Spread of Islam part 3 | World History | Khan Academy

- [Instructor] Other
videos we have talked about

the early history of Islam,

which really revolves
around the life of Mohammed.

Mohammed, as we talked about,
was born roughly in 570

and dies in 632.

On this timeline here, the
white period is before,

according to Muslim traditions,

that he started having
the revelations from God,

and the brown period is when
he's having these revelations

and he's starting to be the leader

of this nascent Muslim community.

Now what we see here in this dark brown

is what was in control
of this Muslim community

at the time of Mohammed's death.

You see even by that
period they had control

of a good chunk of the Arabian Peninsula.

What's particularly surprising is how fast

Islam spread shortly after that.

The next period, after Mohammed dies,

the leadership of the
community, of the ummah,

goes to the kalifs, and
this actually becomes

a contentious issue that we'll talk about

in other videos.

It's the seed of the eventual schism

between the Sunis and the Shias.

But this next period, the Rashidun,

or the Rightly Guided Kalifs,

kalif means successors,
essentially successors to Mohammed,

under these four kalifs,
you see Islam spread

from as far west as Tunesia and Egypt,

all the way through Persia.

Keep in mind, this is spreading,

overtaking, conquering,
what used to be controlled

by very powerful empires,

the Byzantine Empire,
or Eastern Roman Empire,

taking territory from them here,

and then Sasanid Persia,
taking territory from them.

This is less than 30 years.

Then it spreads even more.

During the next caliphate,
which is now dynastic,

the Umayyad Caliphate, by
the end of that at 750 CE,

you see Islam has now spread or conquered

from modern-day Spain and Portugal,

all the way to modern-day
India and Pakistan.

We could continue this narrative,

and we will continue to talk
about it in future videos.

But what's really
interesting is to think about

how and why it was able
to spread this rapidly.

There's few instances in history

where we see this type of
an empire form this quickly.

To get some context on
that, we have this text here

from the American
historian Ira Lapidus' book

Islamic Societies to
the Nineteenth Century.

Ira Lapidus writes,
"The expansion of Islam

"involved different factors
in different regions.

"In North Africa, Anatolia,
the Balkans, and India,"

so these are regions that we
aren't showing on this map,

those happened later on
outside of the period

depicted in this map,

"it was carried out by nomadic
Arab or Turkish conquerors."

That is a similar form, method
that we're talking about

though in this map.

"In the Indian Ocean and West Africa,

"it spread by peaceful
contacts among merchants

"or through the preaching of missionaries.

"In some cases, the diffusion of Islam

"depended on its adoption
by local ruling families.

"In others, it appealed to
urban classes of the population,

"or tribal communities.

"The question of why
people convert to Islam

"has always generated intense feeling.

"Earlier generations of European scholars

"believed that conversion to Islam

"were made by the point of the sword,

"and that conquered people's
were given the choice

"of conversion or death."

So according to Ira Lapidus,
these early European scholars

viewed it analogous to things
like the Spanish Inquisition,

or some aspects of the Crusades,

or some of what we saw in the New World

with the conquistadors, where
it really was convert or die.

But according to Lapidus,

"It is now apparent that
conversion by force,

"while not unknown in Muslim countries,"

so there was some forced conversion,

but according to Lapidus
was, in fact, rare,

"Muslim conquerors
ordinarily wished to dominate

"rather than convert, and most conversions

"to Islam were voluntary.

"In most cases, worldly
and spiritual motives

"for conversion blended together."

Other sources I've looked
at do hint at these

early caliphates weren't that
interested in conversion.

They were clearly Muslim, and
they were also Arab dominated,

and they liked having this
elite Arab Muslim ruling class

and they weren't that interested

in spreading their religion.

Only when we get into
the Abbasid Caliphate,

where it becomes more multicultural

and more Muslim and less Arab focused,

that you start to have
more and more conversions.

The sources I've seen have, by the end

of the Omayyad dynasty, only about 10%-30%

of the conquered people convert to Islam,

but much more convert during what's often

referred to as the Golden Age of Islam,

when Islam is collecting the works

of the ancient Greeks, and
the Chinese, and the Hindus,

and getting scholars
from all around the world

under the Abbasid dynasty.

Now, when Lapidus talks
about in most cases worldly

and spiritual motives for
conversion blended together,

he's referring to these ideas that maybe

for some people it just appealed to them.

You have to remember,
people weren't going from

being independent to being
subjugated in most cases.

Even before the conquest of Islam,

they were probably subjugated by a king

or part of an empire
like the Byzantine Empire

or the Persian Empire.

So they're really switching
from one conqueror to another,

and oftentimes people are hopeful

that the new conqueror might
be better than the last.

Oftentimes they're proven wrong.

Sometimes it might actually be the case.

There might have been some support

that allowed it to spread this quickly.

There's also worldly motives.

If there's a Muslim ruling class,

and if you want to be associated
with that ruling class,

that might be a worldly motivation

in order to actually convert.

