Search results
- Islam started in Mecca, in modern-day Saudi Arabia, during the time of the prophet Muhammad. Today, the faith is spreading rapidly throughout the world. Widely practiced in the Middle East and North Africa, it is also has many adherents in South Asia—Indonesia, in fact, has the largest number of followers of the Islamic faith.
www.history.com/topics/religion/islamIslam ‑ Five Pillars, Nation of Islam & Definition - HISTORY
In the countries of the Malay Archipelago, Muslims are in the majority in Brunei, Indonesia, and Malaysia. About 15% of Muslims reside in Sub-Saharan Africa, [28][page needed][13][29] and sizeable Muslim communities are also found in the Americas, Russia, China and Europe. [11]
The religion of Islam originated in Mecca in 610 CE. Muslims believe this is when Muhammad received his first revelation. By the time of his death, most of the Arabian Peninsula had converted to Islam.
The history of Islam in the Horn of Africa is almost as old as the faith itself. Through extensive trade and social interactions with their converted Muslim trading partners on the other side of the Red Sea, in the Arabian peninsula, merchants and sailors in the Horn region gradually came under the influence of the new religion. [253]
- Overview
- Prehistory (c. 3000 bce–500 ce)
- The rise of agrarian-based citied societies
Islamic world, the complex of societies and cultures in which Muslims and their faith have been prevalent and socially dominant.
Adherence to Islam is a global phenomenon: Muslims predominate in some 30 to 40 countries, from the Atlantic eastward to the Pacific and along a belt that stretches across northern Africa into Central Asia and south to the northern regions of the Indian subcontinent. Arabs account for fewer than one-fifth of all Muslims, more than half of whom live east of Karachi, Pakistan. Despite the absence of large-scale Islamic political entities, the Islamic faith continues to expand, by some estimates faster than any other major religion.
The Muslim religion and the life of the Prophet Muhammad are treated specifically in the article Islam. The literature, music, dance, and visual arts of Muslim peoples are treated in the article Islamic arts. Islam is also discussed in articles on individual countries or on regions in which the religion is a factor, such as Egypt, Iran, Arabia, and North Africa. See articles on individual branches or sects and concepts—for example, Islam, Nation of; Sunni; Shiʿi; Hadith.
A very broad perspective is required to explain the history of today’s Islamic world. This approach must enlarge upon conventional political or dynastic divisions to draw a comprehensive picture of the stages by which successive Muslim communities, throughout Islam’s 14 centuries, encountered and incorporated new peoples so as to produce an international religion and civilization.
Britannica Quiz
World Religions & Traditions
The prehistory of Islamdom is the history of central Afro-Eurasia from Hammurabi of Babylon to the Achaemenid Cyrus II in Persia to Alexander the Great to the Sāsānian emperor Anūshirvan to Muhammad in Arabia; or, in a Muslim view, from Adam to Noah to Abraham to Moses to Jesus to Muhammad. The potential for Muslim empire building was established w...
In the 7th century ce a coalition of Arab groups, some sedentary and some migratory, inside and outside the Arabian Peninsula, seized political and fiscal control in western Asia, specifically of the lands between the Nile and Oxus (Amu Darya) rivers—territory formerly controlled by the Byzantines in the west and the Sāsānians in the east. The factors that surrounded and directed their accomplishment had begun to coalesce long before, with the emergence of agrarian-based citied societies in western Asia in the 4th millennium bce. The rise of complex agrarian-based societies, such as Sumer, out of a subsistence agricultural and pastoralist environment, involved the founding of cities, the extension of citied power over surrounding villages, and the interaction of both with pastoralists.
This type of social organization offered new possibilities. Agricultural production and intercity trading, particularly in luxury goods, increased. Some individuals were able to take advantage of the manual labour of others to amass enough wealth to patronize a wide range of arts and crafts; of these, a few were able to establish territorial monarchies and foster religious institutions with wider appeal. Gradually the familiar troika of court, temple, and market emerged. The new ruling groups cultivated skills for administering and integrating non-kin-related groups. They benefited from the increased use of writing and, in many cases, from the adoption of a single writing system, such as the cuneiform, for administrative use. New institutions, such as coinage, territorial deities, royal priesthoods, and standing armies, further enhanced their power.
2 days ago · 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.
Jan 5, 2018 · Islam started in Mecca, in modern-day Saudi Arabia, during the time of the prophet Muhammad. Today, the faith is spreading rapidly throughout the world. Widely practiced in the Middle East and...
Nov 25, 2019 · Islam is an Abrahamic-monotheistic religion based upon the teachings of Prophet Muhammad ibn Abdullah (l. 570-632 CE, after whose name Muslims traditionally add “peace be upon him” or, in writing, PBUH).
