Contemporary slavery, also known as modern slavery or neo-slavery, is slavery that continues to exist in the 21st century. As of 2022, the International Labour Organization (ILO) estimates that there are 50 million people living under the circumstances of modern slavery, consisting of 28 million in forced labour and 22 million in forced marriages. Nonetheless, it is difficult to agree on an estimated number of
enslaved people, as there is no universally agreed definition of modern
slavery; those in slavery are often difficult to identify, and adequate statistics are often not available.
The ILO estimate is based on its definition of modern slavery, which includes human trafficking, sexual exploitation, child labour, forced marriage, and the involuntary recruitment of children for armed conflict. Of the 50 million, it estimates that 17.3 million people are exploited in the private sector,
including in domestic work, construction and agriculture; 6.3 million
face forced sexual exploitation; and 3.9 million are exposed to forced
labour imposed by state authorities.
According to American professor Kevin Bales, co-founder and former president of the non-governmental organization and advocacy groupFree the Slaves,
modern slavery occurs "when a person is under the control of another
person who applies violence and force to maintain that control, and the
goal of that control is exploitation". The impact of slavery is expanded when targeted at vulnerable groups such as children.
According to the Walk Free
Foundation, "Modern slavery includes forced labour, forced or servile
marriage, debt bondage, forced commercial sexual exploitation, human
trafficking, slavery-like practices, and the sale and exploitation of
children." With this definition as the basis of its research, Walk
Free's Global Slavery Index in 2021 estimated that there were about 49.6 million slaves around the world.
As mentioned above, the definitions used by different
organizations have notable variation in approaches and purposes. On one
hand, the U.S. Government definition by the Office to Monitor and Combat
Trafficking in Persons employs a legal definition, focusing more on the
different types of trafficking mechanisms and coercion with the goal of
providing an explanation on how and when each situation should be
treated as a criminal offense. By
contrast, the concept under the non-governmental organization Free the
Slaves, has more of an advocacy approach designed to raise awareness
about the problematic with a persuasive tone, emphasizing more on the
conditions of exploitation and the lack of autonomy, including a wider
range of practices that can fall under this terminology.
Bales warned that, because slavery is officially abolished
everywhere, the practice is illegal, and more hidden from the public and
authorities. This makes it impossible to obtain exact figures from
primary sources. The best that can be done is to estimate based on
secondary sources, such as UN investigations, newspaper articles,
government reports, and figures from NGOs.
Modern slavery persists for many of the same reasons older
variations did: it is an economically beneficial practice for enslavers,
despite the ethical concerns. The problem has been able to escalate in
recent years due to the disposability of slaves and the fact that the cost of slaves has dropped significantly.
Causes
Since traditional slavery such as chattel slavery
has been officially abolished in every country on Earth and is illegal,
enslavement no longer revolves around legal ownership, but around
illegal control. Two fundamental changes are the move away from the
forward purchase of slave labor, and the existence of slaves as an
employment category. While the statistics suggest that the 'market' for
exploitative labor is booming, the notion that humans are purposefully
sold and bought from an existing pool is outdated. While such
transactions do still occur, in contemporary situations people become
trapped in slavery-like conditions in various ways.
Modern slavery is often seen as a by-product of poverty. In countries that lack education and effectively implemented rule of law,
poor societal structure can create an environment that fosters the
acceptance and propagation of slavery. Slavery is most prevalent in
impoverished countries and those with vulnerable minority communities,
though it also exists in developed countries. Tens of thousands toil in
slave-like conditions in industries such as mining, farming, and
factories, producing goods for domestic consumption or export to more
prosperous nations.
In the older form of slavery, slave-owners spent more on getting
slaves. It was more difficult for them to be disposed of. The cost of
keeping them healthy was considered a better investment than getting
another slave to replace them. In modern slavery people are easier to
get at a lower price so replacing them when exploiters run into problems
becomes easier. Slaves are then used in areas where they could easily
be hidden while also creating a profit for the exploiter.
Modern slavery can be quite profitable, and some governing bodies tacitly allow it, despite being outlawed by international treaties such as the Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery and local laws. Total annual revenues from human trafficking was estimated in 2014 to be over $150 billion, although profits are substantially lower. American slaves in 1809 were sold for around the equivalent of US$40,000 in 2017 money.In 2017, a slave can be bought for $90–$100.
Bales explains, in the context of modern slavery, "This is an
economic crime ... People do not enslave others to be mean to them; they
do it to make a profit."
Slavery by descent, also called chattel slavery, is the form most often associated with the word "slavery". In chattel slavery, the enslaved person is considered the personal property
(chattel) of someone else, and can usually be bought and sold. It stems
historically either from conquest, where a conquered person is
enslaved, as in the Roman Empire or Ottoman Empire, or from slave trading, as in the Saharan or Atlantic slave trades.
Mauritania has a long history with slavery. Chattel slavery was formally made illegal in the country but the laws against it have gone largely unenforced. It is estimated that around 90,000 people (over 2% of Mauritania's population) are slaves.
Debt bondage can also be passed down to descendants, like chattel slavery.
Those trapped in the system of sexual slavery in the modern world are often effectively chattel, especially when they are forced into prostitution.
Government-forced labor
Government-forced labor, also known as state-sponsored labor,
is defined by the International Labor Organization as situations where
people "are coerced to work through the use of violence or intimidation,
or by more subtle means such as accumulated debt, retention of identity
papers or threats of denunciation to immigration authorities".
In Eritrea, an estimated 300,000 to 400,000 people are in an indefinite military service program which amounts to mass slavery, according to UN investigators. Their report also found sexual slavery and other forced labor.
In North Korea,
the government forces many people to work for the state, both inside
and outside North Korea itself, sometimes for many years. The 2018
Global Slavery Index estimated that 2.8 million people were slaves in
the country. The value of all the labor done by North Koreans for the government is estimated at US$975 million, with dulgyeokdae (youth workers) forced to undertake dangerous construction work, and inminban (women and girl workers) forced to make clothing in sweatshops. The workers are often unpaid. Additionally, North Korea's army of 1.2 million conscripted soldiers is
often made to work on construction projects unrelated to defense,
including building private villas for the elite. The government has had as many as 100,000 workers abroad.
In Uzbekistan, for example, the government coerces students and state workers to harvest cotton, of which the country is a main exporter, every year, forcing them to abandon their other responsibilities in the process. In this example the use of students, including those in primary, secondary, and higher education, means that child labor is also prominent. Uzbekistan's government has worked to reduce the forced labor in recent
years, and in March 2022 a major boycott of Uzbek cotton was lifted,
upon reports that coerced labor had been almost eliminated.
In 1865, the United States ratified the 13th Amendment to the United States Constitution,
which banned slavery and involuntary servitude "except as punishment
for a crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted", providing a legal basis for slavery, now referred to as penal labor, to continue in the country. Historically, this led to the system of convict leasing which still primarily affects African-Americans. The Prison Policy Initiative, an American criminal justice think tank, cites the 2020 US prison population at being 2.3 million individuals, and nearly all able-bodied inmates work in some fashion.
Map of US states where prison labor is permitted in the state constitution as of November 2022
permitted
forbidden
no mention in constitution
In Texas, Georgia, Alabama and Arkansas, prisoners are not paid at all for their work. In other states, prisoners are paid between $0.12 and $1.15 per hour (as of 2013). Federal Prison Industries paid inmates an average of $0.90 per hour in 2017. Inmates who refuse to work may be indefinitely remanded into solitary confinement, or have family visitation revoked. From 2010 to 2015 and again in 2016 and in 2018, some prisoners in the US refused to work,
protesting for better pay, better conditions, and for the end of forced
labor. Strike leaders were punished with indefinite solitary
confinement.
Forced prison labor occurs in both public/government-run prisons and private prisons. CoreCivic and GEO Group constitute half of the market share of private prisons, and they made a combined revenue of $3.5 billion in 2015. The value of all the labor done by inmates in the United States is estimated to be in the billions. In California in 2018, 2,500 incarcerated workers fought wildfires for $1 per hour through the CDCR's Conservation Camp Program, which saved the state as much as $100 million a year.
In China's system of labor prisons (formerly called laogai),
millions of prisoners have been subject to forced, unpaid labor. The
laogai system is estimated to currently house between 500,000 and 2
million prisoners. In parallel with laogai, China operated the smaller re-education through labor system of prisons up until 2013. In addition to both of these, China is also reportedly operating forced labor camps in Xinjiang, imprisoning hundreds of thousands (possibly as many as a million) of Uyghurs, as well as a smaller number of Tibetans and political dissidents.
In the UK, there are three key types of prison labour. First,
prisoners can be made to maintain the jail—for example cleaning,
maintenance, or working in the kitchens. Second, prisoners have the
option to do mundane/repetitive work for external companies; this
includes tasks such as bagging nails and packing boxes. Finally,
prisoners can work in specialist workshops run by third parties, in
which the prisoners can do tasks such as building window-frames, graphic
design and other tasks requiring some form of machinery. A 2013 report suggest prisoners in the UK can earn as little as £10 for a 40-hour week's worth of work.
In Australia, prison labour occurs in at least New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland and the Northern Territory.
Some prisoners work for private companies. As of 2017, in NSW some are
paid as little as $0.82 per hour, while in the NT some are paid as much
as $16 per hour (compared to $35 per hour for a regular union employee
in the same job).
Bonded labor, also known as debt bondage
and peonage, occurs when people give themselves into slavery as a
security against a loan or when they inherit a debt from a relative. The cycle begins when people take extreme loans under the condition
that they work off the debt. The "loan" is designed so that it can never
be paid off, and is often passed down for generations. People become
trapped in this system working ostensibly towards repayment though they
are often forced to work far past the original amount they owe. They
work under the force of threats and abuse. Sometimes the debts last a
few years, and sometimes the debts are even passed onto future
generations.
Bonded labor is used across a variety of industries in order to produce products for consumption around the world. It is most common in India, Pakistan and Nepal.
In India, the majority of bonded laborers are Dalits (Untouchables) and Adivasis (tribal people). Puspal, a former brick kiln worker in Punjab, India, stated in an
interview to antislavery.org; "We do not stop even if we are ill – what
if our debt is increasing? So we don't dare to stop." In India, when compared to the price of land, paid labor or oxen, the
price of slaves is currently 95% less than it was in the past.
People may be enticed to migrate with the promise of work, only to have their documents seized and be forced to work under the threat of violence to them or their families. Undocumented immigrants may also be taken advantage of, as without
legal residency they often have no legal recourse. Along with sex
slavery, this is the form of slavery most often encountered in wealthy
countries such as the United States, in Western Europe, and in the
Middle East.
In the United Arab Emirates,
some foreign workers are exploited and more or less enslaved. The
majority of the UAE resident population are foreign migrant workers
rather than local Emirati citizens, with there being over 1.7 million migrant workers, making up 90% of the constructive workforce. The country has a kafala
system, which is associated with outdated laws and procedures, which
ties migrant workers to local Emirati sponsors with very little
government oversight. This has often led to forced labor and human
trafficking. As of 2017, the UAE is pushing towards a better labor system as it has recently passed laws to protect the rights of domestic workers.
Allegations of forced migrant labor have been highlighted within the preparations of stadiums for the QatarFIFA2022 World Cup. There have been over 6,500 recorded migrant deaths during the construction of the stadiums. Amnesty International researched into the construction of the stadiums
and found 3,200 migrant workers work on the stadiums everyday, in which
at least 224 of them have reported abusive and exploitative behaviour. Workers reported issues of expensive recruitment fees, poor living
conditions, false salaries, delayed payments of salary, being unable to
leave the stadium or camp, being unable to leave the country or change
jobs, being threatened, and most importantly forced labour.
In October 2019 Qatar abolished Kafala system
and introduced basic minimum wage and wage protection system for
migrant workers. Under these reforms workers can change jobs without
employer's permission and are now paid basic minimum wage regardless of
their nationality. The basic minimum wage is set to 1,000 QAR and
allowances for food and accommodation must be provided by employers
which is 300 QAR and 500 QAR respectively. Moreover, Qatar introduced a
wage protection system to ensure the employers are complying with the
reforms. The wage protection system monitors the workers in the private
sector. This new system has reduced wage abuses and disputes among
migrant labours.
Additionally in the UK two individuals in Kent were found guilty of trafficking six Lithuanian men. They were forced to work back to back 8 hour shifts as chicken
catchers. Further investigations into this highlighted that the farms
these individuals were working at were supplying eggs to large
supermarket chains such as Tesco's, Asda and M&S. Vietnamese teenagers are trafficked to the United Kingdom and forced to work in illegal cannabis farms. When police raid the cannabis farms, trafficked victims are typically sent to prison.
In the United States, various industries have been known to take advantage of forced migrant labor. During the 2010 New York State Fair,
19 migrants who were in the country legally from Mexico were forced to
work in a food truck and essentially enslaved by their employer. The men were paid around ten percent of what they were promised, worked
far longer days than they were contracted to, and would be deported if
they quit their job, as this would be a violation of their visas. A 2021 multi-agency federal investigation dubbed Operation Blooming Onion
revealed that a years-long human trafficking ring forced migrant
workers from Mexico and Central America into "modern day slavery" on
various agricultural sites in southern Georgia.
The indictment alleges that in the fields the migrant workers were
forced at gunpoint to dig for onions with their bare hands for 20 cents
per bucket. They were held in work camps surrounded by electrified
fences and subjected to squalid and crammed living conditions, with no
access to safe food or water.
Reports of migrant abuse and neglect surfaced in Kenya in early September 2022, when pictures of a frail looking young Kenyan worker from Saudi Arabia,
Diana Chepkemoi went viral. Following growing pressure from the public,
the government repatriated Chepkemoi along with a few other domestic
workers facing a similar fate in the Kingdom. Among those rescued was
Joy Simiyu, who went to Saudi Arabia to work as a domestic help, but
within months returned to Kenya with a harrowing but known tale of abuse
by her employer. According to reports, migrant housekeepers complained
of being subjected to physical, mental as well as sexual abuse while
working in the Gulf state.
Along with migrant slavery, forced prostitution is the form of slavery most often encountered in wealthy regions such as the United States,
in Western Europe, and in the Middle East. It is the primary form of
slavery in Eastern Europe and Southeast Asia, particularly in Moldova
and Laos. Many child sex slaves
are trafficked from these areas to the West and the Middle East. An
estimated 20% of slaves to date are active in the sex industry. Sexual exploitation can also become a form of debt bondage when
enslavers insist that victims work in the sex industry to pay for basic
needs and transportation.
In 2005, the Gulf Times
reported that boys from Nepal had been lured to India and enslaved for
sex. Many of these boys had also been subject to male genital mutilation
(castration).
Many of those who become victims of sex slavery initially do so
willingly under the guise that they will be performing traditional sex
work, only to become trapped for extended periods of time, such as those
involved in Nigeria's human trafficking circuit.
Illustration from the book The Child Slaves of Britain. Child slavery and forced labor continues to be a problem in the 21st century
Early or forced marriage
is a form of slavery that affects millions of women and girls all over
the world. When families cannot support their children, the daughters
are often married off to the males of wealthier, more powerful families.
These men are often significantly older than the girls. The females are
forced into lives whose main purpose is to serve their husbands. This
often fosters an environment for physical, verbal and sexual abuse.
The regions most affected by this problematic are usually those
ruled by patriarchal systems with strict social norms, and countries
with high poverty rates since marriage is seen as an efficient way to
gain financial security for the girls and their families.
Forced marriages also happen in developed nations. In the United
Kingdom there were 3,546 reports to the police of forced marriage over
three years from 2014 to 2016.
In the United States over 200,000 minors were legally married from 2002 to 2017, with the youngest being only 10 years old. Most were married to adults. Currently 48 US states, as well as D.C. and Puerto Rico, allow marriage of minors as long as there is judicial consent, parental consent or if the minor is pregnant. In 2017–2018, several states began passing laws to either restrict child marriage or ban it altogether.
Bride-buying is the act of purchasing a bride as property, in a similar manner to chattel slavery. It can also be related to human trafficking.
Children comprise about 12% of the slaves as of 2022 estimates. Although children can legally engage in certain forms of work, children
can also be found in slavery or slavery-like situations; although child
labor isn't considered slavery, it inevitably hinders their education. Forced begging is a common way that children are forced to participate
in labor without their consent. Most are domestic workers or work in cocoa, cotton or fishing industries. Many are trafficked and sexually exploited. Forced child labor is the dominant form of slavery in Haiti.
In war-torn countries, children have been kidnapped and sold to political parties to use as child soldiers. Child soldiers
are children who may be trafficked from their homes and forced or
coerced by armed forces. The armed forces could be government armed
forces, paramilitary organizations, or rebel groups. While in these
groups the children may be forced to work as cooks, guards, servants or
spies. It is common for both boys and girls to be sexually abused while in these groups.
Situations where young people work in unpaid internships have been likened to modern slavery.