Now the other thing that we do know

about these early Muslim empires,

and many of the Muslim empires,

is they did have this
notion of dhimmi status.

Dhimmi is referring to the
idea of protected persons.

It's often referred to
as people of the book,

but it included Jews,
Christians, that Islam,

according to Islamic tradition follows

in the same tradition of.

But then when you eventually
have Muslim conquest of India

included Hindus and Buddists as well,

and it also included Zoroastrians,

who the early Muslims
considered to be monotheistic.

The idea of dhimmi status is that

they would have protected rights,

they would have the same
property contract rights,

but different political rights.

The Muslim ruling class definitely had

better political rights.

They would pay a different tax

than what the Muslims actually paid.

Now in order to get context
from a religious point of view,

you can look at some of the
religious texts of Islam,

especially the Koran, and even the Hadith,

which are the secondhand accounts

of the life and practices of Mohammed.

There you get an interesting perspective.

On the side of religious tolerance,

you have excerpts like this.

"There shall be no compulsion

"in acceptance of the religion."

"Unto you your religion
and unto my religion."

From and ethnic point of view,

there also seems to be a
sense of nonsuperiority

of one ethnicity over another.

"Indeed, there is no superiority

"of an Arab over a non-Arab,
nor of a non-Arab over an Arab,

"nor or a white over a black,
nor a black over a white,

"except by piety towards God."

This is from Mohammed's farewell sermon.

This is given by the Hadith,

The Life and Sayings of Mohammed.

Now on the other hand,
there definitely are

more militant portions of the Koran.

One of the most quoted
excerpts is this one.

"And fight in the way of
God those who fight you,

"but transgress not the limits.

"Truly God likes not the transgressors.

"And kill them wherever you overtake them

"and expel them from wherever
they have expelled you,

"and persecution is worse than killing.

"And do not fight them
at the sacred mosque

"until they fight you there.

"But if they fight you, then kill them.

"Such is the recompense
of the disbelievers.

"And if they cease, then indeed

"God is forgiving and merciful.

"Fight them until there is no persecution

"and until worship is
acknowledged to be for God.

"But if they cease, then there is to be

"no aggression except
against the oppressors."

So a critical view of this is saying,

look, this is clearly
advocating to kill other people,

and fight those who are
considered to be disbelievers.

That's clearly a critical view of this.

You will not see this type
of language, for example,

in more pacifist notions
of, say, the Gospels.

It's definitely not the
modern notion that we have

of passive resistance,
or peaceful resistance,

and the notion of a Gandhi
or a Martin Luther King.

Now those who would defend

or see a little bit more nuance here,

would say, look, you've got to,

this is not talking about
killing disbelievers arbitrarily.

This is talking about killing
those who are persecuting you.

They would say, look, this
revelation is believed,

according to Islamic tradition,

to have come down when the Muslims

were actively being persecuted
by Mohammed's tribe,

the Quraysh.

They were in Medina.

They were essentially in exile.

They were in fear for their
lives, Mohammed's own life.

The Quraysh had attempted to kill him.

They were torturing and killing

that early Muslim community.

In that context they're saying,

"And fight the way of
God those who fight you."

So it's really out of defense,

trying not to be persecuted.

"But transgress not the limits."

Even there there are rules of law here,

or rules of engagement.

"And kill them wherever you overtake them

"and expel them from wherever
they have expelled you,

"and persecution is worse than killing."

So this is creating a moral hierarchy

that is very debatable,
especially in modern times.

Is persecution worse than killing?

"And do not fight them
at the sacred mosque."

This really seems to be
referring to the Quraysh,

because remember they're fighting over

this notion of what even should
happen at the sacred mosque.

"Until they fight you there.

"But if they fight you, then kill them.

"Such is the recompense
for the disbelievers.

"And if they cease, then indeed God

"is forgiving and merciful."

So to some degree, those who would see

the nuance in this passage,
they say, hey look,

this is talking about killing
those who persecute you,

but it actually seems to be a
little bit more conciliatory.

Remember, the Koran is,
according to Islamic tradition,

built on the traditions
of the Old Testament

and on Christian traditions.

Especially relative to the Old Testament,

which tends to be much more absolute

when someone is disliked by God,

whole cities or peoples
are destroyed or killed,

or God might command his
prophets and the leadership

to kill other people just because

they disbelieve God in the Old Testament.

People who would defend this
passage or see nuance here

says, look, this is about being persecuted

and fighting persecution,
and if those persecutors stop

then don't seek revenge.

"And if they cease then indeed God

"is forgiving and merciful.

"And there is to be no aggression

"except against the oppressors."

I'll leave it to you to decide.

I encourage you to look up
your own primary resources.

Look up different translations.

One of the tricky things
of not just the Koran,

but including the Bible, which is believed

to first be written in Aramaic,

or the Old Testament, the
Torah, written in Hebrew,

is that the translation itself can also

give you various nuance.

But make your own decisions about

what you think is, or your own judgments

of what we've talked about in this video.