essay about the spread of islam

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Islam in Southeast Asia

by Michael Laffan

Asia is home of 65 percent of the world's Muslims, and Indonesia, in Southeast, is the world's most populous Muslim country. This essay looks at the spread of Islam into Southeast Asia and how religious belief and expression fit with extant and modern polictical and economic infrastructures.

It is difficult to determine where Islamic practice begins or ends in any Muslim society, especially as the teachings of Islam encourage Muslims to be mindful of God and their fellow believers at all times. Still, the absence of publicly demonstrated mindfulness of God—whether expressed in terms of the wearing of special dress, such as the many sorts of veils donned by Southeast Asian women, or by recourse to frequent enunciations invoking His name—need not be taken as meaning that the person is any less a Muslim. Indeed, one’s faith is not to be measured by outward acts alone, and Muslim tradition ascribes greater weight to the personal intention of the believer than to outward appearance. Even so, what follows is an explanation of some aspects of the outward expression of Islamic identity in Southeast Asia.

Unity and Diversity

Although the national motto of Indonesia, “Unity in diversity” (Bhinneka tunggal ika), was intended to be an explicitly national one, it is no less applicable to the community of Southeast Asian Muslims, as well as to Muslims the world over. When Muslims come together to worship in the mosque on Friday, or when they perform their daily prayers as individuals, they face the same direction. As such they participate in a unitary tradition. The same might be said of when Muslims greet each other with the traditional Arabic blessing “Peace be with you” (al-salam `alaykum), when they undertake the fast (sawm) during the month of Ramadan, or when they make the pilgrimage (hajj) to Mecca.

If asked about the core elements of their faith and practice, many Muslims will point to the five basic duties of Islam. These consist of the profession of faith (shahada), the daily prayers (salat), the hajj, fasting in Ramadan (sawm), and the giving of alms (zakat). However, there is a whole range of calendrical celebrations and rites of passage associated with Islam, not to mention the simple acts of piety that some perform before carrying out basic actions. This might include invoking God’s name before eating or washing one’s face and limbs before prayer. Once again, these acts are shared across Islamic time and space.

On the other hand, many distinctions between believers of different cultural and theological traditions remain in evidence. Even when the global community of the faithful gather in Mecca for the hajj and don the same simple costume of two unsewn sheets (known as ihram), they often travel together in tightly managed groups of fellow countrymen or linguistic communities—at times with tags displaying their national flags. By the same token, there are many specific local practices that are felt to be thoroughly Islamic in Southeast Asia, but these, on occasion, have been condemned by Muslims of different cultural backgrounds by virtue of their absence in, or displacement from, their own histories. Local practices include the use of drums (bedug) in place of the call to prayer (adhan), or the visitation of the tombs of the founding saints of Java.

Other such examples of distinct Southeast Asian practices might be linked to the wearing of the sarung (a practice shared with Muslims and non-Muslims throughout Southeast Asia and the Indian Ocean), the relatively late circumcision of young males (often celebrated as a major event in village life), the use of shadow puppets (believed by some communities to have been invented by one Muslim saint to explain Islam in the local idiom), or the many popular verse tales of the exploits of an uncle of the Prophet, Amir Hamzah, drawn from Persian and Arabic originals. Even if such practices are regionally distinct or viewed askance elsewhere, if not contested openly, such practices are nonetheless seen as ways of connecting to a faith that is global and egalitarian.

Arabic and the Qur’an

One undeniably universal expression of religiosity is the recitation (qira’a) of the Qur’an, which all Muslims are enjoined to learn as soon as they are able. The Qur’an is understood to be the eternal expression of God’s will revealed through the Angel Gabriel to the Prophet Muhammad, who is believed by Muslims to be the last messenger appointed to mediate between God and humanity. Indeed the Qur’an is also affirmed as the final validation of the messages of all the prophets before him, including those known in the Jewish and Christian traditions. These include Abraham, Joseph, and Jesus, though there are additional figures such as Iskandar (Alexander the Great) and the enigmatic Khidr.

The Qur’an contains stories of all these prophets and many accounts of the difficulties that they—and Muhammad in particular—had in being accepted by their own people before winning them over and establishing God’s law (shari`a) among them. It is further replete with parables ranging over a broad range of human experience, and its recitation brings feelings of closeness to God and His Prophet, as well as solidarity with Muslims all over the world. Some Southeast Asians, such as the Indonesian Hajja Maria Ulfah, have even obtained international recognition for the quality of their recitations.

Yet while the Qur’an may be recited as proficiently, and as often, in Jakarta and Pattani as in Mecca or Algiers, the fact remains that the Holy Text was revealed in Arabic, and in the Arabic of Muhammad’s day. As such all Muslims require explanation of its meanings and those of non-Arab traditions—whether in India, Central Asia or Southeast Asia—require the additional intervention of translation.

The task of the explanation of the divine text is helped, in part, by the fact that Malay (both in its modern Indonesian and Malaysian variants), Javanese, and several other Austronesian languages spoken in insular Southeast Asia, are infused with Islamic terms. This process of linguistic appropriation may be linked with the expansion of a Muslim role in the trade linking the port towns of Southeast Asia, starting in the thirteenth century. It was in this way that the Arabic of the Qur’an, its associated scholarly traditions, and the everyday speech of many of the visiting traders suffused local languages—Malay in particular—with both sacred and profane terms. For example, the Arabic word fard (broadly meaning an obligation), has left two traces in Malay: one with the same sense of a “religious obligation” (fardu), and the other as the more general verb “to need” (perlu).

Regardless of the presence of Arabic elements in the Malay vocabulary that are not specifically religious, Southeast Asian Muslims have long been mindful of the sacred role that Arabic has played in what has increasingly become their history as much as that of Arabs. Certainly, there is a long history of the translation and explication of the Qur’an in the region, although it is important to note that in the Islamic tradition a translation, being the result of human interpretation, may never be elevated to the status of the divine text itself.

This principle, along with heightened contacts with new forms of Islamic thought being propagated from British-occupied Egypt and India in the late nineteenth century, led to debates in the similarly-colonised entities of Indonesia (then the Netherlands Indies) and Malaysia about the legitimacy of attempting to produce a translation—particularly after the widespread availability of printing presses and heightened literacy made it a commercial possibility. Some even argued that written translation (as opposed to the glossing of words and fragments) had never been permitted by Islamic law.

Whether permitted or not, such translations have long been made. Indeed, among the Islamic books brought back to Europe from Southeast Asia in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were Qur’anic texts, religious treatises, and works in verse that made use of holy scripture. These include the works of the mystical poet Hamzah Fansuri (d. 1527), who liberally infused his writings with Qur’anic verses, as well as more neutral Arabic, Persian, and Javanese terms, while stressing his distinct identity as a Malay of Fansur, a port-town of Sumatra.

Script and Identity

Alongside its major oral contribution to Southeast Asian Islamic identity, Arabic also has had a visual impact with the adoption of its script for many local languages, with modifications to suit local phonemes such as the sounds “p” and “ng.” By the time Hamzah Fansuri would compose his Malay poems, this phonetic form of writing had already been in use for some three centuries, whether for commemorative stones or for further Islamic propagation. This did not mean that the script displaced earlier methods of writing immediately or permanently. In some cases, local scripts have been maintained for both religious and non-religious texts. Even so, by the time that the Portuguese arrived in Southeast Asia in significant numbers at the beginning of the sixteenth century, Malay was being written primarily with Arabic letters and in a cursive form that is immediately identifiable as pertaining to the region.

In Indonesia, the Arabic script would only be displaced after the widespread popularization of newspapers and school texts in roman script starting in the late nineteenth century, and ever more so in the twentieth when reformist Muslims founded schools to provide the opportunities for modern education largely denied by the Dutch and British. Arabic and Arabic script remain in use in many Islamic schools in Indonesia (now known broadly as pesantren), and both are still used on billboards and signs recommending certain behaviors as Islamic. For example, an advertising campaign in West Sumatra in the 1990s was accompanied by Arabic statements attributed to the Prophet such as “Love of cleanliness is a part of belief ” (Hubb al-nizafa min al-iman).

The Arabic script remains strongly linked to Muslim identity in neighboring Malaysia and Brunei. This is especially the case in Malaysia, with its prominent non-Malay minorities; and it is further discernible in southern Thailand, where the script serves to mark the Muslim community off from the Thai-Buddhist majority and remains the written medium for a considerable local Malay-language publishing industry.

The Study Circle and Its Absence

Whereas Arabic has long been studied by Muslims in Southeast Asia, due to its elevated status as the language of revelation and its importance for connection with the Middle East as the source of Islam, and even though it has made its contribution to the oral and written cultures of the region, the fact remains that Southeast Asians require the aid of teachers and glossaries to make the texts of Islam comprehensible and applicable in daily life. To this end, the months spent learning the Qur’an under the guidance of a teacher is often a crucial period in a child’s life. At the end of this period of study a celebration (known as khatm al-Qur’an) is held in the family home.

More advanced studies of Islam usually require the sort of in-depth education offered by traditional religious schools, such as Indonesia’s pesantrens. Here students learn the requisite texts concerning pronunciation and grammar by the use of glosses in their own languages and various mnemonics or songs. This will allow them to make sense of more advanced works concerning the formal rules laid out in Islamic law defining social interaction, as well as those pertaining to the inculcation of moral values (akhlaq). At all stages a teacher ensures that the individual student has properly mastered a text before advancing to any higher stage of learning. Still, even in these traditional schools—which may be found throughout Southeast Asia and which allow the movement of individuals across national borders— there is a blurring between global religious practice and indigenous cultural expressions. Even when they are in Arabic, many of the songs learned or the texts mastered are related to a specifically Southeast Asian source of inspiration, either from a creator born in the region who assumed a place of importance in Mecca, such as Nawawi of Banten (1813-97), or at the hands of a foreigner who once sojourned through its mosques and fields, such as Nur al-Din al-Raniri (d. 1656). Furthermore, in recent times students have begun to popularize and rephrase many of the popular poems sung in praise of the Prophet. Some musical groups have reached wide audiences by incorporating Arabic lyrics, and Arabic songs have been composed and sung in Southeast Asia with the aim of propagating certain messages among a broader community of Muslims—ranging from gender equity to jihad.

On the other hand, there are also a great many Southeast Asians who never receive such traditional Islamic schooling, who have not learned Arabic or mastered the Qur’an, and for whom such lyrics may be incomprehensible. Many still feel themselves to be full members of the Muslim community (umma), though. For, while they may not fully understand the literal rules of the provisions of Islamic law, they feel that the texts in which it is explained are part of their own Muslim cultural heritage, with which they might connect at rites of passage such as birth, marriage, and the commemoration of death.

Religio-Cultural Intersections and the Modern State

Just as the colonial regimes sought to monitor and regulate the pilgrimage and Islamic schools, the modern state often attempts to play a role in defining religious and cultural practices at both the level of religious obligation and as officially-sanctioned cultural expression. The most obvious interventions may be seen in the specifically national mobilizations for the Hajj. Each year, for example, Indonesia supplies one of the largest contingents of pilgrims (over 200,000 people) for the annual series of ceremonies that take place in Mecca and its surroundings. To get there on such a massive scale necessitates a large degree of national coordination, including the provision of financial support. Beyond finance and coordination though, states also play a proactive role in determining what variants of religious practice may be tolerated, particularly when those variants seem inimical to the government itself or which contest, sometimes violently, the depth of religious commitment of their fellow countrymen. For example, both Malaysia’s quietist Dar al-Ar qam organization, and the radical Ngruki network in Indonesia have seen their activities stopped or severely curtailed in the past decades.

Less tangible, but no less important, than contesting expressions of Islam framed in political terms or in alternative dress and practice, is the role of the state in presenting the style of religiosity felt to represent best the genius of its peoples. Sometimes the gaze is directed outward, sometimes inward. For example, one might think in terms of the architectural designs for many of the region’s modern mosques, which increasingly have a distinctly internationalist style owing more to India and Arabia than Southeast Asia; with minarets and onion domes and arches added to or supplanting the old multilayered pyramidal roofs.

On the other hand there is the Indonesian national museum for the Qur’an in Jakarta, with its showcase holy text (Al-Qur’an Mushaf Istiqlal) that has one page decorated in the style of each province of the Republic. But while the illuminations of Aceh have a distinct pedigree, many of the others are modern inventions designed to help Indonesians to think of the history of their country and its artistic expressions as an inevitable and natural process of combination given added meaning by Islam.

This is not to say, however, that this has always been the case, or that such increasingly Islamic views of history are universally accepted. Both Indonesia and Malaysia include substantial non-Muslim minorities, minorities that at times have become scapegoats during periods of economic uncertainty or because of the taint of imagined collaboration with colonial forces or even as fifth columnists for international communism. Indeed, Indonesia itself has a strong history as an avowedly secularist state, whose officials once placed more emphasis on the region’s pre-Islamic heritage in the form of temple remains. Its best-known author, the late Pramoedya Ananta Toer, even downplayed the role of Islam in the making of Indonesia and focussed instead on the powerful ideas of unity engendered by resistance to Dutch colonialism across the archipelago.

In either form of history, though, whether the view of an Islamic or an areligious anti-colonial national past, it is important to see Southeast Asians placing themselves in relation to a wider world, a world in which “Islam” offers just one set of civilizational practices to draw upon and which may be freely combined with others. In fact, many of the expressions that feed into globalising trends beyond the reach of the state, and redolent of an Islamic identity, are certainly at great variance to what might be conceived of as “traditional” Islam. Here we might think of the many popular groups that fuse the musical styles of the Middle East and Southeast Asia with a presentation owing something to western music videos, or the instructional literature for children now replete with illustrations drawn in the style of Japanese manga. And, again, there is a sphere of personal reflection and reaction that can seem outside the control of the state or that strives to take more from within the Southeast Asian artistic tradition than what lies beyond, whether in poetic musings on experiences in the mosque, or A. D. Pirous’s luminous canvases, which reflect upon both the eternal message and the troubled experiences of his own Acehnese people, who once fought for Indonesian independence in the 1940s but found themselves newly oppressed in the decades that followed.

Certainly one gains a more intimate view of the inner spirituality of Southeast Asian Muslims in such expressions. Even so, while Muslims are joined to each other by the medium of a religious inheritance in their archipelagic homelands, as well as to the broader Muslim community, in the expression of that identity they are undeniably drawing at all times from the images and sounds of the wider, shared world.

Additional Background Reading

Religion in the Philippines

Islamic Belief Made Visual

Islamic Influence on Southeast Asian Visual Arts, Literature, and Performance

Shahnama: The Book of Kings

Islamic Calligraphy and the Illustrated Manuscript

Introduction to Southeast Asia

Historical and Modern Religions of Korea

Excerpts from Religious Texts

Diversity and Unity

Related content.

Stanford University

SPICE is a program of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies.

The Spread of Islam in West Africa: Containment, Mixing, and Reform from the Eighth to the Twentieth Century

While the presence of Islam in West Africa dates back to eighth century, the spread of the faith in regions that are now the modern states of Senegal, Gambia, Guinea, Burkina Faso, Niger, Mali and Nigeria, was in actuality, a gradual and complex process. Much of what we know about the early history of West Africa comes from medieval accounts written by Arab and North African geographers and historians. Specialists have used several models to explain why Africans converted to Islam. Some emphasize economic motivations, others highlight the draw of Islam’s spiritual message, and a number stress the prestige and influence of Arabic literacy in facilitating state building. While the motivations of early conversions remain unclear, it is apparent that the early presence of Islam in West Africa was linked to trade and commerce with North Africa. Trade between West Africa and the Mediterranean predated Islam, however, North African Muslims intensified the Trans-Saharan trade. North African traders were major actors in introducing Islam into West Africa. Several major trade routes connected Africa below the Sahara with the Mediterranean Middle East, such as Sijilmasa to Awdaghust and Ghadames to Gao. The Sahel, the ecological transition zone between the Sahara desert and forest zone, which spans the African continent, was an intense point of contact between North Africa and communities south of the Sahara. In West Africa, the three great medieval empires of Ghana, Mali, and the Songhay developed in Sahel.

The history of Islam in West Africa can be explained in three stages, containment, mixing, and reform. In the first stage, African kings contained Muslim influence by segregating Muslim communities, in the second stage African rulers blended Islam with local traditions as the population selectively appropriated Islamic practices, and finally in the third stage, African Muslims pressed for reforms in an effort to rid their societies of mixed practices and implement Shariah. This three-phase framework helps sheds light on the historical development of the medieval empires of Ghana, Mali, and Songhay and the 19th century jihads that led to the establishment of the Sokoto Caliphate in Hausaland and the Umarian state in Senegambia.

Containment: Ghana and the Takrur

The early presence of Islam was limited to segregated Muslim communities linked to the trans-Saharan trade. In the 11th century Andalusian geographer, Al-Bakri, reported accounts of Arab and North African Berber settlements in the region. Several factors led to the growth of the Muslim merchant-scholar class in non-Muslim kingdoms. Islam facilitated long distance trade by offering useful sets of tools for merchants including contract law, credit, and information networks. Muslim merchant-scholars also played an important role in non-Muslim kingdoms as advisors and scribes in Ghana. They had the crucial skill of written script, which helped in the administration of kingdoms. Many Muslim were also religious specialists whose amulets were prized by non-Muslims. Merchant-scholars also played a large role in the spread of Islam into the forest zones. These included the Jakhanke merchant-scholars in [name region], the Jula merchants in Mali and the Ivory Coast, and the Hausa merchants during the nineteenth century in Nigeria, Ghana, and Guinea Basau,]. Muslim communities in the forest zones were minority communities often linked to trading diasporas. Many of the traditions in the forest zones still reflect the tradition of Al-Hajj Salim Suwari, a late fifteenth-century Soninke scholar, who focused on responsibilities of Muslims in a non-Muslim society. His tradition, known as the Suwarian tradition, discouraged proselytizing, believing that God would bring people around to Islam in his own ways. This tradition worked for centuries in the forest zone including the present day, where there are vibrant Muslim minority communities. Although modern Ghana is unrelated to the ancient kingdom of Ghana, modern Ghana chose the name as a way of honoring early African history. The boundaries of the ancient Kingdom encompassed the Middle Niger Delta region, which consists of modern-day Mali and parts of present-day Mauritania and Senegal. This region has historically been home to the Soninken Malinke, Wa’kuri and Wangari peoples. Fulanis and the Southern Saharan Sanhaja Berbers also played a prominent role in the spread of Islam in the Niger Delta region. Large towns emerged in the Niger Delta region around 300 A.D. Around the eighth century, Arab documents mentioned ancient Ghana and that Muslims crossed the Sahara into West Africa for trade. North African and Saharan merchants traded salt, horses, dates, and camels from the north with gold, timber, and foodstuff from regions south of the Sahara. Ghana kings, however, did not permit North African and Saharan merchants to stay overnight in the city. This gave rise to one of the major features of Ghana—the dual city; Ghana Kings benefited from Muslim traders, but kept them outside centers of power. From the eighth to the thirteenth century, contact between Muslims and Africans increased and Muslim states began to emerge in the Sahel. Eventually, African kings began to allow Muslims to integrate. Accounts during the eleventh century reported a Muslim state called Takrur in the middle Senegal valley. Around this time, the Almoravid reform movement began in Western Sahara and expanded throughout modern Mauritania, North Africa and Southern Spain. The Almoravids imposed a fundamentalist version of Islam, in an attempt to purify beliefs and practices from syncretistic or heretical beliefs. The Almoravid movement imposed greater uniformity of practice and Islamic law among West African Muslims. The Almoravids captured trade routes and posts, leading to the weakening of the Takruri state. Over the next hundred years, the empire dissolved into a number of small kingdoms.

Mixing: The Empires of Mali and Songhay

Over the next few decades, African rulers began to adopt Islam while ruling over populations with diverse faiths and cultures. Many of these rulers blended Islam with traditional and local practices in what experts call the mixing phase. Over time, the population began to adopt Islam, often selectively appropriating aspects of the faith. The Mali Empire (1215-1450) rose out of the region’s feuding kingdoms. At its height, the empire of Mali composed most of modern Mali, Senegal, parts of Mauritania and Guinea. It was a multi-ethnic state with various religious and cultural groups. Muslims played a prominent role in the court as counselors and advisors. While the empire’s founder, Sunjiata Keita, was not himself a Muslim, by 1300 Mali kings became Muslim. The most famous of them was Mansa Musa (1307-32). He made Islam the state religion and in 1324 went on pilgrimage from Mali to Mecca. Musa’s pilgrimage to Mecca showed up in European records because of his display of wealth and lavish spending. Apparently, his spending devalued the price of gold in Egypt for several years. The famed 14th century traveler Ibn Battuta visited Mali shortly after Mansa Musa’s death. By the fifteenth century, however, Mali dissolved largely due to internal dissent and conflicts with the Saharan Tuareg. Several Muslim polities developed farther east, including the Hausa city-states and the Kingdom of Kanem in modern Northern Nigeria. Hausaland was comprised of a system of city-states (Gobir, Katsina, Kano, Zamfara, Kebbi and Zazzau). The Kingdom of Kanem near Lake Chad flourished as a commercial center from the ninth to 14th century. The state became Muslim during the ninth century. Its successor state was Bornu. Modern day Northern Nigeria comprises much of Hausaland and Bornu in the east. By the 14th century all ruling elites of Hausaland were Muslim, although the majority of the population did not convert until the 18th century jihads. Much like the rulers of earlier Muslims states, the rulers of Hausaland blended local practices and Islam. Emerging from the ruins of the Mali Empire, the Mande Songhay Empire (1430s to 1591) ruled over a diverse and multi-ethnic empire. Although Islam was the state religion, the majority of the population still practiced their traditional belief systems. Many rulers, however, combined local practices with Islam. Sonni Ali, the ruler from 1465-1492, persecuted Muslim scholars, particularly those who criticized pagan practices. During the 13th century, Mansa Musa conquered the Kingdom of Gao. Two centuries later, the kingdom of Gao rose again as the Songhay Empire. Sonni Ali captured much of the Empire of Mali. Under [Aksia Muhammad] 1493-1529), the Songhay’s borders extended far beyond any previous West African empire. The Songhay state patronized Islamic institutions and sponsored public buildings, mosques and libraries. One notable example is the Great Mosque of Jenne, which was built in the 12th or 13th century. The Great Mosque of Jenne remains the largest earthen building in the world. By the 16th century there were several centers of trade and Islamic learning in the Niger Bend region, most notably the famed Timbuktu. Arab chroniclers tell us that the pastoral nomadic Tuareg founded Timbuktu as a trading outpost. The city’s multicultural population, regional trade, and Islamic scholarship fostered a cosmopolitan environment. In 1325, the city’s population was around 10,000. At its apex, in the 16th century, the population is estimated to have been between 30,000 and 50,000. Timbuktu attracted scholars from throughout the Muslim world. The Songhay’s major trading partners were the Merenid dynasty in the Maghrib (north-west Africa) and the Mamluks in Egypt. The Songhay Empire ended when Morocco conquered the state in 1591. The fall of the Songhay marked the decline of big empires in West Africa. Merchant scholars in Timbuktu and other major learning centers dispersed, transferring learning institutions from urban-based merchant families to rural pastoralists throughout the Sahara. During this period there was an alliance between scholars, who were also part of the merchant class, and some warriors who provided protection for trade caravans. Around the 12th and 13th century, mystical Sufi brotherhood orders began to spread in the region. Sufi orders played an integral role in the social order of African Muslim societies and the spread of Islam through the region well into the 20th century.

Reform in the Nineteenth Century: Umarian Jihad in Senegambia and the Sokoto Caliphate in Hausaland

The 19th century jihad movements best exemplify the third phase in the development Islam in West Africa. Specialists have highlighted the ways in which literate Muslims became increasingly aware of Islamic doctrine and began to demand reforms during this period. This period was significant in that it marks a shift in Muslim communities that practiced Islam mixed with “pagan” rituals and practices to societies that completely adopted Islamic values and established Shariah Scholars have debated the origins of the 19th century West African jihads. The first known jihad in West Africa was in Mauritania during the 17th century. At that time, Mauritanian society was divided along scholar and warrior lineages. The scholar Nasir al-Din led a failed jihad called Sharr Bubba. Unlike the failed jihad in Mauritania, the 19th century jihad movements in Senegambia and Hausaland (in what is now northern Nigeria) successfully overthrew the established order and transformed the ruling and landowning class. In 1802, Uthman Dan Fodio, a Fulani scholar, led a major jihad. With the help of a large Fulani cavalry and Hausa peasants, Uthman Dan Fodio overthrew the region’s Hausa rulers and replaced them with Fulani emirs. The movement led to centralization of power in the Muslim community, education reforms, and transformations of law. Uthman Dan Fodio also sparked a literary revival with a production of religious work that included Arabic texts and vernacular written in Arabic script. His heirs continued the legacy of literary production and education reform. Uthman Dan Fodio’s movement inspired a number of jihads in the region. A notable example was the jihad of al Hajj Umar Tal, a Tukulor from the Senegambia region. In the 1850s, Umar Tal returned from pilgrimage claiming to have received spiritual authority over the West African Tijani Sufi order. From the 1850s to 1860s, he conquered three Bambara kingdoms. After Tal’s defeat by the French at Médine in 1857 and the subsequent defeat of his son in the 1880s, his followers fled westward spreading the influence of the Tijani order in Northern Nigeria. Although the French controlled the region, colonial authorities met another formidable enemy. Samori Toure rose up against the French and gathered a 30,000 strong army. Following his death, French forces defeated Toure’s son in 1901. The French occupation of Senegal forced the final development of Islamic practice where leaders of Sufi orders became allies with colonial administrators. Although European powers led to the decline of the Umarian state and the Sokoto Caliphate, colonial rule did little to stop the spread of Islam in West Africa. The British used anti-slavery rhetoric as they began their conquest of the Sokoto Caliphate in 1897. The Sokoto Caliphate ended in 1903, when British troops conquered the state. Colonial authorities attempted to maintain the established social order and ruled through Northern Nigerian emirs. Despite the efforts of colonial authorities, colonialism had far reaching effects on Northern Nigerian Muslim society. Modern communication and transportation infrastructure facilitated increased exchange between Muslim communities. As a result, Islam began to spread rapidly in new urban centers and regions such as Yoruba land. Similarly in the French Sudan, Islam actually spread in rates far greater than the previous centuries. Although Muslims lost political power, Muslim communities made rapid inroads in the West Africa during the early 20th century.

The three stages of containment, mixing, and reform can shed light on the historical developments of Islam in this region. The trans-Saharan trade was an important gateway for the spread of Islam in Africa. The legacy of the medieval empires and nineteenth century reform movements continues to have relevance in present day Senegal, Gambia, Mali, Nigeria, Burkina Faso, Nigeria, as well as many neighboring communities. Muslim communities have existed in West Africa for over a millennium, pointing to the fact that Islam is a significant part of the African landscape.

