#rashidun

[zainab123]

The era of Ali ibn Abi Talib’s caliphate is one of the most difficult times in the history of Islam. However, the events that took place during that time had their roots in previous caliphates.

[racefortheironthrone]

How did all the heresies and theological arguments of the Late Roman Empire lead to "the Arab caliphates getting a decent navy and winning the Battle of the Masts"?

This is actually a fascinating story about the nature of the religious world and religious politics in the Late Roman and Byzantine Empires and the Rashidun Caliphate.

Because heresies and theological arguments tended to start at the level of bishops and patriarchs fighting with the bishops and patriarchs of other metropoles (and that filters out to which missionaries were sent where), there were strong regional variations as to which position was in the local majority.

Skipping over the Arian controversy because it's not relevant to the Battle of the Masts, Cyril of Alexandria was the leader of the Monophysite faction ("physis" meaning "nature," i.e Christ has one nature, which tracks with the Council of Nicaea's declaration that he had one "essence"), and his dyophysite (meaning two "natures") rivals were based out of Antioch - and Alexandria and thus Egypt became Monophysite. However, Constantinople and Anatolia were dyophysite and worked to make sure that the Second Council of Ephesus and the Council of Chalcedon declared monophysitism a heresy and dyophysitism as Orthodoxy, thus leading to the Chalcedonian Schism.

Following on from this, the emperors Justin II and Justinian I were Orthodox. Now, Justinian tried to end the Schism through the Second Council of Constantinople in 553, but this didn't really work and it remained state policy to persecute Monophysites. However, the empress Theodora was Monophysite and acted as patroness and political defender of Monophysites throughout the empire - which made her very popular in Egypt...and with the Greens in the Hippodrome, who were also Monophysites. Naturally, if the Greens were Monophysite, the Blues were Orthodox, because why not turn your sports rivalry into a religious rivalry and a pseudo-political party system? It's not called the Byzantine Empire because it's simple.

Even though Theodora was a Green, Justinian supported the Blues, which meant that no matter what your sports team or religious views or pseudo-partisanship you could support the imperial family. (Indeed, many historians think that the two at least somewhat arranged their religious and sports affiliations with this in mind.) This worked...up until the Nika riots ended up with Belisarius turning the Imperial army on the sports fans turned revolutionary rioters in the Hippodrome, leading to the deaths of as many as 30,000 people.

And so it went, with Alexandria tending to be the losers in the monoergism vs. dyoergism (does Christ have one "energy" or two?) debate, and the monolethitism vs. dyolethetism (does Christ have one "will" or two?) debate. Notably, these debates saw the Emperors of the time trying to get the Church to adopt a compromise (both monoergism and monothelitism were essentially an attempt by the Emperor Heraclius and his Patriarch to find a new theological formulation that the Alexandrians could live with while pointing urgently in the direction of first the Persians and then the Arabs) and failing due to religious partisans digging in their heels, or Emperors siding violently with one side or the other, ironically in the name of Imperial unity.

And this brings us to the Arab Conquest that gave birth to the Rashidun Caliphate. Now, the Christian population of Alexandria was not exactly thrilled about suddenly being ruled over by Muslim Arabs in 642...but in a genius stroke of enlightened self-interest, the Rashidun Caliphate adopted a policy whereby non-Muslim subjects (dhimmis) would be left alone in terms of religious matters as long as they paid their jizya taxes on non-Muslims (with the idea being to create a financial incentive to convert). While this wasn't the most popular, the Alexandrians realized that having to pay religious taxes and then getting left alone in peace and quiet to be Monophysite was a much better deal than having to pay Byzantine imperial taxes and getting religiously persecuted all the damn time.

This mattered geostrategically, because the Port of Alexandria was one of the largest ports in the Mediterranean, and thus had one of the largest shipyards and a lot of shipbuilders, and a hell of a lot of trained ex-Roman sailors and marines who were heavily Monophysite. These recently-unemployed sailors and marines were very happy to work for the Rashidun Caliphate, especially when the Caliphs started to shift resources into the navy to combat Byzantine dominance on the seas. Thus, only a few years after the Rashidun conquest of Egypt in 642, the Arab navy was suddenly able to fight on equal terms with the Byzantine navy - and then started kicking their ass.

This at last brings us to the Battle of the Masts in 655, where an Arab fleet (crewed mostly by Monophysite Egyptians) of 200 ships under the command of admiral Abu al-A'war came into contact with a Byzantine fleet of 500 ships led by the Emperor Constans II off the coast of Lycia...and smashed it to pieces. According to the historian al-Tabari, it was called the Battle of the Masts because there were rough seas and both fleets lashed themselves together to allow for marine boarding operations, so that soldiers were literally crossing from mast to mast. Constans II supposedly only managed to escape by changing uniforms with one of his subordinates as a disguise.

The defeat was so crippling that Constantinople was brought under siege for the first time by the Rashidun that same year, although that brief siege (the brevity of which is why historians refer to the siege of 674-678 as the "First Arab Siege of Constantinople") was unsuccessful due to a storm that sunk the Arab ships carrying the artillery and siege engines that the land army was counting on. Naturally, the Byzantines attributed this storm and the first Arab civil war that broke out in 655 (which bought the Byzantines some desperately-needed breathing room) to divine intervention.

Just to show how the past is always with us, I wanted to share a bit of a statement by the Coptic Orthodox Church of the Southern United States:

"The Coptic Orthodox Church was accused of being 'Monophysite' in the Council of Chalcedon. The term monophysite comes from two Greek words meaning "single nature". Monophysitism merged Christ's humanity into His divinity so that effectively it meant that in Christ there was only one single nature, a divine nature. This is NOT what the Coptic Orthodox believes. We believe that "Christ's divinity parted not from His humanity, not for a single moment nor a twinkling of an eye" and we recite this statement in every liturgy. As a result, we are Miaphysite and not Monophysite. Miaphysitism (one nature) means the Lord Jesus Christ is perfect human and perfect divine and these two natures are united together without mingling, nor confusion, nor alteration in one nature; the nature of God incarnate."