According to Human Rights Watch,
Thailand's billion-dollar fish export industry remains plagued with
human rights maltreatment in spite of government vows to stamp out
servitude in its angling industry. Human Rights Watch conducted interviews with 248 fishermen, it
documented the forced labor of trafficked workers in the Thai fishing
industry.
Trafficking victims are often tricked by brokers' false promises
of "good" factory jobs, then forced onto fishing boats where they are
trapped, bought and sold like livestock, and held against their will for
months or years at a time, forced to work grueling 22-hour days in
dangerous conditions. Those who resist or try to run away are beaten, tortured, and often killed. This is commonplace because of the disposability of unfree laborers.
Despite some improvements, the situation has not changed much since a large-scale survey of almost 500 fishers in 2012, that found
almost one in five "reported working against their will with the penalty
that would prevent them from leaving".
Victims of human trafficking can be made to beg on the streets with the earnings being given back to the traffickers. It has been suggested many children across Europe, Asia, Africa, Latin
America and the Middle East are forced to beg on the streets.
As years pass by, the number of children forced to beg has
exponentially increased. Children are more frequently forced since
people are more likely to pay attention and help kids. Furthermore, in
Bangkok, Thailand, it was discover that children with disabilities earn
much more than healthy children, so often times individuals are
mutilated to generate more money.
There are significant reports of forced fraud in Southeast Asia (Cambodia, Myanmar, or Laos). Currently, forced fraud activities are mainly found in fraud factories
or fraud parks, notably in Southeast Asian countries, which involve
human trafficking. Fraud factory victims are forced to scam internet
users around the world into fraudulently buying cryptocurrencies or
withdrawing cash, via social media and online dating apps. Trafficking
victims' passports are confiscated, and they are threatened with organ
harvesting or forced prostitution if they do not earn enough from
scamming.
Occupations
In addition to sex slavery, modern slaves are often forced to work in certain occupations. Common occupations include:
Small-scale building work, such as laying driveways, and other labor.
Nail salons (cosmetic). Many people are trafficked from Vietnam to the UK for this work.
Fishing, mainly associated with Thailand's sea food industry.
Manufacturing
– Many prisoners in the US are forced to manufacture products as
diverse as mattresses, spectacles, underwear, road signs, licence
plates, and body armour.
Agriculture and forestry – Prisoners in the United States and China are often forced to undertake farming and forestry work. See prison farm.
In North Korea, dulgyeokdae (youth workers) are often forced to work in construction, and inminban (women workers) are forced to work in clothing sweatshops.
Signs that someone may have been forced into slavery include a lack
of identity documents, lack of personal possessions, clothing that is
unsuitable or has seen much wear, poor living conditions, a reluctance
to make eye contact, unwillingness to talk, and unwillingness to seek
help. In the UK, people are encouraged to report suspicions to a
modern-slavery telephone helpline.
The United Nations have defined human trafficking as follows:
The
recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of
persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of
coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or
of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of
payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control
over another person, for the purpose of exploitation. Exploitation shall
include, at a minimum, the exploitation of the prostitution of others
or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labor or services, slavery
or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs.
According to United States Department of State
data, as of 2013, an "estimated 600,000 to 820,000 men, women, and
children [are] trafficked across international borders each year,
approximately 70 percent are women and girls and up to 50 percent are
minors. The data also illustrates that the majority of transnational
victims are trafficked into commercial sexual exploitation." However, "the alarming enslavement of people for purposes of labor
exploitation, often in their own countries, is a form of human
trafficking that can be hard to track from afar". It is estimated that
50,000 people are trafficked every year in the United States.
In recent years, the internet and popular social networking sites
have become tools that traffickers use to find vulnerable people who
they can then exploit. A 2017 Reuters report discusses how a woman is suing Facebook
for negligence as she speculated that executives were aware of a
situation that occurred back in 2012 where she was sexually abused and
trafficked by someone posing as her "friend". Social media and smartphone apps are also used to sell the slaves.
In 2016, a Washington Post article exposed that the Obama administration placed migrant children with human traffickers. It was shown that they failed to perform adequate background checks of
the adults who claimed the children, allowing sponsors to take custody
of multiple unrelated children, and regularly placed children in homes
without visiting the locations. Several Guatemalan teens were found
being held captive by traffickers and forced to work at a local egg farm
in Ohio.
Organizational efforts against slavery
Government actions
In the last two decades, as slavery has become more widely recognized
as a formidable global epidemic, multiple governmental organizations
have begun taking action to address the problem. The US State Department's annual Trafficking In Persons Report
assigns grades to every nation in a tier-system based "not on the size
of the country's problem but on the extent of governments' efforts to
meet the TVPA's minimum standards for the elimination of human
trafficking".
In the United Kingdom, the British government passed the Modern Slavery Act 2015, supported by major reforms in the legal system instituted through the Criminal Finances Act 2017,
effective from September 30, 2017. Under the latter act, there is
transparency in regards to interbank information sharing with law
enforcement agencies to help to crack down on money laundering agencies
related to contemporary slavery. The Act also aims at reducing the
incidence of tax evasion attributed to the modern slave trade conducted
under the domain of the law. Despite this, the government has been refusing asylum and deporting
children trafficked to the UK as slaves. Several British charities have
claimed this puts the deportees at risk of being subject to control by
slavery gangs a second time, and deters child victims from coming
forward with information.
The British government has taken specific steps to ensure that modern slavery risks are identified and managed in government supply chains. The government also initiated a nationwide campaign against modern
slavery: the "Modern slavery is closer than you think" campaign.
The Supreme Court of the United Kingdom
stripped diplomats with a history of domestic worker abuse from
claiming diplomatic immunity, saving them from compensatory claims. The
July 2022 ruling concerned the case of a London-based Saudi diplomat,
Khalid Basfar, who allegedly treated a Filipino staff member hired by
him, to slavery, forcing her to wear a bell throughout the day to be
available at for his "family's beck and call". The employee, Josephine
Wong, was first hired by the Basfar household in November 2015 in Saudi
Arabia and brought to the UK to work for him in August 2016. According
to court's hearing, Wong was confined to the house except to take the
rubbish out. She was allegedly subjected to incessant shouting,
offensive names and given leftover food only. The court was requested to
judge the issue and determine whether Basfar's treatment of Wong was
protected by diplomatic immunity or not, if the case did amount to
modern slavery. The concluded that Ms Wong's was a case of modern
slavery.
There have been a lot of changes in rewards to law and efforts to
mitigate the issue of modern slavery. One of the most recent changes
was made by the European Union. In July 2024, the European Union's
Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD) took effect.
This measure obligate companies to shift away from voluntary reporting
to identifying and actually addressing any potential violation and abuse
to human rights within the global chain of a company. This measure will
be enforced by an authority designated by member states, who will be in
charge of supervising the conduct of the companies and set penalties
accordingly.
Private initiatives
In September 2013, the three anti-slavery donors, the Legatum Foundation, Humanity United and the Walk Free Foundation founded the Freedom Fund.
As of December 2019, the Freedom Fund is reported to have impacted
686,468 lives, liberated 27,397 people from modern slavery and helped
56,181 previously out-of-school children to receive either formal or
non-formal education, in Nepal, Ethiopia, India and Thailand. Meanwhile,
in October 2014, the Freedom Fund, Polaris and the Walk Free Foundation
launched the Global Modern Slavery Directory, which was the first
publicly searchable database of over 770 organisations working to end
forced labor and human trafficking. BT also teamed up with anti-modern slavery campaigners free the unseen.
Statistics
Modern slavery is a multibillion-dollar industry with just the forced labor aspect generating US$150 billion each year. The Global Slavery Index (2018) estimated that roughly 40.3 million
individuals are currently caught in modern slavery, with 71% of those
being female, and 1 in 4 being children.As of 2018, the countries with the most slaves were: India (8 million),
China (3.86 million), Pakistan (3.19 million), North Korea (2.64
million), Nigeria (1.39 million), Indonesia (1.22 million), Democratic
Republic of the Congo (1 million), Russia (794,000) and the Philippines
(784,000).
Various jurisdictions now require large commercial organizations
to publish a slavery and human trafficking statement in regard to their
supply chains each financial year (e.g. California, UK, Australia).
The Walk Free Foundation reported in 2018 that 40.3 million people
worldwide live in conditions that can be described as slavery. According
to the foundation, more than 400,000 of those are in the United States.
Andrew Forrest, founder of the organisation, was quoted as saying that
"the United States is one of the most advanced countries in the world
yet has more than 400,000 modern slaves working under forced labor
conditions". In March 2020, released British police
records showed that the number of modern slavery offences recorded has
increased by more than 50%, from 3,412 cases in 2018 to 5,144 cases in
2019. This coincided with a 68% increase in calls and submissions to the
modern slavery helpline over the same time period.
There is an estimate of 10,000 potential victims of modern slavery in the UK.
Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on modern slavery
Since the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been an impact on the global supply chains including factories in Malaysia providing PPE to the NHS in the UK,
and an influx of online clothing shopping, which has led factories in
third world countries to rapidly expand to deal with the influx of
demand. A result, this rapid increase in demand for clothes and PPE has led to
some companies using the pandemic as an excuse to exploit vulnerable
workers, even forcing them to work through the pandemic, putting them at
risk of contracting the disease. The pandemic has led to multiple impacts across the globe.
Creation of new risks and abuses for victims
Self-isolation and social isolation is a major aspect of the
pandemic, and it may increase the chances for young people being
vulnerable to grooming and abuse due to a lack of contact with friends
and family. Ordinarily some Quranic schools in West Africa practice forced begging. Since many of the pupils began to reside within the school premises due
to the pandemic, they are subject to further abuse/punishment as a
result of them not bringing in as much income.
Wealthy families in Mauritania have exploited the pandemic as well, by firing Haratine
domestic workers, or allowing them to work on the condition that they
are confined within the workplace to avoid travel. This entraps the Haratine
people, since if they do not take the work they starve, but if they
continue to work they leave their families without resources.
Increased susceptibility to slavery
The use of lockdowns has been implemented to attempt to stop the
spread of the virus. This has led to mass firings as a result of global
brands cancelling orders resulting in factories shutting down. By March 2020 over 1 million workers in Bangladesh were fired or suspended. Workers in Cambodia, India, Myanmar and Vietnam have experienced similar problems. A lack of government support for citizens has led to an increase of human trafficking as a result of people turning to bonded labor for survival.
Increase in risk for migrant workers
Victims of modern-day slavery are often hesitant to go to the
authorities for help due to a fear of being criminalized, detained or
deported rather than being treated as victims of a crime. Victims of
modern-day slavery often live in cramped conditions in which the Covid
virus can spread quickly. This, along with the combination of being fearful to get help from the
authorities such as the NHS, leads to victims catching diseases and
potentially dying as a result.
Disruption to anti-slavery campaigns
During the COVID-19 pandemic, many countries adopted lockdowns, which
hindered the operations of anti-slavery organisations as people were
not allowed to meet up during the lockdown. Anti-slavery support
services and educational centres were also shut down as a result of the
lockdown.
Impact of the pandemic on modern slavery in the UK
The Home Office has stated the number of suspected modern slavery
victims in the UK has fallen for the first time in 4 years, as a result
of the pandemic. Officials say this is due to the restrictions implemented in the UK and an increase of self-isolation and businesses shutting.
The national referral mechanism has recorded 2,871 referrals of
potential modern day slavery victims in the 1st quarter of 2020, which
is a 14% fall from the previous 3 months. There has been an increase of child victims "partially driven" by an increase of county lines.
Impact of social media on modern slavery
The appearance of social media and new digital technology has
exponentially change the growth of modern slavery, working as a tool
that facilitates the exploitation of vulnerable populations facilitating
its growth as it enables perpetrators to control and reach a wider
audience.
As the NGO Walk Free claims, perpetrators are now able to more
easily reach a higher cipher of victims in different locations, access
all their information, and identify their vulnerabilities without even
revealing their identity. Not only that, but because technology is
constantly changing, laws and measures cannot manage stay up to date,
resulting in a lack of accountability that allows modern slavery to keep
growing on the internet.
The documentary film A Woman Captured follows the life of a 52-year-old woman in Hungary who is kept as a modern-day slave.
There have been a number of documentaries that highlight worker abuse and other human rights issues in Arab states of the Persian Gulf, for example Qatar. There were also calls to boycott the 2022 FIFA World cup in Qatar.
The enslavement of children can be traced back through history. Despite the fact that slavery has been abolished, children continue to be enslaved and trafficked to this day, particularly in developing countries. Like other forms of modern slavery, child slavery is also often linked to poverty,
as some impoverished families "sell" their children to their captors
because they cannot adequately take care of them and do not see any
other option.
History
Photograph of a slave boy in the Sultanate of Zanzibar. 'An Arab master's punishment for a slight offence.' c. 1890.
Child slavery refers to the slavery of children below the age of majority.
Many children have been sold into slavery in the past for their family
to repay debts or crimes or earn some money if the family were short of
cash.
In the Roman Empire, the children of a slave woman normally became the property of her owner. This was also the case in Korea around 1000 AD. Since slavery among the Maya and indigenous people of North America
could be inherited, the children of the Indians could be born slaves.
In the entire Islamic world, the institution of slavery was regulated by the slavery regulations prescribed by religious sharia law. These also described sexual relationships with slaves and consequently child slavery.
By Islamic law, slaves could be acquired through direct capture in warfare as kafir from Dar al-harb;
via a middle man trade network (essentially foreign slave merchants);
or by being born in to slavery, which meant both of their parents, or
their only known parent, was a slave. A Muslim man was allowed by law to have sexual intercourse with his own female slave in accordance with the principle of concubinage in Islam (without it being defined as extramarital sex or zina). The child of a slave was born a slave, unless the male slave owner
acknowledged the child of his female slave as his, in which case the
child would be born free.
If a master chose to acknowledge his child with his slave, then the slave mother herself would become an umm al-walad and free when her enslaver died, though she continued to be a slave during his lifetime unless he chose to manumit her. Traditionally, royal dynasties in the Muslim world customarily used
slave concubines for procreation, and the children of royal concubines
were routinely acknowledged. However, this was not necessarily the case
with a common slave master and his female slave.
The Islamic Law formally prohibited prostitution. However, since Islamic
Law allowed a man to have sexual intercourse with his personal sex slave,
prostitution was practiced by a pimp selling his female slave on the
slave market to a client, who returned his ownership of her after 1–2
days on the pretext of discontent after having had intercourse with her,
which was a legal and accepted method for prostitution in the Islamic
world.
Children were also subjected to sexual exploitation. Islamic law was based on the life of Muhammed. The marriage between Muhammed and Aisha,
which was reportedly consummated when the bride was nine, and marriage
and sexual intercourse was customarily allowed with girls from the age
of nine.
In his contemporary report A Report on Slavery and the Slave Trade in Zanzibar, Pemba, and the Mainland of the British Protectorates of East Africa from 1895, Donald MacKenzie noted, in regard to slavery in Zanzibar, that sexual slavery
did not, in fact, result in many children, which necessitated the need
for constant slave import:
"It is a curious fact that Slaves have but very few children, owing, it
is said, to the manner in which very young girls are treated by the
Arabs and others ; hence the necessity for the continued importation of
raw Slaves to supply the demand. I was much struck with the evidence of
non-increase amongst the Slaves as regards children. Taking the
death-rate at 30 per mille, upwards of 7,000 Slaves would have to be
imported annually to supply this deficiency in labour".
In the United States
Novelist Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote about a woman a slave owner bought to breed children to sell. The expectations of children who were either bought or born into
slavery varied. Scholars noted, "age and physical capacity, as well as
the degree of dependence, set the terms of children's integration into
households".
The duties that child slaves were responsible for performing are
disputed among scholars. A few representations of the lives that slave
children led portrayed them as, "virtually divorced from the plantation
economy until they were old enough to be employed as field hands,
thereby emphasizing the carefree nature of childhood for a part of the
slave population that was temporarily spared forced labor". This view also stated that if children were asked to perform any duties
at all, it was to perform light household chores, such as being
"organized into 'trash gangs' and made to collect refuse about the
estate". Opposing scholars argued that slave children had their youth stolen
from them, and were forced to start performing adult duties at a very
young age. Some say that children were forced to perform field labor duties as young as the age of six. It is argued that in some areas children were put to "regular work in
the antebellum South" and it "was a time when slaves began to learn work
routines, but also work discipline and related punishment".
A degree of self-possession was present in some degree to adults,
but "children retained the legal incapacities of dependence even after
they had become productive members of households". It was reported by scholars that, "this distinctive status shaped
children's standing within familial households and left them subject to
forced apprenticeship, even after emancipation". There were slave owners who did not want child slaves or women who were
pregnant for fear that the child would have "took up too much of her
time".
The conditions of slavery for pregnant women varied regionally.
