Can someone tell me about the spread of Islam?
I lived under the impression that Muhammad was some kind of a conquerer, but apparently he just raided some caravans.
And how come so many people decided to switch over to Islam from Christianity? Did being a muslim work out better for them?
>>878015
DUDE
BOMBS
LMAO
>>878015
>Did being a muslim work out better for them?
Obviously. You don't have to pay the tax anymore, plus you can now live with full benefits such as representation in court and not having to be subservient to Muslims.
As in all religions in all time periods, most people are only nominally religious.
>>878026
What I'm getting here is that muslims went around ridding people of taxes.
>>878015
>And how come so many people decided to switch over to Islam from Christianity?
Citation needed. Are you sure the opposite is not the case, more Islamic people converting to Christianity.
>Did being a muslim work out better for them?
Mike Tyson was a shittier boxer, for one.
>>878040
>Citation needed. Are you sure the opposite is not the case, more Islamic people converting to Christianity.
No, but since Islam is like 600 years younger than Christianity, I made an assumption
Because the Byzantines and Persians were real cunts to certain groups that happened to be the majority in the areas that were eventually conquered people there were 10000% willing to have new rulers that let those people practice whatever they wanted as long as they paid a tax that was lower than what they were previously paying anyway. If they converted (most discouraged at first because of Arab elitism stuff) they got some more benefits. Christianity was really fucking violent towards itself back then too, it was worse to be one of the 'heretical' sects of Christianity than to be a Muslim. The Muslims also basically 1:1 adopted huge parts of the religions of the places they conquered like Persian Zoroastrianism. Shit like praying 5 times a day come from Zoroastrianism. Jews were treated well under Islamic rule, Christians were seen as simply Christians and not as Orthodox, Arian Christians, Catholics, etc., even Hindus became considered 'people of the book' eventually. The fact that it's heart was smack in the middle of the China and Europe and that they were really fucking good at trading shit by land and sea allowed for a vast area of influence.
In addition to that stuff, they did actually have top tier generals at the start like Khalid ibn al-Walid who only knew how to win.
>>878035
Muslims imposed taxes on Christians and Jews to keep practicing their faith. Either one paid, or was banished/killed.
Obviously, most of the people decided it wasn't worth it and just converted and went on with their daily lives.
>>878128
'no'
It was a vastly lower tax than what they were previously paying. Not only that, but unlike the Muslims you would be exempt from military service but still be under the express protection of the Muslims. You didn't have to pay if you couldn't, you didn't have to pay with money, and in some cases the taxes on Muslims were higher than non-Muslims. The only true benefit for converting was getting political representation and higher social standing.
>>878161
There was obviously some coercing going on, considering the areas the Muslims conquered were overwhelmingly Christian, but went to almost completely Muslim in a few years.
And you did have to pay the tax: where is this 'you didn't have to pay if you couldn't come from?
>>878202
Because those Christians were the type of Christians that very regularly and actively murdered by the Byzantines for not being the right kind of Christian.
The old, the handicapped, the very poor were exempt.
Early Islam spread so quickly through a combination of military dominance, allowing the other Abrahamic religions to worship in their territories, and having a open format. It took hold because the Caliphates and Islamic Nations that sprung up remained militarily dominant.
>>878228
>Because those Christians were the type of Christians that very regularly and actively murdered by the Byzantines for not being the right kind of Christian.
That still doesn't explain it. If they were so actively persecuted and executed by the official "mainline" Christianity of the Byzantine Emperors, then why did they convert en masse to the Muslim side, instead of letting themselves be persecuted and executed by them?
I think something was going on. I think the Byzantine persecution was nowhere as extreme as you make it out to be, and that it was simply much more beneficial to be a Muslim than a Christian.
Why did the conquerers choose to spread Islam?
>>878298
For the same reason any conqueror spreads their culture, a combination of a sense of superiority and it helps to have a feeling of commonality between ruler and ruled
>>878015
You should check any of the three threads made in the last two days about this same subject.