[lightdancer1]

Wrapped up the brief sojourn back into the dawn of the medieval era:

Next will be Napoleon's War with Alexander I in 1812.

This book raises a key point that most of the 'Rome never fell u guise, the rise of Merovingians, Visigoths, Ostrogoths, and England instead of Britannia is just a hoax' special pleading ignores. Yes, the Germanic tribes had fluid senses of self, but it still counted as a very real sense of self. And if they did, so did the Roman elites that saw themselves as Romans even when the political and economic factors that held together the old Roman world collapsed completely in the West and held together in the East until the Caliphate finally toppled the old world there.

It also addresses the simple reality that to some people in the Muslim world would almost surely get this book burned that the very existence of the Riddah Wars and the older Arab states that were partially still extant and likely to play the vulture ripping into the corpses of partially and fully fallen empires means that the Islamic nature of the early movement is as much hindsight as reality. Because the reality is that only after the end of the Riddah Wars and the crushing of the two potential other prophets did the singular vision of the Ummah stick, and one of them came very close to displacing the Caliphate and the Ummah altogether.

Insights like this make this arguably the best book of its kind, as it has the best possible attitudes to sacred cows and the holy origins of the secular religion of nationalism. Turning the sacred cows into holy hamburger and taking people's nationalist self-conceptions and throwing them on the charcoal to cook the sacred cows.

9/10.

[whassan2025]

The era of Ali ibn Abi Talib’s caliphate is one of the most difficult times in the history of Islam. However, the events that took place during that time had their roots in previous caliphates. Tap below to read more: https://bit.ly/3nf40RO

[tamamita]

why do sunnis hate shi'as that much what the fuck is their problem?

Hatred towards Shi'a Muslims is not only a concurrent issue, it's a 1400 year old issue that started as a result of the political unrest that took place following the Prophet Muhammad's (pbuh&hf) death. It laid the foundation for the political schism of Islam. Initially, the Shi'as (or Alids) were just a group of partisans that would only develop their own theology a hundred years later. And then you had those who supported Abu Bakr rise to the caliphate. For Shi'as, we believe Abu Bakr usurped the caliphate due to various incidents, and thus, we rejected his ascent to power. These were the partisans of Ali (a). When Ali (a) eventually became the caliph, he was met with a lot of hardship and opposition by people who either hated him or sought political power. During the caliphate of Uthman, the Umayyads were given unrestrained power, and it was not until Ali (a) became the caliph that he removed them from power for their greed and nepotism. However, Muawiyah, a "companion" of the Prophet, who was intially opposed to him before his clan lost in the final battle of Mecca, was in control of Sham (Syria) and refused to go down, hence a renewed civil strife within the Islamic world. The Umayyads were vicious people who were renown for their corruption and hedonism, and their caliphate was founded on the blood of Imam Hussain (a), the son of Imam Ali (a). For Sunnis, these events aren't particularly important, and Islamic history is often neglected, promoting the idea that whatever happened in the past has no religious or theological significance to Islam as a religion. This is where we disagree because, as Shi'as, we simply can't accept certain religious doctrines on the basis of these people being unreliable. For example, Ayesha, having been the wife of the Prophet, is one thing, but she still waged an unjust war against Ali (a). There is no way we can accept her narrations because she's simply untrustworthy.

Because of the power that the Umayyads managed to consolidate for themselves, superseeding the Rashidun caliphate, there was a state-sponsored campaign with the purpose of supressing any Shi'i resistance against the rule, the Shi'as were among these groups and suffered severe persecution to such extent that even members of the Prophet's family were brutally oppressed. For Shi'as, the Prophet's family are a source of emulation and knowledge, and we have to adhere to their understanding of Islamic theology, this is why Islamic history is important, so we can highlight the root behind the resistance. However, dwindling in power and numbers, the Shi'as ultimately committed themselves to Taqiyyah (concealing one's religion) to ensure their survival. This is how we managed to survive for 1400 years. For Sunnis, the Umayyads and subsequent caliphs are a source of great pride, hence why Syria is considered an important heritage site for Sunnis who regard the Umayyads with great respect.

With that said, the reason there's so much sectarian animosity towards Shi'as is because with history in mind, our tradition of reviling these companions is considered an act of disbelief. Sunnis often retort that these companions are noble people and could not possibly be reviled because they had been in the companionship with the prophet, holding that despite the wars and atrocities committed by these people, we should respect them nevertheless. Either way, Shi'a Muslims have a doctrine called Tabarrah (dissociation), which is extended to those people who have caused harm towards the Prophet and his family. This includes "cursing" them, which is considered one of the most offensive acts and a reason why Sunnis get up in arms when we criticize the companions, especially the first caliph Abu Bakr and the second caliph Umar. Furthermore, our emphasis on the doctrine of intercession has caused much controversy because stricter muslims, such as Salafists consider these acts tantamous to idolatry, hence why it's easier for Shi'as to be considered heretics. The fact that we have shrines is considered blasphemous and there are many instances in which these shrines have been attacked. Shi'as are so reviled that for some Sunnis and Salafists, the difference between a Christian and a Shi'a is that Christians have rights as pertained to their status as "People of the Book", while Shi'as are considered heretics, and ultimately disbelievers. For such a reason, we do not have any rights; our blood becomes lawful to them.

In short, HTS, AS, ISIS, Al-Qaeda and all their Salafist sympathisers believe that the blood of a Shi'a is lawful because we are heretics. We are simply putting up a resistance against them. Shi'ism is not just a branch of Islam. It's one of the oldest resistance movements in the world.