For Further Reading:

• "Western Sudan, 500–1000 A.D.". In Timeline of Art History . New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000–. http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/ht/06/sfw/ht06sfw.htm (October 2001)
• "Western and Central Sudan, 1000–1400 A.D.". In Timeline of Art History . New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000–. http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/ht/07/sfw/ht07sfw.htm (October 2001)
• "Western and Central Sudan, 1400–1600 A.D.". In Timeline of Art History . New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000–. http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/ht/08/sfw/ht08sfw.htm (October 2002)
• "Western and Central Sudan, 1600–1800 A.D.". In Timeline of Art History . New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000–. http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/ht/09/sfw/ht09sfw.htm (October 2003)
• David Robinson. Muslim Societies in African History . New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004.
• Nehemia Levtzion and Randall L. Pouwels (eds). The History of Islam in Africa . Athens OH: Ohio University Press, 2000.
• Spencer Trimingham, History of Islam in West Africa .New York: Oxford University Press, 1962.

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• Introduction

The legacy of Muhammad

Sources of islamic doctrinal and social views.

• The universe
• Satan, sin, and repentance
• Eschatology (doctrine of last things)
• Social service
• The shahādah , or profession of faith
• Shrines of Sufi saints
• Early developments
• The Hellenistic legacy
• The Khārijites
• The Muʿtazilah
• The way of the majority
• Tolerance of diversity
• Influence of al-Ashʿarī and al-Māturīdī
• Related sects
• The Aḥmadiyyah
• Background and scope of philosophical interest in Islam
• The teachings of al-Kindī
• The teachings of Abū Bakr al-Rāzī
• Political philosophy and the study of religion
• Interpretation of Plato and Aristotle
• The analogy of religion and philosophy
• Impact on Ismāʿīlī theology
• The “Oriental Philosophy”
• Distinction between essence and existence and the doctrine of creation
• The immortality of individual souls
• Philosophy, religion, and mysticism
• Background and characteristics of the Western Muslim philosophical tradition
• Theoretical science and intuitive knowledge
• Unconcern of philosophy with reform
• The philosopher as a solitary individual
• Concern for reform
• The hidden secret of Avicenna’s “Oriental Philosophy”
• The divine law
• Traditionalism and the new wisdom
• Characteristic features of the new wisdom
• Critiques of Aristotle in Islamic theology
• Synthesis of philosophy and mysticism
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Islam , major world religion promulgated by the Prophet Muhammad in Arabia in the 7th century ce . The Arabic term islām , literally “surrender,” illuminates the fundamental religious idea of Islam—that the believer (called a Muslim, from the active particle of islām ) accepts surrender to the will of Allah (in Arabic, Allāh: God). Allah is viewed as the sole God—creator, sustainer, and restorer of the world. The will of Allah, to which human beings must submit, is made known through the sacred scriptures, the Qurʾān (often spelled Koran in English), which Allah revealed to his messenger, Muhammad. In Islam Muhammad is considered the last of a series of prophets (including Adam , Noah , Abraham , Moses , Solomon , and Jesus ), and his message simultaneously consummates and completes the “revelations” attributed to earlier prophets.

Retaining its emphasis on an uncompromising monotheism and a strict adherence to certain essential religious practices, the religion taught by Muhammad to a small group of followers spread rapidly through the Middle East to Africa , Europe , the Indian subcontinent , the Malay Peninsula , and China . By the early 21st century there were more than 1.5 billion Muslims worldwide. Although many sectarian movements have arisen within Islam, all Muslims are bound by a common faith and a sense of belonging to a single community .

This article deals with the fundamental beliefs and practices of Islam and with the connection of religion and society in the Islamic world. The history of the various peoples who embraced Islam is covered in the article Islamic world .

The foundations of Islam

From the very beginning of Islam, Muhammad had inculcated a sense of brotherhood and a bond of faith among his followers, both of which helped to develop among them a feeling of close relationship that was accentuated by their experiences of persecution as a nascent community in Mecca . The strong attachment to the tenets of the Qurʾānic revelation and the conspicuous socioeconomic content of Islamic religious practices cemented this bond of faith. In 622 ce , when the Prophet migrated to Medina , his preaching was soon accepted, and the community-state of Islam emerged. During this early period, Islam acquired its characteristic ethos as a religion uniting in itself both the spiritual and temporal aspects of life and seeking to regulate not only the individual’s relationship to God (through conscience) but human relationships in a social setting as well. Thus, there is not only an Islamic religious institution but also an Islamic law , state, and other institutions governing society. Not until the 20th century were the religious (private) and the secular (public) distinguished by some Muslim thinkers and separated formally in certain places such as Turkey .

This dual religious and social character of Islam, expressing itself in one way as a religious community commissioned by God to bring its own value system to the world through the jihād (“exertion,” commonly translated as “holy war” or “holy struggle”), explains the astonishing success of the early generations of Muslims. Within a century after the Prophet’s death in 632 ce , they had brought a large part of the globe—from Spain across Central Asia to India—under a new Arab Muslim empire.

The period of Islamic conquests and empire building marks the first phase of the expansion of Islam as a religion. Islam’s essential egalitarianism within the community of the faithful and its official discrimination against the followers of other religions won rapid converts. Jews and Christians were assigned a special status as communities possessing scriptures and were called the “people of the Book” ( ahl al-kitāb ) and, therefore, were allowed religious autonomy . They were, however, required to pay a per capita tax called jizyah , as opposed to pagans, who were required to either accept Islam or die. The same status of the “people of the Book” was later extended in particular times and places to Zoroastrians and Hindus , but many “people of the Book” joined Islam in order to escape the disability of the jizyah . A much more massive expansion of Islam after the 12th century was inaugurated by the Sufis (Muslim mystics), who were mainly responsible for the spread of Islam in India , Central Asia, Turkey, and sub-Saharan Africa ( see below ).

Beside the jihad and Sufi missionary activity, another factor in the spread of Islam was the far-ranging influence of Muslim traders, who not only introduced Islam quite early to the Indian east coast and South India but also proved to be the main catalytic agents (beside the Sufis) in converting people to Islam in Indonesia , Malaya, and China. Islam was introduced to Indonesia in the 14th century, hardly having time to consolidate itself there politically before the region came under Dutch hegemony .

The vast variety of races and cultures embraced by Islam (an estimated total of more than 1.5 billion persons worldwide in the early 21st century) has produced important internal differences. All segments of Muslim society, however, are bound by a common faith and a sense of belonging to a single community. With the loss of political power during the period of Western colonialism in the 19th and 20th centuries, the concept of the Islamic community ( ummah ), instead of weakening, became stronger. The faith of Islam helped various Muslim peoples in their struggle to gain political freedom in the mid-20th century, and the unity of Islam contributed to later political solidarity.

Islamic doctrine, law, and thinking in general are based upon four sources, or fundamental principles ( uṣūl ): (1) the Qurʾān, (2) the Sunnah (“Traditions”), (3) ijmāʿ (“consensus”), and (4) ijtihād (“individual thought”).

The Qurʾān (literally, “reading” or “recitation”) is regarded as the verbatim word, or speech, of God delivered to Muhammad by the archangel Gabriel . Divided into 114 suras (chapters) of unequal length, it is the fundamental source of Islamic teaching. The suras revealed at Mecca during the earliest part of Muhammad’s career are concerned mostly with ethical and spiritual teachings and the Day of Judgment. The suras revealed at Medina at a later period in the career of the Prophet are concerned for the most part with social legislation and the politico-moral principles for constituting and ordering the community.

Sunnah (“a well-trodden path”) was used by pre-Islamic Arabs to denote their tribal or common law . In Islam it came to mean the example of the Prophet—i.e., his words and deeds as recorded in compilations known as Hadith (in Arabic, Ḥadīth: literally, “report”; a collection of sayings attributed to the Prophet). Hadith provide the written documentation of the Prophet’s words and deeds. Six of these collections, compiled in the 3rd century ah (9th century ce ), came to be regarded as especially authoritative by the largest group in Islam, the Sunnis. Another large group, the Shiʿah , has its own Hadith contained in four canonical collections.

The doctrine of ijmāʿ , or consensus , was introduced in the 2nd century ah (8th century ce ) in order to standardize legal theory and practice and to overcome individual and regional differences of opinion. Though conceived as a “consensus of scholars,” ijmāʿ was in actual practice a more fundamental operative factor. From the 3rd century ah ijmāʿ has amounted to a principle of stability in thinking; points on which consensus was reached in practice were considered closed and further substantial questioning of them prohibited. Accepted interpretations of the Qurʾān and the actual content of the Sunnah (i.e., Hadith and theology) all rest finally on the ijmāʿ in the sense of the acceptance of the authority of their community.

Ijtihād , meaning “to endeavour” or “to exert effort,” was required to find the legal or doctrinal solution to a new problem. In the early period of Islam, because ijtihād took the form of individual opinion ( raʾy ), there was a wealth of conflicting and chaotic opinions. In the 2nd century ah ijtihād was replaced by qiyās (reasoning by strict analogy), a formal procedure of deduction based on the texts of the Qurʾān and the Hadith. The transformation of ijmāʿ into a conservative mechanism and the acceptance of a definitive body of Hadith virtually closed the “gate of ijtihād ” in Sunni Islam while ijtihād continued in Shiʿism. Nevertheless, certain outstanding Muslim thinkers (e.g., al-Ghazālī in the 11th–12th century) continued to claim the right of new ijtihād for themselves, and reformers in the 18th–20th centuries, because of modern influences, caused this principle once more to receive wider acceptance.

The Qurʾān and Hadith are discussed below. The significance of ijmāʿ and ijtihād are discussed below in the contexts of Islamic theology , philosophy, and law.

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Trade and Geography in the Spread of Islam *

Stelios michalopoulos.

† Brown University, Department of Economics, 64 Waterman st., Robinson Hall, Providence, RI 02912, USA, CEPR, and NBER, ude.nworb@olahcims .

Alireza Naghavi

‡ University of Bologna. Department of Economics, Piazza Scaravilli 2, 40126 Bologna, Italy, [email protected]

Giovanni Prarolo

§ University of Bologna. Department of Economics, Piazza Scaravilli 2, 40126 Bologna, Italy, [email protected] .

Associated Data

In this study we explore the historical determinants of contemporary Muslim representation. Motivated by a plethora of case studies and historical accounts among Islamicists stressing the role of trade for the adoption of Islam, we construct detailed data on pre-Islamic trade routes, harbors, and ports to determine the empirical regularity of this argument. Our analysis – conducted across countries and across ethnic groups within countries – establishes that proximity to the pre-600 CE trade network is a robust predictor of today’s Muslim adherence in the Old World. We also show that Islam spread successfully in regions that are ecologically similar to the birthplace of the religion, the Arabian Peninsula. Namely, territories characterized by a large share of arid and semiarid regions dotted with few pockets of fertile land are more likely to host Muslim communities. We discuss the various mechanisms that may give rise to the observed pattern.

“ O you who believe! Eat not up your property among yourselves unjustly except it be a trade amongst you, by mutual consent. And do not kill yourselves (nor kill one another). Surely, Allah is Most Merciful to you.” The Noble Qur’an (Hilali-Khan translation), Surah An-Nisa’, 4:29 1

1. Introduction

Religion is significantly correlated with a range of economie and politicai outcomes both within and across countries. 2 This can, perhaps, be linked to the fact that religious people tend to be more trusting in general ( Guiso, Sapienza, and Zingales, 2003 ). Given the importance of religion in society, a natural question to ask is what factors contributed to the distribution of religions around the globe that we see today.

In this study, we focus on the spread of one religion – Islam. There has been growing interest in Muslim societies in recent years amongst economists and political scientists, see for example, Blydes (2014) , Campante and Yanagizawa-Drott (2015) , Clingingsmith, Khwaja, and Kremer (2009) , Jha (2013) , and Kuran (2004) . Our analysis investigates the role that ancient trade routes have played in facilitating the spread of Islam. Motivated by numerous case studies on the historical relationship between trade and Islam, we construct detailed data on pre-Islamic trade routes, ports, and harbors. Proximity to the pre-600 CE trade network is a robust predictor of today’s Muslim adherence in the Old World. We also show that Islam spread successfully in regions that are ecologically similar to the birthplace of the religion, the Arabian Peninsula.

The empirical analysis establishes that countries located closer to historical trade routes are more likely to be Muslim. We then investigate whether this empirical regularity holds at the more disaggregated level of ethnic homelands within countries. Exploiting within-country variation has straightforward advantages. First, it allows us to test in a sharper manner whether differences in proximity to pre-Islamic trade routes are meaningful predictors of local adherence to Islam. Second, leveraging within contemporary-state variation in Muslim representation mitigates concerns related to the endogeneity of current political boundaries. Modern states, arguably, have affected religious affiliation in a multitude of ways including state-sponsored religion. As such, it is crucial to account for these nationwide histories.

These findings are in line with a rich body of earlier work by prominent Islamicists including Lapidus (2002) , Berkey (2003) , and Lewis (1993) , who have extensively discussed the role of long-distance trade, noting both the diffusion of Muslims along trade routes ( Geertz, 1968 ; Lewis, 1980 ; Trimingham, 1962 ) and the importance that Islamic scriptures confer on trade-related matters ( Cohen, 1971 ; Hiskett, 1984 ; Last, 1979 ). An innovation of Islam was the practice of direct trade, where Muslim merchants personally carried goods over long distances along the trade routes rather than relying on intermediaries. For example, the acceptance of Islam in most of Inner Asia, Southeast Asia, and Sub-Saharan Africa is known to have occurred primarily through contacts with Muslim merchants ( Insoll, 2003 ; Lapidus, 2002 ; Levtzion, 1979 ). In addition, the highly personal practice of exchange created preference for Muslims to conduct trade with co-religionists (Chaudhuri, 1995; Kuran and Lustig, 2012 ). Therefore, merchants converting to Islam enjoyed substantial externalities like access to the Muslim trade network, steady trade flows, and a reduction in transaction costs. In Section 2 we provide a brief overview illustrating the role of trade in the Islamization process in various parts of the Old World.

Although the primary contribution of this study is to establish how proximity to pre-Islamic trade routes has influenced the distribution of Muslim communities in the Old World, we also explore whether the ecological similarity to the Arabian peninsula of a given region predicts the presence of Muslim communities. But which are the salient geographic features of the cradle of Islam? The Arabian peninsula has a distinct geography, mainly consisting of desert and semi-arid landscapes with a few regions of moderate fertility such as today’s Yemen and other scattered oases in the interior. On the eve of Islam, frankincense, myrrh, vine, dyes, and dates were produced in these fertile pockets ( Ibrahim, 1990 ). To capture this distinct landscape, we construct for each country/ethnic homeland the Gini coefficient of land suitability for agriculture and show that ecological similarity to the Arabian Peninsula (reflected in the degree of inequality in the potential for farming across regions) increases Muslim representation.

We discuss various explanations consistent with this less-well-known fact and show that groups residing along geographically unequal territories have a particular production structure (both historically and today) with pasture dominating the semi-arid landscape and farming taking place in the few relatively fertile regions. These differences in the underlying productive endowments may generate gains from specialization and provide a basis for trade as a means of subsistence. This is indeed the case for a cross-section of ethnographic societies we examine. So, to the extent that trade is likely to flourish when the parties involved adhere to a common code of exchange, the trade-promoting institutional framework of Islam would find likely converts across such territories.

A complementary interpretation links geographic inequality to social inequality and predation and echoes Ibn Khaldun (1377) , one of the greatest philosophers of the Muslim world, who observed that a crucial factor for understanding Muslim history is the central social conflict between the primitive Bedouin and the urban society (“town” versus “desert”). The argument is that long-distance trade opportunities confer differential gains to populations residing in the relatively more fertile regions, fostering predatory behavior from the poorly endowed ones. Along the same lines, contemporary scholars have noted that when farmers and herders coexisted in absence of an institutional framework coordinating their activities, their interactions were often conflictual, disrupting trade flows across these territories ( Richerson, 1996 ). We conjecture that Islam with its redistributive economic principles was a unifying force aimed at reining in the underlying inequality in exchange for security for the trading caravans ( Michalopoulos, Naghavi, and Prarolo, 2016 ). The premise that geographie inequality becomes more salient when long-distance trade opportunities arise generates an auxiliary prediction. Namely, the intensity of adoption of Islam across unequally endowed regions should increase with proximity to trade routes. This prediction is borne out in the data.

Our study belongs to a wider literature in economics that explores the interplay between the economic and political environment and (religious) beliefs and rules. Contributions include works by Greif (1994) , Benabou and Tirole (2001) , Botticini and Eckstein (2005 , 2007 ), Cervellati and Sunde (2017) , Guiso, Sapienza, and Zingales (2016) , Platteau (2008 , 2011 ), Rubin (2009) , Becker and Woessmann (2009) , and Greif and Tabellini (2010) . Moreover, by focusing on the spread of a particular religion, our work is closely related to that of Cantoni (2012) who explores how proximity to Wittemberg, the birthplace of Martin Luther, influenced the diffusion of Protestantism. The evidence provided on the consistent geographic pattern followed by the Muslim world also makes contact with the studies by Engerman and Sokoloff (1997 , 2002 ) and Acemoglu, Johnson, and Robinson (2001 , 2002 ), among others, that stress the role of geography in shaping institutional outcomes.

The rest of the paper is organized as follows. In Section 2 we provide a historical narrative of the significance of trade for the spread of Islam. In Section 3 , we discuss the data and present the empirical analysis conducted across countries and ethnic groups. In Section 4 , we dig deeper into what distance to trade routes and geographic inequality reflect and outline possible explanations consistent with the uncovered evidence. Section 5 summarizes and discusses avenues for future research.

2. The Spread of Islam along Historical Trade Routes

Islam has spread at a breathless pace since the time of Muhammad. Nevertheless, the mode of expansion has differed across time and space ranging from conquests, to trade, to proselytization and migrations. During the early phase, Islam expanded mainly through conquests within a certain radius around Mecca. The initial military conquests, even if they did not entail forced conversion, eventually resulted in Muslim-majority populations occupying large swaths of land. These areas overlap with contemporary countries close to Mecca including the entire Arab World in the Middle East and North Africa, Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, and slightly further away in Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan. The territories featured important trade hubs during the pre-Islamic era, particularly those along the Silk Road in Asia and the Red Sea in North Africa. Most of these lands were part of the Persian Empire, which was the largest and most important empire of the time to be conquered and concede to Islam. Famous trade hubs along the routes of the Persian Empire were Rey (in Iran), Samarkand and Bukhara (in Uzbekistan), and Merv (in Turkmenistan).

The process of Islamization farther away from the birthplace of Islam was intimately linked to trade. The Islamic world came to dominate the network of the most lucrative international trade routes that connected Asia to Europe (and by sea to North Africa). With full Muslim control of the western half of the Silk Road by mid-8th century, any long-distance exchange had to traverse Muslim lands, giving trade a central role in the further propagation of the religion. Muslim merchants carried the message of Islam wherever they traveled. This was possible because of the Muslim practise of “direct” trade, one of the most remarkable innovations of Islam. Prior to Muslim conquests, trade was conducted by a network of local merchants who traded exclusively in their homelands. In other words, they played the role of intermediary agents with goods (often spices) being transported from one carrier to another by short journeys, creating a trade-relay. Muslims instead did not rely on intermediaries and personally travelled the entire length of the journey, crucial for the diffusion of the religion along the trade routes and at the destination. The spread of Islam was hence greatly enhanced by social contact as a consequence of trade ( Miller, 1969 ; Wood, 2003 ).

On the receiving end, the new religion appealed to the local merchants because it legitimized their economic base more than most belief systems present at that time. Merchants converting to Islam had clear advantages including (i) cooperation within the Muslim trading network, (ii) valuable contacts to expand their trade, and (iii) rules governing commercial activities naturally favoring Muslims over non-Muslims ( Sinor, 1990 ; Foltz, 1999 ).

Proselytization was a third factor that inffuenced the spread of Islam across locations most distant to Mecca. Trade routes were also important in this process as the charismatic Sufi preachers travelled along these routes to perform missionary activities. Finally, migration of Muslims (again through trade routes) and their inter-marriages at the destination also contributed to the spread of Islam along the trade routes distant from Mecca.

2.1. The Adoption of Islam by Ethnie Groups in the Vicinity of Trade Routes

The historical accounts linking trade routes and Muslim adherence across countries are indicative of their importance for the spread of Islam. Nevertheless, given the power of the state to inffuence its religious composition, one may wonder whether a similar nexus between proximity to trade hubs and Muslim representation exists within countries that are not religiously homogeneous. In what follows, we review the historical record on the emergence of Islam for specific countries with varying religious diversity including China, Tanzania, Mali (the location of the former Ghana Empire), Indonesia, and India. A systematic empirical analysis at the ethnic group level for each of these countries is relegated to Section 3.3 .

Figures 1a, 1b, 1c, 1d, and 1e provide snapshots of pre-Islamic trade routes along with contemporary Muslim representation for groups located in these five regions making apparent the link between the two (see Section 3.1 below for a description of the underlying data).

Figure 1 portrays Muslim adherence at the ethnic group level and historical trade routes within five countries (1a: China, 1b: Mali, 1c: Tanzania, 1d: Indonesia and 1e: India). Muslim adherence is represented in quintiles at the level of ethnic group, where actual homelands are from the Ethnologue version 15 and data on religious affiliation from the World Religion Database. Darker shades represent higher Muslim shares in the population. In Figures 1a, 1c, and 1e the trade routes are depicted as thick, black-and-white dashed lines and correspond to pre-600 CE. These routes are digitized from Brice and Kennedy (2001) . The ancient ports and harbors, depicted as circled stars, are from Arthur de Graauw (2014) . In figure 1b trade routes are relative to 900 AD, while in figures 1c and 1d ports in year 600 CE (1800 CE) are represented with circled stars (circled dots). Country borders are represented with a thin dashed grey line.

2.2. Inner Asia

By the 8th century, Islam was no longer the religion of only the Arab world and had expanded geographical borders along the Silk Road. Conversions were often a result of economic considerations and the financial benefits afforded to those joining the Ummah. Even among the conquered people in Central Asia, Islam continued to gain a hearing without coercion as merchants spread the religion. Muslim traders traveled as far as the capital of the Tang dynasty, Chang’an, in the Chinese Empire. The 9th century saw the rise of Islamic kingdoms in Central Asia, especially the Samanid Empire, the first Persian dynasty after the Arab conquests. The Islamization of the nomadic Turkic peoples of Central and Inner Asia occurred during the 10th century along the trade routes. This process has been linked mainly to their participation in the oasis-based Silk Road trade and was accelerated by the conversion and the expansion of three Turkic Muslim dynasties of the Karakhanids, the Ghaznavids, and the Seljuks ( Meri and Bacharach, 2006 ).

The major ethnic groups close to trade routes with a substantial Muslim representation in this region are the Uyghurs, the Hui, the Kazakhs, the Kyrgyz, and the Tajiks. These ethnic groups also exist within China today and comprise the Muslim minority in the country. They are all located around Xianjiang, a vast region of deserts and mountains along the Silk Road in Northwest China.

The Uyghurs are one of the largest ethnic groups in Inner Asia, and their Islamization dates back to the Karakhanids in early 10th century, the first Turkic dynasty to convert to the new religion. The core of the Uyghurs’ homeland was Kashgar, an oasis city located in the West of China near the current-day border of Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, which historically served as a strategic trade hub between China, the Middle East, and Europe ( Roemer, 2000 ). The Hui people are another Muslim Chinese minority historically connected to Muslim merchants travelling along the Silk Road. Besides Xianjiang, they also live farther east in Central China. A cluster of this group can be found today in Xi’an, where they form the majority of a large Muslim community (the dark spot in the center of China in Figure 1a ). Xi’an was the first city in China where Islam was introduced. ( Soucek, 2000 ). The longest segment of the Silk Road runs across the Central Asia and Kazakhstan. The religion practiced by the majority of Kazakhs is Islam since its introduction in the region by the Arabs during the 9th century. The Kyrgyz tribes also adopted Islam as Muslim traders and then Sufi missionaries began to move out from scattered towns to the nomadic steppes, spreading Islam among the tribal groups. They are known to have adopted Islam between the 8th and 12th centuries. The Tajiks on the other hand, started converting to Islam in the late 11th century ( Minahan, 2014 ).

2.3. East and West Africa

Islam spread through the well-established trade routes of the east coast of Africa via merchants. The earliest records for trade in East Africa indicate Greco-Roman trade down the Red Sea and along the Somali coast to the Tanzanian coast. This was followed by the trade of frankincense, myrrh, and spices with the Persian Gulf from the 2nd to the 5th century CE. Soon Zanzibar Island also became a trade hub and remained so until the 9th century CE, when Bantu traders settled on the Kenyan-Tanzanian coast and joined the Indian Ocean trade networks interacting with the Somali and Arab proselytizers. Shanga, an early Swahili town on Pate Island in the Lamu Archipelago, is a good example of early influence through Muslim traders as they built the first small wooden mosque in the region around 850 CE ( Shillington, 2005 ). Islam was established on the Southeast coast soon after, and eventually a full-scale prosperous Muslim dynasty known for trading gold and slaves was established at Kilwa on the coast of modern Tanzania. By the 11th century CE, several settlements down the east coast were equipped with mosques, and Islam emerged as a unifying force on the coast to form a distinct Swahili identity ( Trimingham, 1964 ).

Historical accounts suggest that the early penetration of Islam was even more effective along the caravan routes of West Africa. Trans-Saharan trade started on a regular basis during the 4th century and presents a clear example of subsistence from trade between the people of the Sahara, forest, Sahel, and savanna ( Boahen, Ajayi, and Tidy, 1966 ). While present since 500 CE, the significance of the trans-Saharan trade routes rose and declined over time depending on the empire in power and the security that could be maintained along the routes ( Devisse, 1988 ). Islam was introduced through Muslim traders along several major trade routes that connected Africa below the Sahara with the Mediterranean Middle East, such as Sijilmasa to Awdaghust and Ghadames to Gao. Muslims crossed the Sahara into West Africa trading salt, horses, dates, and camels for gold, timber, and foodstuff from the ancient Ghana empire. The trade-friendly elements of Islam, such as credit or contract law, together with the information networks it helped create, facilitated long-distance trade. By the 10th century, merchants to the south of the trade routes had converted to Islam. In the 11th century CE the rulers began to convert. The first Muslim ruler in the region was the king of Gao, around the year 1000 CE. The Kanem empire (the Kanuri people), located at the southern end of the trans-Saharan trade route between Tripoli and the region of Lake Chad, followed after being exposed to Islam through North African traders, Berbers, and Arabs ( Trimingham, 1962 ; Levtzion and Pouwels, 2000 ; Robinson, 2004 ).

