Medieval Muslim Empires

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Islam Islam was started by the prophet Muhammad around the year 610. He had been a merchant in the city of Mecca, which was a thriving city of trade. The people of Mecca were polytheistic, and Muhammad devoted his life to converting them to worship the God whom he called “Allah.”

Mecca is angry The people of Mecca did not like Muhammed’s message because they were a pilgrimage city for many polytheistic people and they were making a lot of money off of them. Muhammed is forced to leave and he heads to Medina where he finds the people very welcoming to his message. He sets up an “umma,” which was a community of Muslims. This community loyalty was more important than family ties, making Islam a unifying force

The Muslim Empire Begins to Grow. The Muslim Empire united people under the religion of Islam, which meant that the people owed their allegiance to God rather than to a man. This was a powerful unifying force and this led to most of the Arab world uniting under a common goal. Their armies were able to take down some strong empires like the Byzantines and the Persians.

Here’s a visual.

The Abbasid Dynasty This ruling family took control of the Muslim Empire and worked to stop their military conquests. They wanted to bring peace to the Empire, and they were successful This results an explosion of culture in the Muslim Empire.

Reasons for the cultural explosion. Now that they were not as focused on war, they could devote time to the arts and learning. They ended discrimination against non-Arab Muslims Created a strong bureaucracy Encouraged Learning