[jewish-sideblog]

Any time I see people call Israel a settler colonialist state I think about the history of the Mizrahi Jews who remained in Judea.

Mizrahi Jews in the seventh century, whose families had lived as native Israelites for 1,800 years, watching the Rashidun Caliphate move the first major wave of Arab Muslim migration into the imperial conquest they called "Military Palestine".

Mizrahi Jews who, over the course of the next 1,200 years, remained in the Levant. The ones who faced persecution, pogroms, and massacres under the Caliphates and Ottomans. The ones who stood strong and stayed put, as access to holy sites they had prayed at for three thousand years were taken from them. The ones who were faced with a choice between conversion and death, but chose neither.

Mizrahi Jews who watched as the modern State of Israel was established-- perhaps sighing in relief for just a moment. Maybe now, they would not be persecuted minorities in the land they had lived in for over three thousand years. Only to see other Mizrahim forced to flee their homes in Morocco, Yemen, Iraq, Egypt, Lebanon, Iran... Muslim-ruled countries that, through official law or social persecution, intentionally forced other Middle Eastern Jews to leave their homes and settle in Israel.

And the Mizrahi Jews today, who are the majority of the population of Israel. Most Israelis today are either Mizrahim who had lived in what is now Israeli territory for millennia, or Mizrahim who lived nearby and were forced by Muslim-majority nations to immigrate to Israel. Now, they get called "settler colonists", they get called "Europeans", they get called "fascists" and "Zionists". The world accuses them of occupying and stealing Palestinian land.

What were they supposed to have done differently?

Edit 12/27/23: Not so friendly reminder that if your "rebuttal" is to blame the actions of the Israeli government on Israeli civilians, I'm not even gonna bother to read the whole thing. I'll start believing that's a valid argument when average Americans get brought to the Hague for what the US government did in Cambodia.

[jewreallythinkthat]

I spent a large portion of today researching tekhelet for work as part of a piece on ancient dyes and I got so stupid emotional. Like it's just a dye, but it was such an important thing in ancient Judaism as the dye which would make tzitzit blue and the method of making it was lost around the time of the Arab conquest of Israel in the 7th century. (Also I note that lots of sources date the loss of the secret of the original manufacture but many just gloss over it mapping directly onto the colonisation of Judea/Israel by the Rashidun Caliphate - I know that the two events may not be connected but I have spent too long looking at history to be able to say that these were completely unrelated y'know... Lost knowledge is very, very rarely a coincidence)

They literally, to this day, still don't know how it was made.

There are multiple theories, most of which revolve around the murex snail (where we get Tyrian purple from) and the fact that if you expose the pigment it produces - di-bromo indigo - to light at the right point in the production process, it is reduced to regular indigo from which you can get your blue dye. But this has all been worked out using modern methods. The ancient production method of tekhelet is gone and I honestly find myself mourning yet another piece of lost knowledge form our history.

[mapsontheweb]

How many years it took the Umayyads and Rashidun Caliphates to fully conquer each region corresponding with today's borders

[herald-divine-hell]

How I Would Fix the Qun - a Muslim Perspective

Let us first begin with a general statement: I will not have any DA fans try to claim that since the Qun and the Qunari take other inspirations from different philosophical and social frameworks, that the racist conception and utilizing of Islamic history should be disqualified since it is not "really" Islamic history.

Case in point, if I see any attempt such as this:

I will slap you.

It is perfectly fine that the Qunari can take inspirations from other historical and philosophical ideas (though, importantly, different people have different claims of what inspiration the Qunari come from, despite the fact that it is very clear through Thedasian dating that the Qunari are meant to be the Thedasian representation of the Islam and its history with Europe), it is not fine to utilize a millennia-old racist stereotype that claims that the culturally, religiously, and physically distinct people is hell-bent at spreading their philosophy across the world by force. There is no hand-waving away the clear connections - BioWare took their inspirations but did not have any real interest to actively study or examine any historical book that reexamined the Arab conquests and the spread of Islam (ironically, Hugh Kennedy's the Great Arab Conquests was out prior to DAO's development, so they could have easily read that if they wanted some idea).

So, yes. The Qunari and the Qun are both inspired by Islamic history, while bearing little of the actual theology or belief system that made Islam a potent force of liberation and oppression. Simply because it takes from different philopshical approaches (which I have heard a variety of from fascism and communism to Plato's ideal system of governance), the fact that BioWare, as a primarily white gaming developer, especially in the late 2000s, should have taken more care and been more critical with the terrible extent of fetishizing and otherization of the Qunari as a group compared to the other Thedasian populations - going beyond simply Andrastian Thedasians, but also the dwarves and elves, and even then some can argue their handling of those depictions could have been better.

Of course, I will be fare to BioWare. It takes a lot of energy and time to research on the complex history of any society or religious group - excluding their own perspectives on the events. However, it is not difficult to ask for an attempt of fairness when utilizing marginalized groups of people's history to be accurate and careful with such representation, which I would argue that they failed to achieve with the Qunari especially.

Let us first begin.

The Prophet Muhammad and Islam's Misunderstood Origins (First Part)

The historical role in which Islamic history, or the history reported by the later 'Abbasid historians is much inspiration for the Qunari - there is nothing to deny there. I had discuss it in this post regarding the similiarties of dates between Islamic history and the history of the Qun in relations to Thedas. Yet much of the history that was are ensured accuracy to the life of the Prophet Muhammad and his early religious community is snared by religious, political, and social sectarianism. In short, much of what we know of Muhammad is not actually from Muhammad.

"Herald, what do you mean by this? The Islamic world has a vibrant and documented history on the Prophet Muhammad."