In most cases, women worked in the fields up until childbirth performing
small tasks. "four weeks appears to have been the average confinement
period, or 'lying-in period', for antebellum slave women following
delivery in the South as a whole". Slaveholders in northern Virginia, however, usually only permitted an
average lying-in period of about "two weeks before ordering new mothers
back to work". The responsibility of raising and tending to the children then became
the task of other children and older elderly slaves. In most
institutions of slavery throughout the world, the children of slaves
became the property of the owner. This created a constant supply of
people to perform labor. This was the case with, for example, thralls and American slaves.
In other cases, children were enslaved as if they were adults. Usually,
the mother's status determined if the child was a slave, but some local
laws varied the decision to the father. In many cultures, slaves could
earn their freedom through hard work and buying their own freedom.
Modern day
Although the abolition of slavery in much of the world has greatly reduced child slavery, the problem lives on, especially in developing countries. According to the Anti-Slavery Society,
"Although there is no longer any state which legally recognizes, or
which will enforce, a claim by a person to a right of property over
another, the abolition of slavery does not mean that it ceased to exist.
There are millions of people throughout the world—mainly children—in
conditions of virtual to slavery." It further notes that slavery, particularly child slavery, was on the
rise in 2003. It points out that there are countless others in other
forms of servitude (such as peonage, bonded labor, and servile concubinage)
that are not slavery in the narrow legal sense. Critics claim they are
stretching the definition and practice of slavery beyond its original
meaning and are actually referring to forms of unfree labor other than slavery. In 1990, reports of slavery came out of Bahr al Ghazal, a Dinka region
in southern Sudan. In 1995, Dinka mothers spoke about their abducted
children. Roughly 20,000 slaves were reported in Sudan in 1999. "The handmade woolen carpet industry is extremely labor-intensive and
one of the largest export earners for India, Pakistan, Nepal and
Morocco." During the past 20 years, about 200,000 and 300,000 children have been involved, most of them in the carpet belt of Uttar Pradesh in central India. Many children in Asia are kidnapped or trapped in servitude, where they
work in factories and workshops for no pay and receive constant
beatings. Slaves have reappeared following the old slave trade routes in West
Africa. "The children are kidnapped or purchased for $20–$70 each in
poorer states, such as Benin and Togo, and sold into slavery in sex dens
or as unpaid domestic servants for $350.00 each in wealthier oil-rich
states, such as Nigeria and Gabon."
Trafficking of children includes recruiting, harboring, obtaining, and transporting children by use of force or fraud for the purpose of subjecting them to involuntary acts, such as commercial sexual exploitation (including prostitution) or involuntary labor, i.e., enslavement. Some see human trafficking as the modern form of slavery.
Human trafficking is the trade of human beings and their use by
criminals to make money. The majority of trafficking victims are adults,
predominantly made up of women forced into prostitution, but children
make up many victims forced into prostitution.
In Ukraine, a survey conducted by the non-governmental organization (NGO) La Strada-Ukraine in 2001–2003, based on a sample of 106 women being trafficked out of Ukraine found that 3% were under 18, and the US State Department reported in 2004 that incidents of minors being trafficked was increasing. In Thailand, NGOs have estimated that up to a third of prostitutes are children under 18, many trafficked from outside Thailand.
The United Nations defines child soldier as "A child associated with
an armed force or armed group refers to any person below 18 years of age
who is, or who has been, recruited or used by an armed force or armed
group in any capacity, including but not limited to children, boys, and
girls, used as fighters, cooks, porters, spies or for sexual purposes." In 2007, Human Rights Watch estimated that 200,000 to 300,000 children served as soldiers in current conflicts. In 2012, this estimation rose to be around 300,000 in only twenty countries. Around 40% of child soldiers are believed to be girls, that have been taken and used as sex slaves and 'wives'.
According to United Nations, children associated with armed
forces and groups can be used in various roles, including combat,
support functions, and even acts of terror such as suicide bombings,
with reports of children as young as 8 or 9 being involved in armed
conflict.
During the 2026 Iran war, Rahim Nadali, an IRGC official in Tehran, announced the launch of the initiative "For Iran" which recruits 12 year olds into the Basij
militia for them to assist in manning "operational patrols" and
checkpoints, as well as providing logistical support and performing
other duties. This move contradicts Iran's commitment to abstain from the use of children in military activities under the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
However, Nadali justified to move stating "Given that the age of those
coming forward has dropped and they are asking to take part, we lowered
the minimum age to 12". According to Al-Arabiya, from the beginning of the war, Tehran residents reported of untrained teenagers and youths armed with Uzi sub-machine guns and Kalshnikov rifles, stopping vehicles, shouting orders, and firing warning shots into the air.
Forced labor
More girls under 16 work as domestic workers than any other category of child labor, often sent to cities by parents living in rural poverty such as in restaveks
in Haiti. Globally, in 2016, 25 million were in forced labor, with 16
million of them subjected to forced labor exploitation in sectors such
as domestic work, construction, and agriculture, with children
particularly vulnerable. When it comes to children, 152 million children
are engaged in child labor, many of whom work in hazardous conditions.
Most Islamic history was transmitted orally until after the rise of the Abbasid Caliphate. At the same time the study of the earliest periods in Islamic history is made difficult by a lack of sources. The stories were written in the form of “founding conquest stories”
based on nostalgia for the golden age then. Humphrey, quoted by Antoine
Borrut, explains that the stories related to this period were created
according to a pact-betrayal-redemption principle. One of the most important historical sources for which the above-mentioned stories about the birth of Islam were compiled is the work of the Muslim historianAbū Jaʿfar al-Ṭabarī (839–923 CE). Although the sources concerning the Sasanian realm of influence
for the 6th century AD, which represents the time period before the
beginning of Islam according to the traditional understanding, are poor,
the sources for the Byzantine provinces of Syria and Iraq in the same period, complemented by Syriac Christian writings, provide a relatively better quality. Regarding the depicting of early Islamic history, four trends are
prominent concerning the utilization on available (irrational) sources;
The descriptive method uses the outlines of Islamic
traditions, adjusted for the stories of miracles and faith-centred
claims within those sources. Edward Gibbon (1737–1794) and Gustav Weil (1808–1889) represent some of the first historians following the descriptive method.
In the source critical
method, scholars compare all available sources in order to identify
which informants to the sources are weak and thereby to distinguish
spurious material. The work of William Montgomery Watt (1909–2006) and that of Wilferd Madelung (1930–2023) exemplify source-critical study.
In the tradition critical
method, the sources are believed to be based on oral traditions with
unclear origins and transmission history, and so are treated very
cautiously. Ignác Goldziher (1850–1921) pioneered the tradition critical method, and Uri Rubin (1944–2021) continued this approach.
The skeptical
method doubts nearly all of the material in the traditional sources,
regarding any possible historical core as too difficult to decipher from
distorted and fabricated material. An early example of the sceptical method was the work of John Wansbrough (1928–2002).
Nowadays, the popularity of the different methods employed varies on the
scope of the studies produced. Overview treatments of the history of
early Islam tend to take the descriptive approach. Scholars who look at
the beginnings of Islam in depth generally follow the source-critical
and tradition-critical methods. Until the early 1970s, Non-Muslim scholars of Islamic studies—while not accepting mythical accounts, such as divine intervention—did accept its origin story in most of its details. Critical evaluation of sources is of particular importance in uncovering Muhammad's historical existence beyond the myths. Early sources for the life of Muhammad are authors from the 2nd and 3rd centuries AH (8th and 9th centuries CE), whose works constructed main biographical information to the Muslim traditions regarding his life,but the reliability of this information is very much debated in academic circles due to the oral gap
between the recorded dates of Muhammad's life and the dates when these
writings begin to appear in sources. John Burton summarizes the
information provided by the multitude of available sources, from a
historian's perspective: states
In judging the
content, the only resort of the scholar is to the yardstick of
probability, and on this basis, it must be repeated, virtually nothing
of use to the historian emerges from the sparse record of the early life
of the founder of the latest of the great world religions ... so,
however far back in the Muslim tradition one now attempts to reach, one
simply cannot recover a scrap of information of real use in constructing
the human history of Muhammad, beyond the bare fact that he once
existed.
The quality of historical sources improves after the 8th century CE. Those sources which treated earlier times with a large temporal and
cultural gap now begin to give accounts which are more contemporaneous,
the quality of genre of available historical accounts improves, and new
documentary sources—such as official documents, correspondence and
poetry—appear.
Early Islam arose within the historical, social, political, economic, and religious context of late antiquity in the Middle East. Religion in pre-Islamic Arabia may be summarized as follows; Judaism became the dominant religion of the Himyarite Kingdom in Yemen after about 380 CE, while Christianity took root in the Persian Gulf. The second half of the 6th century CE saw political disorder in pre-Islamic Arabia, and communication routes were no longer secure. Religious divisions played an important role in the crisis. There was also a yearning for a more "spiritual form of religion", and
"the choice of religion increasingly became an individual rather than a
collective issue." While some Arabs were reluctant to convert to a foreign faith, those Abrahamic religions provided "the principal intellectual and spiritual reference points", and Jewish and Christian loanwords from Aramaic began to replace the old pagan vocabulary of Arabic throughout the peninsula.
The Ḥanīf ("renunciates"), a group of monotheists that sought to separate themselves both from the foreign Abrahamic religions and the traditional Arab polytheism, were looking for a new religious worldview to replace the pre-Islamic Arabian religions, focusing on "the all-encompassing father god Allah whom they freely equated with the Jewish Yahweh and the Christian Jehovah." In their view, Mecca
was originally dedicated to this monotheistic faith that they
considered to be the one true religion, established by the patriarch Abraham. However, the polytheistic Kaaba temple in Mecca was a popular pilgrimage site and for this reason an important source of income for the surrounding pagan Arabs in those days.
According to the traditional account, Muhammad was born in Mecca, an important caravan trading center, around the year 570 CE. His family belonged to the Arab clan of Quraysh, which was the chief tribe of Mecca and a dominant force in Hejaz region. They supported the establishment of sacred months in which all violence was prohibited and travel was safe, in order to prevent tribal raids for loot, to sustain the Hajj trade. Like the Ḥanīf, Muhammad practiced Taḥannuth, spending time in seclusion at the Cave Hira in the mountain Jabal al-Nour and "turning away from paganism." In 610 CE, when he was about 40 years old, he began receiving at mount Hira' what Muslims regard as divine revelations delivered through the angelGabriel on the Laylat al-Qadr, which would later form the Quran. These inspirations urged him to proclaim a strict monotheistic faith, as the final expression of Biblical prophetism earlier codified in the sacred texts of Judaism and Christianity; to warn his compatriots of the impending Judgement Day; and to castigate social injustices of his city. Muhammad's message won over a handful of followers (the ṣaḥāba) and was met with increasing persecution from Meccan notables.
In 622 CE, a few years after losing protection with the death of his influential uncle ʾAbū Ṭālib ibn ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib, Muhammad migrated to the city of Yathrib (subsequently called Medina) where he was joined by his followers. Later generations would count this event, known as the hijra, as the start of the Islamic era. The surahs of this period emphasized his place among the long line of Biblical prophets, but also differentiated the message of the Quran from the sacred texts of Christianity and Judaism. Armed conflict with the Arab Meccans and Jewish tribes of the Yathrib area soon broke out. After a series of military confrontations and political manoeuvres, Muhammad was able to secure control of Mecca and allegiance of the Quraysh in 629 CE, after which he ordered the destruction of pagan idols. In the time remaining until his death
in 632 CE, tribal chiefs across the Arabian peninsula entered into
various agreements with him, some under terms of alliance, others
acknowledging his claims of prophethood and agreeing to follow Islamic
practices, including paying the alms levy to his government, which consisted of a number of deputies, an army of believers, and a public treasury.
With an approach that has been developed and popularized recently, Muhammad established the first Islamic state in Medina and made radical reforms to create an Islamic society based on Quranic verses, in line with the new concept, and the Constitution of Medina, in which the rights and duties of the different communities were determined. The compatibility of the concept of the state, which essentially has the power to coerce, with religion and prophethood, which are essentially advice, is a controversial issue. (See also:Al-Baqara 256) The real intentions of Muhammad regarding the spread of Islam, its political undertone, and his missionary activity (da'wah) during his lifetime are a contentious matter of debate, which has been extensively discussed both among Muslim scholars and Non-Muslim scholars within the academic field of Islamic studies. Poston Larry states;
Was it in Muhammad's mind to
produce a world religion or did his interests lie mainly within the
confines of his homeland? Was he solely an Arab nationalist—a political genius
intent upon uniting the tribal clans under the banner of a new
religion—or was his vision a truly international one, a desire to
produce a reformed humanity in the midst of a new world order? These
questions are not without significance, for a number of the proponents
of contemporary da'wah activity trace their inspiration to the prophet
himself.[...] Despite the claims of these writers, it is difficult to
prove that Muhammad intended to found a world-encompassing faith
superseding the religions of Christianity and Judaism. His original aim
appears to have been the establishment of a succinctly Arab brand of monotheism,
as indicated by his many references to the Qurʾān as an "Arabic book"
and by his accommodations to other monotheistic traditions.
Alongside the growth of the Umayyad Caliphate, the major political development within early Islam in this period was the sectarian split and political divide between Kharijite, Sunnī, and ShīʿaMuslims; this had its roots in a dispute over the succession for the role of caliph.Sunnīs believed the caliph was elective and any Muslim from the Arab clan of Quraysh, the tribe of Muhammad, might serve as one. Shīʿītes, on the other hand, believed the title of caliph should be hereditary in the bloodline of Muhammad, and thus all the caliphs, with the exceptions of Muhammad's cousin and son-in-law ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib and his firstborn son Ḥasan, were actually illegitimate usurpers. However, the Sunnī sect emerged as triumphant in most regions of the Muslim world, with the exceptions of Iran and Oman. Muhammad's closest companions (ṣaḥāba), the four "rightly-guided" caliphs who succeeded him, continued to expand the Islamic empire to encompass Jerusalem, Ctesiphon, and Damascus, and sending Arab Muslim armies as far as the Sindh region.[63] The early Islamic empire stretched from al-Andalus (Muslim Iberia) to the Punjab region under the reign of the Umayyad dynasty.
After Muhammad's death, Abū Bakr, one of his closest associates, was chosen as the first caliph ("successor"). Although the office of caliph retained an aura of religious authority, it laid no claim to prophecy. A number of tribal Arab leaders
refused to extend the agreements made with Muhammad to Abū Bakr,
ceasing payments of the alms levy and in some cases claiming to be
prophets in their own right. Abū Bakr asserted his authority in a successful military campaign known as the Ridda wars, whose momentum was carried into the lands of the Byzantine and Sasanian empires. By the end of the reign of the second caliph ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb, the Arab Muslim armies, whose battle-hardened ranks were now swelled by the defeated rebels and former imperial auxiliary troops, invaded the eastern Byzantine provinces of Syria and Egypt, while the Sasanids lost their western territories, with the rest of Persia to follow soon afterwards.
ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb improved the administration of the fledgling
Islamic empire, ordering improvement of irrigation networks, and playing
a role in foundation of cities like Basra.
To be close to the poor, he lived in a simple mud hut without doors and
walked the streets every evening. After consulting with the poor, ʿUmar
established the Bayt al-mal,a welfare institution for the Muslim and Non-Muslim poor, needy, elderly, orphans, widows, and the disabled. The Bayt al-mal ran for hundreds of years under the Rāshidūn Caliphate in the 7th century CE and continued through the Umayyad period and well into the Abbasid era. ʿUmar also introduced child benefit for the children and pensions for the elderly. When he felt that a governor or a commander was becoming attracted to
wealth or did not meet the required administrative standards, he had him
removed from his position. The expansion was partially halted between 638 and 639 CE during the
years of great famine and plague in Arabia and the Levant, respectively,
but by the end of ʿUmar's reign, Syria, Egypt, Mesopotamia, and much of
Persia were incorporated into the early Islamic empire.
Local populations of Jews and indigenous Christians, who lived as religious minorities and were forced to pay the jizya
tax under the Muslim rule in order to finance the wars with Byzantines
and Sasanids, often aided Muslims to take over their lands from the
Byzantines and Persians, resulting in exceptionally speedy conquests. As new areas were conquered, they also benefited from free trade with
other areas of the growing Islamic empire, where, to encourage commerce,
taxes were applied to wealth rather than trade. The Muslims paid zakat on their wealth for the benefit of the poor. Since the Constitution of Medina, drafted by Muhammad, the Jews and the Christians continued to use their own laws and had their own judges.
Early Muslim armies stayed in encampments away from cities because
ʿUmar feared that they may get attracted to wealth and luxury, moving
away from the worship of God, accumulating wealth and establishing
dynasties.Staying in these encampments away from the cities also ensured that
there was no stress on the local populations which could remain
autonomous. Some of these encampments later grew into cities like Basra and Kufa in Iraq and Fustat in Egypt.