2.4. South and Southeast Asia

There is ample historical evidence indicating that Arabs and Muslims interacted with India from the very early days of Islam, although trade relations had existed since ancient times. Malabar and Kochi were two important princely states on the western coast of India where Arabs and Persians found fertile ground for their trade activities. The trade on the Malabar coast prospered due to the local production of pepper and other spices. Islam was first introduced to India by the newly converted Arab traders reaching the western coast of India (Malabar and the Konkan-Gujarat region) during the 7th century CE ( Elliot and Dowson, 1867 ; Makhdum, 2006 ; Rawlinson, 2003 ).

Cheraman Juma Masjid in Kerala is thought to be the first mosque in India. It was built towards the end of Muhammad’s lifetime during the reign of the last ruler of the Chera dynasty, who converted to Islam and facilitated the proliferation of Islam in Malabar. The 8th century CE marked the start of a period of expansion of Muslim commerce along all major routes in the Indian Ocean, suggesting that the Islamic influence during this period was essentially one of commercial nature. Initially settling in Konkan and Gujarat, the Persians and Arabs extended their trading bases and settlements to southern India and Sri Lanka by the 8th century CE, and to the Coromandel coast in the 9th century CE. These ports helped develop maritime trade links between the Middle East and Southeast Asia during the 10th century CE ( Wink, 1990 ).

The people of the Malay world have been active participants in trade and maritime activities for over a thousand years. Their settlements along major rivers and coastal areas were important means of contact with traders from the rest of the world. The strategic location of the Malay Archipelago at the crossroad between the Indian Ocean and East Asia, and in the middle of the China-India trade route, aided the rapid development of trade in the region ( Wade, 2009 ). In particular, the Srivijaya kingdom (7th −13th century CE) on the straits of Malacca attracted ships from China, India, and Arabia plying the China-India trade routes by ensuring safe passage through the Straits of Malacca ( Andaya and Andaya, 1982 ).

Similar to those in Africa, rulers in Southeast Asia often converted to Islam through the influence of Muslim merchants who set up or conducted business there. While the landed Hindu-Buddhists were content to let the trade come to them, the Muslim merchants, lacking a fixed land base, made their profits from trade at the location of exchange. Consequently, the people of Southeast Asia began to accept Islam and create Muslim towns and kingdoms. By the late 13th century CE, the kingdom of Pasai in northern Sumatra had converted to Islam. At the same time, the collapse of Srivijayan power at the end of the 13th century CE drew foreign traders to the harbors on the northern Sumatran shores of the Bay of Bengal, safe from the pirate lairs at the southern end of the Strait of Malacca ( Houben, 2003 ; Ricklefs, 1991 ). Around 1400 CE, a new kingdom was established in Malacca (on the north shore of the Malacca Strait). The rulers of Malacca soon accepted Islam in order to attract Muslim and Javanese traders to their port by providing a common culture and offering legal security under Islamic law ( Holt, Lambton, and Lewis, 1970 ; Esposito, 1999 ). Finally, the Bugis, an ethnic group along Java’s northern coast adopted Islam later in the 16th century CE when Muslim proselytizers from West Sumatra came in contact with the people of this region who conducted trade ( Mattulada, 1983 ).

3. Empirical section

3.1. the data sources.

The historical overview vividly illustrates the importance of pre-existing trade routes for the diffusion of Islam but also suggests the beneficial impact of Islam on the further expansion of the trade network. To make sure we capture the first part of this two-way relationship, we construct our main explanatory variable by measuring the distance between the relevant unit of analysis (a country or an ethnic homeland) and the closest historical trade route or port before 600 CE, reflecting the structure of trade flows already present in the Old World in the eve of Islam. 3

The location of trade routes is outlined in Brice and Kennedy (2001) whereas the location of ancient ports and harbors is taken from the work of De Graauw, Maione-Downing, and McCormick (2014) who collected and identified their precise locations. The result is an impressive list of approximately 2, 900 ancient ports and harbors mentioned in the writings of 66 ancient authors and a few modern authors, including the Barrington Atlas. We complement the pre-600 CE routes mapped in Brice and Kennedy (2001) with information on the Roman roads identified in the Barrington Atlas ( McCormick, et al., 2013 ). Finally, we also extend the trade network up to 1800 CE, digitizing the relevant information from Brice and Kennedy (2001) , and supplementing it with routes within Europe, Southeast Asia, West Africa, and China mapped in O’Brien (1999) during the same time period. We expect these data to be useful to other researchers. See Figures 2a and 2b for the reconstruction of the pre-Islamic and pre-1800 CE trade network, respectively.

Figure 2a (2b) shows the Old World network of Roman roads (from the Barrington Atlas), ancient ports and harbours (from Arthur de Graauw, 2014 ) and trade routes (from Brice and Kennedy, 2001 ) in 600 AD (1800 AD).

In the cross-country analysis, the dependent variable employed is the fraction of Muslims in the population as early as 1900 CE reported by Barrett, Kurian, and Johnson (2001) . For the ethnic group analysis, the dependent variable is the fraction of Muslims and of other religious denominations in 2005 from the World Religion Database (WRD). 4 These estimates are extracted from the World Christian Database and are subsequently adjusted based on three sources of religious affiliation: census data, demographic and health surveys, and population survey data. 5 In absence of historical estimates of Muslim representation at an ethnic group level, we are constrained in using contemporary data. Reassuringly, country-level Muslim representation derived from the group-specific estimates of the WRD are highly correlated (0.93) with the respective country statistics on Muslim adherence in 1900 CE.

Information on the location of ethnic groups’ homelands is available from the World Language Mapping System (WLMS) database. This dataset maps the locations of the language groups covered in the 15th edition of the Ethnologue (2005) database. The location of each ethnic group is identified by a polygon. Each of these polygons delineates the traditional homeland of an ethnic group; populations away from their homelands (e.g., in cities, refugee populations, etc.) are not mapped. Also, the WLMS (2006) does not attempt to map immigrant languages. Finally, ethnic groups of unknown location, widespread ethnicities (i.e., groups whose boundaries coincide with a country’ boundaries) and extinct languages are not mapped and, thus, not considered in the empirical analysis. The matching between the WLMS (2006) and the WRD is done using the unique Ethnologue identifier for each ethnic group within a country. 6

To capture how similar the ecology of a given region is to that of the Arabian Peninsula, we construct the distribution of land quality and, in turn, the Gini coefficient of regional land potential for agriculture across countries and homelands. Under the assumption that land quality dictates the productive capabilities of a given region, populations on fertile areas would engage in farming whereas pastoralism would be the norm in poorly endowed regions (see more on this in Section 4 ). In the absence of historical data on land quality, we use contemporary disaggregated data on the suitability of land for agriculture to proxy for regional productive endowments. The global data on current land quality for agriculture were assembled by Ramankutty et al. (2002) to investigate the effect of future climate change on contemporary agricultural suitability and have been used extensively in the recent literature in historical comparative development. Each observation takes a value between 0 and 1 and represents the probability that a particular grid cell may be cultivated. 7

Finally, we combine anthropological information on ethnic groups from Murdock (1967) with the Ethnologue (2005) , enabling us to examine the pre-colonial societal and economic traits of Muslim groups. We discuss these two datasets in more detail as we introduce them to our analysis.

3.2. Cross-Country Analysis

We start by investigating the relationship between distance to trade routes in the Old World and Muslim adherence across modern-day countries. The cross-country summary statistics and the corresponding correlation matrix of the variables of interest are reported in Appendix Table 1 .

To estimate how proximity to trade routes shapes Muslim adherence we adopt the following OLS specification:

where % Muslim 1900 i is the fraction of the population in country i adhering to Islam in 1900 CE. 8

In Column 1 of Table 1 , we report the univariate relationship between distance from trade routes and Muslim adherence. The coefficient is economically and statistically significant. Across modern-day countries variation in the distance to pre-Islamic trade routes accounts for roughly 9% of the observed variation in Muslim representation. The magnitude of the estimated coefficient, moreover, suggests that a country located 1, 000 kilometers farther from the 600 CE trade routes has 15% lower Muslim representation. Naturally, one may wonder whether this association remains robust to other possible determinants of Muslim adherence that may be correlated to distance to trade routes. In Column 2, we add a series of distance terms that may be potential confounders. The literature reviewed in Section 2 unequivocally suggests that proximity to Mecca is likely to be a strong predictor for the spread of Islam, and this is indeed what we find. The precisely estimated coefficient on distance to Mecca suggests that countries that are 1, 000 kilometers closer to Mecca see a 7% increase in their Muslim share, and countries further away from the equator are less likely to be Muslim. Distance to the coast by itself does not significantly affect Muslim representation. These three additional location attributes significantly increase the predictive power of the empirical model, the R 2 jumps to 23%; nevertheless, the coefficient of interest only slightly declines and remains precisely estimated.

Table 1 reports OLS estimates associating the share of Muslims with geographical variables. Observations are at the level of countries, the sample is the Old World (Europe, Asia and Africa). In all specifications the dependent variable is the share of Muslims in 1900 from McCleary and Barro (2005). All specifications include the constant (not reported) and column (5) includes a set of continental effects.

The Supplementary Appendix gives detailed definitions, data sources and summary statistics for all variables. Standard errors in parentheses are robust to heteroskedasticity. ***, **, and * indicate statistical significance at the 1%, 5%, and 10% level, respectively.

In the rest of the Columns of Table 1 , we add additional geographic variables. The goal is twofold. First, to make sure that the uncovered relationship between distance to trade routes and Muslim adherence is not driven by some other geographic factor, and second, and perhaps more importantly, in doing so, we attempt to shed light on the geographie covariates of Islam. Given the recent interest among growth economists on the environmental determinants of comparative development, the list of potential geographic candidates is long. So, our choice of variables is disciplined in the following manner. Since we are interested in exploring whether a given region’s ecological similarity to the Arabian peninsula predicts the presence of Muslim communities, we construct the Gini coefficient of land suitability for agriculture using the data from Ramankutty et al. (2002) .

The following example may help illustrate the type of geographies that this measure reflects. Uzbekistan and Poland are both equally close to pre-Islamic trade routes (approximately 190 kilometers) but have very different ecologies. On the one hand, less than 10% of Uzbekistan’s territory lies in river valleys and oases that serve as cultivable land, whereas the rest of the country is dominated by the Kyzyl Kum desert and mountains. In our data, the Gini coefficient of land quality is estimated to be 0.59 (82nd percentile) with an average land quality of 0.25. On the other hand, Poland has a much more homogeneous geography in terms of farming potential with a Gini coefficient of 0.16 (30th percentile) and an average land suitability of 0.56. As of 1900 CE, Uzbekistan was 98% Muslim whereas there were no Muslims in Poland. These stark geographic differences across Muslim and non-Muslim countries are readily visible in the our sample. Out of the 127 countries in the Old World, those 35 (92) that have a Muslim absolute majority (minority) have median land quality equal to 0.22 (0.50) and median Gini coefficient in land quality of 0.54 (0.20). In Column 4 of Table 1 , we add both of these geographic indexes in logs to our benchmark specification. The estimated coefficient on proximity to pre-Islamic trade routes remains qualitatively and quantitatively intact. Moreover, the estimates suggest that low land suitability for agriculture and high inequality in the spatial distribution of this scarce factor are strongly predictive of the presence of Muslims across countries. Adding these two features in the regression increases the R 2 by 25 percentage points revealing the importance of geographic features in the spread of Islam. One may naturally wonder what potential mechanisms are behind this strong associations. We will return to this question in Section 4 .

In the rest of the columns in Table 1 , we check the robustness of our findings. Specifically, in Column 4, we add four more geographic traits. The log area of each country, the log of terrain ruggedness, an indicator reflecting the presence of a desert, and an indicator reflecting whether a country has any irrigation potential. 9 These geographic variables are chosen for the following reasons. First, Bulliet (1975) observed that Arab armies had a comparative advantage over desert terrain. In our sample of 127 countries, 38 feature some desert. Moreover, Bentzen, Kaarsen, and Wingender (2016) show that Muslim countries have higher irrigation potential and the latter may be correlated both with proximity to trade routes and inequality in the spatial distribution of land quality across cells within a country. Finally, ruggedness is controlled for as it is likely that more rugged countries limit the ability of foreign powers to penetrate them, and it also seems plausible that ruggedness is associated with the quality of land and trade routes ( Chaney and Hornbeck, 2016 ). Adding these controls neither changes the magnitude nor the precision of the estimates of our main explanatory variables. Among these new covariates, the only consistent predictor of Muslim representation is the potential for irrigation in line with Bentzen, Kaarsen, and Wingender (2016) . Finally, in Column 5 we add continental fixed effects to account for the broad geographic and historical differences between the continental masses finding similar results. Figure 3 plots non-parametrically the relationship between Muslim representation and distance to the pre-Islamic trade network after partialling out the covariates included in Column 5. 10

3.3. Cross-Ethnic-Group Analysis

The evidence so far reveals a strong cross-country association between Muslim representation and proximity to pre-Islamic trade routes as well as an unequal distribution of land endowments. However, the spread of Islam is a historical process that predated the emergence of modern nation states. Moreover, the historical record is replete with examples of current countries actively influencing their religious composition by promoting or demoting specific religious identities. Would the cross-country patterns survive if we were to account for the idiosyncratic historical legacies of contemporary states? To answer this we look at the religious affiliations of ethnic groups within countries. This allows us to control for country-specific constants and thus produce reliable estimates of the impact of trade routes on Muslim adherence.

In Appendix Table 2 Panel A, we report the summary statistics of the main variables employed in the cross-ethnic-group analysis. 11 An average ethnic group in the Old World has 21% of its population adhering to Islam in 2005, is 5, 230 kilometers from Mecca, and 1, 345 kilometers from trade routes before 600 CE. Appendix Table 2 Panel B shows the raw correlations among the main variables of interest. Ethnic-specific Muslim representation is negatively related to distance to Mecca (−0.24) and distance to trade routes in 600 CE (−0.22).

We adopt the following specification:

where δ c represents the country-specific fixed effects. 12

Before showing the results for all groups across the Old World, and motivated by the historical accounts summarized in Section 2 , in Table 2 we report bivariate regressions linking distance to pre-600 CE trade routes to contemporary Muslim adherence across linguistic groups within specific countries. In Columns 1, 2, and 3, we look at the religious composition of language groups in China, Mali (the location of the ancient Ghana empire), and Tanzania, respectively. Within each of these countries with varied historical legacies, and as foreshadowed by our early discussion, proximity to trade routes is a systematic predictor of Muslim communities. In Column 4, we focus on Indonesia, the country with the largest Muslim population worldwide. Across the 615 linguistic groups mapped by the Ethnologue, variation in the proximity of these homelands to pre-Islamic trade routes accounts for almost a quarter (22%) of the observed variation in contemporary Muslim adherence. In Column 5 we show that a similar pattern holds for India, a country where although Muslims are a minority they nevertheless represent the third-largest Muslim population across countries. In what follows, instead of showing country-specific estimates we use the entire sample of linguistic groups across the Old World to assess this link.

Table 2 reports OLS estimates associating the share of Muslims with distance from trade routes in 600AD in selected countries, at the level of ethnic group. In all specifications the dependent variable is the share of Muslims in 2005 at ethnic group level from the World Religion Database. All specifications include a constant (not reported).

To facilitate comparison across the different levels of analysis, the layout of Table 3A mimics that of Table 1 . The pattern found in the cross-country analysis resurfaces in the cross-ethnicity sample. The difference between Columns 1 and 2 in Table 3A is that in the latter we include country-specific constants. By doing so, the coefficient on the proximity to pre-Islamic trade routes increases considerably. Within modern-day countries, ethnic groups whose historical homelands are closer to the trade routes before 600 CE experience a significant boost in their Muslim representation. Namely, a 1, 000-kilometer increase in the former decreases Muslim representation by 17 percentage points. Columns 3 to 5 confirm the pattern obtained in Columns 2 to 4 of Table 1 . Regions closer to pre-Islamic trade routes, characterized by overall low land quality interspersed with pockets of fertile land are more likely to be populated by Muslim communities today. One noteworthy difference between the two levels of aggregation is that in the cross-group sample proximity to Mecca is now a reliable and precisely estimated correlate of Muslim adherence. In Figure 4 , we graph non-parametrically the association between Muslim representation across groups and distance to the pre-Islamic routes after partialling out all covariates included in Column 5 of Table 3A .

Table 3A reports OLS estimates associating the share of Muslims with geographical variables. Observations are at the level of ethnic group, the sample is the Old World (Europe, Asia and Africa). In all specifications the dependent variable is the share of Muslims in 2005 from World Religion Database. Column (1) includes the constant (not reported), while the remaining columns include a set of country fixed effects.

The Supplementary Appendix gives detailed definitions, data sources and summary statistics for all variables. Standard errors in parentheses are clustered at the country level. ***, **, and * indicate statistical significance at the 1%, 5%, and 10% level, respectively.

Groups of people coming under the direct rule of a Muslim empire might face incentives for converting to Islam related to social mobility ( Bulliet, 1979 ), a career within a Muslim bureaucracy ( Eaton, 1996 ), or lower tax rates (Chaney, 2008). For example, the lower tax rates granted to Muslims over non-Muslims within Muslim Empires or the status achieved by switching to the ruler’s religion might differentially affect conversion rates. Likewise, instances of forced conversion, religious persecution during the Muslim expansion, or Arab migration movements within the Muslim empires might have shaped the observed religious affiliation. Hence, in Columns 1 and 2 of Table 3B , we divide the ethnic groups based on whether they have been within a Muslim empire as classified by Iyigun (2010) . An ethnic group is considered to be outside a Muslim empire if the country to which it belongs today has never been part of a Muslim empire. Both the negative relationship of Muslim adherence and distance to trade routes and the positive link with geographic inequality remain significant outside the former Muslim empires.

Table 3B reports OLS estimates associating the share of Muslims with geographical variables. Observations are at the level of ethnic group, the samples are partitions of the Old World (Europe, Asia and Africa). In Column 1 (2) the sample includes ethnic groups within (outside) the Muslim empires as classified by Iyigun (2010). In Column 3 (4) the sample is restricted to ethnic groups outside the Muslim empires where the dominant religion during the expansion of Islam was a non-monotheistic (monotheistic) one. In all specifications the dependent variable is the share of Muslims in 2005 from the World Religion Database.

It is clear that Europe traded with the Muslim world for centuries without large-scale conversions, indicating that there may be other factors at play than just access to the Islamic trade networks. Considering that monotheism was an attractive ideology compared to polytheism, regions outside the Muslim empires where monotheism was already present should be less receptive to the spread of Islam along trade routes. To explore this prediction, in Columns 3 and 4 of Table 3B , we focus on ethnic groups outside Muslim empires, further distinguishing between regions that were already monotheistic by 1050 CE as classified by O’Brien (1999) . Column 3 shows that limiting the sample to polytheistic areas during the diffusion of Islam, distance to trade routes is more precisely estimated. On the contrary, in Column 4 among the 172 groups where Christianity and Judaism were present by 1050 CE, proximity to trade routes negatively impacts Muslim representation suggesting that regions where monotheism was already in place found adherence to the Islamic institutional complex and access to the Muslim trade networks less beneficial.

The findings in Table 3B also raise the question whether the link between trade and religious adherence is particular to Islam. We tackle this issue by asking whether the identified relationship between Muslim representation and distance to trade routes systematically holds for other major religions. To facilitate comparisons in Column 1 of Table 4 , we replicate Column 5 of Table 3A where the dependent variable is the fraction of Muslims. In Columns 2, 3, and 4, we use as a dependent variable the percentage of people within an ethnic group adhering to three other major religions i.e., Christianity, Hinduism, and Buddhism, respectively. Lastly in Column 5, we use the fraction of the population adhering to local animistic, or shamanistic religions, known as Ethnoreligionists. The spatial distribution of these other religions does not seem to be influenced by the ancient trade routes. If anything Christians seem to be located further away from the pre-Islamic routes, a pattern mainly driven by groups in Asia and Africa.

Table 4 reports OLS estimates associating the share of different religions with geographical variables. Observations are at the level of ethnic group, the sample is the Old World (Europe, Asia and Africa). In all specifications the dependent variable is the share of the population belonging to a given religion in 2005 measured at ethnic group level from the World Religion Database. All columns include a set of country fixed effects.

These findings highlight the, until now, neglected crucial role of trade in shaping the differential adherence to Islam across ethnic groups and shed new light on the geographical origins and spatial distribution of Muslims within modern-day countries.

Robustness Checks

In the Appendix , we offer a series of sensitivity checks for the main pattern established in Tables ​ Tables1 1 and ​ and3A. 3A . First, in Columns 1 and 4 of Appendix Table 3 , we replicate the specifications reported in Columns 5 of Tables ​ Tables1 1 and ​ and3A 3A with the difference being that we replace the dependent variable with a dummy equal to one for countries/groups where Muslims are the absolute majority. The estimated coefficients suggest that a 1, 000-kilometer increase in the distance to pre-Islamic trade routes decreases the probability of finding a country (group within a country) with a Muslim majority by 16% (12%). Second, in Columns 2 and 5, we explore the non-linearity of proximity to pre-Islamic trade routes to capture the plausibly diminishing role of distance for regions further away from the trade hubs. The quadratic term on distance to pre-600 CE trade routes alternates in sign across levels of aggregation and is highly insignificant. This can be rationalized in different ways. First, this pattern may reflect the fact that despite our efforts to collect a comprehensive set of indicators regarding the presence of pre-Islamic regional trade opportunities (manifested in routes, roads, and ports) we are fully aware that measurement error in the mapping of ancient routes is non-trivial.

Second, an alternative interpretation of the non-significance of the quadratic term is that Muslims starting from the pre-600 CE trade network and continuing over the next 1, 000 years until the beginning of the European colonialism significantly expanded trade routes, adding myriad new connections and reaching vast areas in Sub-Saharan Africa and Asia. This implies that the network relevant for discerning a diminishing role of the proximity to trade routes on the spread of Islam is not the pre-600 CE one but the routes on the eve of the colonial era. To explore the empirical validity of this conjecture, we expanded our trade-routes dataset with information up to 1800 CE. Columns 3 and 6 of Appendix Table 3 clearly show that Muslim representation both across countries and across-groups within countries has a concave relationship with proximity to trade. Further increasing distance to pre-industrial trade hubs for regions already far from them has little bearing on their Muslim adherence. A note of caution is in order. Using data on trade routes after 600 CE implies that the empirical relationship cannot be unequivocally interpreted as it clearly reflects a two-way interplay from initial trade routes to the spread of Islam and from the latter to the further development of the trade network.

4. Mechanisms

So far, we have established a strong positive association between proximity to ancient trade routes and contemporary Muslim adherence and a positive link between geographically unequal regions and the presence of Muslim communities. In this section, we do two things. First, we investigate whether a group’s proximity to trade routes predicts its reliance on trade. Second, we open the black box of what inequality in land quality reflects, using contemporary data on land use and historical data on the subsistence pattern across groups.

Historical Trade Routes and Historical Dependence on Trade

Is it the case that groups closer to trade routes are more likely to engage in trade? Historical data on dependence on trade are notoriously difficult to come by. To the best of our knowledge, the only dataset that records the extent of trade at the group level in the pre-industrial era is the Standard Cross Cultural Sample (SCCS), which reports detailed information for 186 historical societies worldwide. 13 The entry we are interested in is the share of the overall subsistence needs that comes from trade ( v 819). Across the 121 societies in the Old World we compute the distance from their centroids (reported in the SCCS) to the closest trade routes before 600 CE and in 1800 CE.

In Table 5 , we report the results. The coefficient estimate on distance to the pre-600 CE trade routes is negative but statistically insignificant. The absence of significance is easy to understand. All but four of the SCCS societies were recorded by ethnographers after 1750 CE, which implies that their effective exposure to trade was that of the trade network as of 1800 and not the one of 600 CE. Indeed, when we replace the distance to 600 CE trade routes with the one of 1800 CE, a strong negative relationship emerges. Groups closer to the 1800 CE trade network consistently derive a larger share of subsistence from trade. Examples include the Javanese in Indonesia and the Rwala Bedouin, a large Arab tribe of northern Arabia and the Syrian Desert. Both groups are a mere 70 kilometers away from the trade routes and ports in 1800 CE and derived as much as 25% of their subsistence from trade. In Column 3, we drop the four SCCS societies that were documented by ethnographers before 1750, namely the Babylonians, the Hebrews, the Khmer, and the Romans, finding a similar pattern.

What Does Land Inequality Capture?

Our motivation for constructing the inequality in the distribution of agricultural potential across regions is that this statistic reflects the ecological conditions of the Arabian peninsula, the birthplace of Islam. Indeed, across the 36, 582 land quality observations in the Old World among the 1, 285 cells that belong to the Arabian Peninsula, the Gini coefficient of land quality is 0.87 with an average land quality of 0.03 whereas the statistics for the rest of the regions are 0.57 and 0.32, respectively. 14 In a stage of development when land quality dictates the productive structure of the economy, one would expect societies along unequally endowed territories to have a specific productive structure with herding dominating the arid and semi-arid regions and farming taking place in the few fertile ones. This was certainly the economic landscape of the pre-industrial Arabian peninsula. Below, we verify this link using historical and contemporary data across groups on the dependence on pastoralism and agriculture.

The data on land use come from Ramankutty et al. (2008) and provide at the grid level of 0.083 by 0.083 decimal degrees estimates on the share of land allocated to pasture and agriculture in 2000. We aggregate this information at the homeland level to obtain a measure of how tilted land allocation is towards pasture. The data on the historical traits across groups come from Murdock (1967) who produced an Ethnographic Atlas (published in twenty-nine installments in the anthropological journal Ethnology) that coded around 60 variables, capturing cultural, societal, and economic characteristics of 1, 270 ethnicities around the world. We linked Murdock’s Ethnographic Atlas groups to the Ethnologue’s linguistic homelands in the Old World. These two datasets do not always use the same name to identify a group. Utilizing several sources and the updated version of Murdock’s Atlas produced by Gray (1999) , we were able to identify the pre-colonial traits as recorded in the Ethnographic Atlas for 1, 210 linguistic homelands in the Ethnologue (2005) . 15

In the first three columns of Table 6 , the dependent variable is the log ratio of pastoral over agricultural area in 2000 across linguistic homelands. 16 All columns include country-specific constants. Within countries, groups residing along poor and unequally endowed regions display a larger land allocation towards animal husbandry compared to farming. Adding in Column 2 the geographic variables discussed above does not change the pattern. The only additional finding is that groups located in rugged regions are also more dependent on pastoralism than agriculture. In Column 3, we verify that Muslim groups today live in homelands that display this particular type of land use, i.e., a land allocation skewed against agriculture and in favor of pastoral activities.