Yes, they attempted to do so. But let me try to make certain things cleared: Much of the traditional historical data on the Prophet Muhammad - founded in places such as the hadiths or sira were written well after Muhammad and his companions had died. Little is known during the Rashidun period (632-661), where Muhammad's companions were made leaders of the nascent Islamic community that would expand rapidly into a far-flung imperial state that included significant portions of Eastern Rome and nearly the entirety of Sasanian Iran, and much of what we know of the Umayyads, for written sources at least, date to the Umayyad-critical 'Abbasid period. The hadiths in particularly are points of contention - none of them truthfully dates back to the Prophet Muhammad, and some of the earliest hadith collections that have been discovered has only been found in the middle 700s CE, such as the famed Medinan Islamic scholar Malik b. Anas (711-795 CE) and his al-Muwatta (of whom, the transmissions by his students would see variations in text). And much of what is understood to be "Islamic" can be traced not to the Islamic holy text of the Qu'ran, but the hadiths themselves. It is the hadiths which decree the punishment of adultery would be stoning to death, which clearly goes against the literary tool of stoning in the Quran and the clear punishment of lashing for adultery found in it. In the Qu'ran, stoning is used as a means to display the oppression faced by Islam's prophets and other sincere monotheists by the accepted social customs of their time [Hud, 11:91; the Cave, 18:20; Mary, 19:46; the Poets, 26:116].

There is not much doubt that the man, Muhammad ibn Abdullah, existed and he was considered a prophet by the Arabs. There is much to doubt the historical transmissions founded in traditional Islamic histography. Most (western scholars that is) have a strange relationship with hadiths - some fully reject them, others are more critical but believe that you can find a kernel of truth in the hadiths themselves that connect back to the Prophet, and others accept them in relation to the Prophet Muhammad. The hadiths themselves, at least within contemporary Sunni Islam, have become near sacrosanct, and much of the varied developments of the Sha'ria comes from the hadith corpus (of which even the different sects and schools within those sects disagree on) rather than the Qur'an.

So what do we know? If we doubt the authenticity of the hadiths in relations to Prophet Muhammad, what do we have? How does this relate to the Qun?

In terms of primary sources in relation to early Islam and the Prophetic period of Islam (Muhammad's messengerhood), there is little of. The only real written source that most, if not a near consensus, historians agree that came more or less from Muhammad is the Qur'an itself. Beyond that, the earliest references of Islam on written sources comes not from the Arabs but from Christian writings, writing during the Arab conquests. For example, early Christian writer, known to modern day historians as Pseudo-Sebeos, wrote in 660CE:

At that time a certain man from along those same sons of Ismael, whose name was Mahmet [i.e., Muḥammad], a merchant, as if by God's command appeared to them as a preacher [and] the path of truth. He taught them to recognize the God of Abraham, especially because he was learnt and informed in the history of Moses. Now because the command was from on high, at a single order they all came together in unity of religion. Abandoning their vain cults, they turned to the living God who had appeared to their father Abraham. So, Mahmet legislated for them: not to eat carrion, not to drink wine, not to speak falsely, and not to engage in fornication. He said: 'With an oath God promised this land to Abraham and his seed after him for ever. And he brought about as he promised during that time while he loved Ismael. But now you are the sons of Abraham and God is accomplishing his promise to Abraham and his seed for you. Love sincerely only the God of Abraham, and go and seize the land which God gave to your father Abraham. No one will be able to resist you in battle, because God is with you.

Of course, there is much to be critical here. By the highlight portion is significant, for later Islamic historians would agree that Muhammad too was a merchant. So, we can generally make the safe assumption that Muhammad indeed was a merchant, though historians may or may not be critical with the assumed quote by Pseudo-Sebeos from the mouth of Muhammad.

Herald, you are rambling, why is this important?

For one, the oft-considered "real" Prophet Muhammad found within traditional Islamic sources only date a century or more after his death, a substantial period of time that saw Muhammad's religious community go from a quasi-polity in the western Hejaz to a wide-spread imperial caliphate, incorporating different cultural and social beliefs of those peoples as much as establishing a coherent Islamic identity. Perhaps a clear example of this can be found in the term Muslim as an identifier of Muhammad's followers, when the Quran utilizes the term as something different.

Now utilized as a term to identity those who follow the Prophet Muhammad's teachings - the usage of the term muslim in the Quran has a distinctiveness that relate to a general identifier of being someone who is a monotheist. In the Quran, it declares Jesus' Disciples as:

3:52: And when Jesus sense rebelliousness in them, he said, 'Who are my helpers from God?'' The apostles [the disciples] said, 'We are God's helpers. We believe in God; bear witness that we mus'limuna [are Submitters].

The Quran also refers to those who accept Muhammad's messages of truth as being "submitters even before it [the Quran]."

And indeed We have caused the Word to reach them, that haply they may reflect. Those unto whom We gave the Book before it, they are believers in it. And when it is recited unto them, they say, “We believe in it; verily it is the truth from our Lord. Truly we were submitters even before it.” It is they who will be given their reward twice over for their having been patient. And they repel evil with good, and spend from that which We have provided them." [28:52-54]

Alongside this, the chronologically late al-Ma'idah also refers to both the Gospels and the Torah as being "a guidance and a light":

"And how is it that they come to you for judgment, when they have the Torah, wherein is God's judgement? Yet even after that, they turn their backs, and they are not believers. Truly We sent down the Torah, wherein is a guidance and a light, by which the prophets who submitted judged those who are Jews, as did the sages and the rabbis, in accordance with such of God's Book as they were bidden to preserve and to which they were witnesses. So fear not mankind, but fear Me! And sell not My signs for a paltry price. Whosever judges not by that which God has sent down - it is they who are disbelievers. And therein We prescribed for them: a life for a life, an eye for an eye, a nose for a nose, an ear for an ear, a tooth for a tooth, and for wounds, retribution. But whosever forgoes it out of charity, it shall be an expiation for him. Whosever judges not by that which God has sent down - it is they who are the wrongdoers.