>>878015
It started as a form of Abrahamic puritan movement, a confederation of Arab monotheists convinced the end was nigh and that corrupting influences of paganism and a culture of internecine tribal conflict would damn them all if not pacified. Muhammad was likely one of many such preachers who happened to forge a series of political alliances in the semi-urbanized Western Arabian peninsula. This new confederation of the tribes of Medina, Mecca, and Taif subjugated all others in a few short years under its first ruler, Abu Bakr, before proceeding to unite the other tribes through raids and eventually conquests of Mesopotamia. At this point proto-Islam was still an ecumenical Abrahamic brotherhood, but the rapid growth of the Arab confederation and its territories awoke ancient chauvinist attitudes, and the conquerors began extolling the Abrahamic One God as their own personal deity and they His chosen people.
At this point the leaders began to fashion their confederation as a Divine Empire on the Byzantine and Sassanid model, creating a new court culture in which the movement began to develop as a religion rather than a philosophical movement. The now massive households of these courtiers, including the slaves and extended in-laws, began superimposing their own religious tropes onto the seeming purity of Muhammad and the distant desert far away from the luxury of Mesopotamia. At the periphery of the new empire, however, the old movement was still in play and resisted these centralizing attempts by reaching out to Berbers and Persians to join them in resistance to the Arab court and its governors, especially around the equally pure and mystical nephew of Muhammad, Ali.
>>878348 (cont)
Once the fighting died down and a short-lived peace established between the Arab governors of Mesopotamia, the inhabitants of the Arabian peninsula, and the local non-Arabs allied to dissident Arab mystics, a new generation of scholars fanned out across the empire gathering stories and traditions from everyone they could in their own quest for proper religion free of the corruption of the government and the cosmopolitan urban landscapes they were born into. Dozens of independent subcultures began to form themselves into schools, or at least student unions pledging themselves to a legendary mystic they took for a teacher. The end result was Islam, and it became synonymous with high culture throughout the Caliphate influencing even non-Muslim or non-Arab clients from Spain to India.
>>878293
http://biblelight.net/jus-code.htm
>Let those who do not accept those doctrines cease to apply the name of true religion to their fraudulent belief; and let them be branded with their open crimes, and, having been removed from the threshhold of all churches, be utterly excluded from them, as We forbid all heretics to hold unlawful assemblies within cities. If, however, any seditious outbreak should be attempted, We order them to be driven outside the the walls of the City, with relentless violence, and We direct that all Catholic Churches, throughout the entire world, shall be placed under the control of the orthodox bishops who have embraced the Nicene Creed.
>>878293
>Since it has, moreover, come to our pious ears, that some persons have written
and published ambiguous doctrines, which are not in absolute agreement with the
orthodox faith laid down my the holy council of the holy fathers who assembled at Nicea
and Ephesus, and by Cyrillus of blessed memory, once bishop of the great city of
Alexandria, we order that such books whether written before or during this time,
particularly those of Nestorius, shall be burned and delivered to complete destruction, so
that they may not even come to the knowledge of any one. Persons who continue to have
and read such writings or books shall be punished by death. Besides, no one shall be
permitted as we have said, to acknowledge or teach any creed, except the one laid down
at Nicea and Ephesus.
>>878202
>>878293
No area became completely Muslim in a few years. Hell, a large percentage of Iran may have still been Zoroastrian before the rise of the Safavids, and Nestorian Christianity reached its greatest extent and size during the height of the Arab Caliphates.
Large scale conversion of Christian populations to Islam only really started around the 14th and 15th centuries, and there was in fact lots of violence and coercion involved then under particularly intolerant Turkic regimes like the Mamelukes and Timurids.
Before that Eastern Christians in the Muslim world was a matter of political collusion. An example would be the Paulician sect who, after their leader was murdered by the Byzantines, defected to the Arab side of Anatolia and retained their faith while fighting alongside the Muslims as their allies.
