Mughal Empire

The Mughal Empire (Persian: شاهان مغول Shāhān-e Moġul; (Urdu: مغلیہ سلطنت; self-designation: گوركانى - Gūrkānī),^[1][2] or Mogul (also Moghul) Empire in former English usage, was an Indian-Islamic power that ruled a large portion of the Indian subcontinent which began in 1526, invaded and ruled most of South Asia by the late 17th and early 18th centuries by forming alliance with Indian Maharaja, and ended in the mid-19th century.^[3]
The Mughal Emperors were descendants of the Timurids, and at the height of their power around 1700, they controlled most of the Indian Subcontinent — extending from Bengal in the east to Balochistan in the west, Kashmir in the north to the Kaveri basin in the south.^[4] Its population at that time has been estimated as between 110 and 130 million, over a territory of over 4 million km² (1.5 million square miles).^[5]
The "classic period" of the Empire started in 1556 with the accession of Jalaluddin Mohammad Akbar, better known as Akbar the Great. It ended with the death of Emperor Aurangzeb in 1707,^[6][7] although the dynasty continued for another 150 years. During this period, the Empire was marked by a highly centralized administration connecting the different regions. All the significant monuments of the Mughals, their most visible legacy, date to this period which was characterised by the expansion of Persian cultural influence in the Indian subcontinent, with brilliant literary, artistic and architectural results.
Following 1725 the empire declined rapidly, weakened by wars of succession, agrarian crises fueling local revolts, the growth of religious intolerance, the rise of the Maratha, Durrani, and Sikh empires and finally British colonialism. The last king, Bahadur Zafar Shah II, whose rule was restricted to the city of Delhi, was imprisoned and exiled by the British after the Indian Rebellion of 1857.
The name Mughal is derived from the original homelands of the Timurids, the Central Asian steppes once conquered by Genghis Khan and hence known as Moghulistan, "Land of Mongols". Although early Mughals spoke the Chagatai language and maintained Turko-Mongol practices, they were essentially Persianized.^[8] They transferred the Persian literature and culture^[8] to India, thus forming the base for the Indo-Persian culture.^[8]

Early history

Zahir ud-din Muhammad Babur learned about the riches of 'Hindustan' and conquest of it by his ancestor, Timur Lang in 1503 at Dikh-Kat a place in Tansoxiana region. At that time, he was roaming as a wanderer after losing his principality Farghana. In his memoirs he wrote that after he had acquired Kabul, (in 1514), he desired to regain the territories in Hindustan held once by Turks. He started his exploratory raids from September 1519 when he visited the Indo-Afghan borders to suppress the rising by Yusufzai tribes. He undertook similar raids up to 1524 and had established his base camp at Peshawar.
In 1526, Babur defeated the last of the Delhi Sultans, Ibrahim Shah Lodi, at the First Battle of Panipat. To secure his newly founded kingdom, Babur then had to face the formidable Rajput Rana Sanga of Chittor, at the Battle of Khanwa. Rana Sanga offered stiff resistance but was defeated.
Babur's son Humayun succeeded him in 1530, but suffered reversals at the hands of the Pashtun Sher Shah Suri and lost most of the fledgling empire before it could grow beyond a minor regional state. From 1540 Humayun became ruler in exile, reaching the court of the Safavid rule in 1554 while his force still controlled some fortresses and small regions. But when the Pashtuns fell into disarray with the death of Sher Shah Suri, Humayun returned with a mixed army, raised more troops and managed to reconquer Delhi in 1555.
Humayun crossed the rough terrain of the Makran with his wife. The resurgent Humayun then conquered the central plateau around Delhi, but months later died in an accident, leaving the realm unsettled and in war.
Akbar succeeded his father on 14 February 1556, while in the midst of a war against Sikandar Shah Suri for the throne of Delhi. He soon won his eighteenth victory at age 21 or 22. He became known as Akbar, as he was a wise ruler, set fair but high taxes. He was born in a Hindu Rajput household. He was a more inclusive in his approach to the non-Muslim subjects of the Empire. He investigated the production in a certain area and taxed inhabitants one-fifth of their agricultural produce. He also set up an efficient bureaucracy and was tolerant of religious differences which softened the resistance by the locals. He made alliances with Rajputs and appointed Hindu generals and administrators. Later in life, he devised his own brand of religion based on tolerance, and inspired by viewpoints of Hinduism and Islam. After his death, this religion did not become popular, but is still remembered for its noble intentions of bringing people and minds together.
Jahangir, son of Emperor Akbar, ruled the empire from 1605–1627. In October 1627, Shah Jahan, son of Emperor Jahangir succeeded to the throne, where he inherited a vast and rich empire. At mid-century this was perhaps the greatest empire in the world. Shah Jahan commissioned the famous Taj Mahal (1630–1653) in Agra which was built by the Persian architect Ustad Ahmad Lahauri as a tomb for Shah Jahan's wife Mumtaz Mahal, who died giving birth to their 14th child. By 1700 the empire reached its peak under the leadership of Aurangzeb Alamgir with major parts of present day India, Pakistan and most of Afghanistan under its domain. Aurangzeb was the last of what are now referred to as the Great Mughal kings, living a shrewd life but dying peacefully.

Mughal dynasty

The Mughal Empire was the dominant power in the Indian subcontinent between the mid-16th century and the early 18th century. Founded in 1526, it officially survived until 1858, when it was supplanted by the British Raj. The dynasty is sometimes referred to as the Timurid dynasty as Babur was descended from Timur.
The Mughal dynasty was founded when Babur, hailing from Ferghana (Modern Uzbekistan), invaded parts of northern India and defeated Ibrahim Shah Lodhi, the ruler of Delhi, at the First Battle of Panipat in 1526. The Mughal Empire superseded the Delhi Sultanate as rulers of northern India. In time, the state thus founded by Babur far exceeded the bounds of the Delhi Sultanate, eventually encompassing a major portion of India and earning the appellation of Empire. A brief interregnum (1540–1555) during the reign of Babur's son, Humayun, saw the rise of the Afghan Suri Dynasty under Sher Shah Suri, a competent and efficient ruler in his own right and Hindu king Hem Chandra Vikramaditya, also called Hemu. However, Sher Shah's untimely death and the military incompetence of his successors enabled Humayun to regain his throne in 1555. However, Humayun died a few months later, and was succeeded by his son, the 13-year-old Akbar the Great.
The greatest portions of Mughal expansion was accomplished during the reign of Akbar (1556–1605). The empire was maintained as the dominant force of the present-day Indian subcontinent for a hundred years further by his successors Jahangir, Shah Jahan, and Aurangzeb. The first six emperors, who enjoyed power both ‘’de jure’’ and ‘’de facto’’, are usually referred to by just one name, a title adopted upon his accession by each Emperor. The relevant title is bolded in the list below.
Akbar the Great initiated certain important policies, such as religious liberalism (abolition of the jizya tax), inclusion of Hindus in the affairs of the empire, and political alliance/marriage with the Hindu Rajput caste, that were innovative for his milieu; he also adopted some policies of Sher Shah Suri, such as the division of the empire into sarkar Rajs, in his administration of the empire. These policies, which undoubtedly served to maintain the power and stability of the empire, as the Hindu populace had shown resistance to the Islamic conquest in its years in the Indian subcontinent. These were preserved by his two immediate successors but were discarded by Aurangzeb, who followed a more strict interpretation of Islam and followed a stricter policy of intolerance to the practice of religions than his own. Furthermore, Aurangzeb spent nearly his entire career seeking to expand his realm into the Deccan and south India, Assam in the east; this venture sapped the resources of the empire while provoking strong resistance from the Marathas, Rajputs, Sikhs of Punjab, Ahoms of Assam. Ahoms in Assam successfully resisted the Mughal invasions, the last battle being the Battle of Saraighat. It is interesting to note in this regard that while the Mughals ruled India for a nearly three hundred years they never ruled the complete geographical extent of the Indian subcontinent. The power was mostly centered around Delhi which was for historical reasons considered a strategic stronghold but there always existed strong independent Hindu kingdoms which maintained their sovereignty and offered stiff resistance to Mughal expansion.