And in their footsteps, We sent Jesus son of Mary, confirming the Torah that had come before him, and We gave him the Gospel, wherein is a guidance and a light, confirming the Torah that had come before him, as a guidance and an exhortation to the reverent. Let the people of the Gospel judge by what God has send down therein. Whosever judges by not that which God has sent down - it is they who are iniquitous. And We have send down unto you the Book in truth, confirming the Book that came before it, and as a protector over it. So judge them between in accordance with what God has sent down, and follow not their caprices away from the truth that has come unto you. For each among you We have appointed a law and a way. And had God willed, He would have made you one community, but [He willed otherwise], that He might try you in that which He has given you. So vie with one another in good deeds. Unto God shall be your return all together, and He will inform you of that wherein you differ." [The Table Spread, 5:43-48]

Why do I touch upon this? Well, if one asks any layman Muslim (and perhaps most modern day scholars), many would argue that the position of Jesus or Moses or Abraham as having "being" Muslim as a point in favor to Islam. That is not what the Quran is seeking to state, and any attempt to associate the thousand year accumulation of theological and scholarly interpretation of Islam as being the same message Muhammad argued for is historical anachronism. The Quran does argue that it is the pristine message from God to Muhammad that had been revealed to Jesus and Moses and Abraham, but no where in the Quran does that negate the Torah or the Gospel as being of divine origins. Indeed, often the Quran commands that those who doubt Muhammad's message to ask "the People of the Scripture" .

Of course, there are also the famous verses of 2:62 and 5:69:

"The Believers, the Jews, the Christians, and the Sabians—all those who believed in God and the Last Day and do good will have their rewards from their Lord, and there will be no fear for them, nor will they grieve." - 2:62

"The Believers, the Jews, the Christians, and the Sabians—all those who believed in God and the Last Day and do good will have their rewards from their Lord, and there will be no fear for them, nor will they grieve." - 5:69

Now you'll notice - it mentions the Jews and Christians, but who are the Believers? Well, that is Muhammad's followers! In the Quran, whenever it is referring directly to Muhammad's followers, it uses the phrases "believing men and believing women" or "O you who believe". The term in Arabic would be the mu'minun, of which the caliphal title - amir al-mu'minun - takes its origins from. That is is good enough title for Muhammad's followers and goes more onto my point: the term for Muhammad's followers as being muslim or that Muhammad considered the term islam as the term for his own distinct religion simply isn't true. All Believers in Muhammad's revelations are muslim, yet not all Muslims, quranically speaking, are Muhammad's followers. The Quran does and encourages pluralism as a sign of God, and although Muhammad was given the "clear way", devoid of the sectarian influences that it considers the Christians and Jews had fallen into, Christians and Jews are still apart of the primeval conception of islam.

So, why mention this? It is to demonstrate that the early community founded by Muhammad was not the same community that grew out of the massive expansion born from the Arab conquests. The later imperial caliphates of the Umayyads (alongside its rivals the Kharijites and Zubayrids during the Second Muslim Civil War) began a slow process that began to remove the Christians and Jews from being a part of the primeval faith of islam. Importantly, the faith of Muhammad played little reason on why the Arabs expanded - so the idea that the Arabs came to the global scene to "spread Islam by the sword" is purely fictional. As Amira K. Bennison wrote in her the Great Caliphs (2011):

"These conquests [the Arab conquests] were often quite superficial, combing the capture of key settlements or the establishment of garrison towns which deals struck with local rulers - Visigothic nobles, Persian kings, and Turkic warlords - which gave them autonomy in return for recognition and tribute." (Bennison, pg. 20)

And:

"Contrary to popular myth that Islam was spread by the sword, many Muslim Arabs believed that it was their mission to conquer the world, not change the faith of its inhabitants, and saw Islam as theirs, the religion of the ruling elite, not of their subjects. Although they wanted to convert all Arabs, they showed little desire or compunction to convert the peoples of the other lands they had conquered..." (Bennison, pg. 21).

Hugh Kennedy wrote in his the Great Arab Conquests (2005):

"In general, however, conversion to Islam, or offering the opportunity to conversion to Islam, is not widely cited as a reason for fighting. More common is pride in Arabness and pride in tribe." (Kennedy, pg. 63)

Yet, what does the Quran states about fighting? According to the Quran, Muhammad's followers were permitted to fight against their polytheistic oppressors due to:

Permission is granted to those who are fought, because they have been wronged—and truly God is able to help them—who were expelled from their homes without right, only for saying, “Our Lord is God.” Were it not for God’s repelling people, some by means of others, monasteries, churches, synagogues, and mosques, wherein God’s Name is mentioned much, would have been destroyed. And God will surely help those who help Him—truly God is Strong, Mighty—who, were We to establish them upon the earth, would perform the prayer, give the alms, and enjoin right and forbid wrong. And unto God is the end of all affairs. [the Pilgrimage, 22:39-41]

So, this differs much of what is touched up - by both Muslims and non-Muslims. That the Arabs came at the direction of the Prophet to conquer and spread his religion (it is entirely unknown if Muhammad had any real hand in directing his followers to attack their northern neighbors, since all mentioned battles hint toward a more southern-focused direction), that they viewed other religious traditions false, and forcefully converted or slaughtered en masse many who refused this new religious is entirely fictitious. Later Muslims writing in the imperial caliphal period [Umayyad, onward] may have adopted such militant thinking to justify and explain their state expanded so rapidly. But that is just it! They were explaining why it happened rather than how it happened; and much of the historical documentation is filled with the narrative historicity born from the traditions of much of the Near East - the historians of the 'Abbasid period were ill-interested in army sizes, logistics, etc., but instead on individual leaders, valor, and moral lessons in which these stories can teach those living in the present. This is a tradition likely adopted from the pre-existing historical culture (what little documentation of the Sasanian sources bare similar results), and these sources themselves are not "primary" in their relation to Muhammad or his companions. They were written by their descendants, who often had a religious or political interest to paint certain areas a certain way (such on what Muhammad did or did not say or do at the time of his death to name a successor).