Table 5 reports OLS estimates associating the relative importance of trade with distance to trade routes. Observations are at the level of a historical society, the sample is the Old World (Europe, Asia and Africa). In all specifications the dependent variable is the (log of 1 plus) share from trade in subsistence measured as reported in the Standard Cross Cultural Sample (SCCS). Column (3) excludes societies that were documented by ethnographers before 1750 (Babylonians, Hebrews, Khmer, and Romans).

Is it the case that groups residing in habitats where farming today is limited and herding significantly more common had a similar lopsided type of subsistence in the pre-industrial era? This is what we ask in Column 4 where the dependent variable is the log ratio of the share of subsistence derived from animal husbandry over agriculture as recorded in the Ethnographic Atlas. Groups that today allocate more of their land towards pastoralism also used to derive more of their livelihood from similar activities in the past, suggesting the persistence in the structure of production across groups.

In Columns 5 to 7, we replicate the pattern shown in Columns 1 to 3 with the difference being that on the left hand side of the equation, instead of the contemporary land allocation, we use the log ratio of the historical subsistence share from animal husbandry relative to agriculture. Groups residing in homelands of limited potential for agriculture dotted with few pockets of fertile land also used to obtain more from herding and less from agricultural products in the pre-colonial era. Adding the geographical covariates in Column 6 reveals that the presence of desert and of regions with irrigation potential also skew subsistence towards animal husbandry. Finally, in Column 7, we show that indeed Muslim groups are those that historically were more dependent on pastoralism and less on farming, corroborating one of the long-standing themes in the environmental history of Islamic Eurasia and North Africa, namely, the interface between the steppe and the sown ( Mikhail, 2012 ).

In this environment where each area specializes in its comparative advantage (farmers on the fertile pockets and herders on the relatively arid ones), a larger geographical Gini coefficient may correspond to larger potential gains from trade. Richerson (1996) , for example, observes that “despite the emphasis on animals, most herders are dependent on crop staples for part of their caloric intake … procured by client agricultural families that are often part of the society and the presence of specialized tradesmen that organize the exchange of agricultural products for animal products.” This suggests that an exchange economy may be more vibrant within a community of many herders and few farmers. To shed light on this conjecture, we rely on the Standard Cross Cultural Sample (SCCS). Specifically, in Column 8 of Table 6 , we ask whether societies relying more on pastoralism relative to agriculture also derive more of their subsistence needs from trade; across the 186 ethnographic societies worldwide, this is indeed the case. Overall, the results in Table 6 reveal how the specific geographic endowments of Muslim homelands give rise to a distinct specialization pattern: a pastoral economy with few farmers where trade is important.

Why Ecological Similarity to the Arabian Peninsula Matters for the Spread of Islam

At first blush, showing that Muslim regions are ecologically similar to the birthplace of Islam, i.e., the Arabian peninsula, is consistent with various interpretations.

First, Michalopoulos (2012) argues that cultural groups have location-specific human capital derived from the type of geography they inhabit. Hence, when members of such groups leave their group’s homeland they are likely to target regions that are productively similar to their ancestral territories to ensure transferability of their skills. For example, early farmers and pastoralists moving out of the Fertile Crescent on the eve of the Neolithic Revolution follow this pattern of dispersal, i.e., farmers moving to land suitable for agriculture and herders targeting landscapes appropriate for animal husbandry. One may apply a similar reasoning to the diffusion of Islam. Since the productive toolset of early Muslims was fine-tuned to the arid landscapes of the Arabian Peninsula, seeing Muslims migrating to lands similar to their ancestral regions can be easily rationalized.

Second, Bulliet (1975) convincingly argues that one crucial element for understanding the spread of Muslim empires is the use of the camel that provided the Arab armies a military edge over their rivals. So, terrains suitable for deploying the camel would be more easily conquered whereas others would remain beyond the reach of Muslim rulers. Chaney (2012) shows empirically how a desert ecosystem is indeed predictive of the Arab conquests and Muslim adherence across countries today.

Both of these arguments are very relevant for understanding the spread of Islam in places that experienced either a Muslim conqueror and/or a significant influx of Muslims. Nevertheless, in many of the cases discussed in the historical section, Islam was often voluntarily adopted by the local rulers in absence of significant Muslim population movements. What arguments may then rationalize the voluntary adoption of Islam across geographically unequal regions? Below we offer some tentative explanations.

Islam, Trade, and Unequal Geography

We offer two complementary accounts that high-light the pro-trade stance of Islam. The first derives from the observation that historically within geographically unequal societies trade is likely to play an important role for subsistence (see Column 8 of Table 6 ). Hence, to the extent that Islam offered an institutional framework promoting exchange, groups across geographically unequal territories would have an added incentive to convert. Several Islamicists have stressed the pro-trade elements of the Muslim institutional complex. According to Cohen (1971) , “[Islam is a] blue-print of a politico-economic organization which has overcome the many basic technical problems of trade.” Trade called for new types of economic organization that required stronger authority ( Davidson, 1969 ). An important advantage of Islam with respect to previous arrangements was the fact that it offered a powerful ideology with built-in sanctions that created non-material interest in holding to the terms of contracts ( Ensminger, 1997 ). This common platform allegedly generated trust and contributed to the reduction in transaction costs while doing business with fellow Muslims.

Second, in our companion paper, Michalopoulos, Naghavi, and Prarolo (2016) , we advance theoretically a related hypothesis where the Islamic economic rules arise to mitigate social tensions across Arabia’s tribes exposed to long-distance trade opportunities during the 7th century CE. In a nutshell, we argue that trade diversion over Arabia created new potential economic benefits for the scattered oases by transforming them to trade hubs providing services to the trading community ( Watt, 1961 ). Caravans, however, for thousands of miles were constantly exposed to raids by the Bedouins, who made up a considerable fraction of the population at that time ( Berkey, 2003 ). In this historical backdrop, we hypothesize that Islamic rules were devised in response to the costly nature of predation between the Bedouins and oasis dwellers, offering a framework whose redistributive principies safeguarded exchange over numerous and heterogeneous tribal territories ( Bogle, 1998 ). 17

This view of Islam as an institutional package engineered to allow the flourishing of long-distance trade across unequally endowed regions generates an auxiliary prediction: Islam should be able to gain a hearing more readily across unequal territories close to trade routes. Empirically, this can be tested by adding the interaction between distance to trade routes and ports and the degree of geographic inequality. Columns 1 and 2 of Table 7 are country-level regressions and Columns 3 and 4 focus on ethnic groups within countries. Across both units of aggregation the interaction term enters with a negative sign and it is statistically significant. 18 The point estimates in Specification 1 suggest that the effect of land inequality on Muslim adherence across countries becomes insignificant for countries farther than 650 kilometers from the trade routes as of 600 CE, pointing to the differential incentives to convert to Islam among geographically unequal regions in the vicinity of historical trade routes.

Table 7 reports OLS estimates associating the share of Muslims with geographical variables. Observations are at the level of countries (columns 1 and 2) or ethnic groups (columns 3 and 4). The sample is the Old World (Europe, Asia and Africa). In columns 1 and 2 the dependent variable is the share of Muslims in 1900 across countries from McCleary and Barro (2005), while in columns 3 and 4 the dependent variable is the share of Muslims across ethnic groups from the World Religion Database (WRD). Controls are Distance to Mecca, Distance to the Coast, Absolute Latitude, Ln Average Land Quality, Ln Land Area, Ln Ruggedness, Irrigation Potential Indicator and Presence of Desert Indicator.

The Supplementary Appendix gives detailed definitions, data sources and summary statistics for all variables. Columns 1 and 2 (3 and 4) include a set of continental (country) fixed effects. Standard errors, in parentheses, are robust to heteroscedasticity (columns 1 and 2) and clustered at the country level (columns 3 and 4). ***, **, and * indicate statistical significance at the 1%, 5%, and 10% level, respectively.

Although the decline in the predictive power of inequality in agricultural endowments farther from trade routes is consistent with the proposed view that Islamic rules were better suited for geographically unequal communities close to the trade network, it is far from a proof. To establish that converting to Islam indeed facilitated trade and changed the groups’ institutional framework – increasing redistribution and mitigating conflict – one would need data before and after Islamization. Cross-sectional variation only cannot shed light on whether converting to Islam changed the underlying institutional structure, or if groups that already had traits similar to what the Islamic scriptures prescribed found it easier to become Muslim. Taking these qualifiers into account in the Appendix we show that Muslim groups are different from non-Muslim ones in some of their institutional and societal arrangements. Specifically, in Appendix Table 4 we show that Muslim societies as recorded by ethnographers in the Old World are more likely to be politically centralized, harbor beliefs in moral gods, and follow equitable inheritance rules. Moreover, a strong link between an unequal geography and social stratification is present across non-Muslim groups but muted across Muslim ones.

5. Conclusion

In this study we examine the historical roots of Muslim adherence within as well as across countries. First, we digitize and combine a multitude of historical sources, to construct detailed proxies of ancient, pre-Islamic trade routes, harbors, and ports and show that regions in the vicinity of such locations are systematically more likely to be Muslim today. We view this finding as offering large-scale econometric support to a widely held conjecture among prominent Islamicists like Lapidus (2002) , Berkey (2003) , and Lewis (1993) , and complement this empirical regularity with historical accounts illustrating the importance of trade contacts in the process of Islamization of various prominent locations in Africa and Asia.

Second, we establish that Muslim communities tend to reside in habitats that are ecologically similar to those of the Arabian Peninsula, the birthplace of Islam. Specifically, we show that Muslim homelands are dominated by arid and semi-arid lands where animal husbandry is the norm, and dotted with few niches of fertile land where farming is feasible. Overall, a poor and unequal distribution of agricultural potential predicts Muslim adherence. We discuss the various mechanisms that may give rise to this phenomenon and offer evidence consistent with the view of Islam as an institutional package appropriate for societies residing along unequally endowed regions in the vicinity of trade opportunities.

The empirical analysis is conducted across countries and across ethnic groups within countries. Exploring within-country variation is crucial in our context given the intimate relationship between country formation and religious identity. Across both levels of aggregation, there is a robust link between proximity to pre-Islamic trade routes, geographic inequality, and Muslim representation. The identified pattern is unique to the Muslim denomination and it obtains for regions that historically have not been part of a Muslim empire. Overall, the empirical analysis highlights the prominent role of history in shaping the contemporary spatial distribution of Muslim societies.

We view these findings as a stepping stone for further research. For example, focusing on specific regions where historical data may be available, one may explore time variation in the speed at which Islam made inroads to the respective communities. Moreover, one element we do not touch upon is why religious beliefs – once adopted – persist over time. Insights from the rapidly growing theoretical and empirical literature on the persistence of beliefs and attitudes may shed light on this phenomenon (see Bisin and Verdier, 2000 ; and Voigtlander and Voth, 2012 ). Finally, having identified some of the forces behind the formation and spread of Islam, one might examine the economic and political consequences for the short-run and the long-run development of the Muslim world (see Michalopoulos, Naghavi, and Prarolo, 2016 ). We plan to address some of these issues in subsequent research.

Table 6 reports OLS estimates associating (contemporary and historical) measures of dependence on pastoralism and agriculture with land inequality, adherence to Islam and other historical and geographic variables. The dependent variable in columns 1 to 3 is the log ratio of pastoral to agricultural lands from Ramankutty et al., 2008. The log ratio of historical subsistence of pastoral to agricultural share, from Murdock’s Ethnographic Atlas is the dependent variable in columns 4 to 7 and the (log +1) share of subsistence from trade from the SCCS dataset in column 8. Observations are at the ethnic group level in columns 1 to 7 and at the level of historical societies in column 8. The sample used is the Old-World part of the Ethnologue (columns 1 to 3), its intersection with the Murdock’s Ethnographic Atlas (columns 4 to 7) and all groups in the Standard Cross Cultural Sample in column 8.

The Supplementary Appendix gives detailed definitions, data sources and summary statistics for all variables. Columns 1 to 7 include a set of country fixed effects with errors clustered at the country level in parentheses, while those of column 8 are robust to heteroscedasticity. ***, **, and * indicate statistical significance at the 1%, 5%, and 10% level, respectively.

Supplementary Material

Appendix table 1 -.

Appendix Table 1, Panel A, reports summary statistics for the main variables employed in the empirical analysis at the county level. Panel B gives the correlation structure of these variables.

The Supplementary Appendix gives detailed variable definitions and data sources.

Appendix Table 2 -

Appendix Table 2, Panel A, reports summary statistics for the main variables employed in the empirical analysis at the ethnic group level. Panel B gives the correlation structure of these variables.

Appendix Table 3 -

Appendix Table 3 reports OLS estimates associating measures of Muslim adherence with geographical variables. Observations are at the level of countries (columns 1 to 3) or ethnic group (columns 4 to 6), the sample is the Old World (Europe, Asia and Africa). In column 1 (4) the dependent variable is a dummy equal to one if the share of Muslim in the country (ethnic group) in 1900 (2005) is greater than 50%, from McCleary and Barro (2005) (World Religion Database). In columns 2 and 3 the dependent variable is the share of Muslim population in 1900 measured at country level, while in columns 5 and 6 the dependent variable is the share of Muslim population in 2005 at the ethnic group level. Included controls are Distance to Mecca, Distance to the Coast, Absolute Latitude, Ln Average Land Quality, Ln Land Area, Ln Ruggedness, an Irrigation Potential Indicator and the Presence of Desert Indicator.

The Supplementary Appendix gives detailed variable definitions, data sources and summary statistics for all variables. Columns 1 to 3 (4 to 6) include a set of continental (country) fixed effects. Standard errors, in parentheses, are robust to heteroscedasticity (columns 1 to 3) and clustered at the country level (columns 4 to 6). ***, **, and * indicate statistical significance at the 1%, 5%, and 10% level, respectively.

Appendix Table 4 -

Appendix Table 4 reports OLS estimates associating Muslim adherence across groups to various societal traits and geographical variables. In column 1 the dependent variable is the degree of jurisdictional hierarchy beyond the local community level. In column 2 the dependent variable is a dummy reflecting whether the local gods are supportive of human morality. In columns 3 to 5 the dependent variable is an indicator whether a group is socially stratified and in columns 6 and 7 the dependent variable reflects whether there is egalitarian inheritance with respect to movable and land property, respectively. In column 4 (5) the sample is restricted to ethnic groups with a share of Muslim population above 95% (below 10%). Observations are at the ethnicity level and the sample comprises of groups in the Old World for which we have created a correspondence between the Ethnologue and the Murdock’s Ethnographic Atlas. Controls are Absolute Latitude, Ln Average Land Quality, Ln Land Area, Ln Ruggedness, an Irrigation Potential Indicator and Presence of Desert Indicator.

The Supplementary Appendix gives detailed variable definitions, data sources and summary statistics for all variables. Standard errors in parentheses are clustered at the country level. ***, **, and * indicate statistical significance at the 1%, 5%, and 10% level, respectively.

1 Traslation by Dr. Muhammad Taqi-ud-Din Al-Hilali and Dr. Muhammad Muhsin Khan in 1999.

2 See Barro and McCleary (2006a , 2006b ) for an overview and Barro and McCleary (2003) , La Porta et al. (1997) , Martin, Doppelhofer, and Miller (2004) , and Pryor (2007) , among others for mixed evidence of the impact of religion on economic indicators.

3 All distance measures are constructed in the following manner. We generate a grid of 0.5 by 0.5 decimal degrees and intersect the resulting cells with the country and homeland boundaries. We then calculate the distance from the centroid of each cell within the country/homeland to the nearest feature. To arrive at a single distance term for each unit of aggregation, we take the mean value of the distances across the cells that fall within the country/ethnic homeland borders. This procedure is more accurate than using only the country’ or homeland’s centroid. Moreover, using the minimum or the maximum distance instead of the mean distance to the attributes of interest delivers noisier coefficients.

4 WRD classifies as Muslims the followers of Islam in its two main branches (with schools of law, rites or sects): Sunnis or Sunnites (Hanafite, Hanbalite, Malikite, Shafiite) and Shias or Shiites (Ithna Ashari, Ismaili, Alawite, and Zaydi); also Kharijite and other orthodox sects; reform movements (Wahhabi, Sanusi, Mahdiya); also heterodox sects (Ahmadiya, Druzes, Yazidis); but excludes syncretistic religions with Muslim elements and partially Islamized tribal religionists.

5 Hsu et al. (2008) show that the country level estimates for Muslim representation in WRD are highly correlated (above 0.97) with similar statistics available from World Values Survey, Pew Global Assessment Project, CIA World Factbook, and the U.S. Department of State. At the ethnic group level, there are no comparable statistics.

6 For some language groups in WLMS (2006) the WRD offers information at the subgroup level. In this case the religious affiliation is the average across the subgroups.

7 In the online Appendix , we discuss in detail the components of the land quality index and present the sources of the data used in the empirical analysis.

8 We focus on countries with at least three regional observations of land quality to ensure that our findings are not driven by countries with limited regional coverage. Using the Muslim representation in 2000 as the dependent variable, the coefficients of interest are larger and more precisely estimated. Presumably this is because earlier estimates of religious affiliation are noisier.

9 We follow Bentzen, Kaarsen, and Wingender (2016) and define the irrigation potential of an area as land that is classified in irrigation Impact Class 5. Impact Class 5 are those cells where irrigation can more than double agricultural yields. Out of the 127 countries, 72% have some irrigation potential whereas 28% of countries feature no such cells.

10 We follow Hsiang (2013) to visually display the uncertainty of the regression estimates in Figures ​ Figures3 3 and ​ and4 4 .

11 Similar to the cross-country regressions, we focus on ethnic groups with at least three regional land quality observations. Using all ethnic groups irrespective of the underlying geographic coverage does not change the results.

12 The results presented here are OLS estimates with the standard errors clustered at the country level. Adjusting for spatial autocorrelation following Conley (1999) delivers more conservative standard errors.

13 The SCCS comprises ethnographically well-documented societies, selected by George P. Murdock and Douglas R. White, published in the journal Ethnology in 1969, and followed by several publications that coded the SCCS societies for many different types of societal characteristics.

14 The Arabian Peninsula consists of the following 9 contemporary countries: Yemen, Oman, Iraq, Jordan, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates.

15 Unlike the SCCS dataset, Murdock’s Ethnographie Atlas does not have information on trade-related traits.

16 Note that the number of groups in Columns 1 to 3 is 2, 845 instead of the 3,181 covered in Table 3 . This is because for 336 linguistic homelands the allocation of land either towards farming or towards pasture in 2000 is 0 so the log of their ratio is not well defined.

17 The link between the structure of production, institutional formation and religion can be readily glimpsed in the works of Ibn Khaldun (1377) and Marx (1833 [1970]) . Ibn Khaldun (1377) notes that “it is the physical environment-habitat, climate, soil, and food, that explain the different ways in which people, nomadic or sedentary, satisfy their needs, and form their customs and institutions,” whereas Marx (1833 [1970]) highlights that religion, like any other social institution, is a by-product of the society’s productive forces.

18 Note that when we use the trade network before 1800 CE the direct effect of distance to trade routes also reflects reverse causality. Nevertheless, irrespective of who set up the routes, we may still explore whether it is unequally endowed regions that are differentially impacted.

* We would like to thank the Editor and three anonymous referees for their valuable comments. We have also benefited from discussions with several colleagues and comments from numerous seminars and conferences.

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Visiting Sleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion?

You must join the virtual exhibition queue when you arrive. If capacity has been reached for the day, the queue will close early.

Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History Essays

The birth of islam.

"Muhammad's Call to Prophecy and the First Revelation", Folio from a Majma' al-Tavarikh (Compendium of Histories)

Hafiz-i Abru

"Journey of the Prophet Muhammad", Folio from the Majma al-Tavarikh (Compendium of Histories)

"The Mi'raj or The Night Flight of Muhammad on his Steed Buraq", Folio 3v from a Bustan of Sa`di

• Sultan Muhammad Nur

Futuh al-Haramain (Description of the Holy Cities)

Muhi al-Din Lari

"Prophet Muhammad Preaching", Folio from a Maqtal-i Al-i Rasul of Lami'i Chelebi

Lami'i Chelebi

Suzan Yalman Department of Education, The Metropolitan Museum of Art

based on original work by Linda Komaroff

October 2001

Born in Mecca, in western Arabia, Muhammad (ca. 570–632), last in the line of Judeo-Christian prophets, received his first revelation in 610. Muslims believe that the word of God was revealed to him by the archangel Gabriel in Arabic, who said, “Recite in the name of thy Lord …” (Sura 96). These revelations were subsequently collected and codified as the Qur’an (literally “recitation” in Arabic), the Muslim holy book. As the source of Muslim faith and practice, the Qur’an describes the relationship between an almighty and all-knowing God and his creations. The Qur’an also maintains that all individuals are responsible for their actions, for which they will be judged by God, and so it provides guidelines for proper behavior within the framework of a just and equitable society.

At this time, Mecca was a prosperous city whose wealth and influence were based on the caravan trade and on the Ka‘ba, a shrine and a place of pilgrimage housing the pagan deities then being worshipped by the Arabs. Muhammad’s message, heralding a new socio-religious order based on allegiance to one god—Allah—was unpopular among the leaders of Mecca, and they forced Muhammad and his followers to emigrate north to the oasis town Yathrib (Medina). This occurred in 622, the year of the hijra , or “emigration,” which marks the beginning of the Muslim calendar. In Medina, Muhammad continued to attract followers and, within a few years, Mecca had also largely embraced Islam. Upon his return to Mecca, one of the Prophet’s first acts was to cleanse the Ka‘ba of its idols and rededicate the shrine to Allah.

Although Muhammad died in 632, his followers, led by a series of four caliphs (Arabic: khalifa , “successor”) known as the Rightly Guided, continued to spread the message of Islam. Under their command, the Arab armies carried the new faith and leadership from the Arabian Peninsula to the shores of the Mediterranean and to the eastern reaches of Iran. The Arabs conquered Syria, Palestine, and Egypt from the Byzantine empire , while Iraq and Iran, the heart of the Sasanian empire , succumbed to their forces. Here in these lands, Islam fostered the development of a religious, political, and cultural commonwealth and the creation of a global empire.

While the full formation of a distinctive Islamic artistic language took several centuries, the seeds were sown during the Prophet’s time. Because it is through writing that the Qur’an is transmitted, the Arabic script was first transformed and beautified in order that it might be worthy of divine revelation. Thus, calligraphy started to gain prominence, becoming essential also to Islamic ornament . In architecture, following the hijra , Muhammad’s house in Medina developed into a center for the Muslim community and became the prototype for the mosque, the Muslim sanctuary for God. The early structure, known as the hypostyle mosque, included a columned hall oriented toward Mecca and an adjacent courtyard surrounded by a colonnade. The call to prayer was given from a rooftop (later the minaret was developed for this purpose). Essential elements of the mosque were a minbar (pulpit) for the Friday sermon and a mihrab (prayer niche) set in the wall oriented toward Mecca.

Yalman, Suzan. Based on original work by Linda Komaroff. “The Birth of Islam.” In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History . New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000–. http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/isla/hd_isla.htm (October 2001)

Further Reading

Grabar, Oleg. The Formation of Islamic Art . Rev. and enl. ed. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1987.

Hodgson, Marshall G. S. The Venture of Islam . 3 vols. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1974.

Additional Essays by Suzan Yalman

• Yalman, Suzan. “ The Art of the Abbasid Period (750–1258) .” (October 2001)
• Yalman, Suzan. “ The Art of the Safavids before 1600 .” (October 2002)
• Yalman, Suzan. “ The Art of the Ayyubid Period (ca. 1171–1260) .” (October 2001)
• Yalman, Suzan. “ The Art of the Fatimid Period (909–1171) .” (October 2001)
• Yalman, Suzan. “ The Art of the Ilkhanid Period (1256–1353) .” (October 2001)
• Yalman, Suzan. “ The Art of the Mamluk Period (1250–1517) .” (October 2001)
• Yalman, Suzan. “ The Art of the Seljuq Period in Anatolia (1081–1307) .” (October 2001)
• Yalman, Suzan. “ The Art of the Seljuqs of Iran (ca. 1040–1157) .” (October 2001)
• Yalman, Suzan. “ The Art of the Umayyad Period (661–750) .” (October 2001)
• Yalman, Suzan. “ The Age of Süleyman “the Magnificent” (r. 1520–1566) .” (October 2002)
• Yalman, Suzan. “ The Art of the Ottomans before 1600 .” (October 2002)
• Yalman, Suzan. “ The Art of the Timurid Period (ca. 1370–1507) .” (October 2002)

Additional Essays by Linda Komaroff

• Komaroff, Linda. “ The Art of the Abbasid Period (750–1258) .” (October 2001)
• Komaroff, Linda. “ The Art of the Safavids before 1600 .” (October 2002)
• Komaroff, Linda. “ The Art of the Ayyubid Period (ca. 1171–1260) .” (October 2001)
• Komaroff, Linda. “ The Art of the Ilkhanid Period (1256–1353) .” (October 2001)
• Komaroff, Linda. “ The Art of the Seljuqs of Iran (ca. 1040–1157) .” (October 2001)
• Komaroff, Linda. “ The Art of the Umayyad Period (661–750) .” (October 2001)
• Komaroff, Linda. “ The Age of Süleyman “the Magnificent” (r. 1520–1566) .” (October 2002)
• Komaroff, Linda. “ The Art of the Timurid Period (ca. 1370–1507) .” (October 2002)

Related Essays

• Calligraphy in Islamic Art
• Early Qur’ans (8th–Early 13th Century)
• Islamic Arms and Armor
• The Nature of Islamic Art
• Trade and the Spread of Islam in Africa
• Tiraz : Inscribed Textiles from the Early Islamic Period
• The Age of Süleyman “the Magnificent” (r. 1520–1566)
• The Art of the Almoravid and Almohad Periods (ca. 1062–1269)
• The Art of the Fatimid Period (909–1171)
• The Art of the Ilkhanid Period (1256–1353)
• The Art of the Mughals before 1600
• The Art of the Ottomans before 1600
• The Art of the Safavids before 1600
• Artists of the Saqqakhana Movement
• Astronomy and Astrology in the Medieval Islamic World
• Byzantine Art under Islam
• The Damascus Room
• Figural Representation in Islamic Art
• Geometric Patterns in Islamic Art
• Glass Ornaments in Late Antiquity and Early Islam (ca. 500–1000)
• The Religious Arts under the Ilkhanids
• Trade and Commercial Activity in the Byzantine and Early Islamic Middle East
• Turkmen Jewelry
• Vegetal Patterns in Islamic Art
• The Year One

List of Rulers

• List of Rulers of the Islamic World
• List of Rulers of the Sasanian Empire
• Anatolia and the Caucasus, 500–1000 A.D.
• Arabian Peninsula, 500–1000 A.D.
• The Eastern Mediterranean, 500–1000 A.D.
• Egypt, 500–1000 A.D.
• Iran, 500–1000 A.D.
• Iraq (Mesopotamia), 500–1000 A.D.
• Western North Africa (The Maghrib), 500–1000 A.D.
• The Arabian Peninsula
• 10th Century A.D.
• 7th Century A.D.
• 8th Century A.D.
• 9th Century A.D.
• Ancient Near Eastern Art
• Arabian Peninsula
• Architectural Element
• Architecture
• Calligraphy
• Central and North Asia
• Eastern Mediterranean
• Gilt Silver
• Islamic Art
• Islamic Art in the Early Period
• North Africa
• Qur’an / Koran
• Religious Art
• Sasanian Art

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Introduction to Islam: An Online Text

M. Cherif Bassiouni

Introduction

The purpose of this book is to convey to a non-Muslim audience an understanding of Islam, its history, culture, and contribution to civilization.