Decline

After the emperor Aurangzeb's death in 1707, the empire fell into decline. Beginning with Bahadur Shah I, the Mughal Emperors progressively declined in power and became figureheads, being initially controlled by sundry courtiers and later by various rising warlords. In the 18th century, the Empire suffered the depredations of invaders like Nadir Shah of Persia and Ahmed Shah Abdali of Afghanistan, who repeatedly sacked Delhi, the Mughal capital. The greater portion of the empire's territories in India passed to the Marathas, who sacked Delhi, reducing the once powerful and mighty empire to just lone city before falling to the British. Other adversaries included Sikh Empire and Hyderabad Nizams. In 1804, the blind and powerless Shah Alam II formally accepted the protection of the British East India Company. The British had already begun to refer to the weakened Emperor as "King of Delhi," rather than "Emperor of India." The once glorious and mighty Mughal army was disbanded in 1805 by the British; only the guards of the Red Fort were spared to serve with the King Of Delhi, which avoided the uncomfortable implication that British sovereignty was outranked by the Indian monarch. Nonetheless, for a few decades afterward, the BEIC continued to rule the areas under its control as the nominal servants of the emperor, and in his name. In 1857, even these courtesies were disposed. After some rebels in the Sepoy Rebellion declared their allegiance to Shah Alam's descendant, Bahadur Shah Zafar (mostly symbolically, as he was just a figurehead for the purpose of rebellion), the British decided to abolish the institution altogether. They deposed the last Mughal Emperor in 1857 and exiled him to Burma, where he died in 1862. Thus the Mughal dynasty came to an end, which formed a momentous chapter in the history of India.
There are still many Mughals living in the Indian Subcontinent. The term Mughal in the current socio-political context also does not have decisive meaning as the blood lines of the original Mughals are now mixed with the local population and have South-Asian identities which are stronger than any original Turkic or Mongoloid origins^{[citation needed]}.

Influence on the Indian Subcontinent

A major Mughal contribution to the Indian Subcontinent was their unique architecture. Many monuments were built by the Muslim emperors, especially Shahjahan, during the Mughal era including the UNESCO World Heritage Site Taj Mahal, which is known to be one of the finer examples of Mughal architecture. Other World Heritage Sites includes the Humayun's Tomb, Fatehpur Sikri, Red Fort, Agra Fort and Lahore Fort.
The palaces, tombs and forts built by the dynasty stands today in Delhi, Aurangabad, Fatehpur Sikri, Agra, Jaipur, Lahore, Kabul, Sheikhupura and many other cities of India, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh.^[9] With few memories of Central Asia, Babur's descendents absorbed traits and customs of the Indian Subcontinent^[10], and became more or less naturalised. The Mughal period would be the first to witness the blending of Indian, Iranian and Central Asian customs and traditions.
Mughal influence can be seen in cultural contributions such as^[11]:

• Centralised, imperialistic government which brought together many smaller kingdoms.^[12]
• Persian art and culture amalgamated with Indian art and culture.^[13]
• New trade routes to Arab and Turkic lands.
• The development of Mughlai cuisine.^[14]
• Mughal Architecture found its way into local Indian architecture, most conspicuously in the palaces built by Rajputs and Sikh rulers.
• Landscape gardening

Although the land the Mughals once ruled has separated into what is now India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan their influence can still be seen widely today. Tombs of the emperors are spread throughout India, Afghanistan^[15] and Pakistan. There are 16 million descendants spread throughout the Subcontinent and possibly the world.^[16][17]

[edit] Urdu language

Although Persian was the dominant and "official" language of the empire, the language of the elite later evolved into a form of Hindustani today known as Urdu. Highly Persianized and also influenced by Arabic and Turkic, the language was written in a type of Perso-Arabic script known as Nastaliq, and with literary conventions and specialized vocabulary being retained from Persian, Arabic and Turkic; the new dialect was eventually given its own name of Urdu. Compared with Hindi, the Urdu language draws more vocabulary from Persian and Arabic (via Persian) and (to a much lesser degree) from Turkic languages where Hindi draws vocabulary from Sanskrit more heavily.^[18] Modern Hindi, which uses Sanskrit-based vocabulary along with Urdu loan words from Persian and Arabic, is mutually intelligible with Urdu.^[19]

[edit] Mughal Society

The Indian economy remained as prosperous under the Mughals as it was, because of the creation of a road system and a uniform currency, together with the unification of the country. Manufactured goods and peasant-grown cash crops were sold throughout the world. Key industries included shipbuilding (the Indian shipbuilding industry was as advanced as the European, and Indians sold ships to European firms), textiles, and steel. The Mughals maintained a small fleet, which merely carried pilgrims to Mecca, imported a few Arab horses in Surat. Debal in Sindh was mostly autonomous. The Mughals also maintained various river fleets of Dhows, which transported soldiers over rivers and fought pirates. Among its admirals were Munnawar Khan and Muhammad Saleh Kamboh. The Mughals also protected the Siddis of Janjira. Its sailors were renowned and often voyaged to China and the East African Swahili Coast, together with some Mughal subjects carrying out private-sector trade. Cities and towns boomed under the Mughals; however, for the most part, they were military and political centers, not manufacturing or commerce centers. Only those guilds which produced goods for the bureaucracy made goods in the towns; most industry was based in rural areas. The Mughals also built Maktabs in every province under their authority, where youth were taught the Quran and Islamic law (such as: Fatwa-e-Alamgiri) in their indigenous languages, which later became very powerful religious institutions in South Asia.
The nobility was a heterogeneous body; while it primarily consisted of Rajput aristocrats and foreigners from Muslim countries, people of all castes and nationalities could gain a title from the emperor. The middle class of openly affluent traders consisted of a few wealthy merchants living in the coastal towns; the bulk of the merchants pretended to be poor to avoid taxation. The bulk of the people were poor. The standard of living of the poor was as low as, or somewhat higher than, the standard of living of the Indian poor under the British Raj; whatever benefits the British brought with canals and modern industry were neutralized by rising population growth, high taxes, and the collapse of traditional industry in the nineteenth century.

Science and technology

Astronomy

The 16th and 17th centuries saw a synthesis between Islamic astronomy and Indian astronomy, where Islamic observational techniques and instruments were combined with Hindu computational techniques. While there appears to have been little concern for theoretical astronomy, Muslim and Hindu astronomers in India continued to make advances in observational astronomy and produced nearly a hundred Zij treatises. Humayun built a personal observatory near Delhi, while Jahangir and Shah Jahan were also intending to build observatories but were unable to do so. The instruments and observational techniques used at the Mughal observatories were mainly derived from the Islamic tradition, and the computational techniques from the Hindu tradition.^[20][21] In particular, one of the most remarkable astronomical instruments invented in Mughal India is the seamless celestial globe (see Technology below).

[edit] Technology

Fathullah Shirazi (c. 1582), a Persian-Indian polymath and mechanical engineer who worked for Akbar the Great in the Mughal Empire, developed a Volley gun.^[22]
Considered one of the most remarkable feats in metallurgy, the seamless globe was invented in Kashmir by Ali Kashmiri ibn Luqman in 998 AH (1589-90 CE), and twenty other such globes were later produced in Lahore and Kashmir during the Mughal Empire. Before they were rediscovered in the 1980s, it was believed by modern metallurgists to be technically impossible to produce metal globes without any seams, even with modern technology. Another famous series of seamless celestial globes was produced using a lost-wax casting method in the Mughal Empire in 1070 AH (1659-1960 CE) by Muhammad Salih Tahtawi (from Thatta, Sind) with Arabic and Persian inscriptions. It is considered a major feat in metallurgy. These Mughal metallurgists pioneered the method of wax casting while producing these seamless globes.^[23]

 

Historical Interaction between the Islamic and Buddhist Cultures

Umayyad Caliphate (661 – 750 CE)