The relations with the other religious groups within Arabia (and possible Levant if Muhammad was a merchant who did preach northward to Roman Christians and Jews) is multifaceted and complex, with an underlying influence of political considerations tied with disagreements with religious doctrines of Islam's sister religions (such as Jesus as God or God's son). Much criticism toward these groups should always be read as these groups among the Christians and Jews, rather than a wholesale brush that condemns them to hell.

Now, onto the Qunari, in part 2.

[curtwilde]

i have a genuine question, what is arab colonisation? Is it a real thing? The context where I have read about it was a bigoted islamophic hindutvabadi page so I don't know if it's true or just part of their larger lie. Do you have any readings, sources on it?

According to Marriam Abboud Hourani, Arabization is a sociological process of cultural change in which a non-Arab society becomes Arab, meaning it either directly adopts or becomes strongly influenced by the Arabic language and culture. After the rise of Islam in Hejaz, there were a series of conquests in the Middle East and North Africa, after which the Rashidun Caliphate, the first Muslim empire was established. Arab culture spread through the Middle East and North Africa along with the spread of Islam, and in some places pre-Islamic religions and cultures were violently suppressed. These days, most Islamic countries have reconciled elements of their older traditions with Islam. The older religions survive among minorities in some places - Christians, Kurds, Ezidis and Mizrahi Jews for example and are still oppressed under some Islamic fundamentalist countries, like Iran.

Often, the term Arabization or Arab colonialism is used interchangeably with Islamic fundamentalism. On paper they mean entirely different things. However, in reality Islamic fundamentalists revere Arabic culture because the Quran was written in Arabic and events of the Quran are set in Arabia. The difference between the two is a slippery slope and I will let you decide on that.

The term colonization is such a red herring these days and is used to fit a lot of problematic narratives. It is a favourite with zionists, which is probably where these hindutvadis picked it up. And if you come across it on the internet I'd advise you to re-examine the source as they may have an anti-Muslim bias. That said, Islamic fundamentalism is very much a real thing and I wholeheartedly believe that any form of religious fundamentalism, and especially those fundamentalists that try to gain administrative and jurisdictional power for themselves, are a problem. All government and administrative bodies, across the world, should be compulsorily secular.

Now, in the context of South Asia, Arabization in it's strict meaning of the word, has nothing to do with our geopolitical history. Our Muslim rulers were all of Turkish, Afghan, and Central Asian origins with no connection to Arabia. Even culturally, elements of Indian Muslim culture can be traced back to Persia rather than Arabia; and linguistically the Persian influence on Hindi/Urdu is obvious. The term Arab colonization is often used by hindutvadis to mean the spread Islam in the subcontinent but of course they see the Islamic world as a monolith and I doubt they have the reading comprehension to know the difference even if they bothered to look it up.

Books:

The History of the Middle East by Peter Mansfield is a great place to start.

Islam, a short history by Karen Armstrong - very quick read + unbiased take on the Arab conquests.

The Arabization of Islam by Al Mubarak Nadir Shabaz

History of North Africa by Charles Andre Julien

From the holy mountain: a journey among the Christians of the Middle East by William Dalrymple

The Kurds: a contemporary history by Patrick S. Clancy

The Wretched of the Earth by Frantz Fanon for a general idea of colonization.

Mutuals if you have any other recommendations please feel free to add.

[racefortheironthrone]

I have a question about immigration/settlement dichotomy. Obviously settler colonization is dodgy and problematic and triggers a progressive nativist response, but aren't the same ideas used to justify anti-immigrant sentiment? That seems to be my limited reading. But where does one draw the line? Like in ASOIAF, the Targaryens are Valyrian refugees who became a ruling family, and so are foreign conqueors, but if they didn't rule and stayed immigrants, they'd be persecuted outsiders, right?

This is something of a hot take, so I might delete this later if it this escapes containment, but I think there's a big problem in post-colonial studies (or rather, the popularized version of post-colonial studies you see in social media discourse and activist communities) where there's this tunnel vision with settler colonialism that magnifies it into the only thing that matters. Because there is also non-settler colonialism, which is at the very least just as bad (if not more so, because you tend to get a higher rate of colonial extraction).

Moreover, when you bring post-colonialism into discussion with the history of the ancient world through to the early modern period, questions of settler vs. indigenous become really complicated. There are a lot of periods of history where population migrations overlapped with military and political transformations that are often described as conquest (both imperial and non-imperial), and those migrations and transformations included intermarriage and cultural change/exchange along a spectrum from voluntary to coercion.

If each of these instances are considered an act of colonialism, then almost every people and culture in the world are both criminals and victims - which leads to a kind of shrugging nihilism about human nature being a nil-nil draw. If on the other hand, we follow revisionist historians of the fall of Rome or the establishment of the Rashidun Caliphate or the Ottoman Empire etc. to their logical conclusion, we likewise run the risk of saying that the conquests we approve of are actually complex and marked by cosmopolitan diversity and cultural exchange and thus isn't colonialism, and only the ones we don't approve of get the scarlet C.