The mix of an easy-to-read text and visual representations including maps, charts, pictures, and drawings with informative captions explains the important message of Islam in a way that the reader will hopefully find thoughtful and appealing. Relevant verses of the Qur'an and sayings of the Prophet (Hadith) have been included where appropriate, as support for the narrative, and their interspersing sets out their relevant importance. The Arabic text of the Qur'an was also included because no translation can do it justice.

Most of the Qur'an quotes were translated by me in reliance upon several published translations, especially The Holy Qur'an translated by Abdullah Yusuf Ali (Khalil Al-Rawaf, 1946). My translation was done with a view to make the non-Arabic reader better understand the intended meaning.

This is both an informative and an artistic book which covers many aspects of Islam: religious, historical, geographic, social, legal, political, economic, cultural, scientific, and artistic. These aspects are dealt with in a way which at times may seem cursory but this does not forsake accuracy or depth.

The primary goal of this book is to inform those who know little or nothing about Islam and to enhance their understanding. As an educator that is all I can ask for and as a Muslim, that is all I can aspire to. But as a member of the family of humankind I would feel gratified if this book can lead to a better understanding among peoples of the world and thus contribute to peace and harmony in our universe. Whether all or some of these expectations will be fulfilled is some thing the reader will have to judge.

M. Cherif Bassiouni Chicago, September 1988-H. 1409

In the Beginning

The religion of islam, islamic law - the shariah, schools of thought in islam, the social system and morality of islam, economic aspects of islam, islamic civilization, the present and the future, about the author, acknowledgements.

It is estimated that there are over 900 million Muslims today. Many live in the Arab World (estimated at 120 million), but many more live in countries such as Iran, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia, China, the USSR, Nigeria, Cameroon, Chad, and Sudan. An estimated 3 million Muslims reside in the United States.

The world's three monotheistic faiths—Judaism, Christianity, and Islam—were born and developed in that small region called the Middle East. Abraham was born in the city of Ur, Mesopotamia (Iraq), some 1900 years before Jesus was born in Bethlehem (Palestine). Muhammad was born in Mecca (Saudi Arabia) in 570 A.D. Moses lived in Egypt, as did Jesus for a brief period in his infancy; Muhammad traveled throughout the Arabian Peninsula.

The Middle East straddles Africa and Asia Minor It is bordered on the north from Turkey to Tunisia by the Mediterranean. To the southeast it is bordered by the Indian Ocean, which encircles the Arabian Peninsula, and to the east by the mountains of Iran and Turkey. To the west of Egypt lies the Sahara Desert. The races which inhabited these territories were the Semites, Hammites, Aryans, and the Indo-Europeans.

The Middle East region is the cradle of all the ancient civilizations. The oldest of these civilizations, the Egyptian, extended over five millennia. The fourth millennium B.C. witnessed the birth of the great civilizations along the Tigris-Euphrates valley (Turkey, Syria, Iraq). The Nile-centered Egyptian civilization was largely self-contained; those of the Tigris-Euphrates valley had more frequent contacts with other civilizations. As a result, they were periodically transformed as they came in contact with different cultures and peoples. The most important of these ancient civilizations were the Sumerian, Mesopotamian, Babylonian, Assyrian, Assyro-Babylonian, Aramean, Phoenician, Carthagenian, Canaanite, Hebrew, Philistine, Chaldean, Hurrian, Hittite, Kassite, and Mitani. Their peoples spoke a number of languages including Akkadian, Aramaic, Syriac, Sumerian, Hebrew (the language of the Torah), and Arabic (the language of the Qur'an).

In the first century BC the Greeks and then the Romans through conquest established their presence in the region. Then from the seventh to the eighteenth centuries AD the Arabs extended their presence to Europe and Asia. The ebb and flow of their conquests enriched the cultures with which they came in contact through the intermingling of peoples and the transfer of values and knowledge. The richness of Arab Islamic culture in the arts and sciences and the dissemination of Arab Islamic culture throughout the Mediterranean basin and Asia Minor and into Europe and portions of Asia and Africa has served to make it one of the foundations of today's civilizations.

He it is who created the heavens and the earth in six days; then mounted the throne. He knoweth all that entereth therefrom and all that cometh down from the sky and that ascendeth therein; and He is with you wheresoever ye may be. And Allah is Seer of what ye do. Qur'an 57:4

Prophet Muhammad and the Birth of Islam

The word "Islam" is derived from the same root as the words salaam (peace) and silm (the condition of peace). Islam means to abandon oneself in peace. A Muslim, consequently, is one who in peace gives or surrenders himself or herself to God. Islam means accepting the faith freely—heart, mind, and soul. Surrendering to Islam, as a result, means giving oneself to belief without reservation, accepting the tenets of faith, and following both the letter and the spirit of the Qur'an's prescriptions.

Abraham, also called "The Patriarch," is the most important of the early prophets to the Jews, Christians, and Muslims. He founded, in what is now Mecca, the first temple in the world for the worship of a single god. He was also the father of lsma'il (Ishmael) and Ishaq (Isaac). The descendants of Isaac ultimately formed what became the Hebrew tribes. The tribes of the Arabian Peninsula, the descendants of Isma'il, were the first people to become Muslims.

Until the 7th century the entire area of the Arabian Peninsula bordered on the west by the Red Sea, on the east by the Gulf, on the south by the Indian Ocean and on the north by the Fertile Crescent (now Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, portions of Palestine and Jordan) was inhabited for the most part by nomadic tribes. There were three Jewish tribes in Yathrib near Madina and others in Yemen. There were also a few Christians in the north and west of the Peninsula and in Yemen. Most of the inhabitants, however, were pagans. Muhammad was known to meditate in the solitude of the desert. He frequently visited a cave called Hira just outside Mecca. During one of his meditations—he was 40 years old at the time—he received the first of his revelations from God. The Qur'an identifies the bearer of the message as the angel Gabriel, who commanded the Prophet Muhammad to read. When Muhammad responded that he didn't know how, Gabriel replied, "Read in the name of your Lord Who created man from a clot of blood..." In this way Muhammad became the bearer of the divine message.

Proclaim! (or Read!) In the name of thy Lord and Cherisher, Who created— Created man, out of a (mere) clot of congealed blood: Proclaim! And thy Lord is Most Bountiful,— He Who taught (the use of) the Pen... Qur'an 96:1-5

In Islam there can be no confusion or doubt that Muhammad was a man, and only a man, chosen by the Creator to fulfill a divine mission as a prophet. Muhammad's mission was literally to "read" what Allah had ordered and ordained, nothing more. The Prophet received his revelations from God, sometimes in solitude sometimes in the presence of others. Words flowed from his mouth in a way that others described as inspired. This was Muhammad's wahy (divine inspiration or revelation). Muslims believe that the Qur'an is the Word of Allah expressed through the revelations to the Prophet.

Among the Arab tribes, the most powerful and noble was the Quraysh, into which Muhammad ibn 'Abd Allah ibn 'Abd al-Muttalib was born on Monday at dawn on the 12th of Rabi' Awal (the year 571 in the common era calendar). That year was known as the year of the Elephant—the year the Abyssinians invaded Mecca to destroy the Ka'ba. The year received its name from the fact that the army of the Abyssinians was supported by elephants!

According to tradition, the Prophet Muhammad is a direct descendent of Ishma'el, the son of Abraham. Muhammad's mission was presaged by the deliverance of his father, 'Abd Allah, after he had been chosen for sacrifice. The story is this. 'Abd Allah had nine brothers, but he was the favorite son. His father 'Abd al-Muttalib was in charge of the well of the pilgrims. When the water of the well, Zamzam, dried up, he was at a loss as to what to do. He was advised to make offerings to the gods of one of his sons. Muhammad's father was chosen by lot. Reluctant to carry out the act, 'Abd Allah's father beseeched the pagan priests to spare his favorite son. They suggested that camels be offered in his stead. It took one hundred camels to satisfy the gods. The well filled again, and the life of 'Abd Allah was spared. This recalls the saying of the Prophet: "I am the son of the sacrificed..."

After his birth, as was the custom of the Arabs, Muhammad was given to a wet nurse, a nomad named Halimah as-Sa'diyah, to learn the ways of the desert early on in life. She recounted the following story about the Prophet. When the boy was four years old, two men dressed in white came, took the child, and removed something black from his chest. This story is often used to interpret Surah 94, Verses 1-3, of the Qur'an, which reads: "Have we not Expanded thee thy breast?, And removed from thee thy burden, the which did gall Thy back?"

At the age six, Muhammad lost his mother, Aminah of the clan of az-Zuhrah. 'Abd al-Muttalib cared for him until the age of eight. His uncle, Abu Talib raised him, and taught him caravan trade after the death of his grandfather. Over the years Muhammad earned the name al-Amin—the honest—for his rare qualities of character.

The history of the Prophet, his deeds and sayings, were at first memorized by his companions and passed on as oral record. They were first comprehensively recorded by the historian Ishaq ibn Yasar (ca. 768). Later the deeds and sayings of the Prophet (the Hadith), the circumstances surrounding their occurrence, and the evidence of those who first witnessed and reported them to others were recorded by a number of scholars. The most authoritative is al-Bukhari. His text is still relied upon today.

Interior of the Dome of the Rock, Jerusalem. The uppermost inscription in the dome is a Qur'anic verse which begins, "God there is no god but He, the Living, the Self-Subsisting Eternal...." The lower inscription, above the windows, records the restoration of the building by Saladin in the late 12th century. (Aramco World Magazine, September-October 1996; photo Peter Sanders). The Spread of lslam

After discussing his message secretly with his wife, Khadijah, his cousin Ali, and his friend Abu Bakr, the Prophet decided in the year 622 to leave Mecca, where he had lived in some danger. He migrated to Yathrib (later Madina), whose inhabitants had invited him to come and spread his message. For this reason the history of the Islamic community is considered to have been formally born on the night of the hejira, the night of migration, when the Prophet departed Mecca for Madina. The city became the caliphate seat until Damascus replaced it in the year 661. The people of Madina embraced Islam, and gradually, through a series of both military engagements and acts of diplomacy, Muhammad was able to reenter Mecca and to spread the word of Islam throughout the Arabian Peninsula.

The beginning of the risala, the message from a transcendental perspective, might be said to have begun with Creation, which is when God ordained things to be. From a temporal perspective, however, it began with the first revelation of the Prophet.

After the death of the Prophet in 632 AD, his message spread north of the peninsula into Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Palestine, and Persia. In 638, after the battle of Yarmouk against the Romans, the victorious Arab Muslims entered Palestine. The Romans, during their occupation of Palestine—particularly after their occupation of Jerusalem— had destroyed the Jewish temple and expelled the Jews from Jerusalem in 70 AD They had subsequently prevented freedom of religion for Jews and Christians in Palestine until Constantine officially recognized Christianity in the fourth century.

It must be noted that the official church of Byzantium (Eastern Roman Empire), at al-Roum, was equally oppressive as its pagan forebearers. In particular, it vigorously suppressed the Eastern Christian churches of Syria and the Coptic Church of Egypt. However, since Muslims were by the Qur'an's mandate obligated to respect the "People of the Book," their predecessors in receiving divine revelation, they established a covenant with Christians and Jews. Earlier, when the Prophet had migrated to Madina in 622, he had entered into an agreement with the Jewish tribes of Yathrib (later called Madina) when he had journeyed to that city. However, when they joined forces with the Meccans against him, he was forced to turn against them. This brief episode did not harm subsequent Muslim Jewish relations.

Umar ibn al-Khattab was the second elected khalifa or caliph (successor) after the death of the Prophet. He was the head of state of the Muslim nation at the time. About to enter Jerusalem in 638 after his forces had triumphed over the Romans at the Battle of Yarmouk, Umar descended from his horse and called at the gates of the city for all of the leaders of the Christian Church to meet him there. Addressing their elder, Bishop Sophronious, he made the historic Covenant of Umar, requiring all Muslims forever to guarantee Christians freedom of religion, use of their houses of worship, and the right of their followers and pilgrims to visit their holy places. Umar also rescinded the Roman decree banishing Jews from Jerusalem and pledged to protect their freedom of religious practice. The Covenant of Umar was, in effect, the first international guarantee of the protection of religious freedom.

Islam then spread to Egypt in 641 and to all of North Africa by 654. Until the Middle Ages, Islam was present from southern France to China—virtually the entire known world. The spread of Islam was due in part to the military prowess of the Muslim forces. But the message the Muslims were spreading and the manner in which they administered the conquered regions were their strongest asset. They brought with them not only a new and uplifting faith but a system of government which was honest and efficient. They established a civilization that was to flourish for hundreds of years.

Man reads the Qur'an atop an old fort in Hunza, a remote valley in the the Karakorum Mountains in northern Pakistan, possibly the highest outpost of Islam in the world. (Aramco World Magazine, January-February 1983; photo S. M. Amin).

By establishing freedom of religion and religious practice for Christians and Jews, they made the followers of these two faiths their principal allies in the countries they sought to enter. In Egypt, for example, it was the Archbishop of the Coptic Church who invited the Muslims to free Egypt from the Roman occupiers in 641. The Coptic Church had been established by St. Mark shortly after the death of Jesus. However, it had been persecuted on religious grounds by the Byzantine Church ever since the Council of Chalcedon had declared monophysitism a heresy in 451. Promises of Coptic support caused Umar ibn al-Khattab to send Amr ibn al-As, the leader of the Muslim forces, into Egypt. With less than 2,000 men, Amr defeated the 12 Roman legions stationed there. The support given the Muslims by the Copts of Egypt insured the success of the campaign.

Although the primary objective of Muslim administration in every new territory was the establishment and propagation of Islam. Muslims also brought to the conquered peoples more effective government administration with a high level of motivation, integrity, and service. Frequently they ended tyrannies that had long existed in many of these countries, liberating rather than subjugating the population.

Throughout the history of Muslim rule, relations between Muslims, Christians, and Jews varied. The Muslims as a rule used leaders drawn from the indigenous population in public administration and did not seek to destroy the local identity of the various areas in which they became implanted. This is why centuries later, notwithstanding the fact that much of the Arab portion of the Islamic nation had been absorbed into the Turkish Ottoman Empire, most of these areas continued to be separate regions with their own institutions, leaders, and particular characteristics. Thus, for example, Egypt and Morocco were entities administered most of the time by their own people. They enjoyed a territorial, administrative, and cultural identity distinct from other regions of Islam. The concept of Ummah or nation of Islam never precluded regional and local identity. Islam did not seek to impose radical cultural changes. In fact, because of the flexibility of Islam, it readily became part not only of the belief of the people but of the popular culture.

Islam was also spread by Muslim merchants throughout the known world along the ancient trade routes. People readily converted to a simple religion that appealed to individualism, dignity, logic, and reason. Moreover, it didn't require an organized clergy or the power of a state to propagate or enforce it.

The spread of Islam was halted in France in the year 732 at the battle of Poitiers, but it continued to expand into parts of Asia (e.g., into what is now India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, parts of the Soviet Union, Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, and China) and into Africa. After the eleventh century, a succession of power struggles among Muslim leaders, as well as regional jealousies and a resurgence of Christian power in the West and in Byzantium, caused the Islamic nation to weaken. The Christian crusades of the eleventh and twelfth centuries battered the Islamic nation, although they were finally brought to an end in 1187 by the famous Muslim general leader of the Ayyubi dynasty of Egypt, Salah al-Din al-Ayyubi. The Ottoman Turkish Empire's expansion was stopped at Vienna in 1683. By the fifteenth century, however, the Arab portion of the Islamic nation had become part of the Ottoman Turkish Empire, which in turn broke apart and was ultimately dismantled by the Western European allies after World War I. Thereafter, the Arab Muslim world fell under the colonial occupation of France and England. Each country in the Arab region obtained its independence from England and France between the years 1922 and 1965, except for Palestine.

A variety of factors brought about the decline of the Islamic state between the twelfth and fifteenth centuries. But the spread of the faith continues even today. The clarity, simplicity, and logic of the faith embodied in its tenets and religious practices are its principal attractions. In addition, the emphasis on individual responsibility and personal commitment as well as the absence of an organized clergy, makes Islam readily transmittable. As the Qur'an states Allah is closer to each one than his own jugular vein.

An historical chronology of the Islamic state and its various rulers follows. It shows the temporal reach and geographic spread of Islamic influence. Islam is a complex political, historical, social, and economic phenomenon; it can be studied and interpreted from a variety of philosophical, historical, and social perspectives. As a faith, however, Islam continues to speak to the modern world irrespective of its other meanings. What constitutes the Ummah, the Community of Islam, is not the existence of a political structure but the conscious acceptance of its Muslim participants of Allah's will and their mission on earth.

Mosque at Panfilov, Kazakstan, near the Chinese border. The facade is typical of the austere Islamic architecture of Central Asia, while the minaret is shaped like an ornate Chinese pagoda. (Aramco World Magazine, July-August 1988; photo Tor Eigeland). We have honoured the sons of Adam; provided them with transport on land and sea; given them for sustenance things good and pure; and conferred on them special favours, above a great part of our Creation. Qur'an 17:70

It was We who created man, and We know that dark suggestions his soul makes to him: for We are nearer him than (his) jugular vein. Qur'an 50:16

Islam in Andalusia The history of Islam in Spain is the history of one of the most brilliant Islamic civilizations the world has known, the "Golden Caliphate" of the Umayyads. The caliphate was founded by Abd al-Rahman, the sole surviving member of the Umayyad dynasty of Damascus. He had been forced to flee for his life with a younger brother when the Abbasids of Baghdad overthrew the Umayyads as the ruling dynasty in 750. His brother was captured and killed. But, enduring great hardship and peril, Abd al-Rahman—a tall, red-haired, poet warrior was able to make his way to Spain and Cordoba, the leading city, to claim his rightful position as the surviving head of the Umayyad dynasty.

Islam had come to Spain or to "Al-Andalus" as it was known to its Moorish rulers a scant 40 years before when in 710 a raiding party led by a Berber officer, Tariq ibn Malik, crossed the narrow eight mile straight separating Africa from Europe. Less than a year later an invading force of 7,000 men led by Tariq ibn Ziyad landed at Gibraltar (in Arabic "Jabal Tariq" or the Mountain of Tariq). And by 718—despite some initial resistance from the Visigoth Christian rulers and their King, Roderick— nearly the whole of the Iberian peninsula was firmly under Muslim control.

So begins the story of the rise of a caliphate that was to become the cultural center of western Islam and seat of learning for Christian Europe. Abd al-Rahman was not able to consolidate his rule for 20 years, since his claim to rule did not go uncontested either in Baghdad or Cordoba. Thus Cordoba's era of splendor really began with his successors, principally Abd al-Rahman II. It was he who imported fashion and culture from the East and set the foundations for the later cultural flowering. He even recruited scholars from the East by offering handsome inducements to overcome their initial reluctance to live in so provincial a city.

By the time of Abd al-Rahman III (912-61), the culture and civilization of Islam in Al-Andalus were in full bloom. Cordoba was a large and vibrant metropolis with a population of roughly 500,000 persons (compared to 40,000 for Paris at the time). There was a university and some 70 libraries containing hundreds of thousands of volumes. Al-Hakim II's library alone contained some 400,000 books, whereas the library of the monastery of St. Gall, had only a few volumes. Science, philosophy, and the arts flourished. The greatest minds in every discipline and from all over Europe and the Levant journeyed to Cordoba to study and learn.

The greatest of these scholars made enduring contributions to science and letters. Many have become familiar to students in the west under their Latin names, men such as the philosopher Averroes (Ibn Rushd), the mathematicians Arzachel (al-Zarqali) and Alpetragius (al-Bitruji), and the physician Avenzoar (Ibn Zuhr) to name a few.

Perhaps the most notable of all contributions of Muslim scholars to science lay in the field of medicine. Muslim physicians made important additions to the body of knowledge which they inherited from the Greeks. Ibn al-Nafis, for example, discovered the lesser circulation of the blood hundreds of years before Harvey. Al-Zahrawi wrote a masterwork on anatomy and dissection, the Tasrif, which was translated into Latin by Gerard of Cremona and became a standard text in European medical schools throughout the Middle Ages. Ibn Baitar wrote a famous work on drugs called Collection of Simple Drugs and Food. This work served for centuries as an invaluable reference guide to medicinal plants native to Spain and North Africa.

The greatest contribution of Muslim medicine—as it was in other fields—was to distinguish science from pseudo-science. Indeed, in an era of pervasive superstition and ignorance, the great achievement of Islamic scholars was to place the study of medicine and other subjects on a scientific footing. The West didn't achieve a comparable clarity of vision until the Enlightenment. The strongly rationalist orientation of Islamic scholars was especially pronounced in Andalusia, where new scientific developments and fashions coming from the East were often viewed with suspicion. Ibn Hazm, a prominent 11th century Andalusian scholar, put the matter this way. "Those," he said, "who advocate the use of talismans, alchemy, astrology, and other black arts are shameless liars." This pervasively rationalist attitude did much to recommend Islamic science to the rest of the world.

It is a quirk of history that, after periods of exceptional cultural brilliance, periods of decline and decay seem to come most quickly. So it was in Andalusia. With Abd al-Rahman III's successor, the effective but unpopular al-Mansur, the long decline of Muslim rule in Andalusia began. The vibrancy and energy of the culture was sapped by internal strife, as minor Muslim principalities revolted, and by the long and costly effort against the Christian reconquista. Muslim religious vigor was periodically renewed by successive Almoravid and Almohad invasions, but the culture was never again to attain the heights it had during the Golden Caliphate.

By 1248 the stronghold in Seville had fallen, and the area of Spain under Muslim control was reduced to the Kingdom of Granada. There, miraculously, Islamic culture survived and prospered for more than two and a half centuries. Ironically, however, it was most likely the Ottoman capture of Constantinople in 1453 that sealed Granada's fate. Soon after, fueled by the Christian fear of Islam, Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile—the future patrons of Christopher Columbus—brought the curtain down on one of the most remarkable and glorious civilizations inspired by Islam. The date was January of 1492.

The Creator has periodically chosen human beings to reveal His messages to humankind. Indeed, the Qur'an refers to many Prophets such as Abraham, Noah, David, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, and Jesus. These messages and revelations culminated in Islam and in Muhammed as the last Prophet. The historical evolution and incorporation of prior messages into Islam are clearly stated in the Qur'an. Thus Islam is not a new religion. The Qur'an refers to Islam as the religion of Abraham, Jacob, Moses, Jesus, and other prophets. It is simply the last of the divine messages to reach humankind through Prophet Muhammad, who was chosen by the Creator as the bearer of his last and all-encompassing revelation. This explains why there exists a strong link between Islam, Christianity, and Judaism. Christians and Jews are referred to in the Qur'an as the "People of the Book" because they are the recipients of the messages of the Creator through Moses and the Old Testament prophets and through Jesus, who is believed in Islam to be the fruit of a miracle birth by the Blessed Virgin Mary.

The Qur'an (literally, recitation) contains 114 chapters revealed to the Prophet during a period of 23 years from 609 to 632, the year of his death. The divine revelations were manifested in divine inspiration, which the Prophet sometimes uttered in the presence of his companions. His words were passed on in the oral tradition of his Arabic culture. Some forty years after his death they were transcribed in the written form that has been preserved to date without change. The 114 Suwar (plural of Surah) chapters were revealed to Muhammad in Mecca and Madina. They vary in length. The Qur'an is arranged not in the chronological order of its revelation but according to the length of each Surah. The longest is first, and the shortest last. No one throughout the history of Islam has challenged the accuracy of the Qur'an.

The Arabian peninsula had a long tradition of literary achievement: Prose and poetry of all types were widely cultivated. The original miracle of the Qur'an, however, is its enduring literary achievement. Many people refuse to believe that any human being, particularly an illiterate man, could have produced it. indeed, the belief that the message was revealed by God contributed to the early conversion to Islam of the pagan tribes in the Arabian peninsula. The fact that Prophet Muhammad was a trustworthy person and that his early followers were people whose rectitude was well- established and enduring among the various Arab tribes also contributed to early conversions.

The Qur'an is written in such a way that it evokes profound emotions in the reader. The analogies, maxims, and stories provide imagery of great "psychological moment." full of an elan which imparts an uplifting sense of great destiny in life and lasting fulfillment in heaven. The richness of its form and content invites constant rereading. Moral values are intertwined with history, and the details of daily life are based on a continuum with life in the hereafter. Its topics range from the most specific to the most general and include the past and future, life on earth, and existence of the soul after death. its topics cover all aspects of human interaction as well as relations between man and his Creator. It is, in short, a comprehensive and integrated guide to life.

A man studies a copy of the Qur'an as he sits by a carved column in the Upper Swat village of Bahrain, south of Kalam, Pakistan. (Aramco World Magazine, January-February 1997; photo Luke Powell).

Say, Oh Muslims, we believe in Alllah and that which is revealed unto Abraham and Isma'il and Isaac and Jacob and the tribes and that which Moses and Jesus received and that which the Prophet received from the Lord. We make no distinction between any of them and unto them we have surrendered. (We are Muslims.) Qur'an 2:136

The Three Fundamental Unities of Islam: God, Humankind, and Religion

Islam is a universal faith for all times, all places, and all peoples. It is predicated on the belief that there is but one God, Allah, the Creator of the universe and of humankind. The Qur'an opens with the words, "In the name of Allah, the Merciful, the Compassionate." Mercy and compassion are his principal qualities. The relationship which exists between God and His creation is based on one religion. These fundamental unities are the foundation of faith.