When ʿUmar was assassinated in 644 CE, ʿUthmān ibn ʿAffān,
second cousin and twice son-in-law of Muhammad, became the third
caliph. As the Arabic language is written without vowels, speakers of different Arabic dialects
and other languages recited the Quran with phonetic variations that
could alter the meaning of the text. When ʿUthmān became aware of this,
he ordered a standard copy of the Quran to be prepared. Begun during his
reign, the compilation of the Quran
was finished some time between 650 and 656 CE, and copies were sent out
to the different centers of the expanding Islamic empire. After Muhammad's death, the old tribal differences between the Arabs started to resurface. Following the Roman–Persian wars and the Byzantine-Sasanian wars, deep-rooted differences between Iraq (formerly under the Sasanian Empire) and Syria (formerly under the Byzantine Empire) also existed. Each wanted the capital of the newly established Islamic empire to be in their area.
As ʿUthmān became very old, Marwan I,
a relative of Muawiyah slipped into the vacuum, becoming his secretary
and slowly assuming more control. When ʿUthmān was assassinated in 656
CE, ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib,
cousin and son-in-law of Muhammad, assumed the position of caliph and
moved the capital to Kufa in Iraq. Muawiyah I, the governor of Syria,
and Marwan I demanded arrest of the culprits. Conflict resulted in the first Muslim civil war (the "First Fitna"). ʿAlī was assassinated by the Kharijites in 661 CE. Six months later, ʿAlī's firstborn son Ḥasan made a peace treaty with Muawiyah I, in the interest of peace. In the Hasan–Muawiya treaty,
Ḥasan ibn ʿAlī handed over power to Muawiyah I on the condition that he
would be just to the people and not establish a dynasty after his
death. Muawiyah I subsequently broke the conditions of the agreement and established the Umayyad dynasty, with a capital in Damascus. Ḥusayn ibn ʿAlī, by then Muhammad's only surviving grandson, refused to swear allegiance to the Umayyads; he was killed in the Battle of Karbala the same year, in an event still mourned by Shīʿa Muslims on the Day of Ashura. Political unrest called the second Muslim civil war (the "Second Fitna") continued, but Muslim rule was extended under Muawiyah I to Rhodes, Crete, Kabul, Bukhara, and Samarkand, and expanded into North Africa. In 664 CE, Arab Muslim armies conquered Kabul, and in 665 CE pushed further into the Maghreb.
A Greek inscription crediting Mu'awiya for restoring the Roman-era bath facilities at Hamat Gader in 663, the sole epigraphic attestation of Mu'awiya's rule in Syria
The Umayyad dynasty (or Ommiads), whose name derives from Umayya ibn Abd Shams,
the great-grandfather of the first Umayyad caliph, ruled from 661 to
750 CE. Although the Umayyad family came from the city of Mecca, Damascus was the capital. After the death of Abdu'l-Rahman ibn Abu Bakr in 666. Muawiyah I consolidated his power. Muawiyah I moved his capital to Damascus from Medina,
which led to profound changes in the empire. In the same way, at a
later date, the transfer of the Caliphate from Damascus to Baghdad
marked the accession of a new family to power.
As the state grew, the state expenses increased. Additionally the Bayt al-mal
and the Welfare State expenses to assist the Muslim and the non-Muslim
poor, needy, elderly, orphans, widows, and the disabled, increased, the
Umayyads asked the new converts (mawali) to continue paying the poll
tax. The Umayyad rule, with its wealth and luxury also seemed at odds
with the Islamic message preached by Muhammad. All this increased discontent. The descendants of Muhammad's uncle Abbas ibn Abd al-Muttalib rallied discontented mawali, poor Arabs, and some Shi'a against the Umayyads and overthrew them with the help of the general Abu Muslim, inaugurating the Abbasid dynasty in 750, which moved the capital to Baghdad. A branch of the Ummayad family fled across North Africa to Al-Andalus, where they established the Caliphate of Córdoba, which lasted until 1031 before falling due to the Fitna of al-Andalus. The Bayt al-mal, the Welfare State then continued under the Abbasids.
At its largest extent, the Umayyad dynasty covered more than 5,000,000 square miles (13,000,000 km2) making it one of the largest empires the world had yet seen, and the fifth largest contiguous empire ever.
Muawiyah beautified Damascus, and developed a court to rival that of Constantinople. He expanded the frontiers of the empire, reaching the edge of Constantinople at one point, though the Byzantines drove him back and he was unable to hold any territory in Anatolia. Sunni Muslims credit him with saving the fledgling Muslim nation from post-civil war anarchy. However, Shia Muslims accuse him of instigating the war, weakening the Muslim nation by dividing the Ummah, fabricating self-aggrandizing heresies slandering Muhammad's family and even selling his Muslim critics into slavery in the Byzantine empire. One of Muawiyah's most controversial and enduring legacies was his
decision to designate his son Yazid as his successor. According to Shi'a
doctrine, this was a clear violation of the treaty he made with Hasan
ibn Ali.
In 682, Yazid restored Uqba ibn Nafi as the governor of North Africa. Uqba won battles against the Berbers and Byzantines. From there Uqba marched thousands of miles westward towards Tangier, where he reached the Atlantic coast, and then marched eastwards through the Atlas Mountains. With about 300 cavalrymen,
he proceeded towards Biskra where he was ambushed by a Berber force
under Kaisala. Uqba and all his men died fighting. The Berbers attacked
and drove Muslims from north Africa for a period. Weakened by the civil wars, the Umayyad lost supremacy at sea, and had to abandon the islands of Rhodes and Crete. Under the rule of Yazid I, some Muslims in Kufa began to think that if Husayn ibn Ali
the descendant of Muhammad was their ruler, he would have been more
just. He was invited to Kufa but was later betrayed and killed. Imam
Husain's son, Imam Ali ibn Husain, was imprisoned along with Husain's sister and other ladies left in Karbala
war. Due to opposition by public they were later released and allowed
to go to their native place Medina. One Imam after another continued in
the generation of Imam Husain but they were opposed by the Caliphs of
the day as their rivals till Imam Abdullah al-Mahdi Billah came in power as first Caliph of Fatimid
in North Africa when Caliphate and Imamate came to same person again
after Imam Ali. These Imams were recognized by Shia Islam taking Imam
Ali as first Caliph/Imam and the same is institutionalized by the Safavids and many similar institutions named now as Ismaili, Twelver, etc.
Territory controlled by the contenders to the caliphate in 686, at the peak of the civil war.
The period under Muawiya II was marked by civil wars (Second Fitna). This would ease in the reign of Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan,
a well-educated and capable ruler. Despite the many political problems
that impeded his rule, all important records were translated into
Arabic. In his reign, a currency for the Muslim world was minted. This led to war with the Byzantine Empire under Justinian II (Battle of Sebastopolis) in 692 in Asia Minor. The Byzantines were decisively defeated by the Caliph after the defection of a large contingent of Slavs. The Islamic currency was then made the exclusive currency in the Muslim world. He reformed agriculture and commerce. Abd al-Malik consolidated Muslim rule and extended it, made Arabic the state language, and organized a regular postal service.
The Mosque of Uqba
(Great Mosque of Kairouan), founded by the Umayyad general Uqba Ibn
Nafi in 670, is the oldest and most prestigious mosque in the Muslim
West; its present form dates from the 9th century, Kairouan, Tunisia.
Under Al-Walid, the caliphate empire stretched from the Iberian Peninsula to India. Al-Hajjaj ibn Yusuf
played a crucial role in the organization and selection of military
commanders. Al-Walid paid great attention to the expansion of an
organized military, building the strongest navy in the Umayyad era. This
tactic was crucial for the expansion to the Iberian Peninsula. His
reign is considered to be the apex of Islamic power.
Sulayman ibn Abd al-Malik was hailed as caliph the day al-Walid died. He appointed Yazid ibn al-Muhallab governor of Mesopotamia. Sulayman ordered the arrest and execution of the family of al-Hajjaj, one of two prominent leaders (the other was Qutayba ibn Muslim)
who had supported the succession of al-Walid's son Yazid, rather than
Sulayman. Al-Hajjaj had predeceased al-Walid, so he posed no threat.
Qutaibah renounced allegiance to Sulayman, though his troops rejected
his appeal to revolt. They killed him and sent his head to Sulayman.
Sulayman did not move to Damascus on becoming Caliph, remaining in Ramla. Sulayman sent Maslama ibn Abd al-Malik to attack the Byzantine capital (siege of Constantinople). The intervention of Bulgaria on the Byzantine side proved decisive. The Muslims sustained heavy losses. Sulayman died suddenly in 717.
Yazid II
came to power on the death of Umar II. Yazid fought the Kharijites,
with whom Umar had been negotiating, and killed the Kharijite leader
Shawdhab. In Yazid's reign, civil wars began in different parts of the
empire. Yazid expanded the Caliphate's territory into the Caucasus, before dying in 724. Inheriting the caliphate from his brother, Hisham ibn Abd al-Malik
ruled an empire with many problems. He was effective in addressing
these problems, and in allowing the Umayyad empire to continue as an
entity. His long rule was an effective one, and renewed reforms
introduced by Umar II. Under Hisham's rule, regular raids against the
Byzantines continued. In North Africa, Kharijite teachings combined with
local restlessness to produce the Berber Revolt. He was also faced with a revolt by Zayd ibn Ali.
Hisham suppressed both revolts. The Abbasids continued to gain power in
Khurasan and Iraq. However, they were not strong enough to make a move
yet. Some were caught and punished or executed by eastern governors. The
Battle of Akroinon, a decisive Byzantine victory, was during the final campaign of the Umayyad dynasty. Hisham died in 743.
Umayyad army invades France after conquering the Iberian Peninsula
Al-Walid I
began the next stage of Islamic conquests. Under him the early Islamic
empire reached its farthest extent. He reconquered parts of Egypt from
the Byzantine Empire and moved on into Carthage and across to the west of North Africa. Muslim armies under Tariq ibn Ziyad crossed the Strait of Gibraltar and began to conquer the Iberian Peninsula using North African Berber armies. The Visigoths of the Iberian Peninsula were defeated when the Umayyad conquered Lisbon. The Iberian Peninsula was the farthest extent of Islamic control of Europe (they were stopped at the Battle of Tours). In the east, Islamic armies under Muhammad ibn al-Qasim made it as far as the Indus Valley.
Al-Walid II saw political intrigue during his reign. Yazid III spoke out against his cousin Walid's "immorality" which included discrimination on behalf of the Banu Qays Arabs against Yemenis and non-Arab Muslims, and Yazid received further support from the Qadariya and Murji'iya (believers in human free will). Walid was shortly thereafter deposed in a coup. Yazid disbursed funds from the treasury and acceded to the Caliph. He explained that he had rebelled on behalf of the Book of God
and the Sunna. Yazid reigned for only six months, while various groups
refused allegiance and dissident movements arose, after which he died. Ibrahim ibn al-Walid, named heir apparent by his brother Yazid III, ruled for a short time in 744, before he abdicated. Marwan II
ruled from 744 until he was killed in 750. He was the last Umayyad
ruler to rule from Damascus. Marwan named his two sons Ubaydallah and
Abdallah heirs. He appointed governors and asserted his authority by
force. Anti-Umayyad feeling was very prevalent, especially in Iran and
Iraq. The Abbasids had gained much support. Marwan's reign as caliph was
almost entirely devoted to trying to keep the Umayyad empire together.
His death signalled the end of Umayyad rule in the East, and was
followed by the massacre of Umayyads by the Abbasids. Almost the entire
Umayyad dynasty was killed, except for the talented prince Abd al-Rahman who escaped to the Iberian Peninsula and founded a dynasty there.
The capital was moved from Damascus to Baghdad, due to the importance placed by the Abbasids upon eastern affairs in Persia and Transoxania. At this time the caliphate showed signs of fracture amid the rise of
regional dynasties. Although the Umayyad family had been killed by the
revolting Abbasids, one family member, Abd ar-Rahman I, escaped to Spain and established an independent caliphate there in 756. In the Maghreb, Harun al-Rashid appointed the Arab Aghlabids
as virtually autonomous rulers, although they continued to recognize
central authority. Aghlabid rule was short-lived, and they were deposed
by the ShiiteFatimid dynasty in 909. By around 960, the Fatimids had conquered Abbasid Egypt, building a capital there in 973 called "al-Qahirah" (meaning "the planet of victory", known today as Cairo).
During its decline, the Abbasid Caliphate disintegrated into minor states and dynasties, such as the Tulunid and the Ghaznavid dynasty. The Ghaznavid dynasty was a Muslim dynasty established by Turkicslave-soldiers from another Islamic empire, the Samanid Empire. In Persia the Ghaznavids snatched power from the Abbasids. Abbasid influence had been consumed by the Great Seljuq Empire (a Muslim Turkish clan which had migrated into mainland Persia) by 1055. Two other Turkish tribes, the Karahanids and the Seljuks,
converted to Islam during the 10th century. Later, they were subdued by
the Ottomans, who share the same origin and language. The Seljuks
played an important role in the revival of Sunnism when Shi'ism
increased its influence. The Seljuk military leader Alp Arslan (1063 – 1072) financially supported sciences and literature and established the Nizamiyya of Baghdad.
Expansion continued, sometimes by force, sometimes by peaceful proselytising. The first stage in the conquest of India began just before the year 1000. By some 200 (from 1193 to 1209) years later, the area up to the Ganges river had fallen. In sub-Saharan West Africa, Islam was established just after the year 1000. Muslim rulers were in Kanem starting from sometime between 1081 and 1097, with reports of a Muslim prince at the head of Gao as early as 1009. The Islamic kingdoms associated with Mali reached prominence in the 13th century.
The Abbasids developed initiatives aimed at greater Islamic
unity. Different sects of the Islamic faith and mosques, separated by
doctrine, history, and practice, were pushed to cooperate. The Abbasids
also distinguished themselves from the Umayyads by attacking the
Umayyads' moral character and administration. According to Ira Lapidus,
"The Abbasid revolt was supported largely by Arabs, mainly the
aggrieved settlers of Marw with the addition of the Yemeni faction and
their Mawali". The Abbasids also appealed to non-Arab Muslims, known as mawali, who remained outside the kinship-based society of the Arabs and were perceived as a lower class within the Umayyad empire. Islamic ecumenism, promoted by the Abbasids, refers to the idea of unity of the Ummah in the literal meaning: that there was a single faith. Islamic philosophy developed as the Shariah was codified, and the four Madhabs were established. This era also saw the rise of classical Sufism. Religious achievements included completion of the canonical collections of Hadith of Sahih Bukhari and others. Islam recognized to a certain extent the validity of the Abrahamic religions, the Quran identifying Jews, Christians, Zoroastrians, and Sabians (commonly identified with the Mandaeans) as "people of the book". Toward the beginning of the high Middle Ages, the doctrines of the Sunni and Shia, two major denominations of Islam, solidified and the divisions of the world theologically would form. These trends would continue into the Fatimid and Ayyubid periods.
Politically, the Abbasid Caliphate evolved into an Islamic monarchy (unitary system of government.) The regional Sultanate and Emirate governors' existence, validity, or legality were acknowledged for unity of the state. In the early Islamic philosophy of the Iberian Umayyads, Averroes presented an argument in The Decisive Treatise, providing a justification for the emancipation of science and philosophy from official Ash'ari theology; thus, Averroism has been considered a precursor to modern secularism.
Golden Baghdad Abbasids
Early Middle Ages
According to Arab sources in the year 750, Al-Saffah,
the founder of the Abbasid Caliphate, launched a massive rebellion
against the Umayyad Caliphate from the province of Khurasan near Talas.
After eliminating the entire Umayyad family and achieving victory at the
Battle of the Zab,
Al-Saffah and his forces marched into Damascus and founded a new
dynasty. His forces confronted many regional powers and consolidated the
realm of the Abbasid Caliphate.
An Arabic manuscript written under the second half of the Abbasid Era.
In Al-Mansur's
time, Persian scholarship emerged. Many non-Arabs converted to Islam.
The Umayyads actively discouraged conversion in order to continue the
collection of the jizya, or the tax on non-Muslims. Islam nearly doubled
within its territory from 8% of residents in 750 to 15% by the end of
Al-Mansur's reign. Al-Mahdi,
whose name means "Rightly-guided" or "Redeemer", was proclaimed caliph
when his father was on his deathbed. Baghdad blossomed during Al-Mahdi's
reign, becoming the world's largest city. It attracted immigrants from
Arabia, Iraq, Syria, Persia and as far away as India and Spain. Baghdad
was home to Christians, Jews, Hindus, and Zoroastrians, in addition to
the growing Muslim population. Like his father, Al-Hadi was open to his people and allowed citizens to address him in the
palace at Baghdad. He was considered an "enlightened ruler", and
continued the policies of his Abbasid predecessors. His short rule was
plagued by military conflicts and internal intrigue.