>>878015
>>878298
Muhammad only fought in a few battles. There were probably only a total of five or six major battles in Muhammad's military career, most of which, if not all, we know were likely defensive on his part, with Muhammad and his small group of followers desperately trying to hold their own in Medina. The raids of caravans are said to have happened after the migration to Yathrib/Medina. The Muslims who left Mecca left all their possessions behind, which were confiscated by the pagan Arabs and the pretense of the raids is said to be the reclamation of these goods as the pagan Arabs sought to trade them in Damascus. There's also some misconceptions about how Arabs at this time "raided" while many raids were in fact bloody, more often than not, when you got raided, chances were you were held at sword point, weren't attacked unless you resisted, looted and then your attackers, if they followed the Arab codes of chivalry and had no personal blood feud with you, might give you a camel and enough water that you might be able to survive your journey home.At a later point, Muhammad and the Meccans arrived at a treaty, which allowed Muslims greater freedom of movement and greater freedom to trade with tribes allied to the Quraysh, even though they were still barred from Mecca. It's in the years between 6 AH and 9AH during this ceasefire that we see Islam begin to take over Arabia. The conquest of Mecca was mostly just the horde of Muhammad's followers waltzing into Mecca and Abu Sufyan giving Muhammad the keys to the city and "converting" to Islam in hopes of keeping his position and head.
>>878298
>>878298
cont'd
The Arabs after Muhammad who conquered Persia and Rome were more interested in land and booty, as well as taxes from the dhimmis. Generally speaking they saw Islam as an Arab thing and were apathetic and even at times cruel or indifferent to non-Arab Muslim converts who had hoped becoming part of the religion of the conquerors would give them benefits but felt they were being treated unfairly. Most of the lands the Arabs conquered remained majority non-Muslim for at least 200 years and they sometimes had to deal with revolts by non-Arab Muslims leading converts and fellow non-Muslim tribesmen under the pretense that the Arabs were not following Islam correctly (many black slaves converted to Islam became part of the Kharijite movement, while many Persians gravitated towards emerging Sufi and Shi'ite trends).
The Arab conquerors set themselves up initially outside the non-Muslim settlements usually and did not interact much with them except to collect taxes, and they in fact discouraged conversion because if these Christians and Zoroastrians converted to Islam, they couldn't charge them the jizya and would in fact have to share more of their new wealth with them.
Frontier regions for the most part were converted by missionaries, usually of a Sufi variety, whose converts then either attempted to secure alliance with a particular caliphate or set themselves up as independent rulers. And areas like Indonesia and Malaysia owe their large Muslim populations to merchant missionaries.
>>878298
They didn't. They even actively tried to reverse its spread. They built garrison towns to seclude themselves, they passed sumptuary laws that prevented non-Arabs from looking like them, they refused to take in self-proclaimed converts into their garrison towns and sent them back demanding they revert, shunned anyone with non-Arab parents or grandparents, and left so little a footprint that our earliest non-Muslim sources barely seem aware the Arabs even had a religion, let alone that it was called Islam.
It's the converts among the state bureaucrats and the non-conqueror Arab mendicants actively resisting the conquerors that chose to spread Islam.
>>878378
>that filename
Laughed.
>>878015
>but apparently he just raided some caravans.
I expect Muslims have told you that. Islam has always been based on violence and conquest.
>>878818
/pol/ please go. the grown ups are speaking now
>>878040
>more Islamic people converting to Christianity.
There are fore moe documented cases of Christians becoming Muslim. Big time Black celebrities/athletes aside, I can think of two large populations- Bosnians, and Anatolians that went from Christianity to Islam. not to mention most of Syria and Egypt was majority Christian.
The only major conversion to Christianity from Islam was through the Spanish reconquest. There aren't any prolific celebrities who are christian ex-Muslims
>>878846
What are you talking about?
>>878856
>The only major conversion to Christianity from Islam was through the Spanish reconquest.
And the conversion of black slaves to Christianity in the Americas, but that was more than often a case of Christians dumping holy water on them and saying "now, you're Christian."