The Qur'an refers to the creation of the earth and other celestial bodies out of the darkness of chaos. Scientific theories that hive evolved about the creation highlight the unity of the universe. If God created this unique universe and shaped humankind to inhabit it, it follows that God would also have communicated with humankind through a single religion, even though it be in successive revelations. Islam is the last and most all- encompassing message of God.

If one believes that there is but one humankind which is part of a single universe created by one God, then one believes in an interrelationship among all created things. Religion in this context is a set of rules that regulate the relationship between the Creator and the created and establish the basis of accountability in the hereafter. It also sets forth the framework for permissible economic, social and political systems and formulates the principles and rules through which people should deal with one another. In effect, it provides a variety of prescriptions and guidelines as well as inspiration.

In this respect, Islam is very much a law-oriented religion. It provides the guidelines and principles upon which laws and regulations can be established. The influence of Islam must not be viewed in a narrowly legalistic light but rather as providing a framework which guarantees basic fairness and justice to all.

Islam is holistic, requiring that its followers have iman (faith) to fulfill the requirements of its religious tenets. The Muslim is required to express his Ibada, service to Allah, through his deeds, conduct, and words. The Qur'an enjoins that Muslims do good and abjure evil. Life in this world is a passage, and the eternal soul shall be judged by the Almighty on Judgment Day by intentions as well as by deeds. Reward and punishment shall be meted out in heaven and hell, but Allah is merciful to those who repent and do good. Repentance and mercy are among Islam's great themes.

"Islam is built on five (pillars) testifying that there is no god but Allah and that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah, performing the prayers, paying the zakat, making the pilgrimage to the House, and fasting in Ramadan." The Prophet's Hadith

Bearing Witness to the One and Only God (shehada)

Allah in Arabic implies the one and only true God, the beginning and the end of everything, neither born nor giving birth. The Qur'an states that He is beyond human description, but is referred to in the Qur'an by ninety-nine attributes, such as the merciful, the compassionate, the forgiving. Together with the command to bear witness and acknowledge the singularity, centrality, unity, and uniqueness of God, the believer is enjoined to confess that Muhammad is God's messenger and prophet.

Religious Tax (zakat)

Although required by the Qur'an, zakat is specified in detail only in the practice and teachings of the Prophet and in later interpretations. It is the payment of a certain percentage of one's income to support the needy and to fulfill other objectives of the community. While this can be rightly equated to a combination of taxation and charity, zakat is different from sadaqa, charity, which is equally mandated by the Qur'an but left to the discretion of the individual Muslim, depending upon circumstances. Sadaqa is both tangible and intangible a kind word, for example, may be a form of Sadaqa. But Zakat is tangible. It is paid at the end of the Ramadan fast. Non-Muslims, the people of the book (Christians and Jews), are not required to pay Zakat but another tax, called Jizyah.

Fasting during Ramadan (siyam)

Fasting from dawn to sunset during the month of Ramadan, the ninth month in the Islamic lunar calendar, is required of those whose health permits. (The Islamic lunar calendar is 11 days shorter than the Gregorian calendar, thus the annual shift of Ramadan's occurrence in relationship to the Gregorian calendar.) It is a complete fast, requiring that nothing be taken into the body but needed medication. During Ramadan there is an emphasis on piety and religious observances. Those who are ill or traveling do not have to fast during Ramadan but must compensate by fasting and by contributing to the Zakat.

Ye who believe! Fasting is prescribed to you as it was prescribed to those before you, That ye may (learn) self-restraint,... Qur'an 2:183

The Pilgrimage (hajj)

The pilgrimage to Mecca once in one's lifetime is required of all those who have the physical and financial ability to make the journey. The practice derives from the divine mandate given Muhammad to rebuild the first temple of worship to God in Mecca. The pilgrimage requirement makes this desert city a gathering place for people from all parts of the world once a year. The rituals of the hajj were established by the Prophet. They emphasize repentance, resulting in forgiveness by God. The practice also strengthens the bond among the faithful from all walks of life and regions of the world. It is performed during the Islamic lunar month of Dhu al-hijja.

Makkah al-Mukarramah—"Makkah the Honored"—was the birthplace of the Prophet Muhammad in 570. Within today's city, at the center of the Sacred Mosque is the focal point of Islamic prayer worldwide—the Ka'ba. The 15-meter-high (48'), roughly cubical structure was first built as a place for worship of the one God by Ibrahim (Abraham) and Isma'il (Ishmael), and it is thus a physical reminder of the links between Islam and the dawn of monotheism, between the Qur'an and previous revelations, and between the Prophet Muhammad and earlier Messengers of God. (Aramco World Magazine, January-February 1999; photo Peter Sanders).

And remember Abraham and Isma'il raised the foundations of the House (With this prayer): "Our Lord! Accept (this service) from us: For Thou art the All-Hearing, the All-knowing. Qur'an 2:127

Prayers (salat)

The Qur'an does not state the number and manner of prayers; these were established by the Prophet. The required individual prayers are said five times a day: at dawn, noon (when the sun is at the center of the sky), afternoon (when the sun is halfway to sunset) sunset, and night (after sunset but before sunrise). The only required communal prayer is the Friday noon prayer. Like the Christians' Sunday or the Jews' Sabbath, Muslims consider Friday the last day of Creation.

Prayers can also be communal; that is, in fact, the preferred way. When so conducted, the prayers are led by an im am, who is usually either a person schooled in Islam or simply one among the group who is more knowledgeable, older, or recognized by the others as being especially pious.

Muslims stand shoulder to shoulder and kneel a number of times, depending on whether it is the morning prayer (twice) or the late-night prayer (four times). Standing shoulder to shoulder, irrespective of status in life, symbolizes equality before God. In Islam, as the Prophet said, no man is better than another save for his piety, which only Allah can judge. At each kneeling, the Muslim places his forehead on the ground, a symbol of the equality of all men, humility, worship of the Creator, and the fact that from earth we come and to earth we return. All praying Muslims face Mecca, where the Ka'ba is located. It is the qibla (the direction) which provides unity and uniformity for all Muslims. At an earlier time, it was the practice to face Jerusalem, the second holiest city in Islam. The Ka'ba holds the remnants of Abraham's temple.

In the only European nation with a Muslim majority, Albania's population again throngs to the mosques since the downfall of Communism in 1990. (Aramco World Magazine, July-August 1992; photo Larry Luxner). The imam does not necessarily have any special religious status in Sunni tradition just because he is the prayer leader However, he could be a person whose schooling or training conferred on him special status, as is the case with the ulema (or scholars, plural of alem). One attains this status after having pursued an extensive education in theology throughout secondary, college, and graduate study at a theological university.

Before prayers, Muslims are required to perform ablutions, which include washing the face, arms, and feet in a ritual prescribed by the Prophet. This is not only for the purposes of cleanliness, but to provide a break from prior activity. Before ablutions and prayers, a Muslim must confirm within himself his intention to pray.

The prayers are usually announced by means of a summons or call to prayer (the adhan) by the muadhin, who chants or intones it. There is no particular religious status conveyed by this responsibility; the muadhin is usually a pious member of the community who has a particularly strong or resonant voice. The call to prayer starts with "Allahu akbar" (God is great), words frequently used by Muslims either in prayers or in other contexts as a reaffirmation of the oneness and omnipotence of the Creator. The expression "al-hamdu lillah" (thanks be to God) is also among the phrases most commonly used by Muslims. They are used in any situation in which a grateful or thankful response is apposite. They are a reminder that God's will and bounty are everything.

The mosque is a symbol of the uncompromising nature of Islamic monotheism. It has a distinctive architecture, which includes a minaret for the call to prayer. It does not contain any images that might be associated with religious idolatry, which Islam forbids. The architecture of mosques built over fourteen centuries in various parts of the Muslim world is an unsurpassed artistic legacy. The floors of mosque are sometimes covered with straw mats or rugs. Muslims remove their shoes before entering so as not to soil the place where they touch their foreheads to the floor to pray.

Let there be no no compulsion in religion: Truth stands out clear from Error: whoever rejects evil and believes in God hath grasped the most trustworthy hand-hold, that never breaks. And God heareth and knoweth all things. Qur'an 2:256

"The best of you are those who have the most excellent morals." The Prophet's Hadith

The Qur'an is the principal source of Islamic law, the Sharia. It contains the rules by which the Muslim world is governed (or should govern itself) and forms the basis for relations between man and God, between individuals, whether Muslim or non-Muslim, as well as between man and things which are part of creation. The Sharia contains the rules by which a Muslim society is organized and governed, and it provides the means to resolve conflicts among individuals and between the individual and the state.

There is no dispute among Muslims that the Qur'an is the basis of the Sharia and that its specific provisions are to be scrupulously observed. The Hadith and Sunna are complementary sources to the Qur'an and consist of the sayings of the Prophet and accounts of his deeds. The Sunna helps to explain the Qur'an, but it may not be interpreted or applied in any way which is inconsistent with the Qur'an.

Copy-boards held safely out of view on their heads, students in Djenné, Mali recite a Qur'an passage from memory. (Aramco World Magazine, September-October, 1991; photo Brynn Bruijn). Though there are other sources of law—i.e., ijma', (consensus), qiyas, (analogy), ijtihad, (progressive reasoning by analogy)—the Qur'an is the first and foremost source, followed by the Hadith and Sunna. Other sources of law and rules of interpretation of the Qur'an and the Hadith and Sunna follow in accordance with a generally accepted jurisprudential scheme.

And nor shall we be punishing until we had sent them an Apostle. Qur'an 17:15

The Qur'an contains a variety of law-making provisions and legal proscriptions interspersed throughout its chapters (suwar) and verses (ayat). A number of rules exist for interpreting these provisions, such as the position of a given ayah within the context of the surah, which in turn is interpreted in accordance with its place in the sequence of revelations, its reference to other revelations, and its historical context in relation to particular conditions which existed at the time of the given revelation. These and other rules are known as the science of interpretation (ilm usul aI-fiqh). According to these rules, for example, one initially is to refer to a specific provision and then to a general provision dealing with a particular situation. No general provision can be interpreted to contradict a specific provision, and a specific rule will supersede a general proposition. A general provision, however, is always interpreted in the broadest manner, while a specific provision is interpreted in the narrowest manner. Reasoning by analogy is permitted, as are applications by analogy, except where expressly prohibited. Simplicity and clear language are always preferred. Similarly, the clear spirit of certain prescriptions cannot be altered by inconsistent interpretations. A policy-oriented interpretation within the confines of the rules of jurisprudence is permissible and even recommended, as is the case with the doctrine of ijtihad (progressive reasoning by analogy).

"Avoid condemning the Muslim to Hudud whenever you can, and when you can find a way out for the Muslim then release him for it. If the Imam errs it is better that he errs in favor of innocence (pardon) than in favor of guilt (punishment)." The Prophet's Hadith

"Were people to be given in accordance with their claim, men would claim the fortunes and lives of (other) people, but the onus of proof is on the claimant and the taking of an oath is incumbent upon him who denies." The Prophet's Hadith

Muslim scholars do not consider Islam to be an evolving religion, but rather a religion and legal system which applies to all times. It is, therefore, the application that is susceptible to evolution. Indeed, the provisions of the Qur'an are such that by their disciplined interpretation, with the aid of the Hadith and Sunna and other sources of interpretation, Islam can, as intended, provide the solution to contemporary social problems.

Fourteen centuries ago Islam was a spiritual, social, and legal revolution. Its potential for effecting progress remains unchanged. This is essentially the belief of enlightened fundamentalist Muslims. Islamic fundamentalism is not, therefore, a regressive view of history and contemporary reality. Islam at the height of its civilization, between the seventh and eleventh centuries, was neither repressive nor regressive. It was a progressive, humanistic, and legalistic force for reform and justice.

Lo! Allah commandeth you that ye restore deposits to their owners, and , if ye judge between mankind, that ye judge justly. Lo! comely is this which Allah admonisheth you. Lo! Allah is ever Hearer, Seer. Qur'an 4:58

Islamic jurisprudence has developed over fourteen centuries. Over that span of time, various schools of jurisprudence have emerged, each with its own interpretation and application of the Sharia. Many schools splintered farther, creating schools following different interpretive approaches and applications.

The flourishing abundance of ideas and views attests to the intellectual depth and breadth of Islamic jurisprudence. However, nothing precludes a given state from codifying the Sharia so as to provide for more certainty of the law and clarity and consistency in its application. Many Muslim states have done so, the most advanced being Egypt, where the presence of the thousand-year-old Al-Azhar University (originally devoted solely to Islamic studies but now to all disciplines) and centuries of legal tradition have converged to make Islamic law a source of inspiration for the entire Muslim world.

The interior of the Prophet's Mosque at Madinah with its qiblah, or prayer niche, which indicates the direction of Makkah. (Aramco World Magazine, November-December, 1991; photo Abdullah Dobais). The Sunni and the Shia

The Sunni tradition, which today comprises approximately 85-90 percent of all Muslims, differs from Shia tradition, which comprises the remainder of the Muslim world. The distinction between the two traditions essentially derives from different approaches to governance. The Sunni believe, based on specific provisions of the Qur'an and the Sunna, that the Muslim people are to be governed by consensus (ijma') through an elected head of state, the khalifa, according to democratic principles. The Shia, however, believe that the leader of Islam, whom they refer to as the imam rather than the khalifa, must be a descendant of the Prophet. The concept is the basis for a hereditary hierarchy in the Shia tradition.

The Shia movement dates from the period when a group of Muslims wanted Ali ibn abu Talib, the cousin and son-in-law of the Prophet, to become the khalifa instead of Abu Bakr, who had been elected the first khalifa following the death of Muhammad in 632. They advanced his candidacy on the basis of heredity. However, they were out voted. Ali ultimately became the fourth khalifa, succeeding Uthman, who succeeded Umar, who succeeded Abu Bakr. But Ali was overthrown by the rebellion of Muawia, the governor of Syria, whose seat was in Damascus. Muawia rebelled against Ali because he attributed the assassination of his kinsman Uthman to Ali's followers. Ali was subsequently assassinated after losing the Tahkim (arbitration) to Muawia. His followers then constituted what would today be cal led a political party to reinstate him and to secure succession to the Khalifa.

In 680 Hussain, one of Ali's sons, led a number of Muslims who were then rebelling against the ruling khalifa to try to establish in the area between Iran and Iraq a caliphate based on heredity from the Prophet. However, Hussain was lured into Iraq, and there at a place called Karbala he and his followers were massacred. Hussain's martyrdom spurred the Shia movement in Iraq and Iran. The anniversary of Karbala is commemorated every year by the Shia population. In Iran, in particular, it is conducted by means of a large popular demonstration in which people publicly weep and flagellate themselves as a sign of their remorse.

The political rift between followers of the principle of election and those favoring descent from the Prophet generated some other differences between Sunni and Shia approaches to jurisprudence. For example, the Shia view the sayings of Fatima, the daughter of the Prophet, and his cousin Ali (Fatima's husband), the fourth khalifa of the Islam, as equally authoritative as the Sunna of the Prophet. The Sunni do not. There are other differences involving the structure of Islam, such as existence of an organized Shia clergy, which does not exist in the Sunni tradition. Among them the Shia allow the imam much wider latitude in government than the Sunni ever could in light of the principles of consensus and equality. The most important of all differences between Sunni and Shia relates to the interpretation of the Qur'an. The Sunni look more to the letter of the Qur'an; the Shia look more to its spirit. In Arabic the distinction is referred to as al-dhaher (the apparent) versus al-baten (the hidden) meaning of the Qur'an. Thus the Shia religious hierarchy plays a determining role in interpreting the Qur'an. This role reinforces their spiritual and temporal influence in Shia society.

O ye who believe! Be steadfast witness for Allah in equity, and let not hatred of any people seduce you that ye deal not justly. Deal justly, that is nearer to your duty. Observe your duty to Allah. Lo! Allah is informed of what we do. Qur'an 5:8

And hold fast, All together, by the rope which God (stretches out for you), and be not divided among yourselves; and remember with gratitude God's favour on you; For ye were enemies and He joined your hearts in love, so that by His grace, Ye became brethren; And ye were on the brink of the pit of fire, and He saved you from it. Thus doth God make His signs clear to you: that ye may be guided. Qur'an 3:103

Sunni Jurisprudence

The Sunni follow any one of four major schools on jurisprudence founded by imams ibn Hanbal, abu Hanifa, Malek, and el-Shafei, scholars of the ninth to eleventh centuries. These schools, referred to respectively as the Hanbali, Hanafi, Maliki, and Shafei, are followed by different Muslim states either entirely or in part. Egypt is traditionally Maliki. Saudi Arabia is traditionally Hanbali, although the country follows more closely the teachings of imam Muhammad Abdal-Wahab, a Hanbali reformer of the early 1800's. Even though there are differences in interpretation of the Sharia among these authorities, they are all recognized as valid.

In its most glorious period, from the seventh to the thirteenth centuries, Islam produced a legal system founded on scientific knowledge and nurtured by a faith that has endured the test of time. But during that period it was ijtihad (progressive reasoning by analogy) which produced the most far-reaching developments. Reformers like ibn Taymiyah (late 1200's) was one of many great jurist-philosophers who opened new horizons in the knowledge and understanding of Islam's application to the needs of society. But in the twelfth century, ijtihad was pronounced ended by some theologians of the time. They argued that all was to be known was known. Consequently, Islamic jurisprudence became somewhat stagnant until its contemporary resurgence under the aegis of Al-Azhar scholars and other modern reformers of the last two centuries, such as al-Ghazali, al-Afghani, and Muhammad Abdu. Contemporary jurisprudential developments continue the work begun in past ages, meeting individual requirements and collective demands for resolving the problems and conflicts of modern life, while remaining compatible with Islam.

Laila and Majnun from the famous poem by Jami, 1571. (Aramco World Magazine, March-April 1987; photo Ergun Çagatay) Sufism

The Sufi movement is a mystical strain in Islam which reflects the need of individuals to transcend formal religious practices in order to attain higher levels of spiritual fulfillment. The Sufis are represented in all schools of thought in Islam and found in all Muslim communities. Because of its mystical, spiritual character, Sufism appeals more to individuals and small groups. It does not constitute either a sect or a school of thought, but is rather a spiritual or transcendental practice which persists despite criticism from orthodox theologians. Sufis believe they follow the Prophet's mysticism, particularly during the Meccan period of the revelations. Thus, in their practices there is much meditation and solitary or group recitation of prayers and incantations of their own religious formulas. They seek a life of ascetic pietism, shunning worldly pleasures and seeking the inward purity of a relationship with God through love, patience, forgiveness, and other higher spiritual qualities.

The tomb in Lahore of Data Ganu Bakhsh, one of the many sufis who brought Islam to Asia by peaceful means. (Aramco World Magazine, November-December, 1991; photo Nik Wheeler). Their influence on the development of Islam is more significant than is usually recognized. Their ascetic piety and rigidly ethical conception of Islamic society have influenced generations of Muslims. They have also had from time to time strong political influence. What characterizes Sufis the most is their "inwardism" or belief that the Sharia only regulates external conduct, whereas inward feelings are matter strictly between each person and the Creator. Because of their emphasis on the love of God, they have developed the doctrine of Tawakul (reliance on God), which is central to the relationship between Man and God. Sufism also has had a significant impact on the practical aspects of administering a state.

An important Hadith (saying) of the Prophet is that religion is not what one formally or ritualistically practices but how one deals with others. It is therefore not sufficient to be pious without performing deeds which demonstrate one's beliefs. It is reported that the Prophet once entered a mosque and saw at prayer a venerable old man with a long white beard. He was told that the man was in the mosque all day long, worshipping and dispensing the words of Allah to others. The Prophet then asked how he earned his living and was told that a merchant, not known for his piety, supported him. The Prophet remarked that of the two, the merchant was indeed the more worthy.

Every Muslim is the recipient, guardian, and executor of God's will on earth; his responsibilities are all encompassing. A Muslim's duty to act in defense of what is right is as much part of his faith as is his duty to oppose wrong. The Prophet once said, "If someone among you sees wrong he must right it by his hand if he can (deed, conduct, action). If he cannot, then by his tongue (speak up, verbally oppose); if he cannot, then by his gaze (silent expression of disapproval); and if he cannot, then in his heart. The last is the minimum expression of his conviction (faith, courage)."

Living the faith is ibada, service to God through service to humankind.

A view inside the ninth-century Karaouine Mosque, Fez, Morocco. (Aramco World Magazine, May-June 1993; photo Nik Wheeler).

By no means shall ye attain righteousness unless ye give (freely) of that which ye love; and whatever ye give, of a truth God knoweth it well. Qur'an 3:92

The preservation of a social order depends on each and every member of that society freely adhering to the same moral principles and practices. Islam, founded on individual and collective morality and responsibility, introduced a social revolution in the context in which it was first revealed. Collective morality is expressed in the Qur'an in such terms as equality, justice, fairness, brotherhood, mercy, compassion, solidarity, and freedom of choice. Leaders are responsible for the application of these principles and are accountable to God and man for their administration. It is reported that a man went to Umar, the second khalifa, to talk to him. It was nighttime, and a candle burned on Umar's desk. Umar asked the man if what he wanted to discuss was personal. The man said that it was, and Umar extinguished the candle so as not burn public funds for a private purpose. Leaders in Islam, whether heads of state or heads of family or private enterprise, have a higher burden or responsibility than others.

There is a relation in Islam between individual responsibility and the rights and privileges derived from membership in the community. Individual obligations must be met before one can claim a portion from the community of which he is part. Each member of a society must fulfill his own obligations and rely on others to fulfill theirs before that society can acquire the necessary reservoir of social rights and privileges which can then be shared by all. The notions of brotherhood and solidarity not only impose upon the community the duty to care for' its members, but also require each person to use his initiative to carry out individual and social responsibilities according to his ability.

And to be firm and patient, in pain (or suffering) and adversity, And throughout all periods of panic. Such are the people of truth, the God-fearing. Qur'an 2:177

"Whosoever of you sees an evil action, let him change it with his hand; and if he is not able to do so, then with his tongue; and if he is not able to do so, then with his heart—and that is the weakest of faith." The Prophet's Hadith

The equality of all Muslims is emphasized repeatedly throughout the Qur'an. It is because of that concept that Islam under the Sunni tradition does not have an ordained clergy. There is a direct relationship between every man and his Creator, and there can be no intermediary. This particular closeness between the individual and God is paramount in belief as well as in practice.

It is frequently argued that Islam is not a religion that provides for full equity among Muslims. Indeed, because Islam makes distinctions between men and women; not all rights and privileges available to men are available to women. For example, a male Muslim inherits twice the share of the female, but then a male relative has the financial responsibility to care for a needy female relative. Also, a male Muslim has the right to unilaterally divorce his wife, while she can only divorce her husband through a judge's determination. Custody of children from a divorce is given the mother, boys till age 9 and girls till age 12. Thereafter custody reverts to the father, provided that he is fit. However, the fact that there is not absolute parity in all rights and privileges does not mean that women do not share an overall equality with men. It must also be noted that certain social practices in some Muslim countries are not required by Islam, but have simply evolved in the course of time as a result of indigenous cultural factors.

Islam differentiates between Muslims and non-Muslims and between the "People of the Book" (dhimmi) and others. Only Muslims have the right to elect the khalifa. In judicial matters the oath of the Muslim prevails over that of the non-Muslim. There are therefore some differences between males and females in Islam, between Muslims and Dhimmis, and Muslims and non-Dhimmis.

One of almost 300 mosques on the Tunisian island of Jerba. These glimmering, whitewashed structures dominate the landscape, their colors shift with the changing light, and their flights of architectural fantasy seem to come in an infinite variety. (Aramco World Magazine, July-August 1994; photo Nik Wheeler). Individual Responsibility

The search for justice is one of the continuing quests of humankind. It is the quest that is prescribed by the Qur'an for every Muslim. Social and individual justice are evolving concepts which depend largely upon a variety of external considerations. Above all, Islam seeks to inculcate within every Muslim the need to seek justice and to apply it to himself as well as to others. Because Muslims believe that God is the beginning and the end of everything, all is preordained by Qadar (divine will). Qadar does not imply inaction, but, rather, acceptance. It requires the strength to change what can be changed and the fortitude to accept what cannot.

Individual responsibility is a cornerstone of Islam. Every Muslim is accountable to his Creator for what he himself does or fails to do—as well as for others for whom he may be accountable—and for things that he has control over. As in Western legal codes, individual responsibility is predicated on the intent and motive of the actor in light of his ability to do good and to avoid evil or harm to others. Thus Islam believes in free will, and to the extent that this exists a person is responsible for its exercise in the framework of Islamic morality. But the relativity of human justice is not to be confused with the absoluteness of divine justice whose application every Muslim expects without fail on judgment day. Because of the Muslim's belief in accountability in the hereafter, his oath is valid evidence in any judicial or extra-judicial process.

Serve God, and join not any partners with Him; and do good—To parents, orphans, those in need, neighbours who are near, neighbours who are strangers; the companion by your side, the way-farer (ye meet), and what your right hands possess: For God loveth not the arrogant, the vainglorious;— Qur'an 4:36

"Actions are but by intention and every man shall have but that which he intended." The Prophet's Hadith

"None of you (truly) believes until he wishes for his brother what he wishes for himself." The Prophet's Hadith

Forbearance and Forgiveness

A Muslim is accountable for what he does and what he fails to do in accordance with not only the letter but also the spirit of the law. However, even though Islam imposes a number of very rigid requirements and appears formalistic and inflexible, one of the basic premises of the relationship among Muslims, and between Muslims and others, is derived from one of the basic premises of the relationship between a Muslim and his Creator, namely, forbearance and forgiveness.

In one of the Prophet's Hadiths it is stated that a person could do such evil during his lifetime that there might be between him and the doors to hell only one step and then he could repent and ask for God's forgiveness and do one good deed and enter heaven. By the same token, a person may during his life do so much good as to be one step removed from heaven and then do one evil deed that would be sufficient to earn him hell. The meaning of the Hadith is to emphasize that, even though a person may do good throughout his life, he should never be absolutely certain that the good he has done all along is sufficient to carry him through; he should not forget that one bad deed could overcome all the good ones. Conversely, a person who has done evil all his life may repent even at the last moment and with one good deed earn paradise.

The element of forbearance and forgiveness has to be predicated on knowledge, awareness, and truth. Forbearance and forgiveness depend on the believer's recognition and acceptance of what he has done and his genuine repentance with an intent not to repeat the misdeed. That is why Muslims are encouraged to forgive the bad deeds of others committed against them.

