabs possessed a special ability in naval wars. Islam’s development built an inherent strategy of uprooting civilizations (Roald and Longva, p. 63). The Romans and Greeks had helped entrench formidable political, economic, and cultural elements. For instance, in the Palestinian coasts, the Greek civilization was deeply rooted. These places were instrumental in the conquests’ struggle as the Arabs rose against the Byzantines. Gaza is a notable as an instrumental place in this struggle since it helped connect Palestine and Egypt (Hugh 88). Due to its strategic economic location, it became a major target for the conquering Islam forces. The conquests strove to retain the classical economic gains. After the defeat of the Byzantine forces at Yarmuk, the military triumph helped inspire a new foundation among Muslims. Abi Sufyan, a military leader, was able to govern the entire Muslim world from Damascus. This connotes the inevitability of governance in protecting the Islam faith in Palestine. These Arabs comprised of elites and scholars who enjoyed a warm relationship with the masses hence becoming closer toward the establishment of a strong Islamic Empire. The Islamic Empire also thrived because of early political organizations such as the Muslim Brotherhood that traces its origins before the coming of Prophet Mohammed. The Brotherhood’s goals and objectives were characterized by radicalism and militancy to convert Egypt into a full Islamic state. Therefore, politically, Egypt thrived on the urgency of an Islamic state that demanded for the integration of religious values aligned to Islam and encouraged the continuity of generosity and compassion among its faithful adherents. This increased changes in religious freedoms because the constitution guaranteed the freedom of belief without restrictions and thus finally spreading the Muslim Empire in Palestine and Egypt (Kennedy, p. 75). In the 630s, Palestine was under the rule of the Byzantine Empire who collected taxes and supervised markets and streets to satisfy their imperial interests. This led to demographic growth and prosperity until the Black Death came in the late 900s and killed most members of the population. Thereafter, Muslim conquerors came to Palestine, established their own territory, and resuscitated most of the failing projects. However, this infuriated the last remaining members of the Byzantine Empire who started a war with the Muslim leaders. The Muslim won and hence started the emergence of Islam across many regions of the small countries as citizens embraced the religion by finding relevance in Jerusalem as the temple of Allah. Another factor was the permission by Muslims and Arabs to initiate the spread of additional wealth by approving merchant activity. This ensured that Islam offered the Muslim traders an opportunity to prosper beyond the caliphate thereby resulting into new cultural associations (Reynolds, p. 156). Alternatively, people’s view changed concerning Islam after the building of the grand Al-Aqsa Mosque in the Jewish temple ruins; a place considered a holy site by most Muslims. This led to the continuity of Islam while it also entrenched fundamental shifts in the relationship between Muslims and Christians. The scenario was exemplified by the execution of Christians who demonstrated their support for the Byzantine Empire after the capture of Palestine by rival dynasties failed to give it a clear direction. However, a significant change came after the outrage by Christians around the world against the persecution of its members in the Crusader Period between 1099 and 1291. This resulted to the first Crusades led by the Roman Catholic Church who attempted to capture Jerusalem from the Islamic Empire. They assisted Byzantine Empire to reclaim its former regions, but this also resulted to devastating defeats by Muslim forces led by Saladin. Muslims therefore, triumphed against Persian and the Roman Empires resulting to a spread in Islam and hence more Muslim Empires that defined the lives of its members. This was through activities such as the expansion Arab Peninsula to other regions where their Christian counterparts were now isolated from national roles (Sarris, p. 179). Similarly, the failure by the Crusades demonstrated the power of Islam Empire in defending its supporters from external aggressors in spite of its simplistic Islamic teachings that attracted Muslim peasants in the rural areas. This increased the value on infrastructures such as the holy site that had the Al-Aqsa Mosque to connect deeply with its members. As a result, the progress of Islamic civilization gained momentum in sciences, architecture, trade and arts causing more people to convert to Islam and thus expanding the Muslim Empire. The gradual Arabs’ conquest over Egypt proves that governance rather than religious impositions helped towards the spread of Islam. For a considerable period, the Muslims and Arabic speakers in Egypt remained a minority. This, however, did not deter their influence over the whole population. The Arabic rulers neither exerted significant pressure over resources nor influenced their religion on the locals. As their rule extended, the Egyptian natives began accepting the Islam religion. As their rule expanded, there would be tendencies for suppression of minority communities. This, however, is a phenomenon that rose from the intensifying political system rather than the Islamic religion, in its core state. Amr b. al-As was instrumental in this movement. Amr was strategic in choosing Egypt because of the area’s economic significance. Amr made a slow conquest over Egypt thereby gaining a gradual transition of rule (Hugh 100). The growing strife between the Muslims and Christians grew due to the tax systems and perceived political and economic dominance of the Muslims. Muslims eventually intensified their depredations and arbitrary taxation systems that economically suppressed the minority communities. In turn, critics of Islam could not differentiate between the Arabs’ governance style in Egypt and the Islamic religion. The initial collaboration between the Copts and Muslims waned because of the perception of Islam as an imperialist religion. The Christians seemed