[totallynotcensorship]

sense Jerusalem is trending rn i thought it was a good time to address this

YES, PALESTINE DID EXIST PRIOR TO ISRAEL COLONIZATION

the oldest use of the name Palestine to refer to that region(i.e. land from egypt to phoenicia) dates to the 5th century BCE in herodotus's histories. and is later used by other greek writers like aristotle, polemon, and later pausanias

later on the name is also used by roman writers like ovid, tibullus, pliny the elder, statius and other. and before a zionist comes in and accuses me of antisemitism. the name is also used to refer to the same region by the philosopher philo of alexandria and historian josephus. two romano-JEWISH writers. have fun accusing them of antisemitism

and if "name of the region" isn't enough, it became the official name for the province under roman authorities, the first mention of the name as an official province name being in 135CE. the name continues on through the byzantine empire(a.k.a eastern roman empire), stayed through the muslim conquest by the rashidun caliphate until the end of the ottoman empire's rule over the region where Britain came in and the "League of Nations – Mandate for Palestine and Transjordan Memorandum" was signed establishing the colony of israel(a.k.a the Zionist fascist actively committing a genocide rn)

now on to the Palestinian people them selves

as for the people, a group named something along the lines of "peleset" is named as a neighboring group starting from 1150BCE in egypt as well the name palashtu(or pilistu) is mentioned in assyrian inscriptions on the nimrud slab around 800BCE

Palestinians are Canaanites by genetics, which means that they are related to other local groups of canaan and the levant like the Phoenicians

and for the zionists who like to pretend to care about Judaism, or the tanakh, the philistines is attested to in the torah and later in the books of judges and Samuel(does the name Goliath of GAZA ring any bills?).

zionists are white colonists who don't represent jews nor care about jews as anything more than a shield for criticism.

don't stop talking about palestine

[howtomuslim]

Early Islamic Expansion- Colonialism or Conquest?

There’s a common narrative among many westerners of how Islam itself in its early days was a coloniser of many peoples and territories. How during its conquests of the 7th and 8th centuries, Islam suppressed the populations and forced upon them a new faith and language, echoing the narrative that its expansionism was strictly conducted by the sword. What was this earth-moving proof that had convinced those who hold this flawed and over-simplified view so deeply?

Firstly, let’s quickly summarise the zeitgeist of the times from a political perspective and then assess what this geographic expansion was and when it all happened. During the life of the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, Western Asia was dominated by two empires that were in a bloody and violent war that had lasted for over eight decades. These two empires were the Byzantine and Sassanian empires. In the Arabian Peninsula, a region that wasn’t included in either’s domain, both intertribal aggression and constant raids were also concurrently rampant. When the fledgling faith became threatened in Medina by its various enemies in the early 7th century, the necessity for defence and thereafter the protection of its believers had to take priority for the Muslim regional minority.

With the Battle of the Trench, the failed attack on Medina by the Quraysh clan and their allies against the Muslims, thus began the eventual conquest of Islam overtaking the entire Arabian Peninsula during the lifetime of the Prophet, peace be upon him, followed by the Rashidun Caliphate. This saw the expansion span from the eastern borders of Persia, Turkey to the north, and Libya to the west. Finally, during the Umayyad Caliphate came the crossing of Islam into Afghanistan and the Indian subcontinent, into the northwestern African lands of the Maghreb, and into the Iberian Peninsula. From 622 to 750 CE, over 120 years, Islam expanded rapidly across three continents.

Now, with this background, we can indulge in the confirmation or repudiation of the element of colonialism in Islam’s conquests. But one more quick digression: let’s define colonialism in simple terms. Colonialism is when one more powerful people invades and occupies another people, usurps their rights and natural resources for the sole purpose of self-interest, like what the British, French, and Spanish empires did to the world from the 15th to the 20th century, as well as what Israel is currently doing in Palestine during the supposedly civilised 20th century.

Beyond the facts, this foundation is how we must establish our conclusions and how we must compare the behaviour of Islam towards those conquered peoples relative to other nations of the time. We can’t expect Islam to behave as per 21st-century standards or even the 20th century. But even we should question that: was Islam actually more humane than even the colonialists of the 20th century?

One would note, when looking at the Islamic expansion and the short duration it took, the accomplishments suggest a speed of success unheard of. It was true that both the Byzantine and Sassanian Empires had fought their way to their eventual collapse over the decades, but still, the number of the Muslims paled in comparison. There are significant factors that played into this dynamic. These empires had shown extreme oppression towards the inhabitants of those occupied regions, while Islam exhibited a tolerance and relatively fair approach to those of other faiths. In general, in most of the conquered nations, the local inhabitants offered no resistance to the invading Muslims as they had little or nothing to lose by the changing of the guard. In some cases, such as in the Levant, Mesopotamia, and Egypt, Islam was a liberator and hence openly welcomed such was the case in the opening of Jerusalem and Jews being allowed to return.

One aspect that differentiated Islamic forces from other preceding victorious armies was that Islam had embedded within its belief system the rules of engagement during warfare, with humanitarian tenets that understood there was to be the protection of women and children and to respect the property and symbols of other faiths. Yes, there were occasions when individuals broke such tenets, but these should be regarded as exceptions.

Was spread by the sword?

This is a narrative originating at the time of the Crusades when the sole ambition was to discredit Islam and give it a barbaric and savage reputation. A common misrepresentation of this narrative was the supposed forced conversions of conquered peoples, whereas the facts suggest that even prior to any imminent military engagement, the Muslim generals would offer the options of conversion to Islam, acceptance of dhimmi status (meaning the payment of an annual jizya tax), or trying their chances at armed conflict. Even upon Muslim victory, the first two options remained available.

The widespread and well-documented dhimmi system that dealt with non-Muslim citizens is proof that no forced conversions took place. There was a structure in place that allowed for religious continuity while also protecting rights with a structure that maintained the retention of physical land and property. Property records show that in the varying lands conquered in the previous Byzantine and Sassanian Empires, Muslims were a small minority during the early Islamic reign, ranging between 10 to 20% of the population up until a century or two after the initial conquest. In certain cases, such as in Iran and Egypt, Muslims as a majority of the population only came into being well into the 9th century. How can that possibly be forced conversion?

