Question

Look at the Kaaba from Mecca What is the Kaaba and what does it represent?

How vastly did Islam spread to other areas? List 5 parts affected and when.

Write a one to 1.5 -page paper detailing your findings.

Answer 1

• The Kaaba is a building at the center of Islam's most sacred mosque. The Kaaba is built around a sacred black stone, a meteorite that Muslims believe was placed by Abraham and Ishmael in a corner of the Kaaba, a symbol of God's covenant with Abraham and Ishmael and, by extension, with the Muslim community itself.
• The kabba is a sanctuary symbol of peace on earth, for those who connect with it, not only the Kabba but the masjid surrounding it.
• It’s a representation for god to connect with since people cannot see god this a token or a mark.
• Every system has a headquarter, or a higher authority to remind people, and this is no different. And that’s where people do pilgrimage as a way of saying we came to for forgiveness.
• Islam spread through military conquest, trade, pilgrimage, and missionaries.
• Arab Muslim forces conquered vast territories and built imperial structures over time.
• Most of the significant expansion occurred during the reign of the Rashidun from 632 to 661 CE, which was the reign of the first four successors of Muhammad.
• Early caliphates, coupled with Muslim economics and trading and the later expansion of the Ottoman Empire, resulted in Islam's spread outwards from Mecca towards both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans and the creation of the Muslim world. Trading played an important role in the spread of Islam in several parts of the world, notably southeast Asia.
• Muslim dynasties were soon established and subsequent empires such as those of the Abbasids, Fatimids, Almoravids, Seljukids, Ajuran, Adal and Warsangali in Somalia, Mughals in India and Safavids in Persia and Ottomans in Anatolia were among the largest and most powerful in the world.
• The people of the Islamic world created numerous sophisticated centers of culture and science with far-reaching mercantile networks, travelers, scientists, hunters, mathematicians, doctors and philosophers, all contributing to the Golden Age of Islam. Islamic expansion in South and East Asia fostered cosmopolitan and eclectic Muslim cultures in the Indian subcontinent, Malaysia, Indonesia and China.
• After Prophet Muhammad’s death (pbuh), followers of Islam were organized into caliphates and the spread of the religion was majorly through propagation, missionary activities and trade. The Arab world saw the emergence of powerful empires that conquered vast territories in Asia, Middle East, parts of Europe and Africa.
• The conquered people were mostly allowed to practice their religion, but they were required to pay a special tax to the conquering administration. Over a period of time, the conquered people gradually converted to Islam. Reasons for conversion may have been due to restrictions imposed on non-Muslims by the administration.
• In just 100 years since Muhammad first claimed prophethood, Islam had by force of arms, conquered all of Arabia and then expanded out and conquered as far west as Spain and as far east as Afghanistan. The Islamic Caliphate had become the largest empire the world had yet known, controlling some of the most important centers of civilization. Of the 5 Christian Patriarchates (the 5 great urban centers of Christianity in the 6th-7th centuries AD), 3 of them now fell under Islamic rule (Jerusalem, Alexandria, and Antioch), with only Rome and Constantinople still under Christian rule.
• In the Far East, Islam was spread through trade. The people interacted with the Muslim traders and were attracted to their conduct. The situation led to increasing conversion among the native population. In addition, migration of the Turks to Anatolia and Balkans saw the spread of Islam in those areas.