Allah is described in the Qur'an as the Forgiving and the Merciful. Everything is forgivable by Allah except Shirk (the negation of the existence of the Singularity, Uniqueness and Oneness of the Creator.) Even so the mercy of God is infinite. A man was once brought to the Prophet for trial because he denied the existence of God. Upon review of the facts, it appeared that the man was in despair over a personal tragedy. He had been found in the desert throwing his spear to the sky and screaming that he wanted to kill God for the injustice that he had suffered. The Prophet replied, "Is it not enough that he acknowledged the existence of God to want to kill him?." The man was set free.

Women in Islam

As in most of the nomadic tribes of the ancient world, women were deemed unimportant in pre-Islamic Arabia. Indeed, in a society shaped by the rigors of desert life, women were relegated to the margins of community life.

The advent of Islam fundamentally altered the status of women in several ways. First, and most importantly, it overturned tradition by according women equal status before Allah. No longer were women denied a human face. Their souls like the souls of men were precious to Allah. They, like men, were worthy of dignity and respect. As a result of this new status and the revolution it worked on Arab society—women became pillars of early Muslim society and were counted among its strongest supporters. Several women—notably Fatimah, daughter of the Prophet Muhammad and wife of Ali, the fourth caliph—even played important roles in the propagation of the faith. To the Shia, for example; Fatimah is an authoritative source of the Prophet's sayings and deeds.

Tibetan Muslim sisters in the doorway of their home in Lhasa. (Aramco World Magazine, January-February 1998; photo Kevin Bubriski). The status of women under Islam also altered as a consequence of the spread of the religion itself. As Islam became a world religion and its influence spread the character of Arab society changed, requiring that women take a larger role in society. As men hurriedly left their flocks and businesses to fight for Islam, women readily assumed the burdens and responsibilities of the home.

The Prophet set an example for the treatment of women in marriage through his relationship with his first wife Khadijah. Although fifteen years his elder, Muhammad remained a faithful and devoted husband for twenty-six years, contrary to the tradition of polygamy which prevailed at the time in Arabia. After her death Muhammad remarried, but he always remembered Khadijah with love and spoke of her with reverence. Khadijah was, in fact, Muhammad's first convert to Islam and his strongest supporter in the struggle to establish the new faith.

Aishah bint abu Bakr (613-678) was Muhammad's favorite wife of later years. Noted for her education and intelligence, in particular her ability to read and write, she was often consulted about the teachings of the Prophet after his death. She played an important role in the life of the early community, most famously by opposing the succession of Ali after the death of Uthman, the third khalifa.

Behold! the angels said: "O Mary! God giveth thee glad tidings of a word from Him: his name will be Christ Jesus, the son of Mary, held in honour in this world and the hereafter and of (the company of) those nearest to God;... Qur'an 3:45

The new, elevated status of women is apparent in numerous Qur'anic proscriptions which set out women's rights and obligations. On protecting the dignity and self-respect of women, for example, the Qur'an is emphatic and unequivocal: One of the seven hudud crimes is maligning a woman's reputation.

O Mankind: Be careful of your duty to your Lord who created its mate and from them twain hath spread abroad a multitude of men and women. Be careful of your duty toward Allah in who ye claim (your rights) of one another. Qur'an 4:1

O mankind! Lo! We have created you male and female and have made you nations and tribes that ye may know one another. Lo! The noblest of you in the sight of Allah is the best in conduct. Qur'an 49:13

"Jahimah came to the Prophet, said 'O Messenger of Allah! I intended that I should enlist in the fighting force and I have come to consult thee.' He said: 'Then stick to her, for paradise is beneath her two feet.'" The Prophet's Hadith

"The most perfect of the believers in faith is the best of them in moral excellence, and the best of you are the kindest of you to their wives." The Prophet's Hadith

The Qur'an, of course, acknowledges and makes provision for differences between men and women. Indeed, on these differences is erected an elaborate structure of individual and social rights and obligations. Some appear inequitable on the surface but on examination reveal a deeper logic and reasonableness. A man, for example, stands to inherit twice as much as a woman, but then he must provide for his own wife and family and relatives should the need arise.

The same holds true of traditional rules of dress and behavior. Women are enjoined to cover their bodies (except for the face and hands) and lower their gaze in the presence of men not related to them. Moreover, although women and men are subject to the same religious obligations—such as prayer, fasting, pilgrimage to Mecca—women pray separately from men. Nonetheless, these rules of dress and behavior—however restrictive they may appear to Western eyes—serve a social function. In societies which by tradition provide few protections outside the family, they insure a woman's integrity and dignity. For that reason, too, men are enjoined to lower their eyes before women and to be appropriately covered from above the chest to the knees.

In other areas, women enjoy a strict parity with men. A woman's right to own property is just as absolute as a man's. Male kin cannot handle a woman 5 financial interests without her permission. A woman must specifically consent to marriage and cannot be forced to accept a husband she does not approve of. In cases of divorce—in a prominent departure from traditional practice—women have exclusive guardianship rights over children up to early puberty. Although a husband has the right to divorce his wife unilaterally—a right not shared by women—a wife can divorce her husband on specific legal grounds by court order.

In education, too, women have the same rights as men. In contemporary Muslim society, in fact, women have attained the same levels of education as men and in many countries occupy positions of power and influence.

Nothing in Islam prevents a woman from accomplishing herself or attaining her goals. Societies may erect barriers, but nothing in the spirit of the Qur'an subjugates women to men. In time, of course, social barriers will disappear—as they are disappearing now—because Muslim women will expect and demand it. As a result, it can only be expected that women will play an increasingly larger role in Islamic society and surpass the contributions of early Muslim women.

The parties should either hold Together on equitable terms, Or separate with kindness. Qur'an 2:229

Lo! Allah enjoineth (orders) justice (or injustice) and kindness (or unkindness) and to give to (one's) kinsfolk... Qur'an 16:90

"What did the Prophet do when in his house? She said, 'He served his wife." The Prophet's Hadith

The Islamic Calendar

The Islamic calendar is unique among the major calendars of the world. Unlike the Gregorian calendar and others based on the astronomical solar year—the length of time it takes for the earth to revolve around the sun—the Islamic calendar is based on the lunar year.

The lunar calendar is comprised of 12 lunar months like the calendar based on the solar year. However, since each month begins and ends with the new moon—a period lasting 29 days, 12 hours, 44 minutes, and 2.8 seconds—each lunar year contains only 354 days (or 355 on leap years) as opposed to 365 and 1/4 days for the astronomical year. There are 11 leap years in every cycle of 30 years, the intercalated day always being added to the last day of Dhu al-Hijjah, the last month of the year.

As a consequence of the fewer number of days in the lunar year, the lunar calendar is unrelated to the progression of the seasons. The month of Rajab, for example, could occur in summer in one year and the middle of winter 15 years later. Relative to the solar year, the lunar calendar progresses by 10 or 11 days each year so that 33 Muslim years are approximately equal to 32 Gregorian years.

The difference in the length of the lunar year accounts for some of the difficulty in converting dates from the Islamic (Hijri or "Hijrah") system to the Gregorian and vice versa. The following equation can be used to calculate the Hijrah year in which the corresponding Gregorian year began:

A.D. = 622 + (32/33 x A.H.)

The Islamic calendar was devised in the seventh century in response to the exigencies of governing the far-flung Abbasid empire. It also was created, not incidentally, to glorify the triumph of the new religion. Other calendars in use at the time were tied to other states and religions, and so, the historian al-Biruni tells us, the caliph Umar ibn al-Khattab decided to develop a new calendar based on the advent of Islam, taking July 16, 622 A.D., the date of the Hijrah or the Prophet's sojourn from Mecca to Madina, as the starting point of the calendar of the Muslim era.

The Muslim months are: Muharram Jumada al-Awwal Ramadan Safar Jumada al-Thani Shawwal Rabi' al-Awwal Rajab Dhu al-Qi'dah Rabi' al-Thani Sha'ban Dhu al-Hijjah

The following holidays are observed among Muslim communities throughout the world: 'Id al-Fitr, also known as the Little Feast, marks the end of the great fast of Ramadan. It occurs on the first day of the month of Shawwal. 'Id al-Adha, the Feast of Sacrifice, also known as the Great Feast, falls seventy days after 'Id al-Fitr, on the 10th of the month of Dhu al-Hijjah. Ra's al-Sannah, New Year's Festival, falls on the first day of the month of Muharram. Mawlid an-Nabi, the Prophet's Birthday, is celebrated on the 12th day of the month of Rabi' al-Awwal. Lailat al Isra' wa al-Mi'raj, this festival commemorates the Prophet's miraculous journey, from Mecca to Jerusalem to heaven and then back to Mecca in the same night, is celebrated on the 27th day of the month of Rajab.

The Sharia contains prescriptions, proscriptions, recommendations, suggestions, general principles, and guidelines that may be considered the basis for an overall economic theory. It is important to remember, however, that such a theory must be part of the holistic vision of Islam and the integration of all aspects of human endeavor and interaction.

In one Hadith, the Prophet said that one should work in life as if one were going to live forever. This saying does not mean that there should be no sense of immediacy or urgency to action. Rather it suggests that there should be continuity in life. It also suggests that one should not be obsessed with attaining immediate results and worldly success. On the other hand, the Hadith goes on to state that one should act with respect to life in the hereafter as if one were to die tomorrow. In this, it conveys a sense of urgency about having one's conscience in good order. These correlative maxims rest on the ethical-moral prescription in the Qur'an to do good and abjure evil.

In antiquity, especially in Asia, the gates of a city were part of a larger structure that often had several levels, with towers and interior rooms. The connecting walls and arch above this gate have collapsed, and this is all that is left of one of the gates of Tashkurghan, a city that housed a thousand shops and a score of caravanserais when it was an important trading center on the many-branched Silk Roads. (Aramco World Magazine, May-June 1991; photo by Luke Powell). While there exist numerous economic theories consistent with the Qur'an, the ethical-moral basis of all of them must be the same. Because Islam is a way of life as well as a form of government, a social structure as well as a regulatory norm for interpersonal relationships, business is not something different and apart from all these other aspects of social life. It is a part of human life like any other. Islamic society preserves the notions of free enterprise and social solidarity, social responsibility and humanistic concern for all. It precedes self-interest, though that also is the object of many specific guarantees.

The Prophet, in another Hadith, once said that nine-tenths of all rizk (the bounty of God, which includes income) is derived from commerce. That, to a large extent, explains the drive of Muslims over the centuries to meet their economic needs through commerce, industry, agriculture and various forms of free enterprise. Profits are very much a part of such activities, provided they are lawfully obtained (halal). However, profits cannot overshadow the duties of brotherhood, solidarity, charity and they are, of course, subject to zakat.

It is not righteousness that ye turn your faces towards east or west; but it is righteousness—To believe in God and the Last Day, and the Angels, and the Book, and the Messengers; to spend of your substance, out of love for Him, for your kin, for orphans, for the needy, for the wayfarer, for those who ask, and for the ransom of slaves to be steadfast in prayer, and practice regular charity; to fulfill the contracts which ye have made; Qur'an 2:177

Legitimacy of Profit

Islam distinguishes between legitimate (halal) and illegitimate (haram) profit, of which usury (riba) is a part. To a large extent, the problem of defining usury has arisen over matters dealing with the practices of financial institutions in the West, namely the payment of interest which in the traditional Islamic view is considered a form of riba. By collecting a predetermined, fixed interest, the Muslim neither earns a profit from his work nor shares in risk of his capital. Speculation is prohibited, as is undue profiting from the need or misery of others. Nothing, however, proscribes income derived from what would be equivalent to mutual fund or special trust earnings or other contemporary forms of financing investments where the investor also bears the burden of potential loss. In fact, there exists in Islamic law a form of contract called muqaradah. Here a person entrusts capital to another person for commercial investment. The risk-taking elements justifies the profits, which are neither fixed nor predetermined.

The ethical-moral foundation of all economic relations is based on the distinction between halal and haram as set forth in the Sharia. The particular context of a given action, considering the interests of the community and the rights of all individuals involved, determines whether it may be deemed halal or haram. Although this may appear to be vague to the non-Muslim, it is nonetheless sufficiently clear to the Muslim because of his belief in the omniscience of God.

Fulfillment of Obligations

In all of his dealings, the Muslim is required to pay his debts as well as due compensation to those who work for him. He is to honor his obligations and stand by his word. Rectitude in business dealings and personal relations is as important to the Muslim as is any other tenet of faith. Religion must be lived. Thus ethics, morality, and religion are inseparable. That is why Muslims frequently do business by means of oral agreements or a handshake as opposed to a written contract. This also explains why there is usually a reluctance to adjudicate claims on an adversarial basis, where artful arguments may be found to rationalize or justify changing positions. Therefore, in cases of disagreement in business practices, Muslims frequently resort to arbitration. The practice is no different from that which has developed in non-Muslim societies: Each side selects an arbitrator who in turn selects a third person. It is common for both sides to agree on the arbitrator, usually a person whose faith, piety, and reputation for fairness is well-established in the community.

Because of the role of the individual in Islam as the recipient and bearer of God's will on earth, the sense of individual dignity, pride, and honor is very marked in the Muslim. Ideally, position in life and economic status should not be distinguishing factors in Islam, though in modern societies these distinctions have developed. Respect for the individual applies to form as well as substance and extends to all aspects of human interaction. A Muslim's word is still his bond, and his dignity is his most cherished attribute. An appeal to higher values is more convincing than an appeal to practicality and pragmatism. Human relations are more important than practical considerations Loyalty and fidelity are among the most highly regarded qualities. Rectitude is expected, and undue advantage is considered base. Fairness is both a means and an end, irrespective of the practical realities. Honesty is not a virtue but an expected trait in every Muslim. In today's world of business these values have eroded.

Role of Work

In Islam, work, intellectual as well as physical, is considered the basis of all richness and property. There is both a right to work and a right to the product of that work, as well as a right to benefit from the rewards of divine providence. Work must always have an ethical-moral component, either in itself or in its outcome (i.e., charity, contributing to the community, etc.). There is in the philosophical sense no intrinsic wealth, although the right of inheritance is protected and specifically prescribed under Sharia, which allows for the preservation of property, its devolution and accumulation. Nonetheless, there is the implied premise that wealth should be legitimized through work. In addition, wealth must also be used for good of others, such as the needy, and for the community as a whole. The greater one's wealth and power, the greater is the responsibility to use them properly. In many respects work is considered a form of piety.

Economic freedom extends to work, property, and the choice of how to use one's capabilities and resources. The individual has the freedom to choose the type of work he does, and he has the right to work in an environment that does not impinge upon his personal dignity. Only in freedom can an individual choose how to use the fruits of his labor, that is, to use his wealth for personal aggrandizement or for the benefit of the community. There is a prohibition against jah, the flaunting of one's achievement in the face of others, particularly the less fortunate. This reflects the values of equality and humility symbolically manifested in the five daily prayers, when people stand side by side, shoulder to shoulder, kneeling in unison and putting their foreheads to the ground.

O ye who believe do not eat up your property among yourselves in wrong. But there be amongst you trade in mutual good will. Qur'an 4:29

"The buyer and seller have the option (of cancelling the contract) as long as they have not separated, then if they both speak the truth and make manifest, their transaction shall be blessed, and if they conceal and tell lies, the blessing of their transaction shall be obliterated." The Prophet's Hadith

"The truthful, honest merchant is with the prophets and the truthful ones and the martyrs." The Prophet's Hadith

"Whoever cultivates land which is not the property of any one has a better title to it." The Prophet's Hadith

The Sharia recognizes the right to private property and its uses (provided it is halal), save for the right of the community to "eminent domain." The use of property in accordance with the best interests and dictates of the owner is safeguarded, provided the rights of others are protected. There is throughout the notion that the utilization of wealth must balance the rights of the owner against the rights and interests of the community, which extends to the preservation of the property itself. Use is permissible; abuse and destruction are forbidden.

Property of whatever sort is not considered merely the personal privilege of the one who owns it. Ownership brings with it a certain responsibility towards the property itself, its use and benefits. The relationship between man and his Creator and the social responsibilities of a Muslim require that property be used not only for one's personal advantage and benefit but also for the advantage and benefit of the community. This does not mean that every commercial, industrial, or agricultural enterprise must ultimately turn into a charitable activity, hut there must be human, ethical, and moral factors that relate to the use of property. Thus, if the choice is between an ethical-moral consideration and profit, the former prevails over the latter, other things being equal.

Members of the congregation shake hands and chat near the northern entrance of the Great Mosque in Djenné, Mali. (Aramco World Magazine, November-December 1990; photo Brynn Bruijn). Contracts

Because every Muslim is accountable before both Allah and his community, a great deal of faith is placed in a Muslim's word. Contractual freedom is required and implies the ability to make free choices without undue influence. The attempt to control certain segments of the market or certain phases of a given mechanism that may either control prices or affect the natural laws of a free economy is considered haram. Thus Islamic economic liberty is inherently similar to the notion of free enterprise and socially responsible capitalism. The principles of Islamic economic theory would invalidate transactions in which deceit or undue influence is used by one person against another.

Contracts of various types are regulated by the Sharia and are subject to the concepts of halal and haram. Contracts are essentially predicated on the free will of the parties and must manifest the true expression of their intent. Economic activities based on implied contracts are also balanced by a variety of what would now be called equitable principles to insure against undue influence and lack of fairness, which affect questions of competence, validity, rescission, and damages. Thus the theory of market observation (hisba) postulates that there is a notion of accountability for the market and responsibility for its supervision. The theory originally applied to the traditional agricultural markets and their related commercial markets in the period from the seventh to the twelfth century. It can be compared to market and control mechanisms such as the Federal Reserve Board's control of currency or the Securities and Exchange Commission's control of stock transactions.

Individual contracts, implied contracts, and contracts of adhesion are to be regulated in such a way as to enhance fairness, produce equity, protect the weak and the unwary, and promote social interests. The logical extension of these principles is that no one can enrich himself to the detriment of others. In such a case the injured party has a right to compensation for his loss, not to exceed the extent of profit of the one causing the unjust loss. All of these notions of equity, including protection of the public (consumers, users, etc.), have now emerged in the legal systems of the modern world.

Four-minaret mosque, Bukhara. (Aramco World Magazine, July-August 1988; photo Tor Eigeland). Modern Legal Systems

All Muslim states have legal systems with courts, laws and judges, like elsewhere in the world. There are, however, differences among Muslim states. In some countries, such as Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Syria ad Tunisia, there is a tradition of legal codification and jurisprudence. Structures for the administration of justice are also well-developed. There is a three-level judiciary comprising trial courts, appellate courts, and a supreme court. The practice of adjudication of claims with representation by counsel is well-established. In some countries, such as Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates and other Gulf states, there is less of a tradition of codification and a greater reliance on the Sharia. But there are also in these countries a number of laws applying to contracts, commercial relations, agency and the like, in addition to a judicial system and a jurisprudence specific to commercial matters. In the last decade, moreover, many countries have enacted civil and commercial codes—Algeria, Kuwait, and the United Arab Emirates, for example—which are mostly mostly modeled after the Egyptian Civil Code of 1948. The Egyptian code was taken in turn from the French Civil Code and adapted to the Sharia. In the 1980's, Pakistan and the Sudan, which have codified legal systems, have been in the process of changing their laws to conform to the Sharia.

And O my people! give just measure and weight, nor withhold from the people the things that are their due: Commit not evil in the land with intent to do mischief. Qur'an 11:85

It is We who have place you with authority on earth, and provided you therein with means for the fulfillment of your life: Small are the thanks that ye give! Qur'an 7:10

Because Islam originated and has developed in an Arab culture, other cultures which have adopted Islam have tended to be influenced by Arab customs. Thus Arab Muslim societies and other Muslims have cultural affinities, though every society has preserved its distinguishing characteristics. Islamic culture inherited an Arab culture born in the desert, simple but by no means simplistic. It has an oral tradition based on the transmission of culture through poetry and narrative. However, it has been the written record that has had the greatest impact on civilization. Islam civilization is based on the value of education, which both the Qur'an and the Prophet stressed.

This dark green jade pot, 14 cm. (5½"), once furnished the Safavid palace at Tabriz, and probably passed into Ottoman hands after the Battle of Çaldiran in 1514. Before that, the dragon-headed handle suggests it may have belonged to a Timurid ruler. (Aramco World Magazine, January-February 1995; photo Ergun Çagatay). Knowledge and Education

In the Pre-Islamic period, one of the traditions was that of the mu'allaquat (literally "the hangings"). In the city of Mecca, poets and writers would hang their writings on a certain wall in the city so that others could read about the virtues of their respective tribes. Their travels from city to city and tribe to tribe were the means by which news, legends, and exploits would become known. The tradition continued as the Qur'an was first memorized and transmitted by word of mouth and then recorded for following generations. This popular expression of the Arab Muslim peoples became an indelible part of Islamic culture. Even today Muslims quote the Qur'an as a way of expressing their views and refer to certain maxims and popular tales to make a point.

Great centers of religious learning were also centers of knowledge and scientific development. Such formal centers began during the Abbasid period (750-1258 A.D.) when thousands of mosque schools were established. In the tenth century Baghdad had some 300 schools. Alexandria in the fourteenth century had 12,000 students. It was in the tenth century that the formal concept of the Madrassah (school) was developed in Baghdad. The Madrassah had a curriculum and full-time and part-time teachers, many of whom were women. Rich and poor alike received free education. From there Maktabat (libraries) were developed and foreign books acquired. The two most famous are Bait al-Hikmah in Baghdad (ca. 820) and Dar al-Ilm in Cairo (ca. 998). Universities such as Al-Azhar (969 A.D.) were also established long before those in Europe.

Then exalted be Allah the True King! And hasten not (O Muhammad) with the Qur'an ere its revelation hath been perfected unto thee, and say: My Lord! Increase me in knowledge. Qur'an 20:114

Islamic history and culture can be traced through the written records: Pre-Islamic, early Islamic, Umayyad, the first and second Abbasid, the Hispano-Arabic, the Persian and the modern periods. The various influences of these different periods can be readily perceived, as can traces of the Greek, the Indian, and the Pre-Islamic Persian cultures. Throughout the first four centuries of Islam, one does not witness the synthesis or homogenization of different cultures but rather their transmittal through, and at times their absorption into, the Islamic framework of values. Islam has been a conduit for Western civilization of cultural forms which might otherwise have died out. Pre-Islamic poetry and prose, which was transmitted orally, was recorded mostly during the Umayyad period (661-750 A.D.) when the Arab way of life began shifting from the simple nomadic life prevalent in the peninsula to an urban and sophisticated one. Contacts with Greece and Persia gave a greater impulse to music, which frequently accompanied the recitation of prose and poetry. By the mid-800's in the Baghdad capital of Abbassids under Harun al-Rashid and al-Ma'mun, Islamic culture as well as commerce and contacts with many other parts of the world flourished.

In the fourth century B.C., when Alexander the Great conquered Asia Minor and founded Alexandria, he set the stage for the great migration of Greek philosophy and science to that part of the world. During the Ptolemaic period, Alexandria, Egypt, was the radiant center for the development and spread of Greek culture throughout the Mediterranean. That great center of learning continued after 641, when Egypt became part of the Muslim state. Thereafter Syria, Baghdad, and Persia became similar channels for the communication of essentially Greek, Syriac, pre-Islamic Persian and Indian cultural values. As a result, Islamic philosophy was influenced by the writings of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. The great Muslim philosophers such as Ibn Khaldun (d. 1406), Ibn Sina (Avicenna, d. 1037), Ibn Rushd (Averroes, d. 1198), al-Farabi and al-Ghazali translated the works of earlier Greek philosophers and added their own significant contributions. It was essentially through such works, intellectually faithful to the originals, that Western civilization was able to benefit from these earlier legacies. In fact, St. Thomas Aquinas, the founder of Catholic naturalism, developed his views of Aristotle through the translation of Ibn Sina (Avicenna) and Ibn Rushd (Averroes). These great philosophers produced a wealth of new ideas that enriched civilization, particularly Western civilization which has depended so much on their works. The influence of Islam ultimately made possible the European Renaissance, which was generated by the ideas of the Greeks filtered through the Muslim philosophers. The same is true of early legal writings of Muslim scholars such as al-Shaybani, who in the seventh century started the case method of teaching Islamic international law that was subsequently put into writing in the twelfth century by a disciple in India. It was the basis for the writings of the legal canonists of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries on certain aspects of international law, in particular the laws of war and peace.

The study of history held a particular fascination for Arab Muslims imbued with a sense of mission. Indeed, because Islam is a religion for all peoples and all times, and because the Qur'an states that God created the universe and caused it to be inhabited by men and women and peoples and tribes so that they may know each other, there was a quest for discovery and knowledge. As a result Muslims recorded their own history and that of others. But they added insight to facts and gave to events, people, and places a philosophical dimension expressed in the universal history written by al-Tabari of Baghdad (838-923). In the introduction to his multi-volume work he devoted an entire volume to the science of history and its implications. Al-Tabari also wrote an authoritative text on the history of prophets and kings which continues to be a most comprehensive record of the period from Abraham to the tenth century.

The West's fascination with Arabo-Islamic (culture can be seen in many ways. "The Thousand and One Nights" captured Western Europe's cultural and popular fancy in the 1700's (first translated into French by Galland in 1704, then into English). Dante's "Divine Comedy" contains reference to the Prophet's ascension to Heaven. Shakespeare in "Othello" and the "Merchant of Venice" describes Moorish subjects. Victor Hugo writes of Persians as do Boccaccio and (Chaucer. Even "Robinson Crusoe" and "Gulliver's Tales" are adaptations of "The Thousand and One Nights." Arabo-Islamic culture, knowledge, scholarship, and science fed the Western world's development for five hundred years between the tenth and fifteenth centuries.

The Sciences

From the second half of the eighth century to the end of the eleventh century, Islamic scientific developments were the basis of knowledge in the world. At a period of history when the scientific and philosophical heritage of the ancient world was about to be lost, Islamic scholars stepped in to preserve that heritage from destruction. Indeed, without the cultivation of science in these early centuries by Islamic scholars, it is probable that texts which later exercised a formative influence over Western culture would never have survived intact. It is certain, moreover, that the modern world would look much different than it does today. For the culture and civilization that were founded on Islam not only preserved the heritage of the ancient world but codified, systematized, explained, criticized, modified, and, finally, built on past contributions in the process of making distinctive contributions of their own.

The Wonders and Curiosities of Creation Iran or Iraq 14th c. (Aramco World Magazine, November-December 1995; photo courtesy of ARCH). The story of Islam's role in the preservation and transmission of ancient science, to say nothing of its own lasting contributions, is truly fascinating—and a bit of a puzzle. Why is it that so many ancient Greek texts survive only in Arabic translations? How did the Arabs, who had no direct contact with the science and learning of the Greeks, come to be the inheritors of the classical tradition?