Another powerful counterargument for the case against Islamic colonialism is the fact that there was never really any extraction of resources out of the conquered lands and shipped off to Mecca back in Arabia. In actuality, trade and commerce throughout the new Islamic territories blossomed further during Islam’s reign and created a series of powerful cosmopolitan cities across the empire that would eventually become some of the greatest and brightest cities on the planet within the next two centuries: Baghdad, Damascus, Cairo, and Cordoba. Meanwhile, Mecca and Medina, the supposed colonial centres, were humble in their expansion and prosperity for the next millennium and beyond.

A question that can always be asked to further prove this point: would the British ever have moved their capital from London to Delhi?

To exhibit the difference, the capital of the Muslim empire left the Arabian Peninsula with the coming of the Umayyad Caliphate, never to return. Such a decision only reflects that the Islamic empire wasn’t about the benefit of one people, nation, or territory over another, but that a new set of groups of united people, inclusive of those conquered, were now a new nation that had much larger collective aspirations.

One would think that the Islamisation of faith would result in the Arabisation of language, but the reality was the opposite. As the Islamisation of the populations took significant time to materialise, learning the language of the faith, Arabic, was never forced onto others. The fast-paced assimilation of Arabic was principally due to the fact that it was the primary language of trade, governance, and law within the Islamic empires, as well as being a language familiar to the populations of the Levant and Mesopotamia, who were mainly Aramaic speakers.

Arabisation wasn’t about the Muslim faith but was about integrating within a civilisation that was booming not just back in Arabia but everywhere. It became the common language for non-Arabs and non-Muslims to prosper. During the subsequent golden age, thinkers and scholars from across the empire wrote and relayed in Arabic, much in the same way that the English language spread all over the world during the 20th century due to globalisation and technology. Arabic achieved widespread acceptance for the sake of the transfer of knowledge and in aspiring to prosperity.

To learn more about Islam visit: Howtomuslim.org

[tamamita]

whats the difference between the groups of Muslims? what are they fighting about.

In short, there are three major denominations of Islam, and various sub-branches, but I won't go into the latter.

Sunni, literally standing for those who follow the traditions of the Prophet, are Muslims who believe that politically, the Prophet's companions, Abu Bakr, Umar and Uthman were successors of the prophet, and the ones to establish the Rashidun Caliphate. Sunni Muslims base most of their traditions on various companions of the Prophet. The concept of Adalat al-Sahaba maintains that any companion that was present during the Prophet's time is a reliable person in terms of how they narrate traditions, thus establishing a multitude of hadiths from them. Although Sunni Islam (as a separate branch) didn't exist at that time, it became the standardized version of Islam when the Shi'as and Khawarijs rebelled against the Umayyads and the Abbasids, seeing the birth of the four schools of Sunni Islamic jurisprudence to counter their theological principles.

Shi'a, literally partisans of Ali, hold that through traditions and scriptural basis, Ali, the brother in law to the Prophet had chosen him to be the leader of the Muslims upon the latter's death, as a result of various events that took place, the Prophet's household were treated unfairly and the repercussions of these events subsequently led to their martyrdom, which is an essential pillar of Shi'a Islam. Due to their rejection of Abu Bakr, Umar, Uthman, and various other companions, they do not accept their chains of narrations in hadiths. Shi'as ultimately reject the concept of Adalat al-Sahaba, because traditions can not be accepted from unjust people. Most Shi'a Muslims (Twelver and Ismailis) put extreme emphasis on the Prophet's family and the line of Imamate through Ali and the Prophet's daughter, Fatimah, believing that only the Imams have the right to interpret the Qur'an in its esoteric and exoteric nature due to their infallibility, thus giving them absolute authority over the Muslims. Ali's tenure as the caliph saw much turmoil and ultimately led to his martyrdom. The subsequent death of Ali marked the end of the Rasidhun caliphate and transitioned into a monarchy with many of the Shi'as experiencing centuries of oppression.

Ibadism, a branch of Islam stemming from an extremist group called the Khawarij, they are a group of Muslims who did not agree with Ali's agreement to engage in arbitration with an opposing force that waged war against him over the caliphate. This led to a group of Muslims in Ali's army to defect, believing that judgment belongs to God alone, thus separating themselves from the rest of the Muslims. This group is known for their extremist approach and theology of Islam, but was quickly surpressed as they harassed innocent Muslims. The only remnants of the Khawarijs are the Ibadis and are relatively peaceful, albeit with some strict religious beliefs. They have their own collection of hadiths, but much of it is very close to the Sunnis corpus of traditions. They make up the majority of Muslims in Oman.

[baebeylik]

13th century Arabic depiction of slaves

Between 869 and 883 CE an attempted insurrection of the Abbasid Caliphate was led by one Ali ibn Muhammad. He was a man of mysterious origin (possibly Persian?) who claimed to be descended from the Rashidun Caliphate. While his claims were not taken seriously by the Abbasids he did garner a following who journeyed with him to modern Iraq.

While in Iraq he made an unlikely alliance with the mistreated African slaves of the Iraqi marshes known collectively as the “Zanj”. These slaves were of mostly East African stock and were forced to work in harsh conditions in Abbasid plantations.

The slaves readily allied with Ali Ibn Muhammad. He also allied with many freed Zanj and Arab peasants who had their own quarrels with the Abbasid Dynasty. The rebellion lasted for years and caused the deaths of thousands of lives. While it ended with an Abbasid victory and the complete eradication of Ali and his allies it also escalated the already steady decline of the Caliphate.

[centrally-unplanned]

Alright lets settle this once and for all:

Of course choose the answer closest to your own chosen time, I can't cover all the options, but let me know your takes in the comments or w/e.