The military conflicts subsided as Harun al-Rashid ruled. His reign was marked by scientific, cultural and religious prosperity. He established the library Bayt al-Hikma ("House of Wisdom"), and the arts and music flourished during his reign. The Barmakid family played a decisive advisorial role in establishing the Caliphate, but declined during Rashid's rule.
Al-Amin
received the Caliphate from his father Harun Al-Rashid, but failed to
respect the arrangements made for his brothers, leading to the Fourth Fitna. Al-Ma'mun's general Tahir ibn Husayntook Baghdad, executing Al-Amin. The war led to a loss of prestige for the dynasty.
Regional powers born out of the fragmentation of the Abbasid caliphate
The Abbasids soon became caught in a three-way rivalry among Coptic Arabs, Indo-Persians, and immigrant Turks. In addition, the cost of running a large empire became too great. The Turks, Egyptians, and Arabs adhered to the Sunnite sect; the
Persians, a great portion of the Turkic groups, and several of the
princes in India were Shia. The political unity of Islam began to
disintegrate. Under the influence of the Abbasid caliphs, independent
dynasties appeared in the Muslim world and the caliphs recognized such
dynasties as legitimately Muslim. The first was the Tahirids in Khorasan, which was founded during the caliph Al-Ma'mun's reign. Similar dynasties included the Saffarids, Samanids, Ghaznavids and Seljuqs. During this time, advancements were made in the areas of astronomy, poetry, philosophy, science, and mathematics.
High Baghdad Abbasids
Early Middle Ages
Upon Al-Amin's death, Al-Ma'mun became Caliph. Al-Ma'mun extended the Abbasid empire's territory during his reign and dealt with rebellions. Al-Ma'mun had been named governor of Khurasan by Harun, and after his
ascension to power, the caliph named Tahir as governor of his military
services in order to assure his loyalty. Tahir and his family became
entrenched in Iranian politics and became powerful, frustrating
Al-Ma'mun's desire to centralize and strengthen Caliphal power. The
rising power of the Tahirid family became a threat as Al-Ma'mun's own policies alienated them and other opponents.
Al-Ma'mun worked to centralize power and ensure a smooth
succession. Al-Mahdi proclaimed that the caliph was the protector of
Islam against heresy, and also claimed the ability to declare orthodoxy.
Religious scholars averred that Al-Ma'mun was overstepping his bounds
in the Mihna, the Abbasid inquisition which he introduced in 833 four months before he died. The Ulama emerged as a force in Islamic politics during Al-Ma'mun's reign for opposing the inquisitions. The Ulema
and the major Islamic law schools took shape in the period of
Al-Ma'mun. In parallel, Sunnism became defined as a religion of laws.
Doctrinal differences between Sunni and Shi'a Islam became more
pronounced.
During the Al-Ma'mun regime, border wars increased. Al-Ma'mun made preparations for a major campaign, but died while leading an expedition in Sardis.
Al-Ma'mun gathered scholars of many religions at Baghdad, whom he
treated well and with tolerance. He sent an emissary to the Byzantine
Empire to collect the most famous manuscripts there, and had them
translated into Arabic. His scientists originated alchemy. Shortly before his death, during a visit to Egypt in 832, the caliph ordered the breaching of the Great Pyramid of Giza
to search for knowledge and treasure. Workers tunnelled in near where
tradition located the original entrance. Al-Ma'mun later died near
Tarsus under questionable circumstances and was succeeded by his
half-brother, Al-Mu'tasim, rather than his son, Al-Abbas ibn Al-Ma'mun.
As Caliph, Al-Mu'tasim promptly ordered the dismantling of
al-Ma'mun's military base at Tyana. He faced Khurramite revolts. One of
the most difficult problems facing this Caliph was the ongoing uprising
of Babak Khorramdin. Al-Mu'tasim overcame the rebels and secured a
significant victory. Byzantine emperor Theophilus launched an attack against Abbasid fortresses. Al-Mu'tasim sent Al-Afshin, who met and defeated Theophilus' forces at the Battle of Anzen.
On his return he became aware of a serious military conspiracy which
forced him and his successors to rely upon Turkish commanders and ghilman slave-soldiers (foreshadowing the Mamluk
system). The Khurramiyyah were never fully suppressed, although they
slowly declined during the reigns of succeeding Caliphs. Near the end of
al-Mu'tasim's life there was an uprising in Palestine, but he defeated
the rebels.
During Al-Mu'tasim's reign, the Tahirid family continued to grow in
power. The Tahirids were exempted from many tribute and oversight
functions. Their independence contributed to Abbasid decline in the
east. Ideologically, al-Mu'tasim followed his half-brother al-Ma'mun. He
continued his predecessor's support for the Islamic Mu'tazila sect,
applying brutal torture against the opposition. Arab mathematician Al-Kindi
was employed by Al-Mu'tasim and tutored the Caliph's son. Al-Kindi had
served at the House of Wisdom and continued his studies in Greek
geometry and algebra under the caliph's patronage.
Al-Wathiq
succeeded his father. Al-Wathiq dealt with opposition in Arabia, Syria,
Palestine and in Baghdad. Using a famous sword he personally joined the
execution of the Baghdad rebels. The revolts were the result of an
increasingly large gap between Arab populations and the Turkish armies.
The revolts were put down, but antagonism between the two groups grew,
as Turkish forces gained power. He also secured a captive exchange with
the Byzantines. Al-Wathiq was a patron of scholars, as well as artists.
He personally had musical talent and is reputed to have composed over
one hundred songs.
When Al-Wathiq died of high fever, Al-Mutawakkil
succeeded him. Al-Mutawakkil's reign is remembered for many reforms and
is viewed as a golden age. He was the last great Abbasid caliph; after
his death the dynasty fell into decline. Al-Mutawakkil ended the Mihna.
Al-Mutawakkil built the Great Mosque of Samarra as part of an extension of Samarra eastwards. During his reign, Al-Mutawakkil met famous Byzantine theologian Constantine the Philosopher, who was sent to strengthen diplomatic relations between the Empire and the Caliphate by Emperor Michael III.
Al-Mutawakkil involved himself in religious debates, as reflected in
his actions against minorities. The Shīʻi faced repression embodied in
the destruction of the shrine of Hussayn ibn ʻAlī,
an action that was ostensibly carried out to stop pilgrimages.
Al-Mutawakkil continued to rely on Turkish statesmen and slave soldiers
to put down rebellions and lead battles against foreign empires, notably
capturing Sicily from the Byzantines. Al-Mutawakkil was assassinated by
a Turkish soldier.
Al-Muntasir
succeeded to the Caliphate on the same day with the support of the
Turkish faction, though he was implicated in the murder. The Turkish
party had al-Muntasir remove his brothers from the line of succession,
fearing revenge for the murder of their father. Both brothers wrote
statements of abdication. During his reign, Al-Muntasir removed the ban
on pilgrimage to the tombs of Hassan and Hussayn and sent Wasif to raid
the Byzantines. Al-Muntasir died of unknown causes. The Turkish chiefs
held a council to select his successor, electing Al-Musta'in.
The Arabs and western troops from Baghdad were displeased at the choice
and attacked. However, the Caliphate no longer depended on Arabian
choice, but depended on Turkish support. After the failed Muslim
campaign against the Christians, people blamed the Turks for bringing
disaster on the faith and murdering their Caliphs. After the Turks
besieged Baghdad, Al-Musta'in planned to abdicate to Al-Mu'tazz but was put to death by his order. Al-Mu'tazz was enthroned by the Turks, becoming the youngest Abbasid Caliph to assume power.
Al-Mu'tazz proved too apt a pupil of his Turkish masters, but was surrounded by parties jealous of each other. At Samarra, the Turks were having problems with the "Westerns" (Berbers and Moors),
while the Arabs and Persians at Baghdad, who had supported al-Musta'in,
regarded both with equal hatred. Al-Mu'tazz put his brothers
Al-Mu'eiyyad and Abu Ahmed to death. The ruler spent recklessly, causing
a revolt of Turks, Africans, and Persians for their pay. Al-Mu'tazz was
brutally deposed shortly thereafter. Al-Muhtadi
became the next Caliph. He was firm and virtuous compared to the
earlier Caliphs, though the Turks held the power. The Turks killed him
soon after his ascension. Al-Mu'tamid followed, holding on for 23 years, though he was largely a ruler in name only. After the Zanj Rebellion, Al-Mu'tamid summoned al-Muwaffak to help him. Thereafter, Al-Muwaffaq ruled in all but name. The Hamdanid dynasty was founded by Hamdan ibn Hamdun when he was appointed governor of Mardin in Anatolia by the Caliphs in 890. Al-Mu'tamid later transferred authority to his son, al-Mu'tadid, and never regained power. The Tulunids became the first independent state in Islamic Egypt, when they broke away during this time.
Al-Mu'tadid ably administered the Caliphate. Egypt returned to
allegiance and Mesopotamia was restored to order. He was tolerant
towards Shi'i, but toward the Umayyad community he was not so just.
Al-Mu'tadid was cruel in his punishments, some of which are not
surpassed by those of his predecessors. For example, the Kharijite
leader at Mosul was paraded about Baghdad clothed in a robe of silk, of
which Kharijites denounced as sinful, and then crucified. Upon
Al-Mu'tadid's death, his son by a Turkish slave-concubine, Al-Muktafi, succeeded to the throne.
Al-Muktafi became a favourite of the people for his generosity,
and for abolishing his father's secret prisons, the terror of Baghdad.
During his reign, the Caliphate overcame threats such as the Carmathians. Upon Al-Muktafi's death, the vazir next chose Al-Muqtadir.
Al-Muqtadir's reign was a constant succession of thirteen Vazirs, one
rising on the fall or assassination of another. His long reign brought
the Empire to its lowest ebb. Africa was lost, and Egypt nearly. Mosul
threw off its dependence, and the Greeks raided across the undefended
border. The East continued to formally recognize the Caliphate,
including those who virtually claimed independence.
At the end of the Early Baghdad Abbasids period, Empress Zoe Karbonopsina pressed for an armistice with Al-Muqtadir and arranged for the ransom of the Muslim prisoner while the Byzantine frontier was threatened by Bulgarians. This only
added to Baghdad's disorder. Though despised by the people, Al-Muqtadir
was again placed in power after upheavals. Al-Muqtadir was eventually
slain outside the city gates, whereupon courtiers chose his brother al-Qahir. He was even worse. Refusing to abdicate, he was blinded and cast into prison.
His son al-Radi
took over only to experience a cascade of misfortune. Praised for his
piety, he became the tool of the de facto ruling Minister, Ibn Raik (amir al-umara;
'Amir of the Amirs'). Ibn Raik held the reins of government and his
name was joined with the Caliph's in public prayers. Around this period,
the Hanbalis,
supported by popular sentiment, set up in fact a kind of 'Sunni
inquisition'. Ar-Radi is commonly regarded as the last of the real
Caliphs: the last to deliver orations at the Friday service, to hold
assemblies, to commune with philosophers, to discuss the questions of
the day, to take counsel on the affairs of State; to distribute alms, or to temper the severity of cruel officers. Thus ended the Early Baghdad Abbasids.
In the late mid-930s, the Ikhshidids of Egypt carried the Arabic title "Wali" reflecting their position as governors on behalf of the Abbasids, The first governor (Muhammad bin Tughj Al-Ikhshid)
was installed by the Abbasid Caliph. They gave him and his descendants
the Wilayah for 30 years. The last name Ikhshid is Soghdian for
"prince".
Also in the 930s, 'Alī ibn Būyah and his two younger brothers, al-Hassan and Aḥmad founded the Būyid confederation. Originally a soldier in the service of the Ziyārīds of Ṭabaristān, 'Alī was able to recruit an army to defeat a Turkish general from Baghdad
named Yāqūt in 934. Over the next nine years the three brothers gained
control of the remainder of the caliphate, while accepting the titular
authority of the caliph in Baghdad. The Būyids made large territorial
gains. Fars and Jibal were conquered. Central Iraq submitted in 945, before the Būyids took Kermān (967), Oman (967), the Jazīra (979), Ṭabaristān (980), and Gorgan
(981). After this the Būyids went into slow decline, with pieces of the
confederation gradually breaking off and local dynasties under their
rule becoming de facto independent.
Middle Baghdad Abbasids
Early High Middle Ages
Dirham of Al-Muttaqi
At the beginning of the Middle Baghdad Abbasids, the Caliphate had become of little importance. The amir al-umaraBajkam
contented himself with dispatching his secretary to Baghdad to assemble
local dignitaries to elect a successor. The choice fell on Al-Muttaqi.
Bajkam was killed on a hunting party by marauding Kurds. In the ensuing
anarchy in Baghdad, Ibn Raik persuaded the Caliph to flee to Mosul
where he was welcomed by the Hamdanids. They assassinated Ibn Raik.
Hamdanid Nasir al-Dawla advanced on Baghdad, where mercenaries and well-organised Turks repelled them. Turkish general Tuzun became amir al-umara.
The Turks were staunch Sunnis. A fresh conspiracy placed the Caliph in
danger. Hamdanid troops helped ad-Daula escape to Mosul and then to
Nasibin. Tuzun and the Hamdanid were stalemated. Al-Muttaqi was at Raqqa, moving to Tuzun where he was deposed. Tuzun installed the blinded Caliph's cousin as successor, with the title of Al-Mustakfi. With the new Caliph, Tuzun attacked the Buwayhid dynasty and the Hamdanids.
Soon after, Tuzun died, and was succeeded by one of his generals, Abu
Ja'far. The Buwayhids then attacked Baghdad, and Abu Ja'far fled into
hiding with the Caliph. Buwayhid Sultan Muiz ud-Daula assumed command
forcing the Caliph into abject submission to the Amir. Eventually,
Al-Mustakfi was blinded and deposed. The city fell into chaos, and the
Caliph's palace was looted.
Once the Buwayhids controlled Baghdad, Al-Muti
became caliph. The office was shorn of real power and Shi'a observances
were established. The Buwayhids held on Baghdad for over a century.
Throughout the Buwayhid reign the Caliphate was at its lowest ebb, but
was recognized religiously, except in Iberia. Buwayhid Sultan Mu'izz al-Dawla
was prevented from raising a Shi'a Caliph to the throne by fear for his
own safety, and fear of rebellion, in the capital and beyond.
The next Caliph, Al-Ta'i,
reigned over factional strife in Syria among the Fatimids, Turks, and
Carmathians. The Hideaway dynasty also fractured. The Abbasid borders
were the defended only by small border states. Baha' al-Dawla, the Buyid amir of Iraq, deposed al-Ta'i in 991 and proclaimed al-Qadir the new caliph.
During al-Qadir's Caliphate, Mahmud of Ghazni
looked after the empire. Mahmud of Ghazni, of Eastern fame, was
friendly towards the Caliphs, and his victories in the Indian Empire
were accordingly announced from the pulpits of Baghdad in grateful and
glowing terms. Al-Qadir fostered the Sunni struggle against Shiʿism and
outlawed heresies such as the Baghdad Manifesto and the doctrine that the Quran was created. He outlawed the Muʿtazila, bringing an end to the development of rationalist Muslim philosophy. During this and the next period, Islamic literature, especially Persian literature, flourished under the patronage of the Buwayhids. By 1000, the global Muslim population had climbed to about 4 percent of
the world, compared to the Christian population of 10 percent.
During Al-Qa'im's reign, the Buwayhid ruler often fled the capital and the Seljuq dynasty gained power. Toghrül overran Syria and Armenia. He then made his way into the Capital, where he was well-received both by chiefs and people. In Bahrain, the Qarmatian state collapsed in Al-Hasa. Arabia recovered from the Fatimids and again acknowledged the spiritual jurisdiction of the Abbasids. Al-Muqtadi was honoured by the Seljuq Sultan Malik-Shah I,
during whose reign the Caliphate was recognized throughout the
extending range of Seljuq conquest. The Sultan was critical of the
Caliph's interference in affairs of state, but died before deposing the
last of the Middle Baghdad Abbasids.
Late Baghdad Abbasids
Late High Middle Ages
Al-Aqsa Mosque
Plan of Al-Aqsa Mosque, year 985
Dome of Al Aqsa Mosque
The Late Baghdad Abbasids reigned from the beginning of the Crusades to the Seventh Crusade. The first Caliph was Al-Mustazhir. He was politically irrelevant, despite civil strife at home and the First Crusade in Syria. Raymond IV of Toulouse attempted to attack Baghdad, losing at the Battle of Manzikert. The global Muslim population climbed to about 5 per cent as against the Christian population of 11 per cent by 1100. Jerusalem
was captured by crusaders who massacred its inhabitants. Preachers
travelled throughout the caliphate proclaiming the tragedy and rousing
men to recover the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound from the Franks (European Crusaders). Crowds of exiles rallied for war against the infidel. Neither the Sultan nor the Caliph sent an army west.