First Encounter of the Muslims and Buddhist in Asia

The Pre-Islamic Presence of Buddhism in North Africa and West Asia

India and West Asia have a long history of land and sea trade between them. Commercial relations between India and Mesopotamia began as early as 3000 BCE and between India and Egypt, through the intermediary ports of Yemen, from 1000 BCE. The Baveru Jataka, a chapter from an early Buddhist collection of accounts of the previous lives of the Buddha, refers to maritime trade with Babylon (Sanskrit: Baveru).
In 255 BCE, the Indian Mauryan emperor, Ashoka (r. 273 – 232 BCE), sent Buddhist monks as ambassadors to establish relations with Antiochus II Theos of Syria and Western Asia, Ptolemy II Philadelphos of Egypt, Magas of Cyrene, Antigone Gonatas of Macedonia, and Alexander of Corinth. Eventually, communities of Indian traders, both Hindu and Buddhist, settled in some of the major sea and river ports of Asia Minor, the Arabian Peninsula and Egypt. Indians of other occupations soon followed. The Syrian writer, Zenob Glak, wrote of an Indian community, complete with its own religious temples, on the upper Euphrates River in modern-day Turkey to the west of Lake Van in the second century BCE, and the Greek ex-patriot, Dion Chrysostemos (40 – 112 CE), wrote of a similar community in Alexandria. As evidenced by archeological remains, other Buddhist settlements were south of Baghdad on the lower Euphrates River at Kufah, on the eastern Iranian coast at Zir Rah and at the mouth of the Gulf of Aden on the island of Socotra.
With the decline of Babylonian and Egyptian civilizations in the middle of the first millennium CE and the simultaneous curtailing of Byzantine shipping in the Red Sea, much of the trade between India and the West came by sea to the Arabian Peninsula and then proceeded by land through Arab intermediaries. Mecca, the birthplace of the Prophet Muhammad (570  – 632 CE), became an important trade center where merchants met from the East and the West. More Indian communities established themselves in the Arabian cultural area. Among them, one of the most prominent were the Jats (Arab. Zut), many of whom settled in Bahrain and at Ubla, near modern-day Basrah at the head of the Persian Gulf. The Prophet’s wife, Aisha, was once treated by a Jat physician. Thus, Muhammad was undeniably familiar with Indian culture.
As further evidence, the mid-twentieth century scholar, Hamid Abdul Qadir, in his Buddha the Great: His Life and Philosophy(Arabic: Budha al-Akbar Hayatoh wa Falsaftoh), proposes that the Prophet Dhu’l Kifl (The Man from Kifl), mentioned twice in the Quran as patient and good, refers to Buddha, although most assert him to be Ezekial. According to this theory, “Kifl” is the Arabic rendition of “Kapilavastu,” the Buddha’s birthplace. This scholar also suggests that the Quranic reference to the fig tree likewise refers to the Buddha who attained enlightenment at the foot of one.
The Tarikh-i-Tabari, a tenth century reconstruction of the early history of Islam written in Baghdad by al-Tabari (838 – 923), speaks of another group of Indians present in Arabia, the Ahmaras or “Red-Clad People” from Sindh. These were undoubtedly saffron-robed Buddhist monks. Three of them reportedly explained philosophical teachings to the Arabs during the first few years of the Islamic era. Thus, at least some Arab leaders were aware of Buddhism before they extended Islam beyond the Arabian Peninsula.

The Establishment of the Umayyad Caliphate

After the Prophet passed away, Abu Bakr (r. 632 – 634) and then Umar I (r. 634 – 644) were elected caliph, his worldly successor. During the reign of the latter, the Arabs conquered Syria, Palestine, Egypt, part of North Africa and began their assault on Iran. A six-man council then offered the caliphate to Ali, the Prophet’s cousin and son-in-law, but with conditions he could not accept. The caliphate then passed to Uthman (r. 644 – 656), who completed the overthrow of the Sassanids in Iran in 651 and established the Murjiah movement within Islam. He decreed that non-Arabs could become Muslims if outwardly they obeyed Sharia law and accepted the rule of the caliph. Only Allah, however, could judge their inner piety.
Uthman was eventually assassinated by the faction that supported  Ali. Civil war ensued in which first Ali and then his eldest son, Hassan, were murdered after briefly holding the caliphate. Mu’awaiya, the Prophet’s brother-in-law and leader of the supporters of Uthman, finally triumphed, declaring himself the first caliph (r. 661 – 680) of the Umayyad line (661 – 750). He shifted the capital from Mecca to Damascus, while the rival claim to the caliphate fell upon Ali’s younger son, Husayn. The earliest contacts between the Muslim Arabs and Buddhists in Central Asia occurred shortly thereafter.
The Umayyad Caliphate (Arabic: بنو أمية‎, Banu Umayyah) was the second of the four Islamic caliphates established after the death of Muhammad. It was ruled by the Umayyad dynasty, whose name derives from Umayya ibn Abd Shams, the great-grandfather of the first Umayyad caliph. Although the Umayyad family originally came from the city of Mecca, Damascus was the capital of their Caliphate. Eventually, it would cover more than five million square miles, making it the largest empire the world had yet seen. After the Umayyads were overthrown by the Abbasid Caliphate, they relocated to Al-Andalus, where they established the Caliphate of Córdoba.
A caliphate is the Islamic form of government representing the political unity and leadership of the Muslim world. The Caliph’s position is based on the notion of a successor to Muhammad’s political authority. According to Sunnis, a Caliph can be any pious Muslim who is elected by the Muslims or their representatives; and according to Shia Islam, an Imam descended in a line from the Ahl al-Bayt.
The Umayyads established the largest Arab-Muslim state in history. From the time of prophet Muhammad until 1924, successive and contemporary caliphates were held by various dynasties, including the Rashidun Caliphate of the first four caliphs after Muhammad, the Umayyads based in Damascus and Córdoba, the Abbasids based in Baghdad & later in Cairo, the Fatimids based in Cairo, and finally the Turkish Ottoman Empire based in Constantinople.

The Umayyad Attack on Bactria

In 663, the Arabs in Iran launched their first attack on Bactria. The invading forces captured from the Turki Shahis the area around Balkh, including Nava Vihara Monastery, causing the Turki Shahis to retreat southward to their stronghold in the Kabul Valley. Soon, the Arabs were able to extend their control northward and make their first inroads into Sogdia by taking Bukhara from the Western Turks.
The Arab military policy was to kill all who resisted, but to grant protected status to those who submitted peacefully and to exact tribute from them in either money or goods. They guaranteeed the latter arrangement through making a legal covenant (Arab. ‘ahd) with any city that submitted by treaty. Strictly following Islamic law that once given, a covenant or contract is binding and cannot be retracted, the Arabs gained the trust of potential new subjects so that there was less resistance to their takeover.
Religious policy followed the military one. Those who accepted Arab rule by treaty were allowed to keep their religions by paying a poll tax. Those who resisted faced conversion to Islam or the sword. Many, however, voluntarily accepted Islam. Many wished to avoid the poll tax, while others, particularly merchants and artisans, saw additional economic advantages that would come from conversion.
Although some Buddhists in Bactria and even an abbot of Nava Vihara converted to Islam, most Buddhists in the region accepted protected status as loyal non-Muslim subjects within an Islamic state and paid the poll tax for non-Muslims exacted upon them. Nava Vihara Monastery remained open and functioning. The Han Chinese pilgrim Yijing (I-ching) visited Nava Vihara around the turn of the eighth century and reported it flourishing.
An Umayyad Arab author, Omar ibn al-Azraq al-Kermani, wrote a detailed account of Nava Vihara at the beginning of the eighth century, preserved in the tenth-century work Book of Lands(Arabic: Kitab al-Buldan) by Ibn al-Faqih al-Hamadhani. He described it in terms readily understandable to Muslims by drawing the analogy with the Kaaba in Mecca. He explained that the main temple had a square stone in the center, draped with cloth, that people circumambulated. The square stone was undoubtedly referring to the platform upon which was erected astupa reliquary monument, commonly found in the center of Bactrian and Tocharian temples. The cloth that draped it was in accordance with the Iranian custom for showing veneration, applied equally to Buddha statues as well as stupas, and circumambulation was the common Buddhist manner of worship. Nevertheless, al-Kermani’s description indicates an open and respectful attitude by the Umayyad Arabs in trying to understand the non-Muslim religions, such as Buddhism, that they encountered in their newly conquered territory