And even with the Moriscoes of Spain, supposedly many of them remained Muslim and eventually migrated.
The main difference between Christianity and Islam is that if someone is forcing you to become another religion, one religion generally looks down on you publicly denying your faith to save your life or property while the other says there's no sin if you are being forced by violence or severe pressure to do this.
Christianity="You're not a real Christian unless you're willing to die for your faith and water the seeds of the Church with your blood."
Islam="God doesn't want you to kill yourself. You might be more useful to the Ummah alive than dead. At least consider taqiyya before you rush to martyrdom."
we've had these thread three times in one week now
>>881046
I guess that's why converting to Zoroastrianism is banned in Iran, and converting everyone else except muslims is allowed in countries like Morocco..
>>881046
Didnt some african muslim country just recently ban christmas because they were afraid itd convert people?
>>878856
Because you will be killed if you apostatize.
>>878117
>even Hindus became considered 'people of the book' eventually
after the invading muslims realized that india was one of the most densely populated places on earth and killing them all for polytheism as prescribed in the quran would have been impossible, and that merely relegating them to second-class citizenship and spasmodically burning and demolishing their temples was far easier
t. Crypto-Pahjeet
>>878015
>And how come so many people decided to switch over to Islam from Christianity?
Spread by the sword.
Was there a schism in islam that created a great war?
>>881642
>I guess that's why converting to Zoroastrianism is banned in Iran
Muslims converting to any religion besides Islam is forbidden in Iran, so I don't know why you point out Zoroastrianism specifically, considering it's even more a minority religion in Iran than Christianity at this point. Also, Zoroastrians are in disagreement over whether anyone can really convert to the faith.
>>885326
You can only be born to Zoroastrianism in Iran. No one in Iran can convert to Zoroastrianism.
>>878015
It was an extraordinary process. A desert Barbarian band conquered 1/3 of human civilization. All right so far; but they developed a civilizational system that lasted 1300 years, surviving the worst ordeals, unifying peoples and traditions, and attaching, by trade, the edges of the Known World.
>And how come so many people decided to switch over to Islam from Christianity? Did being a muslim work out better for them?
It took a long time. Centuries, it must be said. Pigeons, until the early twentieth century, 20% of the Ottoman population was Christian.
There were tax benefits. Instead of paying 10% of gross income per capita, 2.5% of net income, with exemption for the poor, interchangeable with donations to private entities. The legal guarantees were more robust, and, despite being nominally mandatory, military service covered only the lower classes, or even slaves.
>>883768
There has never been a series of religious wars between Muslims on the scale of European wars of religion during the Protestant reformation.
While the Sunni-Shi'i divide has gotten bloody at times, even during the Safavid-Ottoman period when these tensions were probably at their greatest, the fighting between these groups never really rose to the level of that of Europe.
I personally think this is because even at its most centralized, Islam always was forced by certain circumstances to tolerate a plurality of religious views more often for the sake maintaining politically stability. That and the secular rulers usually commanded the most authority and so were able to arbitrate between these different groups who competed for influence with him/her.
In Catholic Europe, the Church held a pretty big monopoly on what was acceptable religion compared to the different Muslim empires and principalities, who often were divided along religious differences, and unlike their Muslim counterparts, they didn't really have any competition. Muslim empires can be described as very diverse with multiple competing religious institutions whose conflicts are arbitrated by an absolute secular ruler who more or less just embodies the most popular religious and cultural-tribal elements of the people in that region which differentiates them from Muslims of other regions. Europe on the other hand was a collection kingdoms who were, at least in theory if not practice, dominated by a single, centralized religious establishment independent of the rulers but also much wealthier than they. In the Muslim world, religious establishments competed for influence with an independent ruler. With Europe, rulers competed for favor with the single, dominating religious establishment. When the Reformation comes around, the fall out of the Church's power cracking was probably more devastating than for the Muslims who HAD to tolerate more differences among themselves