to have hoped of independence, as the Arabs’ conquest was a relief from the exploitative Roman rule. This perception eventually gorged into the minority’s views of Islam. An effective communication system, with the use of papyri as a writing paper, in the seventh century highlights a notable strength in the Arabs’ control over Egypt. It also informs about the communication patterns that occurred in the 7th and 8th centuries. One of the archaeological evidences of the communication patterns, a series of letters between an Arab governor and an administrator in an upper Egyptian town, point to a rabid relationship between different religious leaders and governors (Hugh 298). The documents occurred in Arabic, Coptic, and Greek. It is essential to highlight the importance of Greek as the core administrative language in the conquered Egypt. The letters were instrumental in controlling the vast Egyptian land. For instance, the administration expected every community to provide a certain number of sailors. In an instance of a letter from a governor to local landowners, it is notable that there is a considerable application of legal-like language in administering orders. The governance seemed to have placed emphasis on language. This was aided by a huge availability of papyri that the local Egyptians had long used in making writing papers. In this sense, the nature of administration, by a significant use of letter-communication, created a significant platform for Arabs to flourish in a new land thereby manifesting the splendor of Islam. The development of the Sufi school of thought was instrumental in the progress towards accommodation. This helps inform that even the ancient Islamic though systems had ways of accommodating other religions. Sufism is associable to Ali Abi Talib in the 600. Although he was born in Saudi Arabia, Sufism still spread to countries such as Palestine. Sufism thought system is attached to mysticism as believers aim at personal experience with God (Voll, p. 27). This tradition builds on personal theologies and experiences. Practitioners of Sufism, the Sufis, believe in an ideal form of worship whereby the worshippers tend close to God. In intellectual terms, Sufism has been defined within the traditional realms of the pantheistic style of theology. In this thought system, God is the only reality and the religious path entails striving for amalgamation into the ultimate being. Other themes comprise believing in the eternal world through the prophets who mediate between individuals and God. This definition of Islam was liberating in the sense that it valued certain aspects of the divine regardless of the religion involved. In this view, it accepted any religious experience that respected these aspects of the divine. This suggests that Sufism created a foundation for the acceptance of other faiths thereby accommodating other religions. In as much as the traditional religious leaders were, mostly, not intense Sufi philosophers, the formulation and elements of Sufism provided a considerable foundation for their teachings and religious work (Abdul-Rahman, p. 78). Sufism might have majorly contributed towards fundamentalist ideals in Islam. The adaptationist style of Islam developed to enforce strict adherence to texts. In Palestine, there was a widespread advocacy for socio-moral construction. The changing historical circumstances might have influenced this conservative outlook of Islam. As Islam developed, there was a movement towards suppressing Sufism because it seemed to have undermined the rigid ideals of Islam. Islam, in Palestine, focused on raw attachment to the Quran text. The proponents of this thought system argued that this would be a true return to Islam as Islam majorly built on the Quran text and interpretation from prophets (Hallaq, p. 161). This, however, triggered revivalist movements that sought to moderate these fundamentalist positions. Major schools in Cairo were examples of the efforts towards modernizing the Islam religion. Because the social groups countering the fundamentalist movement faced a general perception of being secular, the Islamic leaders paid limited attention to their efforts. This explains the inherent effort to suppress secular views within the Islamic tradition (Engineer, p. 191). It, therefore, is discernible that effective administration and robust military strategies helped spur the growth of Islam’s accommodation of minority groups such as Christians as the spread of civilization increased. These efforts were countable towards modernizing the religion and making it wholly acceptable in the Middle East region with emphasis in Egypt and Palestine. On the other hand, Islam disintegrated in a place such as Egypt because of autocratic political systems. Thought systems such as Sufism, however, however, helped shape the growth of Islam towards maturity. Works Cited Bonner, Michael et al. Poverty and Charity in Middle Eastern Contexts. New York, NY: SUNY Press. 2003. Print. Emon, Anver et al. Islamic Law and International Human Rights Law. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. 2012. Print. Kennedy, Hugh. The Great Arab Conquests: How the Spread of Islam Changed the World We Live In. New York, NY: SAGE. 2008. Print. Reynolds, Gabriel. The Emergence of Islam: Classical Traditions in Contemporary Perspective. Mason, OH: Fortress Press. 2012. Print. Sarris, Peter. Empires of Faith: The Fall of Rome to the Rise of Islam, 500-700. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. 2011. Print. Voll, John. Islam: continuity and change in the modern world contemporary issues in the Middle East. Syracuse University Press, 1994. Print. Engineer, Asghar A. Muslim minority, continuity and change. New Delhi: Gyan Pub. House, 2008. Print. Hallaq, Wael B. Authority, continuity, and change in Islamic law. Cambridge [u.a.: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2001. Print. Roald, Anne, and, Ahn Longva. Religious minorities in the Middle East: domination, self-empowerment, accommodation. Leiden: BRILL, 2011. Internet resource. Abdul-Rahman, Muhammad. Islam: questions and answers - calling Non-Muslims to Islam. London, UK: MSA Publication Limited, 2007. Print. Read More