What factors helped spread Islam across the Middle East?

Answer 1

The great expansion period was in the 7th and 8th Centuries, concurrent with the European Dark Ages following the fall of Rome. The Christian/Pagan communities along the south shore of the Mediterranean where scattered and disunited, easy prey for the unified armies of Islam. The Muslim conquest actually went deep into France, where it was stopped as much by good fortune as by the courage and military skill of the troops under Charles the Hammer.

Answer 2

Many factors made Islam so widely accepted and spread. Some of them are:

• Islam is God religion since start of universe creation as the world Islam means full submission to God by all His creatures; skies, earths. planets. plants, mountains, animals, ..., and mankind.
• Islam is against discrimination based on color, race, gender, nationality, etc. The only ranking factor is piety
• Islam truthfulness as a God religion
• Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) as a model of good morals and characters
• Islam tolerance and forgiveness
• Quran as a God holy book with many scientific statements that had been only validated and proved by current advances in sciences and technologies.
• Muslims believe in all other God prophets (including Moses and Jesus) and God holy books (including the Torah and The Bible)
• Islam teachings call for good deeds for the benefit of mankind irrelevant to their faiths.
• Islam teachings call for maintaining human free will to believe in what religion he/she is convinced with and then be responsible in front of God on the Day of Judgement of his/her choice. The basic Islam rule is "No compulsion in religion".
• Islam call for justice and fairness irrelevant to ones position or wealth or faith.

Refer to questions below for more information

Answer 3

Islam spread quickly due to a number of factors. It is notable that although there are a few occurrences of Muslims carrying out the "Convert or Die" scenario, this is not the most common reason for Islam's expansion both in terms of territory and belief.

1) Arabia - What's that?: Prior to Mohammed, Arabia had been seen as a cultural and political backwater barely worth notice and therefore Mohammed's consolidation of the Arab Tribes was not seriously considered by the Byzantine and Sassanian Empires. This lead to a very porous southern defense and miscalculation of the Islamic Armies.

2) Byzantine-Sassanian Wars: Since the Byzantines and Sassanians considered each other the only real civilizations in the region, they fought each other numerous times in the early 600s C.E. over control of what is today East Turkey and Iraq. These were intense religious wars (Christian vs. Zoroastrian) and greatly weakened both empires at just the wrong time.

3) Tribal Command Structure: Arab Tribes and warriors owed their loyalty to their Sheikhs and leaders without fault because the Sheikh provided each person with all of the amenities and protection necessary to live a full life. Whenever the Arabs went to war, the Sheikhs could count on the ability to muster their tribesmen as soldiers without issue.

4) Support of the Locals: Since the Byzantine Empire and Sassanian Empire were engaged in religious zealotry, it stands to reason that they did not tolerate their religious minorities very well. The Muslims professed to (and did) treat minorities far better than either of these Empires. This led to religious minorities (especially Jews) from within the conquered territories helping Muslims to secure outposts and positions, freeing the Muslims to continue to spread the religion.

5) Citizenship by Conversion: The Islamic Empire was interesting in that being the leader or a person of import in the Empire was not contingent on ethnicity or place of birth as was the case of most prior empires. All a person had to do to gain power and prestige was to convert to Islam. This simple integration mechanism resulted in massive number of Persians, Berbers, and Turks converting to Islam. In fact, the furthest expansions of Islam (Spain, India, West China, South Russia, the Balkans) were all accomplished by non-Arabs (respectively Berbers, Persians/Mughals, Turkmen, Azeris, and Ottomans).

6) Warfare: The leaders charged with expanding the influence of Islam were thoughtful and diligent military leaders. Caliph 'Omar, who conquered much of the Levant, Egypt, Persia, and Iraq was well-known as a strategist and a fighter. It was this knowledge of warfare that allowed Muslim forces to expand the territory's influence.

7) Universality: Islam, as a religion, claims salvation for all people in all places, making the religion very attractive, especially to people born into low castes and bad economic positions.

8) Commerce: Islam, like most religions, spread also through peaceful means of commerce and education whereby non-Muslims learned of the faith and adopted as their own amidst business dealings with Muslims.

Answer 4

By military conquest. During the late Seventh and early Eighth Centuries, Islam was blooming as the Arab tribes united under its banner into a disciplined fighting force. Europe, meanwhile, was suffering the Dark Ages after the Fall of Rome and couldn't defend itself. Islam pushed right through Spain and halfway into France, destroying the Christian communities in its path until it was stopped outside of Tours by a militia under Charles the Hammer.

That was in 732. Then began the long process of "Reconquista," as the Christians slowly recovered their land. This wasn't completed until 1492, the very year that Spain, with the "Muslim Problem" behind them, sent Columbus off to "discover" the New World.