Previous Umayyad Experience with Non-Muslims in Iran

Prior to their invasion of Bactria, the Umayyads had conferred protected status and levied the poll tax on their Zoroastrian, Nestorian Christian, Jewish, and Buddhist subjects in Iran. Some local Arab officials, however, were less tolerant than others. Sometimes, protected subjects had to wear special clothes or badges identifying their status and were further humiliated by receiving a blow on the neck when they bowed in submission each time  that they paid their poll tax. Although protected subjects had freedom of worship, some severe officials forbade them to build any new temples or churches. On the other hand, those who came for Friday prayers at the mosques sometimes received a monetary reward. In later times, if any member of a non-Muslim family converted to Islam, he would inherit all that family’s property. In addition, more aggressive officials frequently took foreigners, especially Turks, as slaves, but then offered them freedom if they converted.
The wish to avoid any such restrictions or humiliation and to receive financial or social benefits naturally drove many to denounce their religion and accept the new faith. Thus, many Zoroastrians in Iran eventually refused protected status and converted to Islam. It is unclear if a similar situation developed among the Buddhists in Bactria and Bukhara, but it is not unreasonable to assume that it did.
The process of converting to Islam was primarily an external affair at this time, in accordance with the Murjiah custom. One had simply to proclaim one’s acceptance of the primary articles of Islamic faith and carry out the basic religious duties of praying five times each day, paying the tax for relief of the Muslim poor, fasting during the month of Ramadan, and making pilgrimage to Mecca once in one’s life. Above all, one had to submit to Umayyad rule, for the main point demanded was a change of political, rather that spiritual allegiance. Those who broke the Sharia laws were tried in an Umayyad court and were punished, but still remained officially Muslim citizens with all civil privileges. Only Allah could decide who was  sincere  in their religious beliefs.
Such custom was tailored for winning subjects who would be faithful and obedient to Arab rule. It naturally attracted those who would convert simply as a political, social, or economic expedient, while internally maintaining belief in their own religions. The children and grandchildren of such converts, however, growing up in the external framework of Islam, became far more sincere than their parents and grandparents in accepting the new faith. In this way, the Islamic population of Central Asia began gradually to grow in a nonviolent manner.

The Slow Advance of the Umayyids into Southern Sogdia

The Umayyad takeover of the rest of Sogdia was not a simple matter. Three other powers were also vying to wrest control of the area from the Western Turks in order to gain control of the lucrative Silk Route trade that passed through it. These were the Tibetans from Kashgar, the Tang Chinese forces based in the rest of the Tarim Basin states, and eventually the Eastern Turks from Mongolia. The ensuing struggle became very complex. It is not necessary to give all the details. Let us simply summarize the important events during the second half of the seventh century and the first decade of the eighth so that we might  appreciate  the competition the Arabs faced.
First, in 670, the Tibetans took from Tang China the rest of the Tarim Basin city-states, starting with Khotan and several districts north of Kashgar. In face of a growing Tibetan military threat, the Tang forces gradually withdrew to Turfan from the rest of the Tarim Basin and the Tibetans filled the vacuum. The Tang army then skirted the Tibetans by crossing the Tianshan Mountains from Turfan to Beshbaliq and, proceeding westward, establishing a military presence in Suyab, northern West Turkistan, in 679. This was an exception, however, to the general trend of decline in Tang China. In 682, the Turks in Mongolia revolted against Tang rule and established the Second Eastern Turk Empire and, in 684, the Tang Dynasty itself was overthrown by a coup. It was not restored until 705, and not stabilized until 713.
Meanwhile, the Arab hold on Bactria started to weaken. In 680, at the beginning of the short reign of Caliph Yazid (r. 680 – 683), Ali’s younger son Husayn led an unsuccessful rebellion against the Umayyads in which he was killed at the Battle of Karbala in Iraq. This conflict diverted the focus of the Caliphate’s  attention away from Central Asia. Subsequently, by the end of Yazid’s reign, the Umayyads lost control of most of the Bactrian city-states, but maintained their hold on Bukhara in Sogdia. In later years, remembrance of the martyrdom of Husayn helped crystallize the Shiite sect of Islam in counterpoint to the Sunni faction that developed from the Murjiah movement of the Umayyad line.
The Tibetan emperor of the time was preoccupied with an internal power struggle with a rival clan. Consequently, the Tibetans lost their strong grip on the Tarim Basin states in 692, although they continued to maintain a presence there, especially along the southern rim. The Han Chinese had a long tradition of trade relations with these states from their stronghold in Turfan, which classical Chinese histories refer to as “tribute missions.” Thus, although Tang China now became the dominant foreign power in much of the Tarim Basin beyond Turfan, this was on the basis of trade, not political or military control, particularly in the southern states.
In 703, the Tibetans formed an alliance with the Eastern Turks against the Tang forces at the eastern end of the Tarim Basin, but were unsuccessful in turning them out from Turfan. The Western Turks also set themselves against the Tang troops, but on the western front, and succeeded in ousting them from Suyab. The Western Turks then established the Turgish Turks, one of their subtribes, as rulers over northern West Turkistan. The Turgish homeland was the area around Suyab itself.
The Tibetans now allied themselves with the Turki Shahis of Gandhara and attempted, in 705, to drive the already weakened Umayyad forces from Bactria. For the time being, the Arabs were able to hold their ground. However, in 708, during the rule of Caliph al-Walid I (r. 705-715), the Turki Shahi prince, Nazaktar Khan, expelled the Umayyads from Bactria and established a fanatic Buddhist rule for several years. He even beheaded the former abbot of Nava Vihara who had converted to Islam.
Despite their loss of Bactria, the Umayyad forces continued to hold Bukhara in Sogdia. Advancing from the north, the Turgish took control of the rest of Sogdia and expanded beyond, taking Kashgar and Kucha in the western Tarim Basin. The Eastern Turks, another Tibetan ally, then entered the power struggle for Sogdia and, coming through Dzungaria, attacked the Turgish from the north, eventually capturing the Turgish homeland in Suyab. With the attention of the Turgish focused on their northern front, the Umayyad troops took advantage of the opportunity and, advancing from Bukhara, took Samarkand from the southernmost stretches of the Turgish domain.
The Umayyad Arabs’ initial hold on Bactria was not very strong and, consequently, their advance into Sogdia was very slow. They lacked the strength to launch attacks at will, but had to wait for moments  of military distraction among the other major powers vying for Sogdia in order to make any progress. They were certainly not engaged in a holy war trying to spread Islam throughout Central Asia, but merely one of several power brokers struggling for political and territorial gain. The Arab General Qutaiba built the first mosque of Sogdia in Bukhara in 712. The fact that the next one was not built there until 771 indicates how slow the spread of Islam in fact was.

Spread of Islam

The Spread of Islam started shortly after the death of the Islamic prophet Muhammad in 632. During his lifetime, the community of Muslims, the ummah, was established in the Arabian Peninsula by means of conversion to Islam and conquering of territory. In the first centuries conversion to Islam followed the rapid growth of the Muslim world under the Rashidun and Umayyad Caliphs.
Muslim dynasties were soon established and subsequent empires such as those of the Abbasids, Almoravids, Seljuk Turks, Mughals in India and Safavids in Persia and Ottomans were among the largest and most powerful in the world. The Islamic world was composed of numerous sophisticated centers of culture and science with far-reaching mercantile networks, travelers, scientists, astronomers, mathematicians, doctors and philosophers, all of whom contributed to the Golden Age of Islam.
The activities of this quasi-political early ummah resulted in the spread of Islam as far from Mecca as China and Indonesia, the latter containing the world's largest Muslim population. As of October 2009, there were 1.571 billion Muslims,^[1] making Islam the second-largest religion in the world.^[2]

Conversion

Increasing conversion to Islam paralleled the rapid growth of the Arab Empire in the first centuries after the Islamic prophet Muhammad's death. Muslim dynasties were soon established in North Africa, West Africa, throughout the Middle East and in Iran. It is generally agreed upon by historians that this took place through conversion of slaves and poor people, as well as waging wars on nearby tribes.