Al-Mustarshid achieved more independence while the sultan Mahmud II of Great Seljuq was engaged in war in the East. The Banu Mazyad (Mazyadid State) general, Dubays ibn Sadaqa (emir of Al-Hilla), plundered Bosra and attacked Baghdad together with a young brother of the sultan, Ghiyath ad-Din Mas'ud. Dubays was crushed by a Seljuq army under Zengi, founder of the Zengid dynasty.
Mahmud's death was followed by a civil war between his son Dawud, his
nephew Mas'ud and the atabeg Toghrul II. Zengi was recalled to the East,
stimulated by the Caliph and Dubays, where he was beaten. The Caliph
then laid siege to Mosul for three months without success, resisted by
Mas'ud and Zengi. It was nonetheless a milestone in the caliphate's
military revival.
After the siege of Damascus (1134), Zengi undertook operations in Syria. Al-Mustarshid attacked sultan Mas'ud of western Seljuq and was taken prisoner. He was later found murdered. His son, Al-Rashid
failed to gain independence from Seljuq Turks. Zengi, because of the
murder of Dubays, set up a rival Sultanate. Mas'ud attacked; the Caliph
and Zengi, hopeless of success, escaped to Mosul. The Sultan regained
power, a council was held, the Caliph was deposed, and his uncle, son of
Al-Muqtafi, appointed as the new Caliph. Ar-Rashid fled to Isfahan and was killed by Hashshashins.
Continued disunion and contests between Seljuq Turks allowed
al-Muqtafi to maintain control in Baghdad and to extend it throughout
Iraq. In 1139, al-Muqtafi granted protection to Patriarch Abdisho III of the Church of the East. While the Crusade raged, the Caliph successfully defended Baghdad against Muhammad II of Seljuq in the Siege of Baghdad (1157).
The Sultan and the Caliph dispatched men in response to Zengi's appeal,
but neither the Seljuqs, nor the Caliph, nor their Amirs, dared resist
the Crusaders.
The next caliph, Al-Mustanjid, saw Saladin extinguish the Fatimid dynasty after 260 years, and thus the Abbasids again prevailed. Al-Mustadi reigned when Saladin became the sultan of Egypt and declared allegiance to the Abbasids.
An-Nasir, "The Victor for the Religion of God",
attempted to restore the Caliphate to its ancient dominant role. He
consistently held Iraq from Tikrit to the Gulf without interruption. His
forty-seven-year reign was chiefly marked by ambitious and corrupt
dealings with the Tartar chiefs, and by his hazardous invocation of the
Mongols, which ended his dynasty. His son, Az-Zahir, was Caliph for a short period before his death and An-Nasir's grandson, Al-Mustansir, was made caliph.
Al-Mustansir founded the Mustansiriya Madrasah. In 1236 Ögedei Khan commanded to raise up Khorassan and populated Herat. The Mongol military governors mostly made their camp in Mughan plain, Azerbaijan. The rulers of Mosul and Cilician Armenia surrendered. Chormaqan divided the South Caucasus region into three districts based on military hierarchy. In Georgia, the population were temporarily divided into eight tumens. By 1237 the Mongol Empire had subjugated most of Persia, excluding Abbasid Iraq and Ismaili strongholds, and all of Afghanistan and Kashmir.
Al-Musta'sim
was the last Abbasid Caliph in Baghdad and is noted for his opposition
to the rise of Shajar al-Durr to the Egyptian throne during the Seventh
Crusade. To the east, Mongol forces under Hulagu Khan swept through the Transoxiana and Khorasan. Baghdad was sacked and the caliph deposed soon afterwards. The Mamluk sultans and Syria later appointed a powerless Abbasid Caliph in Cairo.
The Abbasid "shadow" caliph of Cairo reigned under the tutelage of the Mamluk sultans
and nominal rulers used to legitimize the actual rule of the Mamluk
sultans. All the Cairene Abbasid caliphs who preceded or succeeded Al-Musta'in
were spiritual heads lacking any temporal power. Al-Musta'in was the
only Cairo-based Abbasid caliph to even briefly hold political power. Al-Mutawakkil III
was the last "shadow" caliph. In 1517, Ottoman sultan Selim I defeated
the Mamluk Sultanate, and made Egypt part of the Ottoman Empire.
The Fatimids originated in Ifriqiya (modern-day Tunisia and eastern Algeria). The dynasty was founded in 909 by ʻAbdullāh al-Mahdī Billah, who legitimized his claim through descent from Muhammad by way of his daughter Fātima as-Zahra and her husband ʻAlī ibn-Abī-Tālib, the first Shīʻa Imām, hence the name al-Fātimiyyūn "Fatimid". Abdullāh al-Mahdi's control soon extended over all of central Maghreb and Egypt. The Fatimids and the Zaydis at the time, used the Hanafi jurisprudence, as did most Sunnis.
Unlike other governments in the area, Fatimid advancement in
state offices was based more on merit than heredity. Members of other
branches of Islam, including Sunnis, were just as likely to be appointed
to government posts as Shiites. Tolerance covered non-Muslims such as
Christians and Jews; they took high levels in government based on
ability. There were, however, exceptions to this general attitude of tolerance, notably Al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah.
The Fatimid palace was in two parts. It was in the Khan el-Khalili area at Bin El-Quasryn street.
During the beginning of the Middle Baghdad Abbasids, the Fatimid Caliphs
claimed spiritual supremacy not only in Egypt, but also contested the
religious leadership of Syria. At the beginning of the Abbasid realm in
Baghdad, the Alids faced severe persecution by the ruling party as they
were a direct threat to the Caliphate. Owing to the Abbasid
inquisitions, the forefathers opted for concealment of the Dawa's
existence. Subsequently, they travelled towards the Iranian Plateau and
distanced themselves from the epicenter of the political world. Al
Mahdi's father, Al Husain al Mastoor returned to control the Dawa's
affairs. He sent two Dai's to Yemen and Western Africa. Al Husain died
soon after the birth of his son, Al Mahdi. A system of government helped
update Al Mahdi on the development which took place in North Africa.
Al Mahdi Abdullah al-Mahdi Billah established the first Imam
of the Fatimid dynasty. He claimed genealogic origins dating as far
back as Fatimah through Husayn and Ismail. Al Mahdi established his
headquarters at Salamiyah and moved towards north-western Africa, under Aghlabid
rule. His success of laying claim to being the precursor to the Mahdi
was instrumental among the Berber tribes of North Africa, specifically
the Kutamah tribe. Al Mahdi established himself at the former Aghlabid
residence at Raqqadah, a suburb of Al-Qayrawan in Tunisia. In 920, Al Mahdi took up residence at the newly established capital of the empire, Al-Mahdiyyah. After his death, Al Mahdi was succeeded by his son, Abu Al-Qasim Muhammad Al-Qaim, who continued his expansionist policy. At the time of his death he had extended his reign to Morocco of the Idrisids, as well as Egypt itself. The Fatimid Caliphate grew to include Sicily and to stretch across North Africa from the Atlantic Ocean to Libya. Abdullāh al-Mahdi's control soon extended over all of central Maghreb, an area consisting of the modern countries of Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and Libya, which he ruled from Mahdia, in Tunisia. Newly built capital Al-Mansuriya, or Mansuriyya (Arabic: المنصوريه), near Kairouan, Tunisia, was the capital of the Fatimid Caliphate during the rules of the Imams Al-Mansur Billah (r. 946–953) and Al-Mu'izz li-Din Allah (r. 953–975).
The Fatimid general Jawhar conquered Egypt in 969, and he built a
new palace city there, near Fusṭāt, which he also called al-Manṣūriyya.
Under Al-Muizz Lideenillah, the Fatimids conquered the Ikhshidid Wilayah (see Fatimid Egypt), founding a new capital at al-Qāhira (Cairo) in 969. The name was a reference to the planet Mars, "The Subduer", which was prominent in the sky at the moment that city construction
started. Cairo was intended as a royal enclosure for the Fatimid caliph
and his army, though the actual administrative and economic capital of
Egypt was in cities such as Fustat until 1169. After Egypt, the Fatimids continued to conquer the surrounding areas until they ruled from Tunisia to Syria, as well as Sicily.
Under the Fatimids, Egypt became the center of an empire that included at its peak North Africa, Sicily, Palestine, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, the Red Sea coast of Africa, Tihamah, Hejaz, and Yemen. Egypt flourished, and the Fatimids developed an extensive trade network
in both the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean. Their trade and
diplomatic ties extended all the way to China and its Song dynasty, which eventually determined the economic course of Egypt during the High Middle Ages.
After the eighteenth Imam, al-Mustansir Billah, the Nizari sect believed that his son Nizar
was his successor, while another Ismāʿīlī branch known as the Mustaali
(from whom the Dawoodi Bohra would eventually descend), supported his
other son, al-Musta'li. The Fatimid dynasty continued with al-Musta'li as both Imam and Caliph, and that joint position held until the 20th Imam, al-Amir bi-Ahkami l-Lah (1132). At the death of Imam Amir, one branch of the Mustaali faith claimed that he had transferred the imamate to his son at-Tayyib Abi l-Qasim, who was then two years old.
After the decay of the Fatimid political system in the 1160s, the Zengid ruler Nūr ad-Dīn had his general, Shirkuh, seize Egypt from the vizier Shawar in 1169. Shirkuh died two months after taking power, and the rule went to his nephew, Saladin. This began the Ayyubid Sultanate of Egypt and Syria.
In the early period of the Crusades, the Christian Kingdom of Jerusalem emerged and for a time controlled Jerusalem. The Kingdom of Jerusalem and other smaller Crusader kingdoms over the next 90 years formed part of the complicated politics of the Levant, but did not threaten the Islamic Caliphate nor other powers in the region. After Shirkuh
ended Fatimid rule in 1169, uniting it with Syria, the Crusader
kingdoms were faced with a threat, and his nephew Saladin reconquered
most of the area in 1187, leaving the Crusaders holding a few ports.
In the Third Crusade
armies from Europe failed to recapture Jerusalem, though Crusader
states lingered for several decades, and other crusades followed. The
Christian Reconquista continued in Al-Andalus, and was eventually
completed with the fall of Granada in 1492. During the low period of the Crusades, the Fourth Crusade was diverted from the Levant and instead took Constantinople, leaving the Eastern Roman Empire (now the Byzantine Empire) further weakened in their long struggle against the Turkish peoples to the east. However, the crusaders did manage to damage Islamic caliphates; according to William of Malmesbury, preventing them from further expansion into Christendom and being targets of the Mamluks and the Mongols.
The Ayyubid dynasty was founded by Saladin
and centered in Egypt. In 1174, Saladin proclaimed himself Sultan and
conquered the Near East region. The Ayyubids ruled much of the Middle
East during the 12th and 13th centuries, controlling Egypt, Syria,
northern Mesopotamia, Hejaz, Yemen, and the North African coast up to
the borders of modern-day Tunisia. After Saladin, his sons contested
control over the sultanate, but Saladin's brother al-Adil eventually
established himself in 1200. In the 1230s, Syria's Ayyubid rulers
attempted to win independence from Egypt and remained divided until
Egyptian Sultan as-Salih Ayyub restored Ayyubid unity by taking over
most of Syria, excluding Aleppo,
by 1247. In 1250, the dynasty in the Egyptian region was overthrown by
slave regiments. A number of attempts to recover it failed, led by
an-Nasir Yusuf of Aleppo. In 1260, the Mongols sacked Aleppo and wrested
control of what remained of the Ayyubid territories soon after.
While the Abbasid Caliphate suffered a decline following the reign of al-Wathiq (842–847) and al-Mu'tadid (892–902), the Mongol Empire put an end to the Abbasid dynasty in 1258. The Mongols spread throughout Central Asia and Persia; the Persian city of Isfahan had fallen to them by 1237.
The Ilkhans of Chingisid descendence understood themselves as defenders of Islam, perhaps even as the legitimate heirs of the Abbasid Caliphate. Al-Nuwayri, stated that the Mongols had heavenly approval and would live in accordance with the restrictions of Islamic law. Some Sufi Muslim writers, such as the Persian poet and mystic Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Rūmī and his biographer Šams al-Dīn Aḥmad Aflākī, regarded the Mongols and Turkic peoples from the Eurasian Steppe as more pious than the Muslim scholars, ascetics, and muftis of their time, and hence expressed favor of their conquests, considering the invasion as divine punishment from God. Aflaki identifies the invasion with a hadith, describing the Turks (and Mongols) as the army of Muhammad's wrath. In his Manaqib al-'Arifin, the Turks and Mongols are described as God's "punishment from hell", and by that, people who follow the will of the Creator.
Many scholars had argued that the conversion of the Turks and Mongols has been filtered through the mediation of Persian and Central Asian culture. Rather than converting to Islamic orthodoxy, they encountered Islam mostly through the preaching of Sufi Muslim wandering ascetics and mystics (fakirs and dervishes).Recently this view has been challenged on grounds that a defined
Islamic orthodoxy has not yet existed during the conversion of the Turks
and Mongols.
In the 13th to the 14th centuries, both Sunnī and Shīʿa practices were intertwined, and historical figures commonly associated with the history of Shīʿa Islam, like ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib and Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq (respectively, the first and sixth Shīʿīte Imams), played an almost universal role for Muslim believers to understand "the Unseen" (al-Ghaib). A sharp distinction between Sunnī, Shīʿa, and heterodox Islamic beliefs
did not exist. Therefore, ideas from foreign cultures were easier to
integrate into the Islamic worldview. During this era, the Persian Sufi poet and mystic Jalaluddin Rumi (1207–1273) wrote his masterpiece, the Masnavi, which he believed to be "sent down" from God and understood it as the proper explanation of the Quran (tafsīr). According to Aflaki, the invading Mongols were impressed by Rumi's
devotion to God, so they did not assault him, believing it would cause
the wrath of God upon them.
On the other hand, Turks and Mongols also faced criticism. Opposition to them have been formulated by Ibn Taymiyya (1263–1328), who did not accept the Mongols' conversion to Sunnism. Feeling threatened by the Crusaders and the Mongols, ibn Taymiyya called for elimination by a militant jihād against whom he deemed "heretic", including Shias, al-Ashʿariyya and falāsifa (philosophers), and established his own theological doctrines. His theology was characterized by a literal understanding of the Quran, a physicalist ontology, and a rejection of most philosophical and mystical approaches in favor of a simplistic and dogmatic theology.
Another unique characteristic of his theological approach was the importance of a theocratic state. Prior to ibn Taimiyya, religious wisdom was meant to guide governmental authorities, while ibn Taymiyya demanded political power to promote religious piety. Having a deep-rooting discern for the Mongols, ibn Taimiyya sought to pronounce takfīr (excommunication) upon the Turco-Mongol rulers, despite their profession of the shahada (Islamic testimony of faith), or regular observance of aṣ-Ṣalāh (obligatory prayers), sawm (fasting) and other expressions of religiosity. His disciple ibn Kathir ( d. 1373), propounded the same belief in his tafsīr.
During his lifetime, ibn Taimiyya played only a marginal role and
most of his writings were rejected. He was repeatedly accused of
blasphemy by anthropomorphizing God, and his disciple Ibn Kathir distanced himself from his mentor. Yet, some of Ibn Taymiyya's teaching influenced Ibn Kathir's methodology on tafsīr, discounted much of the exegetical tradition since then. Only centuries later, among Wahhabis and in 21st century Salafism, their writings gained notable importance.
Ultimately, the Ilkhanate, Golden Horde, and the Chagatai Khanate – three of the four principal Mongol khanates – embraced Islam. In power in Syria, Mesopotamia, Persia, and further east, over the rest
of the 13th century gradually all converted to Islam. Most Ilkhanid
rulers were replaced by the new Mongol power founded by Timur (himself a Muslim), who conquered Persia in the 1360s, and moved against the Delhi Sultanate in India and the Ottoman Turks in Anatolia. Timur's ceaseless conquests were accompanied by displays of brutality matched only by Chinggis Khan, whose example Timur consciously imitated. Samarqand,
the cosmopolitan capital of Timur's empire, flourished under his rule
as never before, while Iran and Iraq suffered large-scale devastation. Muslim scholars, such as Nasir al-Din al-Tusi and Qutb al-Din al-Shirazi, studied in the Maragheh observatory, erected by Hulegu Khan.
The Middle East was still recovering from the Black Death, which may have killed one third of the population in the region. The plague began in China, and reached Alexandria
in Egypt in 1347, spreading over the following years to most Islamic
areas. The combination of the plague and the wars left the Middle
Eastern Islamic world in a seriously weakened position. The Timurid dynasty would found many strong empires of Islam, including the Mughals of India.
Remarkable was the invention of Tamerlane Chess, reconstruction of the city of Samarkand, and substantial contributions made by the family of Sultan Shah Rukh, which includes Gawhar Shad, polymath Ulugh Begh, and Sultan Husayn Bayqara in the fields of astronomy, mathematics, and architecture. The empire received widespread support from multiple Islamic scholars and scientists. A number of Islamic learning centres and mosques were built, most notably the Ulugh Beg Observatory.
