Islam emerged in the 6th century in Arabia, a region of the Middle East that was inhabited at the time by about 5 million people. “They were both sedentary and nomadic groups, organized into tribes and clans. The population was mostly polytheistic, but there were some Jewish tribes and some with a Christian tradition,” says theologian Fernando Altemeyer, from the Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo (PUC-SP). In this context came the creator of Islam, the prophet Mohammed, called Muhammad by Muslims. Orphaned at an early age, he became a caravan driver, which allowed him to come into contact with basic notions of the Christian religion. As an adult, the future prophet began to dedicate himself to spiritual retreats and, according to the followers of Islam, he began to have divine visions with messages that he should spread. Muhammad’s first public preachings in Mecca (his hometown) met with little success and generated local friction.
An admirer of monotheism (the belief in only one god), he criticized one of Mecca’s greatest sources of income: the pilgrimage of idolaters, who worshiped the various deities of the local temples. Mohammed began to preach belief in a single god, Allah, and collected his messages in a holy book for Muslims, the Koran. Persecuted in Mecca, the prophet and his followers fled to create the first Islamic community in Medina, a nearby oasis. This forced migration, known as the Hegira, marks the beginning of the Muslim calendar. Gradually, the prophet attracted more and more followers until he had the strength to defeat the rivals who expelled him from Mecca.
Using the new religion as a doctrine – which assimilated Jewish traditions, combined with Christian concepts and ideals of the Arab tribes – he managed to unify all Arabia under his leadership. After he died in 632, his father-in-law Abu Bakr began to lead the expansion of Islam, which in the following centuries spread across Europe, Asia and Africa, led not only by Arabs, but also by other converted peoples.
READ TOO:
– Who was Mohammed?
– Why is Mecca so important to Islam?
– How do the great religions face the moment of death?
boundless faith The religion created by Mohammed originated in the Middle East, but spread throughout the world
1. Mohammed was born around the year 570 in Mecca, a prosperous commercial center in the region known as Arabia. According to Muslims, in the year 612, he begins to receive revelations from the angel Gabriel. Supposed to be an intermediary between the Muslim god (Allah) and the prophet, the angel would have transmitted divine teachings to Mohammed
2. For fighting the belief in several gods, the prophet is harassed and threatened with death in his hometown. In 622, accompanied by a small group of followers, he begins the Muslim Hijrah, migrating to the oasis of Yathrib. The place is called (“City of the Prophet”), or Medina, where the first Islamic community appears. After defeating his enemies in Mecca, Muhammad dies in Medina in the year 632
3. After the prophet’s death, his successors (known as «caliphs») organize attacks against Syria and Iraq, successfully facing two weakened powers of the time: the Persian Empire and the Byzantine (former Eastern Roman Empire) . Twelve years after Mohammed’s death, Muslims already controlled Syria and Iraq, in addition to advancing towards present-day Iran
4. The Muslims also headed west and, in the first half of the 8th century, occupied all of North Africa as far as the Atlantic Ocean. In 711, they crossed the Strait of Gibraltar and began to take over the Iberian Peninsula. The messengers of Islam in Europe were not only Arabs, but mainly Berbers and Moors, converted peoples who lived in North Africa.
5. Still in the 8th century, the Muslims advanced to Constantinople (now Istanbul), but were unable to control Asia Minor (Turkey). They do best in Central Asia, occupying present-day Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan. In 750, the Umayyad dynasty – formed by the successors of the first caliphs – ruled the entire area.
6. The Umayyad dynasty ends in the second half of the 8th century and the military expansion of the Muslims weakens. Even so, Islam still reaches India. From there, now spread by merchants, the religion spread across Southeast Asia, becoming predominant in regions such as present-day Malaysia and Indonesia.
7. In the following centuries, the Muslim presence in Western Europe dwindled in the face of military pressure from the Christians and, in 1492, the last sultan on the Iberian peninsula surrendered. In Southeast Europe, however, Islamism advances in the 15th and 16th centuries, as Turks converted to Islam conquered much of the region. Today, the religion is predominant in about 40 countries