Phase I: The Early Caliphs and Umayyads (610-750)

This was the time of the life of Islamic Prophet Muhammad and his early successors, the four rightly guided caliphs, as well as the dynasty of the Umayyad Caliphs (661-750).
In the first century the establishment of Islam upon the Arabian peninsula and the subsequent rapid expansion of the Arab Empire during the Muslim conquests, resulted in the formation of an empire surpassed by none before.^[3] For the subjects of this new empire, formerly subjects of the greatly reduced Byzantine, and obliterated Sassanid, Empires, not much changed in practice. The objective of the conquests was more than anything of a practical nature, as fertile land and water were scarce in the Arabian peninsula. A real Islamization therefore only came about in the subsequent centuries.^[4]
Ira Lapidus distinguishes between two separate strands of converts of the time: one is animists and polytheists of tribal societies of the Arabian peninsula and the Fertile crescent; the other one is the monotheistic populations of the Middle Eastern agrarian and urbanized societies.^[5]
For the polytheistic and pagan societies, apart from the religious and spiritual reasons each individual may have had, conversion to Islam "represented the response of a tribal, pastoral population to the need for a larger framework for political and economic integration, a more stable state, and a more imaginative and encompassing moral vision to cope with the problems of a tumultuous society."^[5] In contrast, for sedentary and often already monotheistic societies, "Islam was substituted for a Byzantine or Sassanian political identity and for a Christian, Jewish or Zoroastrian religious affiliation."^[5] Conversion initially was neither required nor necessarily wished for: "(The Arab conquerors) did not require the conversion as much as the subordination of non-Muslim peoples. At the outset, they were hostile to conversions because new Muslims diluted the economic and status advantages of the Arabs."^[5]
Only in subsequent centuries, with the development of the religious doctrine of Islam and with that the understanding of the Muslim ummah, did mass conversion take place. The new understanding by the religious and political leadership in many cases led to a weakening or breakdown of the social and religious structures of parallel religious communities such as Christians and Jews.^[5]
The calipha of the Umayyad dynasty established the first schools inside the empire, called madrasas, which taught the Arabic language and Islamic studies. They furthermore began the ambitious project of building mosques across the empire, many of which remain today as the most magnificent mosques in the Islamic world, such as the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus. At the end of the Umayyad period, less than 10% of the people in Iran, Iraq, Syria, Egypt, Tunisia and Spain were Muslim. Only on the Arabian peninsula was the proportion of Muslims among the population even higher than this.^[6]

[edit] Phase II: The Abbasids (750-1258)

See also: Abbasid Caliphate

This was the time of the Abbasid Dynasty (750-1258), the second great dynasty with the rulers carrying the title of 'Caliph'.
Expansion ceased and the central disciplines of Islamic philosophy, theology, law and mysticism became more widespread and the gradual conversions of the populations within the empire occurred. Significant conversions also occurred beyond the extents of the empire such as that of the Turkic tribes in Central Asia and peoples living in regions south of the Sahara in Africa through contact with Muslim traders active in the area and sufi missionaries. In Africa it spread along three routes, across the Sahara via trading towns such as Timbuktu, up the Nile Valley through the Sudan up to Uganda and across the Red Sea and down East Africa through settlements such as Mombasa and Zanzibar. These initial conversions were of a flexible nature and only later were the societies forcibly purged of their traditional influences.^[3]
The reasons why, by the end of the 10th century CE, a large part of the population had converted to Islam are diverse. One of the reasons may be that

"Islam had become more clearly defined, and the line between Muslims and non-Muslims more sharply drawn. Muslims now lived within an elaborated system of ritual, doctrine and law clearly different from those of non-Muslims. (...) The status of Christians, Jews and Zoroastrians was more precisely defined, and in some ways it was inferior. They were regarded as the 'People of the Book', those who possessed a revealed scripture, or 'People of the Covenant', with whom compacts of protection had been made. In general they were not forced to convert, but they suffered from restrictions. They paid a special tax; they were not supposed to wear certain colors; they could not marry Muslim women;."^[6]

It should be pointed out that most of these laws were elaborations of basic laws concerning non-Muslims (dhimmis) in the Quran. The Quran does not give much detail about the right conduct with non-Muslims, in principle recognizing the religions of the book and demanding a separate tax for them.
American historian Ira Lapidus points towards "interwoven terms of political and economic benefits and of a sophisticated culture and religion" as appealing to the masses.^[7] He writes that :

"The question of why people convert to Islam has always generated intense feeling. Earlier generations of European scholars believed that conversions to Islam were made at the point of the sword, and that conquered peoples were given the choice of conversion or death. It is now apparent that conversion by force, while not unknown in Muslim countries, was, in fact, rare. Muslim conquerors ordinarily wished to dominate rather than convert, and most conversions to Islam were voluntary. (...) In most cases worldly and spiritual motives for conversion blended together. Moreover, conversion to Islam did not necessarily imply a complete turning from an old to a totally new life. While it entailed the acceptance of new religious beliefs and membership in a new religious community, most converts retained a deep attachment to the cultures and communities from which they came."^[7]

The result of this, he points out, can be seen in the diversity of Muslim societies today, with varying manifestations and practices of Islam.
Conversion to Islam also came about as a result of the breakdown of historically religiously organized societies: with the weakening of many churches, for example, and the favoring of Islam and the migration of substantial Muslim Turkish populations into the areas of Anatolia and the Balkans, the "social and cultural relevance of Islam" were enhanced and a large number of peoples were converted. This worked better in some areas (Anatolia) and less in others (e.g. the Balkans, where "the spread of Islam was limited by the vitality of the Christian churches.")^[5]
Along with the religion of Islam, the Arabic language and Arab customs spread throughout the empire. A sense of unity grew among many though not all provinces, gradually forming the consciousness of a broadly Arab-Islamic population: something which was recognizably an Islamic world had emerged by the end of the 10th century.^[8] Throughout this period, as well as in the following centuries, divisions occurred between Persians and Arabs, and Sunnis and Shiites, and unrest in provinces empowered local rulers at times.^[6]
Conversion within the Empire: Umayyad Period vs. Abassid Period
There are a number of historians who see the rule of the Umayyads as responsible for setting up the "dhimmah" to increase taxes from the dhimmis to benefit the Arab Muslim community financially and to discourage conversion.^[9] Islam was initially associated with the ethnic identity of the Arabs and required formal association with an Arab tribe and the adoption of the client status of mawali.^[9] Governors lodged complaints with the caliph when he enacted laws that made conversion easier, depriving the provinces of revenues.
During the following Abbasid period an enfranchisement was experienced by the mawali and a shift was made in the political conception from that of a primarily Arab empire to one of a Muslim empire^[10] and c. 930 a law was enacted that required all bureaucrats of the empire to be Muslims.^[9] Both periods were also marked by significant migrations of Arab tribes outwards from the Arabian Peninsula into the new territories.^[10]
Conversion within the Empire: Conversion Curve
Richard Bulliet's "conversion curve" shows a relatively low rate of conversion of non-Arab subjects during the Arab centric Umayyad period of 10%, in contrast with estimates for the more politically multicultural Abbasid period which saw the Muslim population grow from approx. 40% in the mid 9th century to close to 100% by the end of the 11th century.^[10] This theory does not explain the continuing existence of large minorities of Christians in the Abbasid Period. Other estimates suggest that Muslims were not a majority in Egypt until the mid-10th century and in the Fertile Crescent until 1100. Syria may have had a Christian majority within its modern borders until the Mongol Invasions of the 13th century.

[edit] Phase III: Dissolution of the Abbasid Empire and its Reconquest by the Ottomans (950-1450)

The expansion of Islam continued in the wake of Turkic conquests of Asia Minor, the Balkans, and the Indian subcontinent.^[3] The earlier period also saw the acceleration in the rate of conversions in the Muslim heartland while in the wake of the conquests the newly conquered regions retained significant non-Muslim populations in contrast to the regions where the boundaries of the Muslim world contracted, such as Sicily and Al Andalus, where Muslim populations were expelled or forced to Christianize in short order.^[3] The latter period of this phase was marked by the Mongol invasion (particularly the sack of Baghdad in 1258]]) and after an initial period of persecution, the conversion of these conquerors to Islam.

[edit] Phase IV: Ottoman Empire: 13th Century - 1918

See also: Ottoman Empire

The Ottoman Empire defended its frontiers initially against threats from several sides: the Safavids on the Eastern side, the Byzantine Empire in the North which vanished with the fall of Constantinople 1453, and the great Catholic powers from the Mediterranean Sea: Spain, the Holy Roman Empire, and Venice with its eastern Mediterranean colonies.
Later, the Ottoman Empire set on to conquer territories from these rivals: Cyprus and other Greek islands (except Crete) were lost by Venice to the Ottomans, and the latter conquered territory up to the Danube basin as far as Hungary. Crete was conquered during the 17th century, but the Ottomans lost Hungary to the Holy Roman Empire, and other parts of Eastern Europe, ending with the Treaty of Carlowitz (1699).^[11]

Phase V: (Post-Ottomans - present)

Islam has continued to spread through commerce, the activities of Sufi missionaries, and migrations; especially in Southeast Asia.^[3]

By region

Arabia

At Medina, prophet Muhammad is said to have received repeated embassies from Christian tribes.

