State-Building in Dar al-Islam: Understanding the Spread of Islam

Hi and welcome back to Heimler’s History. In this video we’re going to be looking at state-building in Dar al-Islam, which when being translated means “everywhere Islam is…” ...or something.

Anyway, doesn’t matter: the point is, we’re going to see how Islam created a nice little religious petri dish out of which empires in different parts of the world grew up. So in the mid-8th century a new Islamic caliphate came into power in the Middle East and North

Africa known as the Abbasid Caliphate. It was big, it was powerful, it was unified by the Arabic language and Islamic traditions, but by 1000, little of that unity remained.

The political reality of the Islamic state (not to be confused with the Islamic State) was fractured and breaking down, but the religion itself was still vital and spreading across Afro-Eurasia.

So let’s look at two test cases for what happened when political Islam encountered two different regions and how those regions responded. First, India (or, in AP speak, South Asia).

So right around the turn of the 13th century some newly-converted Muslims, who also happened to be Turkish, invaded India. Now it’s important to know they were Turks because as such they became the third major

group to be the carriers of Islam after the Arabs and the Persians. Well, long story short, they ended up establishing a Muslim political state in India called the Delhi Sultanate in 1206.

Now remember, we’re thinking about how cultures responded to Muslim influence, and in India, they had kind of a rough time. You may remember that Indians had, for a LONG time, been Hindu.

And Hinduism, as a cultural phenomenon, had basically structured the entire Indian culture for hundreds and hundreds of years. And therefore, the Islam of these Turkish invaders didn’t gain much of a foothold.

And this is pretty remarkable since the Muslims were in power in most of northern India. So let me stop here and do a quick comparison of the two faiths to help you understand why much of the Indian culture looks at Islam and said, nuh uh.

Islam is monotheistic, which means they worship one God, and furthermore, that only one God exists. Hinduism, on the other hand was fantastically polytheistic, which means they believed in

the existence of many gods. A key tenant of Islam is the absolute prohibition against representing Allah in any physical form.

Hindus generated endless statues of their gods. Muhammed taught the social equality of all Muslims. Hinduism separated society into a rigid caste system whose hierarchical levels were impenetrable

by those of different castes. So you can see that converting the mass of Indian society to Islam was about as likely as an Eastern Orthodox bishop using unleavened bread in the Eucharist.

History joke! Who’s with me? Whatever, I’ll myself a high five.

It was a good joke. Anyway, the point is, even though the Muslims remained in power, they were largely unable to convert the Indian culture en masse.

But there were some notable exceptions. There was a group of Muslim missionaries known as the Sufis, and they had embraced a form of Islam that emphasized more emotional and ecstatic experiences, and therefore it was

a more popular form of Islam. Furthermore, Sufi holy men were willing to accommodate Hindu gods and religious festivals. And therefore there was a small population of Hindus who found all of this very attractive

and therefore converted. Most of the Indians doing the converting were either disillusioned Buddhists or those who belonged to the lowest caste and as a result had a very difficult life.

For them, Islam’s promise of egalitarianism (or equality) was all they needed to become believers in Allah. Okay, so that’s how India responded to the military and religious invasion of the Muslims.

Let’s go over to West Africa for our second test case. In West Africa, Islam spread not by military conquest, but by the commercial enterprises of travelling merchants.

And so as these merchants began to explain the tenants of Islam, people in West Africa converted on a voluntary and peaceful basis. Primarily conversions occurred in the great urban centers of West Africa like Ghana, Mali,

and Songhay. And under these different sets of circumstances, Islam spread like mad. In this region Islam spread to the highest levels of government.

In fact, the ruler of Mali, a guy by the name of Mansa Musa, went on the hajj (which is to say, pilgrimage to Mecca). And when he did, a great retinue accompanied him carrying magnificent displays of his wealth.

So the point of all this is that between India and West Africa there were very different responses to the spread of Islam. Now I only gave you two examples, but there are several others we could consider.

But instead, I want to shift and talk about the economic, cultural, and technological innovations that the Muslims brought into every culture they found themselves. First, economics.

Muslims, influenced by the teaching of Muhammed, thought highly of merchants and commercial activity. And as such, Muslims were some of the most dominant players in the Afro-Eurasian trade

network. And in doing all of this buying and selling, they came up with a few economic innovations worth mentioning like new forms of banking, the granting of credit, and business contracts.

Soon these innovations became commonplace along the networks of exchange. Second, technology. Muslims made improvements on rockets, which, of course, they got from the Chinese.

The Chinese figured out that in addition to using gunpowder in pyrotechnic displays and fireworks, they could also blow people up. The Muslims took it one step further and figured out how to launch rockets with greater accuracy

at ships. Big lesson in world history: There’s always more ways to blow people up. Muslims also advanced the development of Chinese papermaking.

And the result of these innovations were that bureaucrats in kingdoms across the world could tighten their grip over their people’s lives, because the more you can write down, the more you can hold people accountable for.

Third, culture. Muslims were fastidious about translating the great works of Greek philosophy and natural science into Arabic.

They translated medical texts, scientific texts, philosophical texts. And therefore the Muslims not only preserved these ideas but went on to innovate and expand upon them.

In fact, in 830 the Abbasid caliph al-Mamun established what he called the House of Wisdom in Baghdad which became an academic center for learning, research and translation, for the next few centuries.

So that’s how Islam spread, how Muslims engaged in state-building, and how western culture has the Muslims to thank for preserving its greatest achievements in old western literature.