The prosperity of the city of Herat is said to have competed with those of Florence, the birthplace of the Italian Renaissance as the center of a cultural rebirth.
In the 1260s, the Mongols sacked and controlled the Islamic Near
East territories. The Mongol invaders were finally stopped by Egyptian
Mamluks north of Jerusalem in 1260 at the pivotal Battle of Ain Jalut. The Mamluks, who were slave-soldiers predominantly of Turkic, Caucasian, and Southeastern European origins (see Saqaliba), forced out the Mongols (see Battle of Ain Jalut) after the final destruction of the Ayyubid dynasty. The Mongols were again defeated by the Mamluks at the Battle of Hims a few months later, and then driven out of Syria altogether. With this, the Mamluks were able to concentrate their forces and to conquer the last of the Crusader states in the Levant. Thus they united Syria and Egypt for the longest interval between the Abbasid and Ottoman empires (1250–1517).
The Mamluks experienced a continual state of political conflict,
military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the
"Muslim territory" (Dar al-Islam) and "non-Muslim territory" (Dar al-Harb). The Battle of Ain Jalut and the glorious Battle of Marj al-Saffar (1303), the latter partly led by Imam Ibn Taymiyyah, marked the end of the Mongol invasions of the Levant. Fatwas given during these conflicts changed the course of Political Islam. As part of their chosen role as defenders of Islamic orthodoxy, the
Mamluks sponsored many religious buildings, including mosques, madrasas and khanqahs.
Though some construction took place in the provinces, the vast bulk of
these projects expanded the capital. Many Mamluk buildings in Cairo have
survived to this day, particularly in Old Cairo (for further
informations, see Mamluk architecture).
The Arabs, under the command of the Berber General Tarik ibn Ziyad,
first began their conquest of southern Spain or al-Andalus in 711. A
raiding party led by Tarik was sent to intervene in a civil war in the Visigothic kingdom in Hispania. Crossing the Strait of Gibraltar (named after the General), it won a decisive victory in the summer of 711 when the Visigothic king Roderic was defeated and killed on 19 July at the Battle of Guadalete. Tariq's commander, Musa bin Nusair
crossed with substantial reinforcements, and by 718 the Muslims
dominated most of the peninsula. Some later Arabic and Christian sources
present an earlier raid by a certain Ṭārif in 710 and also, the Ad Sebastianum recension of the Chronicle of Alfonso III, refers to an Arab attack incited by Erwig during the reign of Wamba (672–80). The two large armies may have been in the south for a year before the decisive battle was fought.
The rulers of Al-Andalus were granted the rank of Emir by the UmayyadCaliphAl-Walid I in Damascus. After the Abbasids came to power, some Umayyads fled to Muslim Spain to establish themselves there. By the end of the 10th century, the ruler Abd al-Rahman III took over the title of Caliph of Córdoba (912–961). Soon after, the Umayyads went on developing a strengthened state with its capital as Córdoba. Al-Hakam II
succeeded to the Caliphate after the death of his father Abd ar-Rahman
III in 961. He secured peace with the Christian kingdoms of northern
Iberia, and made use of the stability to develop agriculture through the construction of irrigation works. Economic development was also encouraged through the widening of
streets and the building of markets. The rule of the Caliphate is known
as the heyday of Muslim presence in the peninsula.
The Umayyad Caliphate collapsed in 1031 due to political divisions and civil unrest during the rule of Hicham II who was ousted because of his indolence. Al-Andalus then broke up into a number of states called taifa kingdoms (Arabic, Muluk al-ṭawā'if; English, Petty kingdoms). The decomposition of the Caliphate into those petty kingdoms weakened the Muslims in the Iberian Peninsula vis-à-vis the Christian kingdoms of the north. Some of the taifas, such as that of Seville, were forced to enter into alliances with Christian princes and pay tributes in money to Castille.
Abd al-Rahman I and Bedr (a former Greek slave) escaped with their lives after the popular revolt known as the Abbasid Revolution.
Rahman I continued south through Palestine, the Sinai, and then into
Egypt. Rahman I was one of several surviving Umayyad family members to
make a perilous trek to Ifriqiya at this time. Rahman I and Bedr reached
modern day Morocco near Ceuta.
Next step would be to cross to sea to al-Andalus, where Rahman I could
not have been sure whether he would be welcome. Following the Berber Revolt (740s), the province was in a state of confusion, with the Ummah
torn by tribal dissensions among the Arabs and racial tensions between
the Arabs and Berbers. Bedr lined up three Syrian commanders – Obeid Allah ibn Uthman and Abd Allah ibn Khalid, both originally of Damascus, and Yusuf ibn Bukht of Qinnasrin and contacted al-Sumayl (then in Zaragoza)
to get his consent, but al-Sumayl refused, fearing Rahman I would try
to make himself emir. After discussion with Yemenite commanders, Rahman I
was told to go to al-Andalus. Shortly thereafter, he set off with Bedr
and a small group of followers for Europe. Abd al-Rahman landed at Almuñécar in al-Andalus, to the east of Málaga.
During his brief time in Málaga, he quickly amassed local
support. News of the prince's arrival spread throughout the peninsula.
In order to help speed his ascension to power, he took advantage of the
feuds and dissensions. However, before anything could be done, trouble
broke out in northern al-Andalus. Abd al-Rahman and his followers were
able to control Zaragoza. Rahman I fought to rule al-Andalus in a battle at the Guadalquivir river,
just outside Córdoba on the plains of Musarah (Battle of Musarah).
Rahman I was victorious, chasing his enemies from the field with parts
of their army. Rahman I marched into the capital, Córdoba, fighting off a
counterattack,
but negotiations ended the confrontation. After Rahman I consolidated
power, he proclaimed himself the al-Andalus emir. Rahman I did not claim
the Muslim caliph, though. The last step was to have al-Fihri's general, al-Sumayl, garroted in Córdoba's jail. Al-Andalus was a safe haven for the house of Umayya that managed to evade the Abbasids.
In Baghdad, the Abbasid caliph al-Mansur
had planned to depose the emir. Rahman I and his army confronted the
Abbasids, killing most of the Abbasid army. The main Abbasid leaders
were decapitated, their heads preserved in salt, with identifying tags
pinned to their ears. The heads were bundled in a gruesome package and
sent to the Abbasid caliph who was on pilgrimage at Mecca. Rahman I
quelled repeated rebellions in al-Andalus. He began the building of the
great mosque [cordova], and formed ship-yards along the coast; he is
moreover said to have been the first to transplant the palm and the
pomegranate into the congenial climate of Spain: and he encouraged
science and literature in his states. He died on 29 September 788, after
a reign of thirty-four years and one month.
The exterior of the Mezquita.
Rahman I's successor was his son Hisham I. Born in Córdoba, he built many mosques and completed the Mezquita. He called for a jihad that resulted in a campaign against the Kingdom of Asturias and the County of Toulouse; in this second campaign he was defeated at Orange by William of Gellone, first cousin to Charlemagne. His successor Al-Hakam I came to power and was challenged by his uncles, other sons of Rahman I. One, Abdallah, went to the court of Charlemagne in Aix-la-Chapelle
to negotiate for aid. In the meantime Córdoba was attacked, but was
defended. Hakam I spent much of his reign suppressing rebellions in
Toledo, Saragossa and Mérida.
Abd ar-Rahman II succeeded his father and engaged in nearly continuous warfare against Alfonso II of Asturias, whose southward advance he halted. Rahman II repulsed an assault by Vikings who had disembarked in Cádiz, conquered Seville (with the exception of its citadel) and attacked Córdoba. Thereafter he constructed a fleet and naval arsenal at Seville to repel future raids. He responded to William of Septimania's requests of assistance in his struggle against Charles the Bald's nominations.
Muhammad I's reign was marked by the movements of the Muwallad (ethnic Iberian Muslims) and Mozarabs (Muslim-Iberia Christians). Muhammad I was succeeded by his son Mundhir I.
During the reign of his father, Mundhir I commanded military operations
against the neighbouring Christian kingdoms and the Muwallad
rebellions. At his father's death, he inherited the throne. During his
two-year reign, Mundhir I fought against Umar ibn Hafsun. He died in 888 at Bobastro, succeeded by his brother Abdullah ibn Muhammad al-Umawi.
Umawi showed no reluctance to dispose of those he viewed as a
threat. His government was marked by continuous wars between Arabs,
Berbers and Muwallad. His power as emir was confined to the area of
Córdoba, while the rest had been seized by rebel families. The son he
had designated as successor was killed by one of Umawi's brothers. The
latter was in turn executed by Umawi's father, who named as successor Abd ar-Rahman III, son of the killed son of Umawi.
The Great Mosque of Kairouan
also known as the Mosque of Uqba was established in 670 by the Arab
general and conqueror Uqba ibn Nafi, it is the oldest mosque in the
Maghreb, situated in the city of Kairouan, Tunisia.
Kairouan in Tunisia was the first city founded by Muslims in the Maghreb. Arab general Uqba ibn Nafi erected the city (in 670) and, in the same time, the Great Mosque of Kairouan considered as the oldest and most prestigious sanctuary in the western Islamic world.
This part of Islamic territory has had independent governments during most of Islamic history. The Idrisid were the first Arab rulers in the western Maghreb (Morocco), ruling from 788 to 985. The dynasty is named after its first sultanIdris I.
The Almoravid dynasty was a Berber dynasty from the Sahara flourished over a wide area of North-Western Africa and the Iberian Peninsula during the 11th century. Under this dynasty the Moorish empire was extended over present-day Morocco, Western Sahara, Mauritania, Gibraltar, Tlemcen (in Algeria) and a part of what is now Senegal and Mali in the south, and Spain and Portugal in the north.
The Almohad Dynasty or "the Unitarians", were a Berber Muslim religious power which founded the fifth Moorish dynasty in the 12th century, and conquered all Northern Africa as far as Egypt, together with Al-Andalus.
The history of Islam in the Horn of Africa
is almost as old as the faith itself. Through extensive trade and
social interactions with their converted Muslim trading partners on the
other side of the Red Sea, in the Arabian peninsula, merchants and sailors in the Horn region gradually came under the influence of the new religion.
Early Islamic disciples fled to the port city of Zeila in modern-day northern Somalia to seek protection from the Quraysh at the court of the Emperor of Aksum.
Some of the Muslims that were granted protection are said to have then
settled in several parts of the Horn region to promote the religion. The
victory of the Muslims over the Quraysh in the 7th century had a
significant impact on local merchants and sailors, as their trading
partners in Arabia had by then all adopted Islam, and the major trading
routes in the Mediterranean and the Red Sea came under the sway of the Muslim Caliphs.
Instability in the Arabian peninsula saw further migrations of early
Muslim families to the Somali seaboard. These clans came to serve as
catalysts, forwarding the faith to large parts of the Horn region.
Islam came to the Swahili coast and South Eastern Africa along existing trade routes. They learned from them the manners of the Muslims and this led to their conversion by the Muslim Arabs.
Local Islamic governments centered in Tanzania (then Zanzibar). The people of Zayd
were Muslims that immigrated to the region. In the pre-colonial period,
the structure of Islamic authority here was held up through the Ulema (wanawyuonis, in Swahili language).
These leaders had some degree of authority over most of the Muslims in
South East Africa before territorial boundaries were established. The
chief Qadi there was recognized for having the final religious authority.
Much of what is known about the early history of Islam in West Africa derives from medieval accounts written by Arab and North African geographers and historians. After the rise of Islam in the seventh century, Islam was introduced
into West Africa and spread gradually from the 8th century onward along
pre-existing trans-Saharan trade networks linking the region with North Africa and the Mediterranean world. Early Muslim presence was largely confined to merchant communities, clerics, and segments of the ruling elite in Sahelian
towns, where literacy, commerce, and diplomacy created favorable
conditions for adoption. Rather than spreading through mass conversion,
Islam initially functioned as a religion of trade, scholarship, and
administration.
From the 8th to the early 11th centuries, Islam spread gradually as a class religion, serving as the faith of merchant, clerical, and administrative elites in Sudanic societies, while the broader population continued to follow indigenous religious traditions. Political authorities often regulated Muslim influence by segregating Muslim communities or limiting their participation in governance, a situation scholars describe as a stage of containment. Despite the expansion of Muslim communities across the Sahel, political authority largely remained non-Islamic during this period.
Islamic states
Over the following centuries(11th–16th centuries), Islam became
increasingly integrated into state structures across the Sahel, as
African rulers adopted the religion while continuing to govern
populations with diverse religious practices. This period corresponds to what scholars describe as a stage of mixing,
during which Islamic beliefs and institutions coexisted with, and were
often adapted to, local religious and social traditions rather than
replacing them entirely. Mystical Sufi brotherhoods began to spread throughout West Africa. These orders
played an important role in social organization, education, and the
diffusion of Islam, and they remained influential well into the 12th
century.
One of the earliest known Islamic states in West Africa was the Kingdom of Takrur, located in the middle Senegal River valley. Its ruler, War Dyābī,
converted to Islam in the early 11th century and promoted stricter
Islamic practices, including the application of Islamic law, prior to
the rise of the Almoravids. The Mali Empire
incorporated Islamic institutions into its political system, where
Islam functioned primarily as a court religion rather than a uniformly
practiced popular faith. Its ruler, Mansa Musa, publicly demonstrated Mali’s integration into the wider Islamic world through his pilgrimage to Mecca in 1324.Similar forms of Islamic integration and recognition occurred in other Sahelian polities, including the Hausa city-states and the Kingdom of Kanem-Bornu in present-day northern Nigeria.
The Songhai Empire,
which succeeded Mali as the dominant power in the western Sahel,
further expanded the role of Islam in state administration and public
life. Although many inhabitants continued to practice indigenous
religious systems, the Songhai state patronized Islamic institutions and
sponsored mosques and centers of learning. Under Songhai rule, Timbuktu
emerged as a major center of Islamic scholarship during the fifteenth
and sixteenth centuries, attracting scholars from across North Africa
and the broader Muslim world. The Great Mosque of Djenné
in present-day Mali exemplifies the architectural and religious
significance of Islam in the region and remains the largest earthen
building in the world. After the Moroccan invasion of Songhai, merchant-scholars
and religious elites dispersed from urban centers such as Timbuktu,
contributing to the spread of Islamic learning among rural and pastoral communities across the Sahara and Sahel, many of which maintained indigenous practices.
Reform and resistance
From the 18th century onward, reformist movements emerged among West African Muslims who sought to eliminate practices they regarded as un-Islamic,
including the blending of Islamic and local religious traditions, and
to enforce Islamic law more fully. This period, often described as a
stage of reform, was characterized by a series of jihads that led to the establishment of new Islamic states.
In 1802, Uthman dan Fodio, a Fulani scholar, led a major jihad in Hausaland that overthrew existing rulers and led to the creation of the Sokoto Caliphate.
The new state centralized Muslim authority and introduced legal,
educational, and administrative reforms based on Islamic principles. Dan Fodio’s movement inspired subsequent jihads, including that of Umar Tal in the 1850s, who conquered several Bambara states, including the Ségou Empire and Kaarta in Senegambia, and expanded the influence of the Tijaniyyah Sufi order into parts of West Africa, including northern Nigeria.
These reformist jihads were followed in the 19th century by
resistance movements and military campaigns against European colonial
expansion, including those led by Samori Touré, a Mandinka military strategist and founder of the Wassoulou Empire, who opposed French forces until his capture in 1898; his successors were defeated in 1901.The French occupation of Senegal subsequently reshaped Islamic practice in the region, as some leaders of Sufi orders increasingly collaborated with colonial administrators.
Despite European colonial rule, Islam continued to spread across
West Africa into the twentieth century, though its expansion remained
uneven. Muslim influence met resistance in regions with strong kinship systems, ritual institutions, and indigenous religious traditions, particularly among Voltaic peoples. Some communities incorporated selected Islamic practices without fully
converting, while in others conversion occurred primarily through
military conquest rather than voluntary adoption.Where jihad states imposed Islam, these conversions were occasionally
reversed following the collapse of the regimes and during the colonial
period, when traditional religious authorities and community
institutions regained authority.
By the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Islam had become a
major religious force across much of West Africa, particularly in the
Sahel and savanna zones. Its historical development reflects a long
process of adaptation, negotiation, and reform rather than a single or
uniform pattern of religious transformation.
On the Indian subcontinent, Islam first appeared in the southwestern tip of the peninsula, in today's Kerala state. Arabs traded with Malabar even before the birth of Muhammad. Native legends say that a group of Sahaba, under Malik Ibn Deenar, arrived on the Malabar Coast and preached Islam. According to that legend, the first mosque of India was built by Second Chera King Cheraman Perumal, who accepted Islam and received the name Tajudheen. Historical records suggest that the Cheraman Perumal Mosque was built in around 629.