[edit] Asia

Soon after the death of prophet Muhammad, all these provinces fell, one after the other, into the hands of the Muslims, who threatened, for a while, the entire extinction of Christianity in Western Asia. Due however to the tolerant attitude of the majority of the Umayyad, and the Abbasid caliphs of Damascus and Baghdad respectively, Christianity in the Muslim empire gradually began to experience a new and unprecedented level of revival and vigour. Nestorian and Jacobite theologians, philosophers, and men of letters soon became the teachers of the conquering Arabs, and the pioneers of Islamo-Arabic science, civilization, and learning. Nestorian physicians became the attending physicians of the court, and the Nestorian patriarch and his numerous bishops were regarded in Asia as second to none in power and authority.
Under the Umayyad and Abbasid Caliphs, Christianity enjoyed, with few exceptions, great freedom and respect throughout all the Muslim Empire, as can be seen from the facts and data collected by Assemani and Bar-Hebraeus, according to which many Nestorian and Jacobite patriarchs from the seventh to the eleventh centuries received diplomas, or firmans, of some sort from prophet Muhammad himself, from Umar, Ali, Marwan, Al-Mansur, Harun al-Rashid, Abu Ja'far, and others. (Shedd, op. cit., 239-241; Assemani, De Catholicis Nestorianis, 41-433 sqq.; Bar-Hebraeus, Chronicon Ecclesiasticum I, 309, 317, 319, 325; II, 465, 625; III, 307, 317, 229, 433, etc.; and Thomas of Marga, op. cit., II, 123, note:)

[edit] Greater Syria

Main article: Islamization of Syria

See also: Muslim conquest of Syria

In 635 Damascus surrendered, its inhabitants being promised security for their lives, property, and churches, on payment of a poll tax, for which the actual arabic name that convery the true practise is Jizay جزية [1]. By 640 the conquest was virtually complete. The Arab garrisons were kept apart in camps, and life went on much as before. Conversion to Islam had scarcely begun, apart from Arab tribes already settled in Syria; except for the tribe of Ghassan, these all became Muslim. Christians and Jews were treated with toleration, and Nestorian and Jacobite Christians had better treatment than they had under Byzantium^[12] . The loyalty of his new subjects was paramount to the success of Muslim rule in the region, therefore excessive taxation or oppression was avoided.^[13]
Like their Byzantine and late Sasanian predecessors, the Marwanid caliphs nominally ruled the various religious communities but allowed the communities' own appointed or elected officials to administer most internal affairs. Yet the Marwanids also depended heavily on the help of non-Arab administrative personnel and on administrative practices (e.g., a set of government bureaus). As the conquests slowed and the isolation of the fighters (muqatilah) became less necessary, it became more and more difficult to keep Arabs garrisoned. As the tribal links that had so dominated Umayyad politics began to break down, the meaningfulness of tying non-Arab converts to Arab tribes as clients was diluted; moreover, the number of non-Muslims who wished to join the ummah was already becoming too large for this process to work effectively.^[14]

[edit] Palestine

See also: Islamization of Palestine

The Muslims arrived at Jerusalem around early November 636, and the Roman garrison withdrew into the fortified city. For four months the siege continued, every day there was a fierce assault. At last, when all further resistance was hopeless, the Patriarch Patriarch Sophronius (who acted throughout as the head of the Christian defenders) appeared on the walls and demanded a conference with Abu Ubaidah. He then proposed to capitulate on fair and honorable terms; the Christians were to keep their churches and sanctuaries, no one was to be forced to accept Islam. Sophronius further insisted that these terms should be ratified by the caliph in person. Caliph Umar, then at Medina, agreed to these terms and came with a single camel to the walls of Jerusalem. He signed the capitulation, then entered the city with Sophronius "and courteously discoursed with the patriarch concerning its religious antiquities".^[15]
It is said that when the hour for his prayer came he was in the Anastasis, but refused to say it there, lest in future times the Muslims should make that an excuse for breaking the treaty and confiscating the church. The Mosque of Omar (Jami 'Saidna 'Omar), opposite the doors of the Anastasis, with the tall minaret, is shown as the place to which he retired for his prayer. Under the Muslim the Christian population of Jerusalem in the first period enjoyed the usual toleration given to non-Muslim theists. The pilgrimages went on as before .^[16] From that point, the rights of the non-Muslims under Islamic territory were governed by the Pact of Umar, and Christians and Jews living in the city were granted autonomy in exchange for a required poll tax (jizya) .^[17]
The description of Arculf, a Frankish bishop who went on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land in the seventh century, written down from his account by Adamnan, monk of Iona (d. 704): "De locis terrae sanctae", lib. III (P. L., LXXXVIIl, 725 sq.), gives us a pleasant picture of the conditions of Christians in Palestine in the first period of Muslim rule. The caliphs of Damascus (661-75O) were enlightened and tolerant princes, on quite good terms with their Christian subjects. Many Christians (e.g. St. John Damascene, d. c. 754) held important offices at their court. The Abbaside caliphs at Baghdad (753-1242), as long as they ruled Syria, were also just and tolerant to the Christians. The famous Harun Abu-Ja-'afar (Haroun al-Raschid, 786-809) sent the keys of the Holy Sepulchre to Charlemagne who built a hospice for Latin pilgrims near the shrine.^[16]
During the Fatimid rule, Romans were attacking Syria. It was inevitable that the Christians of Jerusalem should try to help their fellow-countrymen to reconquer the land that had been Roman and Christian; inevitable, too, that the Muslims should punish such attempts as high treason. In 969 the patriarch, John VII, was put to death for treasonable correspondence with the Romans; many other Christians suffered the same fate, and a number of churches were destroyed. The infamous Hakim (Al-Hakim bi-amr-Allah, the sixth Egyptian Caliph, 996-1021, who became the god of the Druze) determined to destroy the Holy Sepulcher (In 1010). It was one of the causes of the feeling that eventually brought about the First Crusade. It was rebuilt in 1048.^[16]
The caliphs go in the order of Abu Bakr, then Umar, followed by Uthman, and Ali then his son Hassan, before the Sunni Shia split. In 635 Damascus surrendered, its inhabitants being promised security for their lives, property, and churches, on payment of a poll tax. by 640 the conquest was virtually complete. The Arab garrisons were kept apart in camps, and life went on much as before.
Conversion to Islam had scarcely begun, apart from Arab tribes already settled in Syria; except for the tribe of Ghassan, these all became Muslim. Christians and Jews were treated with toleration, and Nestorian and Jacobite Christians had better treatment than they had under Byzantium[3] . The loyalty of his new subjects was paramount to the success of Muslim rule in the region, therefore excessive taxation or oppression was avoided[4]

[edit] Iraq, Persia, and Central Asia

Main article: Islamicization in post-conquest Iran

See also: Islamic conquest of Persia, Islamic conquest of Afghanistan, and Arab–Turkic Khazar Wars

It used to be argued that Zoroastrianism quickly collapsed in the wake of the Islamic conquest of Persia due to its intimate ties to the Sassanid state structure.^[18] Now however, more complex processes are considered, in light of the more protracted time frame attributed to the progression of the ancient Persian religion to a minority; a progression that is more contiguous with the trends of the late antiquity period.^[18] These trends are the conversions from the state religion that had already plagued the Zoroastrian authorities that continued after the Arab conquest, coupled with the migration of Arab tribes into the region during an extended period of time that stretched well into the Abbassid reign.^[18]
While there were cases such as the Sassanid army division at Hamra, that converted en masse before pivotal battles such as the Battle of al-Qādisiyyah, conversion was fastest in the urban areas where Arab forces were garrisoned slowly leading to Zoroastrianism becoming associated with rural areas.^[18] Still at the end of the Umayyad period, the Muslim community was only a minority in the region.^[18]

