Hello, everyone!
If you think that I'm going to talk about Islam today, then you're correct!
I know that tensions are high between the Americas and Islam, but it is very important to talk about Muslims and their religion. They represent a large part of the world and have contributed greatly to World History. If I can talk about Christianity and its effects on history, then I can talk about Islam.
Today, I'll talk about Chapter 9. Where's Chapter 8? We'll talk about it in a later blog post. It's pretty exciting.
Intro to Chapter 9
Islam is practiced by 23% of the world's population. That's nearly a fourth of the entire world! Many people think that Islam is only really practiced in the Middle East, but it's actually practiced all over the world. Even in America, there are Muslims that are proud of their religion and dedicating their lives to Allah.
Some may think that Christians and Muslims never got along, but that's far from the truth. In some places today, such as the largely Muslim Indonesia, Muslims and Christians get along well with each other. They share the same roots and the same God, so why shouldn't they be together?
But where did Islam come from? Well, it was actually pretty recent compared to other religions...
The Birth of a New Religion
Before Islam was the dominant religion, the central region of the Arabian Peninsula had a group of people called the Bedouins. They believed in multiple gods and nature spirits, so it was likely that they would reject the notion of one true God.
That is farther from the truth. When Muhammad the prophet told the people the word of Allah, the Bedouins started to accept the belief that their was only one true God, and eventually abandoned their previous gods.
Islam is mainly about submitting to Allah, the God of Islam, and is seen an an obligation to get into Paradise after death. It relies on the Pillars of Islam, the main values of Islam. They involve believing in only Allah, praying five times a day, giving to the poor, fasting during Ramadan, and going to Mecca every year. This shows that Islam is not only a religion, but also a lifestyle that teaches people how to be good.
The Making of an Arab Empire
In order to become the second most dominant religion in the world, Islam needed to spread quickly. And with the rise of the Arab army, Islam became prominent from Europe to China.
Unlike Christianity, though, people converted to Islam as more of a connivance than a need to convert. For example, in places where there were a jizya, or a tax on non-Muslims, people sometimes converted to escape the tax and possibly join the army, which was banned to non-Muslims.
This is a good time to bring up how Islam isn't a completely unified religion, just like how Christianity has Catholicism, Protestantism, Calvinism, and the other religious sects. The two major groups of Islam are the Sunni Muslims and the Shia Muslims. Even to this day, there is disagreement between them on the correct way to submit to Allah.
Islam and Cultural Encounter: A Four-Way Comparison
Remember how Muslims were dominating the Indian Ocean's trade routes? That had some benefits for the spread of Islam.
Islam spread to places outside of the Middle East, such as India and West Africa. However, due to their different cultures and distant locations, there was some conflict between Arab Muslims and the local culture. For example, Muslims did not like the erotic art or the multiple gods of Hinduism.
By the way, did you know that Spain was once ruled by Muslims? That's why some of Spanish's loan words are from Arabic (you can tell if they start with "al", such as almohada). However, the Muslims of the area did not expect the Spanish Inquisition and were kicked out by Ferdinand and Isabella. That was much after the religious tolerance in Spain went down, and turned into hatred for any religion that wasn't the dominant religion (first Islam, then Christianity).
The World of Islam as a New Civilization
Despite the threat of the Mongols and Christianity, Islam thrived throughout Eurasia.
As stated in the last blog post, Muslims were dominating trade routes, but goods weren't the only thing they gave to the world. They were also very intelligent and gave many mathematical and scientific concepts to the world. For example, the numbers we use everyday, around the world (1234567890) were invented by a Muslim. Algebra was also developed by Muslims, and several types of surgeries were invented by them.
Basically, Muslims were advanced for their time in some areas. Why we don't give them as much credit as Euclid or Isaac Newton is a mystery, especially since we use Arabic numbers much more than Calculus (look, I know he "discovered" gravity, but why only focus on revolutionary European people?).
Despite the tension between Christians and Muslims, I can safely say that both groups of people have brought wonderful things to the world. If we worked together more, we could accomplish great things, especially in math and science.
So when we have the same goal to improve the world without harming people, let's work together. We might even learn a new thing or two.
Until next time!
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