Islamic rule first came to the Indian subcontinent in the 8th century, when Muhammad bin Qasim conquered Sindh, though this was a short-lived consolidation of Indian territory. Islamic conquests expanded under Mahmud of Ghazni in the 12th century CE, resulting in the establishment of the Ghaznavid Empire in the Indus River basin and the subsequent prominence of Lahore as an eastern bastion of Ghaznavid culture and rule. Ghaznavid rule was eclipsed by the Ghurid Empire of Muhammad of Ghor and Ghiyath al-Din Muhammad, whose domain under the conquests of Muhammad bin Bakhtiyar Khalji extended until the Bengal, where Indian Islamic missionaries achieved their greatest success in terms of dawah and number of converts to Islam. Qutb-ud-din Aybak conquered Delhi in 1206 and began the reign of the Delhi Sultanate, a successive series of dynasties that synthesized Indian civilization
with the wider commercial and cultural networks of Africa and Eurasia,
greatly increased demographic and economic growth in India and deterred
Mongol incursion into the prosperous Indo-Gangetic plain and enthroned one of the few female Muslim rulers, Razia Sultana.
Many prominent sultanates and emirates administered various
regions of the Indian subcontinent from the 13th to the 16th centuries,
such as the Qutb Shahi, Gujarat, Kashmir, Bengal, Bijapur and Bahmani Sultanates, but none rivaled the power and extensive reach of the Mughal Empire at its zenith. The Bengal Sultanate in particular was a major global trading nation in
the world, described by the Europeans to be the "richest country to
trade with", while the Shah Mir dynasty ensured the gradual conversion of Kashmiris to Islam.
Persian culture, art, language, cuisine and literature grew in
prominence in India due to Islamic administration and the immigration of
soldiers, bureaucrats, merchants, Sufis, artists, poets, teachers and
architects from Iran and Central Asia, resulting in the early
development of Indo-Persian culture.
Southeast Asia
Grand Mosque of Demak, the first Muslim state in Java
Islam first reached Maritime Southeast Asia through traders from Mecca in the 7th century, particularly via the western part of what is now Indonesia.
Arab traders from Yemen already had a presence in Asia through trading
and travelling by sea, serving as intermediary traders to and from
Europe and Africa. They traded not only Arabian goods but also goods
from Africa, India, and so on which included ivory, fragrances, spices,
and gold.
According to T. W. Arnold in The Preaching of Islam, by the 2nd century of the Islamic calendar, Arab traders had been trading with the inhabitants of Ceylon, modern-day Sri Lanka. The same argument has been told by Dr. B.H. Burger and Dr. Mr. Prajudi in Sedjarah Ekonomis Sosiologis Indonesia (History of Socio Economic of Indonesia). According to an atlas created by the geographer Al-Biruni (973–1048),
the Indian or Indonesian Ocean used to be called the Persian Ocean.
After Western Imperialist rule, this name was changed to reflect the
name used today; the Indian Ocean.
As Islam spread, societal changes developed from the individual
conversions, and five centuries later it emerged as a dominant cultural
and political power in the region. Three main Muslim political powers
emerged. The Aceh Sultanate was the most important, controlling much of the area between Southeast Asia and India from its centre in northern Sumatra. The Sultanate also attracted Sufi poets. The second Muslim power was the Sultanate of Malacca on the Malay Peninsula. The Sultanate of Demak on Java was the third power, where the emerging Muslim forces defeated the local Majapahit kingdom in the early 16th century. Although the sultanate managed to expand its territory somewhat, its rule remained brief.
Portuguese forces captured Malacca in 1511 under naval general Afonso de Albuquerque. With Malacca subdued, the Aceh Sultanate and Bruneian Empire
established themselves as centres of Islam in Southeast Asia. The
Sultanate's territory, although vastly diminished, remains intact to
this day as the modern state of Brunei Darussalam.
In China, four Sahabas (Sa'ad ibn abi Waqqas, Wahb Abu Kabcha, Jafar ibn Abu Talib and Jahsh ibn Riyab) preached in 616/17 and onwards after following the Chittagong–Kamrup (Sylhet)–Manipur route after sailing from Abyssinia in 615/16. After conquering Persia in 636, Sa'ad ibn abi Waqqas went with Sa'id ibn Zaid, Qais ibn Sa'd and Hassan ibn Thabit
to China in 637 taking the complete Quran. Sa'ad ibn abi Waqqas headed
for China for the third time in 650–51 after Caliph Uthman asked him to
lead an embassy to China, which the Chinese emperor received.
According to Ottoman historiography, the legitimation of a ruler is attributed to Sheikh Edebali who interpreted a dream of Osman Gazi as God's legitimation of his reign. Since Murad I's conquest of Edirne in 1362, the caliphate was claimed by the Turkish sultans of the empire. During the period of Ottoman growth, claims on caliphal authority were recognized in 1517 as Selim I became the "Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques" in Mecca and Medina through the conquering and unification of Muslim lands, strengthening their claim to the caliphate in the Muslim world.
The Seljuq Turks declined in the second half of the 13th century, after the Mongol invasion of Anatolia. This resulted in the establishment of multiple Turkish principalities, known as beyliks. Osman I, the founder of the Ottoman dynasty, assumed leadership of one of these principalities (Söğüt) at the end of the 13th century, succeeding his father Ertuğrul. Osman I afterwards led it in a series of battles with the Byzantine Empire. By 1331, the Ottoman Turks had captured Nicaea, the former Byzantine capital, under the leadership of Osman's son and successor, Orhan I. Victory at the Battle of Kosovo against the Serbian Empire in 1389 then facilitated their expansion into Europe. The Ottomans were established in the Balkans and Anatolia by the time Bayezid I ascended to power in the same year, now at the helm of a growing empire.
The Ottoman Empire and sphere of influence at its greatest extent (1683)
Growth halted when Mongol warlord Timur (also known as "Tamerlane") captured Bayezid I in the Battle of Ankara in 1402, beginning the Ottoman Interregnum. This episode was characterized by the division of the Ottoman territory amongst Bayezid I's sons, who submitted to Timurid authority.
When a number of Ottoman territories regained independent status, ruin
for the Empire loomed. However, the empire recovered as the youngest son
of Bayezid I, Mehmed I, waged offensive campaigns against his ruling brothers, thereby reuniting Asia Minor and declaring himself sultan in 1413. Around 1512 the Ottoman naval fleet developed under the rule of Selim I, such that the Ottoman Turks were able to challenge the Republic of Venice, a naval power which established its thalassocracy alongside the other Italianmaritime republics upon the Mediterranean Region. They also attempted to reconquer the Balkans. By the time of Mehmed I's grandson, Mehmed II (ruled 1444–1446; 1451–1481), the Ottomans could lay siege to Constantinople, the capital of Byzantium. A factor in this siege was the use of muskets and large cannons introduced by the Ottomans. The Byzantine fortress succumbed in 1453, after 54 days of siege. Without its capital the Byzantine Empire disintegrated. The future successes of the Ottomans and later empires would depend upon the exploitation of gunpowder.
In the early 16th century, the Shiʿite Safavid dynasty assumed control in Persia under the leadership of ShahIsmail I, defeating the ruling Turcoman federation Aq Qoyunlu (also called the "White Sheep Turkomans") in 1501. The Ottoman sultan Selim I sought to repel Safavid expansion, challenging and defeating them at the Battle of Chaldiran in 1514. Selim I also deposed the ruling Mamluks in Egypt, absorbing their territories in 1517. Suleiman I (nicknamed "Suleiman the Magnificent"), Selim I's successor, took advantage of the diversion of Safavid focus to the Uzbeks
on the eastern frontier and recaptured Baghdad, which had fallen under
Safavid control. Despite this, Safavid power remained substantial,
rivalling the Ottomans. Suleiman I advanced deep into Hungary following
the Battle of Mohács in 1526 – reaching as far as the gates of Vienna thereafter, and signed a Franco-Ottoman alliance with Francis I of France against Charles V of the Holy Roman Empire
10 years later. While Suleiman I's rule (1520–1566) is often identified
as the apex of Ottoman power, the empire continued to remain powerful
and influential until a relative fall in its military strength in the
second half of the 18th century.
The Shīʿīte Safavid dynasty rose to power in Tabriz in 1501 and later conquered the rest of Iran. They were of mixed ancestry, originally Kurdish, but during their rule intermarried with Turcomans, Georgians, Circassians,and Pontic Greeks. The Safavid dynasty had its origin in the Safavid order of Sufism, while the Iranian population was largely composed by Sunni Muslims. After their defeat at the hands of the Sunni Ottomans at the Battle of Chaldiran, to unite the Persians behind him, ShahIsmail I made conversion mandatory for the largely Sunni population of Iran to the Twelver sect of Shīʿa Islam so that he could get them to fight against the Sunni Ottomans.
In 1524, Tahmasp I acceded to the throne, initiating a revival of the arts. Carpetmaking became a major industry. The tradition of Persian miniature
painting in manuscripts reached its peak, until Tahmasp turned to
strict religious observance in middle age, prohibiting the consumption
of alcohol and hashish and removing casinos, taverns, and brothels. Tahmasp's nephew Ibrahim Mirza continued to patronize a last flowering of the arts until he was murdered, after which many artists were recruited by the Mughal dynasty.
Tahmasp's grandson, Shah Abbas I, restored the shrine of the eighth Twelver Shīʿīte Imam, Ali al-Ridha at Mashhad, and restored the dynastic shrine at Ardabil. Both shrines received jewelry, fine manuscripts, and Chinese porcelains. Abbas moved the capital to Isfahan,
revived old ports, and established thriving trade with Europeans.
Amongst Abbas' most visible cultural achievements was the construction
of Naqsh-e Jahan Square ("Design of the World"). The plaza, located near a Friday mosque, covered 20 acres (81,000 m2). The Safavid dynasty was toppled in 1722 by the Hotaki dynasty, which ended their forceful conversion of Sunni areas to Twelver Shīʿīsm.
Mughal Empire was a power that comprised almost all of South Asia, founded in 1526. It was established and ruled by the Timurid dynasty, with Turco-MongolChagatai roots from Central Asia, claiming direct descent from both Genghis Khan (through his son Chagatai Khan) and Timur, and with significant Indian and Persian ancestry through marriage alliances; the first two Mughal emperors had both parents of Central Asian ancestry, while successive emperors were of predominantly Indo-Persian ancestry. The dynasty was Indo-Persian in culture, combining Persianate culture with local Indian cultural influences visible in its court culture and administrative customs.
The beginning of the empire is conventionally dated to the victory by its founder Babur over Ibrahim Lodi, the last ruler of the Delhi Sultanate, in the First Battle of Panipat (1526). During the reign of Humayun, the successor of Babur, the empire was briefly interrupted by the Sur Empire established by Sher Shah Suri, who re-established the Grand Trunk Road across the northern Indian subcontinent, initiated the rupee
currency system and developed much of the foundations of the effective
administration of Mughal rule. The "classic period" of the Mughal Empire
began in 1556, with the ascension of Akbar
to the throne. Some Rajput kingdoms continued to pose a significant
threat to the Mughal dominance of northwestern India, but most of them
were subdued by Akbar. All Mughal emperors were Muslims; Akbar, however, propounded a syncretic religion in the latter part of his life called Dīn-i Ilāhī, as recorded in historical books like Ain-i-Akbari and Dabistān-i Mazāhib. The Mughal Empire did not try to intervene in native societies during
most of its existence, rather co-opting and pacifying them through
concilliatory administrative practices and a syncretic, inclusive ruling elite, leading to more systematic, centralized and uniform rule. Traditional and newly coherent social groups in northern and western India, such as the Marathas, the Rajputs, the Pashtuns, the Hindu Jats and the Sikhs,
gained military and governing ambitions during Mughal rule which,
through collaboration or adversity, gave them both recognition and
military experience.
After the death of Aurangzeb,
which marks the end of Medieval India and beginning of the European
colonialism in India, internal dissatisfaction arose due to the weakness
of the empire's administrative and economic systems, leading to its
break-up and declarations of independence of its former provinces by the
Nawab of Bengal, the Nawab of Awadh, the Nizam of Hyderabad, the major economic and military power known as Kingdom of Mysore ruled by Tipu Sultan and other small states. In 1739, the Mughals were crushingly defeated in the Battle of Karnal by the forces of Nader Shah, the founder of the Afsharid dynasty in Persia, and Delhi was sacked and looted, drastically accelerating their decline.
By the end of the 19th century, the Ottoman Empire had declined. The decision to back Germany in World War I meant they shared the Central Powers'
defeat in that war. The defeat led to the overthrow of the Ottomans by
Turkish nationalists led by the victorious general of the Battle of Gallipoli: Mustafa Kemal, who became known to his people as Atatürk, "Father of the Turks." Atatürk was credited with renegotiating the treaty of Sèvres (1920) which ended Turkey's involvement in the war and establishing the modern Republic of Turkey, which was recognized by the Allies in the Treaty of Lausanne (1923). Atatürk went on to implement an ambitious program of modernization that emphasized economic development and secularization. He transformed Turkish culture to reflect European laws, adopted Arabic numerals, the Latin script,
separated the religious establishment from the state, and emancipated
woman—even giving them the right to vote in parallel with women's suffrage in the west.
During the First World War, the Allies cooperated with Arab
partisans against the Ottoman Empire, both groups being united in
opposition to a common enemy. The most prominent example of this was
during the Arab Revolt, when the British, led by secret intelligence agent T. E. Lawrence—better known as "Lawrence of Arabia" cooperated with Arab guerillas
against the Ottoman forces, eventually securing the withdrawal of all
Ottoman troops from the region by 1918. Following the end of the war,
the vast majority of former Ottoman territory outside of Asia Minor was
handed over to the victorious European powers as protectorates. However, many Arabs were left dismayed by the Balfour Declaration, which directly contradicted the McMahon–Hussein Correspondence publicized only a year earlier. Ottoman successor states include today's Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Egypt, Greece, Iraq, Israel, Lebanon, Romania, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, Syria, Jordan, Turkey, Balkan states, North Africa and the north shore of the Black Sea.
The Six-Day War of 5–10 June 1967, was fought between Israel and the neighbouring states of Egypt, Jordan, and Syria. The Arab countries closed the Suez Canal and it was followed in May 1970 by the closure of the "tapline" from Saudi Arabia through Syria to Lebanon. These developments had the effect of increasing the importance of petroleum in Libya, which is a short (and canal-free) shipping distance from Europe. In 1970, Occidental Petroleum broke with other oil companies and accepted the Arab demands for price increases.
In October 1973, a new war between Israel and its Muslim neighbours, known as the Yom Kippur War, broke out just as the oil companies began meeting with the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries (OAPEC). Its leaders had been emboldened by the success of Sadat's campaigns and the war strengthened their unity. In response to the emergency resupply effort by the Western Bloc that enabled Israel to put up a resistance against the Egyptian and Syrian forces, the Arab world imposed the 1973 oil embargo
against the United States and Western Europe. Faisal agreed that Saudi
Arabia would use some of its oil wealth to finance the "front-line
states", those that bordered Israel, in their struggle. The centrality
of petroleum, the Arab–Israeli conflict, political and economic instability, and uncertainty about the future remain constant features of the politics of the region.
Many countries, individuals, and non-governmental organizations elsewhere in the world feel involved in this conflict for reasons such as cultural and religious ties with Islam, Arab culture, Christianity, Judaism, Jewish culture, or for ideological, human rights, or strategic reasons. Although some consider the Arab–Israeli conflict a part of (or a precursor to) a wider clash of civilizations between the Western world and the Muslim world, others oppose this view. Animosity emanating from this conflict has caused numerous attacks on
supporters (or perceived supporters) of each side by supporters of the
other side in many countries around the world.
In 1979 the Iranian revolution transformed Iran from a constitutional monarchy to a populisttheocraticIslamic republic under the rule of AyatollahRuhollah Khomeini, a Shi'i Muslim cleric and marja.
Following the Revolution, a new constitution was approved and a
referendum established the government, electing Ruhollah Khomeini as Supreme Leader. During the following two years, liberals, leftists, and Islamic groups fought each other, and the Islamics captured power.
The development of the two opposite fringes, the Safavid conversion of Iran to Shia Islam, the Twelver Shia version, and its reinforcement by the Iranian revolution and the Salafi in Saudi Arabia, coupled with the Iran–Saudi Arabia relations resulted in these governments using sectarian conflict to enhance their political interests. Gulf states such as Saudi Arabia and Kuwait (despite being hostile to Iraq) encouraged Saddam Hussein to invade Iran, which resulted in the Iran–Iraq War,
as they feared that an Islamic revolution would take place within their
own borders. Certain Iranian exiles also helped convince Saddam that if
he invaded, the fledgling Islamic republic would quickly collapse.
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