[edit] Turkey

See also: Byzantine-Arab Wars

[edit] Indian sub-continent

Main articles: Islam in India and Muslim conquest in the Indian subcontinent

Islamic influence first came to be felt in the Indian subcontinent during the early 7th century with the advent of Arab traders. Arab traders used to visit the Malabar region, which was a link between them and the ports of South East Asia to trade even before Islam had been established in Arabia. According to Historians Elliot and Dowson in their book The History of India as told by its own Historians, the first ship bearing Muslim travelers was seen on the Indian coast as early as 630 AD.
H.G. Rawlinson, in his book: Ancient and Medieval History of India^[19] claims the first Arab Muslims settled on the Indian coast in the last part of the 7th century AD. This fact is corroborated, by J. Sturrock in his South Kanara and Madras Districts Manuals,^[20] and also by Haridas Bhattacharya in Cultural Heritage of India Vol. IV.^[21] The Arab merchants and traders became the carriers of the new religion and they propagated it wherever they went.^[22] It was however the subsequent expansion of the Muslim conquest in the Indian subcontinent over the next millennia that established Islam in the region.
Considerable controversy exists both in scholarly and public opinion about the conversions to Islam. Some Indian historians, such as K.S. Lal, suggest that some 80 million Hindus could have been killed over the centuries, through the Islamic conquest of the Indian subcontinent. Embedded within this lies the concept of Islam as a foreign imposition and Hinduism being a natural condition of the natives who resisted, resulting the failure of the project to Islamicize the Indian subcontinent and is highly embroiled with the politics of the partition and communalism in India.^[23] These are typically represented by the following schools of thought:^[23]

1. That the bulk of Muslims are descendants of migrants from the Iranian plateau or Arabs.^[24]
2. That Muslims sought conversion through jihad or political violence^[23]
3. A related view is that conversions occurred for non-religious reasons of pragmatism and patronage such as social mobility among the Muslim ruling elite or for relief from taxes^[23][24]
4. Conversion was a result of the actions of Sufi saints and involved a genuine change of heart^[23]
5. Conversion came from Buddhists and the en masse conversions of lower castes for social liberation and as a rejection of oppressive existent Hindu caste strictures.^[24]
6. Was a combination, initially made under duress followed by a genuine change of heart^[23]
7. As a socio-cultural process of diffusion and integration over an extended period of time into the sphere of the dominant Muslim civilization and global polity at large.^[24]

[edit] Southeast Asia

Main articles: The Coming and Spread of Islam in Southeast Asia and The spread of Islam in Indonesia (1200 to 1600)

Islam came to the Southeast Asia, first by the way of Muslim traders along the main trade-route between Asia and the Far East, then was further spread by Sufi missionaries and finally consolidated by the expansion of the territories of converted rulers and their communities.^[25] The first communities arose in Northern Sumatra (Aceh) and the Malacca's remained a stronghold of Islam from where it was propagated along the trade routes in the region.^[25] There is no clear indication of when Islam first came to the region, the first Muslim gravestone markings date to 1082.^[26]
When Marco Polo visited the area in 1292 he noted that the urban port state of Perlak was Muslim,^[26] Chinese sources record the presence of a Muslim delegation to the emperor from the Kingdom of Samudra (Pasai) in 1282,^[25] other accounts provide instances of Muslim communities present in the Melayu Kingdom for the same time period while others record the presence of Muslim Chinese traders from provinces such as Fujian.^[26] The spread of Islam generally followed the trade routes east through the primarily Buddhist region and a half century later in the Malacca's we see the first dynasty arise in the form of the Sultanate of Malacca at the far end of the Archipelago form by the conversion of one Parameswara Dewa Shah into a Muslim and the adoption of the name Muhammad Iskandar Shah^[27] after his marriage to a daughter of the ruler of Pasai.^[25][26]
In 1380 Sufi missionaries carried Islam from here on to Mindanao.^[28] Java was the seat of the primary kingdom of the region, the Majapahit Empire, which was ruled by a Hindu dynasty. As commerce grew in the region with the rest of the Muslim world, Islamic influence extended to the court even as the empires political power waned and so by the time Raja Kertawijaya converted in 1475 at the hands of Sufi Sheikh Rahmat, the Sultanate was already of a Muslim character.
Another driving force for the change of the ruling class in the region was the concept among the increasing Muslim communities of the region that only the descendants of the Islamic prophet Muhammad (Sayyid) were fit to rule them causing the ruling dynasties to attempt to forge such ties of kinship by marriage.^[28] By the time the colonial powers and their missionaries arrived in the 17th century the region up to New Guinea was overwhelmingly Muslim with animist minorities.^[26]

[edit] Inner Asia and Eastern Europe

Little is known about the timeline of the Islamization of Inner Asia and the Turkic peoples who lay beyond the bounds of the caliphate. Around 600s and 700s, there were some states of Turkic peoples like Turkic Khazar Khaganate (See Khazar-Arab Wars) and Turkic Turgesh Khaganete who fought against the caliphate in order to stop Arabization and Islamization in Asia. From the ninth century onwards, the Turks (at least individually, if not yet through adoption by their states) began to convert to Islam. Histories merely note the fact of pre-Mongol Central Asia's Islamization.^[29] The Bulgars of the Volga are noted to have adopted Islam by the 10th century ^[29] under Almış, to whom the modern Volga Tatars trace their Islamic roots. When the Friar William of Rubruck visited the encampment of Batu Khan of the Golden Horde, who had recently completed the Mongol invasion of Volga Bulgaria, he noted "I wonder what devil carried the law of Machomet there".^[29]
Another contemporary known to have been Muslim, was the Qarakhanid dynasty of the Kara-Khanid Khanate which lay much further east^[29], and which was established by Karluks who were Islamizated Islam after Battle of Talas. However, the modern day history of the Islamization of the region - or rather a conscious affiliation with Islam - dates to the reign of the ulus of the son of Genghis Khan, Jochi, who founded the Golden Horde.^[30] Kazakhs, Uzbeks and some Muslim populations of the Russian Federation trace their Islamic roots to the Golden Horde^[29] and while Berke Khan was the first Mongol monarch to officially adopt Islam and even oppose his kinsman Hulagu Khan^[29] in the defense of Jerusalem at the Battle of Ain Jalut, it was only much later that the change became pivotal and the Mongols converted en masse^[31] when a century later Uzbeg Khan converted - reportedly at the hands of the Sufi Saint Baba Tukles.^[32]
Some of the Mongolian tribes became Islamized. Following the brutal Mongol invasion of Central Asia under Hulagu Khan and after the Battle of Baghdad (1258) Mongol rule extended across the breadth of almost all Muslim lands in Asia,and the caliphate was destroyed and Islam was persecuted by the Mongols and replaced by Buddhism as the official religion of the land.^[31] In 1295 however, the new Khan of the Ilkhanate, Ghazan converted to Islam and two decades later the Golden Horde followed suit.^[31] The Mongols had been religiously and culturally conquered, this absorption ushered in a new age of Mongol-Islamic synthesis^[31] that shaped the further spread of Islam in central Asia and the Indian subcontinent.
In the 1330s the Mongol ruler of the Chagatai Khanate converted to Islam, causing the eastern part of his realm called Moghulistan to rebel.^[33] However during the next three centuries these Buddhist, Shamanistic and Christian Turkic and Mongol nomads of the Kazakh Steppe and Xinjiang would also convert at the hands of competing Sufi orders from both east and west of the Pamirs.^[33] The Naqshbandi's are the most prominent of these orders, especially in Kashgaria where the western Chagatai Khan was also a disciple of the order.^[33]

[edit] Africa

[edit] North Africa

See also: Umayyad conquest of North Africa, Islamization of Egypt, Islamization of Sudan

In Egypt, the victorious Muslims granted religious freedom to the Christian community in Alexandria, for example, and the Alexandrians quickly recalled their exiled Monophysite patriarch to rule over them, subject only to the ultimate political authority of the conquerors. In such a fashion the city persisted as a religious community under an Arab Muslim domination more welcome and more tolerant than that of Byzantium .^[34]
Byzantine rule was ended by the Arabs, who invaded Morocco in 682 in the course of their drive to expand the power of Islam. Berber troops were used extensively by the Arabs in their conquest of Spain, which began in 711. ^[35]
No previous conqueror had tried to assimilate the Berbers, but the Arabs quickly converted them and enlisted their aid in further conquests. Without their help, for example, Andalusia could never have been incorporated into the Islamicate state. At first only Berbers nearer the coast were involved, but by the 11th century Muslim affiliation had begun to spread far into the Sahara.^[36]
The conventional historical view is that the conquest of North Africa by the Islamic Umayyad Caliphate between AD 647–709 effectively ended Catholicism in Africa for several centuries.^[37] However, new scholarship has appeared that provides more nuance and details of the conversion of the Christian inhabitants to Islam. A Christian community is recorded in 1114 in Qal'a in central Algeria. There is also evidence of religious pilgrimages after 850 AD to tombs of Catholic saints outside of the city of Carthage, and evidence of religious contacts with Christians of Arab Spain. In addition, calendar reforms adopted in Europe at this time were disseminated amongst the indigenous Christians of Tunis, which would have not been possible had there been an absence of contact with Rome.

