How did Islam spread?

Answer 1

Community Answer

Muslims spread Islam through teaching, conquest, and trade.

Islam spread is through:

• Islam tolerance and good morals
• Quran authenticity and its scientific statements miracles
• Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) modesty, honesty, and good morals

Islam was spread so fast for many reasons. Most of important of them are:

1. Islam is a true and logic God religion. It is the religion and mission of all God prophets to humanity since Adam, through Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and Muhammad (Peace Be Upon Them All), that calls for worship Allah (God in English) as the one and only one God with no partner, no son, no companion, no associate, and no equivalence.
2. Islam calls for justice among all people irrelevant to their beliefs, colors, or social classes
3. Islam calls for practicing good morals
4. Islam honors human free will of choice and thinking
5. Islam is against racism and discrimination based on color, culture, gender, or anything else except piety.
6. Quran, Muslims holy book, is authentic as true God words without single letter change
7. Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) is a true human model of good conduct. character, and leader in all aspects of human life.
8. Quran scientific miracles had been validated only with current scientific discoveries and achievements.
9. The Islamic principles control all aspects of human life in a way that lead to both individual benefits and society benefits in a wonderful balance
10. Muslim traders who were traveling every where and demonstrating the good morals and principles of Islam
11. The deviations of former religions from the main call of all God prophets to worship God (Allah) as one and only one God without a partner, son, father, partner, or companion.

Some claim that Islam was spread by war or by sword. This is a false argument for many reasons. One of these reasons is that the Muslim country of the biggest population is Indonesia while Muslims never invaded Indonesia. The claim that Islam spread by war or by sword is a false claim and is a lie propagated by enemies of Islam. For more information on this refer to related questions below.

Answer 2

This is a touchy subject for many because a large number of Moslems refuse to acknowledge that Islam was spread by way of a Military Campaign. This is not to say that Moslems were slaughtering everybody they met, far from it, but the Islamic expansion required an army.

The religion that Mohammed received was very apropos for the Arab World at the time. It taught that even though people may be different by blood, they could be united in faith. This message alone converted many to Islam who saw it as a way to stop the endless bloodshed. Others heard the melody of the Qu'ran and believed that only God could inspire such beauty. Still others were enamored with the prophecy. Finally, some chose it as it became more and more clear that Islam would define how things were conducted in the Arab World.

Mohammed, himself, was a very intelligent and cunning individual. He organized a council of loyal apostles (As-Sahaba), made alliances with powerful tribes, and was known for his skills as both a general and a warrior. These tactics allowed Islam to endure even at the points in Mohammed's life that the religion's long-term survival was in jeopardy and expanded it to the point where nearly the entire Arabian Peninsula converted to Islam.

After Mohammed's death, the territory under Moslem control increased rapidly since Arabs wanted to bring their revelation and civilization to others. Internal conversion, however, occurred much more slowly. Typically a conquered region would be given the option of conversion or retaining their original faith. Those who did not convert did not receive the same privileges as those who did, but were not killed or maimed for their decision not to convert. Some people at this point converted to Islam because of the privileges associated with it and others converted because they genuinely believed in the prophecy. (The fact that it had expanded so quickly also compounded the apparent divinity of the religion.)

Answer 3

Islam spread due to a number of factors. It is notable that although there are a few occurrences of Muslims carrying out the "Convert or Die" scenario, this is not the most common reason for Islam's expansion both in terms of territory and belief.

1) Arabia - What's that?: Prior to Mohammed, Arabia had been seen as a cultural and political backwater barely worth notice and therefore Mohammed's consolidation of the Arab Tribes was not seriously considered by the Byzantine and Sassanian Empires. This lead to a very porous southern defense and miscalculation of the Islamic Armies.

2) Byzantine-Sassanian Wars: Since the Byzantines and Sassanians considered each other the only real civilizations in the region, they fought each other numerous times in the early 600s C.E. over control of what is today East Turkey and Iraq. These were intense religious wars (Christian vs. Zoroastrian) and greatly weakened both empires at just the wrong time.

3) Tribal Command Structure: Arab Tribes and warriors owed their loyalty to their Sheikhs and leaders without fault because the Sheikh provided each person with all of the amenities and protection necessary to live a full life. Whenever the Arabs went to war, the Sheikhs could count on the ability to muster their tribesmen as soldiers without issue.

4) Support of the Locals: Since the Byzantine Empire and Sassanian Empire were engaged in religious zealotry, it stands to reason that they did not tolerate their religious minorities very well. The Muslims professed to (and did) treat minorities far better than either of these Empires. This led to religious minorities (especially Jews) from within the conquered territories helping Muslims to secure outposts and positions, freeing the Muslims to continue to spread the religion.

5) Citizenship by Conversion: The Islamic Empire was interesting in that being the leader or a person of import in the Empire was not contingent on ethnicity or place of birth as was the case of most prior empires. All a person had to do to gain power and prestige was to convert to Islam. This simple integration mechanism resulted in massive number of Persians, Berbers, and Turks converting to Islam. In fact, the furthest expansions of Islam (Spain, India, West China, South Russia, the Balkans) were all accomplished by non-Arabs (respectively Berbers, Persians/Mughals, Turkmen, Azeris, and Ottomans).

6) Warfare: The leaders charged with expanding the influence of Islam were thoughtful and diligent military leaders. Caliph 'Omar, who conquered much of the Levant, Egypt, Persia, and Iraq was well-known as a strategist and a fighter. It was this knowledge of warfare that allowed Muslim forces to expand the territory's influence.

7) Universality: Islam, as a religion, claims salvation for all people in all places, making the religion very attractive, especially to people born into low castes and bad economic positions.

8) Commerce: Islam, like most religions, spread also through peaceful means of commerce and education whereby non-Muslims learned of the faith and adopted as their own amidst business dealings with Muslims.