Muslim history

Muslim history
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
(Redirected from History of Islam)
Jump to: navigation, search
This article is about the history of Islam as a culture and polity. For the history of the Islamic faith, see Spread of Islam. For Islamic civilization, see Islamic civilization. For military conquests, see Islamic conquests. For chronology, see Timeline of Islamic history.
Part of a series on

Islam


Beliefs
Allah · Oneness of God
Muhammad · Other prophets

Practices
Profession of faith · Prayer
Fasting · Charity · Pilgrimage

Texts and laws

Qur'an · Sunnah · Hadith
Fiqh · Sharia · Kalam · Sufism

History and leadership

Timeline · Spread of Islam
Ahl al-Bayt · Sahaba
Sunni · Shi'a
Rashidun · Caliphate
Imamate

Culture and society

Academics · Animals · Art
Calendar · Children
Demographics · Festivals
Mosques · Philosophy
Science · Women
Politics · Dawah

Islam and other religions

Christianity · Judaism
Hinduism · Sikhism · Jainism

See also

Criticism · Islamophobia
Glossary of Islamic terms

Islam portal
v • d • e


Muslim history involves the history of the Islamic faith as a religion and as a social institution. According to Islamic Faith and the Holy Text, it is wrong to say that the history of Islam began in Arabia with Muslim Prophet Muhammad's first recitations of the Qur'an in the 7th century, but with Adam and Eve. They are considered the First Apostles of God. Later, Abraham, Moses, Jesus, all taught the same faith as prophets, albeit in different regions or at different points of time.

Like most world religions, the historical evolution of Islam had a significant impact on the political, economic, and military and beyond its primary geographic areas. Islam's historical development has affected both inside and outside the Islamic world. The concept of the Islamic world is useful in observing the different periods of Islamic history; similarly useful is an understanding of the identification with a quasi-political community of believers, or ummah, on the part of Islam's practitioners down the centuries. Islamic culture encourages identification with a quasi-political community of believers or the ummah, and this principle has influenced the behavior of a number of players in history. The history of Islam is closely tied to the political, economic, and military.

A century after the death of Muhammad, an Islamic empire extended from the Atlantic Ocean in the west to Central Asia in the east. The subsequent empires of the Umayyads, Abbasids, the Fatimids, the Mughals, the Safavids, and Ottomans were among the largest and most powerful in the world. The Islamic civilization gave rise to many centers of culture and science and produced notable scientists, astronomers, mathematicians, doctors, nurses and philosophers during the Golden Age of Islam. Technology flourished; there was much investment in economic infrastructure, such as irrigation systems and canals; and especially, the importance of reading the Qur'an produced a comparatively high level of literacy in the general populace.

Later, in the eighteenth century and nineteenth century, many Islamic regions fell under the tutelage of European imperial powers. After the First World War, the remnants of the Ottoman empire were parcelled out as European protectorates. Since 1924, there has been no major widely-accepted claim to the caliphate (which had been last claimed by the Ottomans).

Although affected by various ideologies such as communism, during much of the twentieth century, the Islamic identity and the dominance of Islam on political issues have arguably increased during the early twenty-first century. The fast-growing Western interests in Islamic regions, international conflicts and globalization have changed the influence of Islam on the world of the twenty-first century.[1]