Islam Grows
- New Leader
- After Muhammad died in 632, the Muslim community needed to make the decision on who would be their next religious leader
- They selected one of Muhammad’s good friends named Abu-Bakr to become the first caliph meaning successor
- Issues
- Not everyone was welcoming of the caliph
- Some tribes around the Arabian Peninsula abandoned Islam completely
- Others wouldn’t pay taxes
- Some individual even declared themselves to be prophets
- Attempts to resolve
- Abu-Bakr declared a jihad which has 2 meanings
- And inner struggle with evil
- An armed struggle against non-believer
- Expansion by military
- The Muslim community began to expand under Abu-Bakr as well
- The next 3 caliphers after Abu-Bakr expanded into the Sassanid and Byzantine empires
- Reasons for success
- The did very well in conquests between these empires, because they had been fighting each other for many years before this
- Well disciplined
- Great leaders
- The 2 empires weren’t tolerant of the religions in their conquered area so their Muslims in the empires would often help the other Muslims that invaded the empires
- Treatment of Conquered people
- The Qur’an does not allow for Muslims to force others to convert to this religion
- Muslims allowed the Christians and Jews to practice their religions but they couldn’t spread it
- They made the Christians and Jews pay a tax however because they did not fight for the Islam military groups
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