[edit] Horn of Africa

See also: Islam in Somalia, Islam in Ethiopia

The history of commercial and intellectual contact between the inhabitants of the Somali coast and the Arabian Peninsula may help explain the Somali people's connection with the Prophet Muhammad. Early on, a band of persecuted Muslims had, at the Prophet's urging, fled across the Red Sea into the Horn of Africa. There, the Muslims were granted protection by the Ethiopian negus (king). Islam may thus have been introduced into the Horn of Africa well before the faith even took root in its place of origin.^[38]

[edit] East Africa

On the east coast of Africa, where Arab mariners had for many years journeyed to trade, Arabs founded permanent colonies on the offshore islands, especially on Zanzibar, in the 9th and 10th century. From there Arab trade routes into the interior of Africa helped the slow acceptance of Islam. In the 20th cent. Islam has gained more converts in Africa than has Christianity, which labors under the burden of identification with European imperialism. ^[39]

[edit] Western Africa

The spread of Islam in Africa began in the 7th to 9th century CE, brought to North Africa initially under the Umayyad Dynasty. Extensive trade networks throughout North and West Africa created a medium through which Islam spread peacefully, initially through the merchant class. By sharing a common religion and a common transliteralization (Arabic), traders showed greater willingness to trust, and therefore invest, in one another.^[40]

[edit] Europe

[edit] Hispania /Al-Andalus

See also: Umayyad conquest of Hispania

The history of Arab and Islamic rule in the Iberian peninsula is probably one of the most studied periods of European history, but the variety and quantity of writing has not escaped the prejudices of the authors. For centuries after the Arab conquest, European accounts of Arab rule in Iberia were negative, reflecting Christian insecurities generated by the wave of Arab victories. European points of view started changing with the Protestant Reformation, which resulted in new descriptions of the period of Islamic rule in Spain as a "golden age" (mostly as a reaction against Spain's militant Roman Catholicism after 1500).
The tide of Arab expansion after 630 rolled through North Africa up to Ceuta in present day Morocco. Their arrival coincided with a period of political weakness in the three centuries old kingdom established in the Iberian peninsula by the Germanic Visigoths, who had taken over the region after seven centuries of Roman rule. Seizing the opportunity, an Arab-led (but mostly Berber) army invaded in 711, and by 720 had conquered almost all of the peninsula. The Arab expansion pushed over the mountains into southern France, and for a short period Arabs controlled the old Visigothic province of Septimania (centered on present-day Narbonne). The Arab Caliphate was pushed back by Charles Martel (King of the Franks or French) at Poitiers, and Christian armies started pushing southwards over the mountains, until Charlemagne established in 801 the Spanish March (which stretched from Barcelona to present day Navarre).
A major development in the history of Muslim Spain was the dynastic change in 750 in the Arab Caliphate, when an Ummayad Prince escaped the slaughter of his family in Damascus, fled to Cordoba in Spain, and created a new Islamic state in the area. This was the start of a distinctly Spanish Muslim society, where large Christian and Jewish populations coexisted with an increasing percentage of Muslims. There are many stories of descendants of Visigothic chieftains and Roman counts whose families converted to Islam during this period. The at-first small Muslim elite continued to grow with converts, and with a few exceptions, rulers in Islamic Spain allowed Christians and Jews the right specified in the Koran to practice their own religions. While it was true that non Muslims suffered from political and taxation inequities, the Jewish and Christian people where allowed to practice their religions and culture. The net result was, in those areas of Spain where Muslim rule lasted the longest, the creation of a society that was mostly Arabic-speaking because of the assimilation of native inhabitants, a process in some ways similar to the assimilation many years later of millions of immigrants to the United States into English-speaking culture.
The Islamic state centered in Cordoba ended up splintering into many smaller kingdoms (the so-called taifas). While Muslim Spain was fragmenting, the Christian kingdoms grew larger and stronger, and the balance of power shifted against the taifa kingdoms. The last Muslim kingdom of Granada in the south fell to Christian conquerors in 1492. In 1499, the remaining Muslim inhabitants were ordered to convert or leave (at the same time the Jews were expelled). Poorer Muslims (Moriscos) who could not afford to leave ended up converting to Catholic Christianity and hiding their Muslim practices, hiding from the Spanish Inquisition, until their presence was finally extinguished.

Balkans

In Balkan history, writing the question of conversion to Islam was, and still is, a highly charged political issue. It is intrinsically linked to the issues of formation of national identities and rival territorial claims of the Balkan states. The generally accepted nationalist discourse of the current Balkan historiography defines all forms of Islamization as results of the Ottoman government's centrally organized policy of conversion or dawah. The truth is that Islamization in each Balkan country took place in the course of many centuries, and its nature and phase was determined not by the Ottoman government but by the specific conditions of each locality. Ottoman conquests were initially military and economic enterprises, and religious conversions were not the their primary objective. True, the statements surrounding victories all celebrated the incorporation of territory into Muslim domains, but the actual Ottoman focus was on taxation and making the realms productive, and a religious campaign would have disrupted that economic objective.
Ottoman Islamic standards of toleration allowed for autonomous "nations" (millets) in the Empire, under their own personal law and under the rule of their own religious leaders. As a result, vast areas of the Balkans remained mostly Christian during the period of Ottoman domination. In fact, the Eastern Orthodox Churches had a higher position in Ottoman Empire, mainly because the Patriarch resided in Istanbul and was an officer of the Ottoman Empire. In contrast, Roman Catholics, while tolerated, were suspected with loyalties to a foreign power (the Papacy). It is no surprise that the Roman Catholic areas of Bosnia, Kosovo and northern Albania, ended up with more substantial conversions to Islam. The defeat of the Ottomans in 1699 by the Austrians resulted in their loss of Hungary and present-day Croatia. The remaining Muslim converts in both elected to leave "lands of unbelief" and moved to territory still under the Ottomans. Around this point in time, new European ideas of romantic nationalism started to seep into the Empire, and provided the intellectual foundation for new nationalistic ideologies and the reinforcement of the self-image of many Christian groups as subjugated peoples.
One by one, the Balkan nationalities asserted their independence from the Empire, and frequently the presence of members of the same ethnicity who had converted to Islam presented a problem from the point of view of the now dominant new national ideology, which narrowly defined the nation as members of the local dominant Orthodox Christian denomination. Thousand of Muslims chose to leave, and in some cases were expelled, to what was left of the Ottoman Empire. This demographic transition can be illustrated by the decrease in the number of Mosques in Belgrade, from over 70 in 1750 (before Serbian independence in 1815), to only three in 1850.
As an example of what most indigenous Muslims endured when the new Christian nation-states emerged in the 19th century, peninsular and Cretan Greeks, who saw themselves as Greek first and spoke the Greek language, eventually were still forced to leave Greece. In the long run, with the exception of Bosnia, Albania, and Kosovo, the vast majority of descendants of Balkan converts to Islam emigrated to Turkey and integrated themselves into Turkish society.

[edit] Eurabia

See also: Eurabia

Eurabia is a political neologism that refers to the premise that the Muslim population in Europe will become a majority within a few generations due to continued immigration and high birth rates.
The term was publicized by the writer Bat Ye'or, especially in her 2005 book Eurabia: The Euro-Arab Axis, referring to joint Euro-Arab foreign policies that she characterizes as anti-American and anti-Zionist.^[41] The term is generally used in combination with "dhimmitude", another term introduced by Ye'or, denoting an attitude of concession, surrender and appeasement towards Islam.