The answers to these questions are to be found in a unique conjunction of historical forces. From the first, it appears, the Umayyad dynasty located in Damascus evinced an interest in things Greek, for they employed educated Greek-speaking civil servants extensively. Early friezes on mosques from the period show a familiarity with the astrological lore of late antiquity.

The theory of numbers, developed and expanded from the original Indian contribution, resulted in the "Arabic numbers" 1 through 9. Islamic scholars also used the concept of zero, which was a Hindu concept. Without the zero, neither mathematics, algebra, nor cybernetics would have developed. Algebra was essentially developed by the Arab Muslims; the very word derives from the Arabic al-jabr. Among the most prominent scholars is the Basra born Ibn al-Haytham (965-1030), who developed the "Alhazen problem," one of the basic algebraic problems, and who made great contributions to optics and physics. He had advanced long before Newton the thesis that extraterrestrial scientific phenomena governed the motion of the earth and stars. He also developed experiments on light which were nothing short of extraordinary at that time. He demonstrated the theory of parallels, based on the finding that light travels in straight lines, and the passing of light through glass. Astronomy, developed by the Babylonians, continued to flourish under Islam. It soon expanded beyond the science of observation into the design of measuring instruments. In addition, it gave rise to the development of planetary theory.

The Arabic alphabet developed from the ancient script used for Nabataean, a dialect of Aramaic, in a region now part of Jordan. The Arabic alphabet has 28 letters. However, additional letters have been added to serve the need of other languages using the Arabic script; such as Farsi, Dari, and Urdu, and Turkish until the early part of the 20th century. The Qur'an was revealed in Arabic.

Traditionally the Semites and the Greeks assigned numerical values to their letters and used them as numerals. But the Arabs developed the numbers now used in languages. The invention of the "zero" is credited to the Arabs though it has its origins in Hindu scholarship. The Arab scholars recognized the need for a sign representing "nothing," because the place of a sign gave as much information as its unitary value did. The Arabic zero proved indispensable as a basis for all modern science.

The medical sciences were largely developed throughout the works of Ibn Sina (Avicenna), al-Razzi, and Husayn bin Ishak al-Ibadi, who translated Hippocrates and other Greeks. Razi (860-940) is reported to have written 200 books on medicine, one of them on medical ethics, and the Hawi, a 25 volume practical encyclopedia. Ibn Sina (980-1037) became a famed physician at 18 who wrote 16 books and the Canoun, an encyclopedia on all known diseases in the world. It was translated into many languages. But medical science soon led into zoology, veterinary medicine, pharmacy, pharmacology and chemistry. Indeed the word "chemistry" derives from the Arabic word al-kemia or alchemy as it was later known. The most important medical school was that of Judishapur, Iran, which after 738 became part of the Muslim world. It was managed by Syrian Christians and became the center for most Muslim practical learning and the model for the hospitals built under the Abbasids (between 749-1258).

The Arabs clearly followed the Hadith of the Prophet urging them to pursue knowledge from birth to death, even if that search was to be in China (deemed the most remote place on the earth.)

The Abbasids, who displaced the Umayyads and moved the seat of government from Damascus to Baghdad, made the first serious effort to accommodate Greek science and philosophy to Islam. The Abbasid rulers, unlike the Umayyads who remained Arab in their tastes and customs, conceived an Islamic polity based on religious affiliation rather than nationality or race. This made it easier for people of differing cultural, racial, and intellectual heritages to mingle and exchange ideas as equals. Persian astronomers from Gandeshapur could work side by side with mathematicians from Alexandria in the cosmopolitan atmosphere of Baghdad.

Then, too, the success of the Islamic conquest had erased existing national boundaries which had worked to keep peoples linguistically, politically, and intellectually apart. For the first time since Alexander the Great former rivals could meet and exchange ideas under the protection of a single state. The rise of Arabic as the international language of science and government administration helped matters along. As the cultivation of the sciences intensified and the high civilization of the Abbasids blossomed, the expressive resources of Arabic blossomed as well, soon making Arabic the language of choice for international commerce and scholarship as well as divine revelation.

Most important of all, however, it was the attitude that developed within the Islamic state toward the suspect writings of the Greeks. Unlike the Christian communities of late antiquity, whose attitudes toward the pagan philosophers were shaped by the experience of Roman persecution, Muslims did not suffer—or at least to the same degree—the conflict between faith and reason. On the contrary, the Qur'an enjoined Muslims to seek knowledge all their lives, no matter what the source or where it might lead. As a result, Muslims of the Abbasid period quickly set about recovering the scientific and philosophical works of the classical past—lying neglected in the libraries of Byzantium—and translating them into Arabic.

The task was herculean and complicated by the fact that texts of the classical period could not be translated directly from Greek into Arabic. Rather, they had first to be rendered in Syriac, the language with which Christian translators were most familiar, and then translated into Arabic by native speakers. This circuitous route was made necessary by the fact that Christian communities, whose language was Syriac, tended to know Greek, whereas Muslims generally found it easier to learn Syriac, which is closer to Arabic.

A doctor and patient discuss vitrified lead poisoning on this page from the Materia Medica of Dioscorides. The Greek work, from the first century BC, was translated into Arabic in the ninth century; this is a 13th-century copy made in Iraq. (Aramco World Magazine, January-February 1989; photo Jeffrey Crespi). The translation effort began in earnest under the reign of the second Abbasid caliph, al-Mansur (754-75). He sent emissaries to the Byzantine emperor requesting mathematical texts and received in response a copy of Euclid's Elements. This single gift, more than any other perhaps, ignited a passion for learning that was to last throughout the golden age of Islam and beyond. The effort was subsequently systematized under al-Ma'mun, who founded an institution expressly for the purpose, called the Bait al-Hikmah or House of Wisdom, which was staffed with salaried Muslim and Christian scholars. The output of the House of Wisdom over the centuries was prodigious, encompassing as it did nearly the entire corpus of the Greek scientific and philosophical thought. Not only Euclid but Aristotle, Galen and Hippocrates, and Archimedes were among the authors to receive early treatment.

It would be wrong to suggest that the scholars of the House of Wisdom were occupied with task of translation only. Muslim scholars generally were concerned to understand, codify, correct, and, most importantly, assimilate the learning of the ancients to the conceptual framework of Islam. The greatest of these scholars were original and systematic thinkers of the first order, like the great Arab philosopher al-Farabi who died in 950. His Catalog of Sciences had a tremendous effect on the curricula of medieval universities.

Perhaps the most distinctive and noteworthy contributions occurred in the field of mathematics, where scholars from the House of Wisdom played a critical role in fusing the Indian and classical traditions, thus inaugurating the great age of Islamic mathematical speculation. The first great advance consisted in the introduction of Arabic numerals—which, as far as can be determined, were Indian in origin. They embody the "place-value" theory, which permits numbers to be expressed by nine figures plus zero. This development not only simplified calculation but paved the way for the development of an entirely new branch of mathematics, algebra.

The study of geometry was sustained by a remarkable series of scholars, the Banu Musa or "Sons of Musa," who were all, quite literally, sons of the al-Ma'mun's court astronomer, Musa ibn Shakir. Their activities were all the more noteworthy because they carried on their research and writing as private citizens, devoting their lives and expending their fortunes in the pursuit of knowledge. Not only did they sponsor the translation of numerous Greek works but contributed substantial works of their own. Al-Hasan, one of the sons, was perhaps the foremost geometrician of his time, translating six books of the Elements and working out the remainder of the proofs on his own.

Arabic Words That Entered the Western Vocabulary AL-JABR = ALGEBRA AL-KEMIA = CHEMISTRY AL-KUHL = ALCOHOL AL-MIRAL = ADMIRAL AL'UD = LUTE 'ANBAR = AMBER BAWRAQ = BORAX GHARBALA = GARBLE GHOL = GHOUL LAYMUN = LEMON MAKHZAN = MAGASIN (French) NARANJ = ORANGE QAHWAH = COFFEE, CAFE QANAH = CANE QITAR = GUITAR SAFARA = SAFARI SUKKAR = SUGAR = ASUKAR (Spanish) TAFRIK = TRAFFIC TA'RIF = TARIFF TUNBAR = TAMBOURINE (French) ZIRAFAH = GIRAFFE The enormous intellectual energy unleashed by the Abbasid dynasty left no field of knowledge and speculation untouched. In addition to mathematics and geometry, Abbasid scholars in the House of Wisdom made important and lasting contributions in astronomy, ethics, mechanics, music, medicine, physics, and philosophy to name a few. In the process men of enormous intellect and productivity rose to prominence. One of these was Thabit ibn Qurra. Recruited from the provinces—where he had worked in obscurity as a money changer—he came to the Bait al-Hikmah to work as a translator. There his exemplary grasp of Syriac, Creek, and Arabic made him invaluable. In addition to his translations of key works, such as Archimedes' Measurement of the Circle (later translated into Latin by Gerard of Cremona in the 12th century), he also wrote over 70 original works on a wide range of subjects. His sons, too, were to found a dynasty of scholars that lasted until the 10th century.

But it wasn't only the pure or abstract sciences that received emphasis in these early years. The practical and technical arts made advances as well, medicine the first among them. Here several great scholars deserve mention. Hunain ibn lshaq not only translated the entire canon of Greek medical works into Arabic—including the Hippocratic oath, obligatory for doctors then as now—but wrote 29 works by his own pen, the most important a collection of ten essays on ophthalmology. The greatest of the 9th century physician-philosophers was perhaps Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn Zakariya al-Razi, known to the west as Rhazes. He wrote over 184 books and was an early advocate of experiment and observation in science.

Simultaneously, in far off Spain (al-Andalus), the social and natural sciences were being advanced by men such as Ibn Khaldun, the first historian to explicate the laws governing the rise and fall of civilizations. The brilliant flowering of Islamic science in Andalusia was directly stimulated by the renaissance in Baghdad. Scholars regularly traveled the length of the known world to sit and learn at the feet of a renowned teacher.

With the death of the philosopher al-Farabi in 950 the first and most brilliant period of Islamic scientific thought drew to a close. As the political empire fragmented over the next 300 years, leadership would pass to the provinces, principally Khorasan and Andalusia. Indeed, Spain was to serve as a conduit through which the learning of the ancient world, augmented and transformed by the Islamic experience, was to pass to medieval Europe and the modern world. At the very time that Baghdad fell to the Mongols in 1258, and the Abbasid caliphate came to an end, scribes in Europe were preserving the Muslim scientific tradition. This is why, just as many Greek texts now survive only in Arabic dress, many Arabic scientific works only survive in Latin.

The death of al-Farabi is perhaps a fitting event to mark the end of the golden age of Muslim science. His masterwork, The Perfect City, exemplifies the extent to which Greek culture and science had been successfully and productively assimilated and then impressed with the indelible stamp of Islam. The perfect city, in al-Farabi's view, is founded on moral and ethical principles; from these flow its perfect shape and physical infrastructure. Undoubtedly he had in mind the round city of Baghdad, The City of Peace.

Trade and Commerce as a Cultural Vehicle

Because Arabs historically had a tradition of trade and commerce, the Muslims continued that tradition. It was due to their superiority in navigation, shipbuilding, astronomy, and scientific measuring devices that Arab and Muslim commerce and trade developed and reached so many peoples throughout the world. The Arabs were at the crossroads of the ancient trade routes from the Mediterranean, the Gulf, East Africa, and the Indian subcontinent, all the way to China.

One of the interesting results of these trading relations occurred during the caliphate of Harun al-Rashid (786-809) when he exchanged envoys and gifts with Charlemagne, the Holy Roman Emperor. As a result, Harun al-Rashid established the Christian Pilgrims' Inn in Jerusalem, fulfilling Umar's pledge to Bishop Sophronious, when he first entered Jerusalem, to allow freedom of religion and access to Jerusalem to Christian religious pilgrims.

A number of Arabic words relating to the trade and commerce have found their way into modern Western languages. (See list of words.) Muslin cotton developed in Mosul (Iraq) became a favorite commodity and a new word in the Western vocabulary, as did damask fabric (from Damascus), fustain cloth (from Fustat, Egypt).

The most interesting accounts of other cultures encountered by Arab Muslims are contained in a book on the travels of Ibn Battutah of Tangier (1304-1377), who over a period of 25 years traveled to Asia Minor, Mongolia, Russia, China, the Maldives, Southeast Asia and Africa and recounted his travels and the influence of early Muslim traders in those regions. He was the precursor of Marco Polo, whose accounts contained detailed descriptions of various cultures with which Arab and Muslims traders had long been in contact. Islamic craftsmanship in bookmaking and bookbinding were items of trade which carried the message of Islamic civilization far and wide.

Architecture and music

The word "Arabesque" entered into the Western lexicon as a description of the intricate design that characterized Arab Muslim art. But the great mosques that were first built throughout the Islamic world were not only places of worship but places of learning which remained as great examples of architecture and design. Through them civilization was transmitted in an artistic environment that was at once intellectually inspiring and emotionally uplifting. The Haram Mosque of Mecca, the Mosque of Al-Aqsa in Jerusalem, the numerous mosques in Cairo—Al-Azhar, Amr, Sultan Hassan, Baybars—the Great Umayyad Mosque of Damascus, the Quairawan in Tunisia, the Blue Mosque in Istanbul, the Cordoba Mosque in Spain and the Kutubiyah in Marakesh are among the most noteworthy. In addition to distinctive architectural characteristics, such as magnificent geometric designs, many of these contain mosaics of rare beauty, frequently painted in the blue and green of the sea, sky, and vegetation. The wood carving (masharabiyah) in most mosques are equally distinctive and characteristic of Islamic art.

At times of prayer, individuals and congregations—indeed the entire Muslim world—face Mecca. The mosque is usually a domed structure with one or more minarets from which the muadhin gives the call to prayer five times a day. The direction of Mecca is clearly indicated by the mihrab, a decorated niche in the wall. The larger mosques have a minbar or pulpit. Since the worshipers should be in a pure state of mind and body before they begin to pray, a fountain is placed in the courtyard for ritual ablutions. Shoes are removed on entering the prayer hall, which is usually carpeted.

For Muslims the mosque is a place for worship and education, a refuge from the cares of the world. Its function is best described in the Prophet's own words, namely that the mosque should be a garden of paradise. Islam's greatest architect was Sinan, a 16th century Ottoman builder who was responsible for the Sulaimaniye mosque in Istanbul. His mosques visibly display the discipline, might, and splendor of Islam.

The most notable examples of masharabiyah are in the Mosque of Ibn Tulun in Cairo, the Blue Mosque in Istanbul, and the Mosque of Isfahan. After the Ka'ba in Mecca, the "Dome of the Rock" or Mosque of Umar in Jerusalem built in 685 is the oldest example of Muslim architectural genius. The technique of dome construction was perfected and passed on to the West. The technique of dome structural support was used in the Capella Palatine in Palermo (1132), while the campaniles or steeples of the Palazza Vecchio of Florence and of San Marco in Venice are inspired by the minaret which was first built in Qairawan, Tunisia (670). Similarly, the horseshoe arch, which was so prevalent in Islamic form and particularly well realized in the Great Mosque of Damascus (707), has since been copied all over the world. Probably the best known example of Islamic architecture is the Alhambra (meaning al-Harnra or the red one) palace built in 1230 in Granada, Spain.

But artistic contributions were not limited to architecture, construction, decoration, painting, mosaic, calligraphy, design, metalcraft and wood carving. They extended to music through the development of new instruments and new techniques of sound and rhythm. The Arab Muslims (al-Farabi in particular) were the first to develop a technique of musical harmony paralleling mathematical science. Arabic-Islamic music was characterized by the harmony of sound and evocative emotional expression. Musiqa is the Arabic word for music.

Islamic Fundamentalism

Many non-Muslims perceive Islamic Fundamentalism as a form of revolutionary ideology and associate it with groups and movements which engage in violent acts or advocate violence. This must be distinguished from Islamic revival which is a peaceful movement calling for the return to basic traditional values and practices. Adherents to and followers of such a movement believe that the best way to achieve the "true path of Islam" is to develop an integrated social and political system based on Islamic ideals and the teachings of the Qur'an and the Sunna. To that extent they are fundamentalists.

Reform ideas which derive from revival movements are not new to the history of Islam, nor do they advocate resorting to violence in order to achieve such a goal except where rebellion against unjust rule is legally justified. Examples of peaceful reform ideas are found in the learned teachings of the 13th century philosopher-scholar Ibn Taymiyya in Syria. In the 18th century the Wahabi reform movement developed in Saudi Arabia and its orthodox teachings continue to the present. Also in the 19th century the ideal of the "true path to justice" or al-salaf al-salih was eloquently propounded by Sheik Muhammad Abduh in Egypt, and his views continue to be studied by religious and secular scholars all over the world. These and other reform ideas have in common the search for Islamic truth and justice and their applicability to the solutions to Muslim societies' problems.

Because Islam is a holistic religion integrating all aspects of life, it follows that a reform movement predicated on religion necessarily confronts the social, economic, and political realities of the society in which it develops. Muslim societies, however, have emerged from colonialism and neo-colonialism and are seeking to develop free from certain western influences which may corrupt or subvert basic Islamic values. Furthermore in Islam there is no division or distinction between what in the West is called "Church and State". In fact westerners refer to the Islamic form of government as a theocracy. Thus contemporary political-religious groups focus on social, political, and economic aspects of Muslim societies. They oppose the secular state and instead call for the establishment of a "Muslim State".

A distinction must be made between Islamic reform and Islamic political activism conducted under the banner of Islam. The latter is sometimes characterized by extremism, fanaticism, and violence, which are contrary to Islamic precepts. But these manifestations of a socio-political nature must not be confused with the ideals and values of Islam.

Enlightened reform ideas continue to develop in the Muslim world. Institutions like Al-Azhar University in Cairo, which is the oldest university in the world, the Muslim World League in Mecca, and the Organization of the Islamic Conference headquartered in Jeddah are the examples of the contemporary, intellectual, educational, and diplomatic forces in the resurgence of Islam. The contributions they make toward a better understanding of Islam, as well as its peaceful propagation, are free from extremism and violence.

The resurgence of Islam is flourishing in every part of the world and dedicated Muslims are trying hard to meet the challenges of modern times while remaining faithful to the values of their past. This is enlightened Islamic Fundamentalism. Its continuation and growth are ongoing. But since all mass movements carry the risk of excess, extremism by some is likely to occur at times. However, one should not judge the higher values shared by the many on the basis of the extreme deeds committed by the few.

Muslims, irrespective of whether they come from the Arab world, Africa, Asia Minor, Central Asia, China, the Soviet Union or Western societies, still feel strongly united in their shared beliefs and values. Muslims believe that they have a contribution to make in this world, either as individuals or as a community, and that their behavior and demeanor can set an example to others. In Muslim countries the problems, dilemmas, and frustrations are numerous. With the gradual disintegration of the Muslim state, beginning in the twelfth century, many of the countries fell under foreign rule for extensive periods of time, Ottoman Turkish domination for some at first, and then European colonialism. They have had to make up for many years during which their economic, social, and cultural development was blunted by both external and internal causes. To do so they have to struggle not only against problems of underdevelopment but also forces of rapid change.

The search for an Islamic way is ongoing throughout the Muslim world. It is an uneasy search seeking to link the fundamentals of a glorious past with a future that offers only hopeful promises dimmed by present difficulties. Most Muslims as individuals are undaunted, for every Muslim believes that he has to act during his lifetime as if he will live forever. He has a sense of permanence and continuity, knowing that the work begun by one person will be carried on by another. There is a constant hope for a better tomorrow; but then, what counts is the hereafter. Ours is not to insure a result but to try our best to achieve it in the right way. However, the end does not justify the means. The moral-ethical dimension of conduct and method must always predominate.

Second-grader Samiya Rahman and her classmates in Morton Grove, Illinois can choose from more study and reading resources on Islamic subjects than American-born, English-speaking Muslim children could do just a few years ago. (Aramco World Magazine, January-February 1998; photo Kathleen Burke). The challenge of Islam is a challenge to all Muslim societies: to create the types of economic, social, and political institutions that will preserve the basic ethical and moral values of Islam together with the individual freedom of every Muslim. This involves achieving a delicate balance between the needs of the community and the right of the individual to the full attainment of freedom, equality, justice and what under the U.S. Constitution is called "the pursuit of happiness." This also is a legitimate goal in Islam, as set forth by the tenth century Muslim philosopher—the mathematician al-Farabi. A significant part of his major text on truth is devoted to the attainment of happiness.

"Everyone of you is a shepherd, and everyone of you will be questioned about those under his rule: The Amir is a shepherd and he will be questioned about his subjects, the man is a ruler in his family and he will be questioned about those under his care; and the woman is a ruler in the house of her husband and she will be questioned about those under her care." The Prophet's Hadith

O my son! Observe your prayers, order (enjoin or command) with what is just (right and fair) and admonish (forbid) what is wrong; and bear with patience on what befalls upon you; for this is determination of purpose. Qur'an 31:17

Professor of Law, DePaul University, since 1964; 1970 Fulbright-Hays Professor of International Criminal Law, The University of Freiburg, Germany; 1971 Visiting Professor of Law, N.Y.U.; 1972 Guest Scholar Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Washington, D.C. He is non-resident Dean of The International Institute of Higher Studies in Criminal Sciences (Siracusa, Italy) since 1976.

He studied law in the three major legal systems of the world: civil law, common law, and Islamic Sharia, at Dijon University, France, The University of Geneva Switzerland, and the University of Cairo, Egypt. His degrees are: J.D., Indiana University; LL.M., John Marshall Law School; S.J.D., George Washington University. In 1981 he was awarded the degree: Doctor of Law Honoris causa (Dottore in Giurisprudenza) from the University of Torino, Italy, and in 1988, the degree: Doctor of Law Honoris causa (Docteur d'Etat en Droit) conferred at The University of Pau, France.

He is the author of twenty-two books on U.S. Criminal Law and International and comparative Criminal Law and over 100 law review articles.

Active in several scholarly and professional organizations, he has served as the Secretary-General of the International Association of Penal Law since 1974; chairman of the International Law Section of the Illinois State Bar Association for several years, and chairman of several committees of the Chicago Bar and American Bar Associations.

A frequent lecturer at distinguished universities in the U.S. and abroad, he has also been a frequent U.N. consultant : Fifth U.N. Congress on Crime Prevention (1975) where he was elected Honorary Vice-President of the Congress; Sixth U.N. Congress (1980) where he presented a Draft International Criminal Code; U.N. Division of Human Rights in 1980-1981 for which he prepared a Draft Statute for the Creation of an International Criminal Court; Seventh U.N. Congress, for which he chaired two preparatory meetings of committees of experts in 1983-1984. He also served in 1978 as co-chairman of the committee of experts which prepared the U.N. Draft Convention of the Prevention and Suppression of Torture, and chairman of the committee of experts which prepared the U.N. Draft Convention on the Prevention of Unlawful Human Experimentation.

He was also a consultant to the Departments of State and Justice on projects relating to international traffic in drugs (1973) and control of terrorism (1975 and 1978) and the defense of the U.S. hostages in Iran (1979).

Among the distinctions and awards he received are: 1956, Order of Merit, Egypt; 1977, Order of Merit, Italy (Rank of Commendatore); 1978, Order of Merit, Italy, (Rank of Grand' Ufficiale); 1984, Order of Sciences, Egypt), (Rank of First Class). Also among others: 1967, Outstanding Citizen of the Year of Metropolitan Chicago; 1970, Outstanding Educator of America; 1973, Gold Medal of the Italian Press (Rome, Italy).

He has been admitted to practice in Illinois and Washington, D.C. and before the United States Supreme Court, the Second, Fifth, Seventh, and Eleventh Circuits of the U.S. Courts of Appeals, the United States Court of Military Appeals, and the United States Court of International Trade.

Since 1973 he has served as member of the Board and President of the MidAmerica Arab Chamber of Commerce.

The author gratefully acknowledges the support of the MidAmerica Arab Chamber of Commerce in connection with the cost of preparing the manuscript for publication, which was approved by its Board of Directors, and expresses his deep appreciation to Rand McNally Corporation of Chicago for publishing this book as a sign of their interest in the world of Islam.

Most of the illustrations contained in this book have been graciously provided by Aramco World Magazine and Rand McNally whose assistance in this respect was most useful.

In the selection of illustrations, their integration in the text and other ministerial functions, I was assisted by Olfat El-Mallakh of the MidAmerica Arab Chamber of Commerce to whom I express my appreciation as well as to Tom Malueg who edited an earlier version of the text, and appreciation to Alfred Polus for proofreading the final text. The design and layout of the book was done by John Wetzel whom I wish to thank, especially for his patience in redoing the layout repeatedly to produce this excellent result. My appreciation is also extended to Walid M. Shaar who did the calligraphy on the cover and the Qur'anic verse at the conclusion of the book, and to Dr. Shafiq Ismail who prepared the current map of the "Muslim world" (based on a map from the Chicago Tribune) and the "Distribution of the Shia" map. Specific acknowledgments for maps and illustrations appear in the text.

Finally, my appreciation to the American Arab Affairs Council (Washington, D.C.) for having published in 1985 an abbreviated text with the same title, which subsequently and with significant changes became this book.

The Middle East Institute (MEI) is an independent, non-partisan, non-for-profit, educational organization. It does not engage in advocacy and its scholars’ opinions are their own. MEI welcomes financial donations, but retains sole editorial control over its work and its publications reflect only the authors’ views. For a listing of MEI donors, please click here .

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The Spread Of Islam Across The Globe. (2016, Dec 27). Retrieved from https://studymoose.com/the-spread-of-islam-across-the-globe-essay

"The Spread Of Islam Across The Globe." StudyMoose , 27 Dec 2016, https://studymoose.com/the-spread-of-islam-across-the-globe-essay

StudyMoose. (2016). The Spread Of Islam Across The Globe . [Online]. Available at: https://studymoose.com/the-spread-of-islam-across-the-globe-essay [Accessed: 3 Sep. 2024]

"The Spread Of Islam Across The Globe." StudyMoose, Dec 27, 2016. Accessed September 3, 2024. https://studymoose.com/the-spread-of-islam-across-the-globe-essay

"The Spread Of Islam Across The Globe," StudyMoose , 27-Dec-2016. [Online]. Available: https://studymoose.com/the-spread-of-islam-across-the-globe-essay. [Accessed: 3-Sep-2024]

StudyMoose. (2016). The Spread Of Islam Across The Globe . [Online]. Available at: https://studymoose.com/the-spread-of-islam-across-the-globe-essay [Accessed: 3-Sep-2024]

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