Why did Arabs undergo such a rapid expansion in seventh and eighth centuries?

Answer 1

Answer 1

Many factors accounts for the rapid spread of Islam after the 7th century. The major factors are:

1. Islam is a true and logic God religion. It is the religion and mission of all God prophets to humanity since Adam, through Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and Muhammad (Peace Be Upon Them All), that calls for worship Allah (God in English) as the one and only one God with no partner, no son, no companion, no associate, and no equivalence.
2. Islam calls for justice among all people irrelevant to their beliefs, colors, or social classes
3. Islam calls for practicing good morals
4. Islam honors human free will of choice and thinking
5. Islam is against racism and discrimination based on color, culture, gender, or anything else except piety.
6. Quran, Muslims holy book, is authentic as true God words without single letter change
7. Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) is a true human model of good conduct. character, and leader in all aspects of human life.
8. Quran scientific miracles had been validated only with current scientific discoveries and achievements.
9. The Islamic principles control all aspects of human life in a way that lead to both individual benefits and society benefits in a wonderful balance
10. Muslim traders who were traveling every where and demonstrating the good morals and principles of Islam
11. The deviations of former religions from the main call of all God prophets to worship God (Allah) as one and only one God without a partner, son, father, companion, associate, or equivalence.

Some claim that Islam was spread by war or by sword. This is a false argument for many reasons. One of these reasons is that the Muslim country of the biggest population is Indonesia while Muslims never invaded Indonesia. The claim that Islam spread by war or by sword is a false claim and is a lie propagated by enemies of Islam. For more information on this refer to related questions below.

Answer 2

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 2

Answer 1

Because of their complete faith in the one and only worthy of worship God, Allah. By the way they weren't only Arabs, they were Muslims. They conquered all of the Middle East, Central Asia, South Asia (including some of India) North Africa, East Africa, some in the center of Africa, all the way into Spain and some of France, they even went into Turkey and as far as the Eastern and Southern parts of the Roman Empire. But as the years went by in technology, Muslims year by year lost more and more land due to the distractions that were present during that time up until now. Otherwise they would've took over the whole world! But that wasn't destined to happen anyways, until the return of the Prophet Isa (Jesus, Peace be upon Him).

Answer 2

While most Muslims justify the expansion due to their faith in God, this actually had vary little substantive impact on their fighting ability. Religious Zealots have had amazing successes and failures. In terms of historic reasons, the Arab empires expanded rapidly in the seventh and eight centuries due to:

1) Union of the Arab Tribes: The Arab Tribes had been fighting each other for centuries and had thus honed their skills and their strengths in war. In addition, because of the infighting, there were many more warriors per capita than most of the surrounding territories. When Mohammed united these tribes with numerous military divisions, it created an impressive nomadic army. Many considered surrender just on seeing their arrival.

2) Weakening of the Byzantine & Sassanid Empires: The Byzantine and Sassanid Empires in their heyday could have individually held off an Arab advance, even a unified one, but the two empires had been in a war for over twenty years which drained resources, men, and introduced war weariness to the region. In addition, one of Mohammed's Apostles (Salman the Persian) was able to turn Persia over to the Caliphates peacefully because he was Persian himself. These two empires, the only two major powers that stood in the Arabs' way, were unable to hold off the advance except in Anatolia.

3) Repressed Foreign Minorities: In a number of regions, like Southern Spain, minorities were very repressed under the previous government. The Moslem government promised, and delivered, a better system of minority protection than that in place elsewhere. This prompted many minorities, such as the Jews of Córdoba to actively assist the Moslem armies even if they did not actually fight in the expansionary wars.

4) Accessibility of the Religion: Islam as a religion was a universal religion and there was no ethnic requirement for those considering conversion to have a certain race. This made it possible for the elders of a town to decide that the whole town would convert to Islam. This also led to reinforcement building during the Conquest: i.e. each conquered territory would, by volition, produce a corps of volunteers to fight in the advance guard to take the next territory. This system worked so well, that over 80% of the Muslims who attacked Spain (including their leader al-Tariq) were converted Amazigh (Berbers) not Arabs.

5) Warfare: The leaders charged with expanding Arab Empires 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 as was his general Khaled ibn-Waleed. It was their knowledge of warfare that allowed Arabs forces to expand the empire.

Answer 3

it's because the political division within the Byzantine and other neighboring empires