Islamic conquests, 622 to 675
The dialectic of domination and development continues
It does appear that in the Divine revelations to the prophets of Ancient Israel and to the Prophet Muhammad, God does not hesitate to sanction the use of armed force to attain just goals, although in the case of Muhammad, the level of destruction was much lower than it was in Ancient Israel, and the positive benefits were much greater.
In my last commentary, I drew upon the Encyclopedia of Invasions and Conquests1 to review the formation through conquest of the ancient empires of Assyria, Babylonia, and Persia as well as the empire of Alexander the Great. I maintained that on the foundation of conquest, these empires were able to forge significant economic and technological development as well as advances in science, literature, and the arts. I have coined the phrase “the dialectic of domination and development” to refer to this inherent paradoxical connection between force and violence and the good and the beautiful. It seems to me that if humanity is to realistically and intelligently confront the challenges that it faces in current moment of crisis, it must understand and accept its own condition, leaving aside simplistic moral indignation with respect to certain selected influential actors in human history.
I continue with the story of conquest in today’s commentary, focusing on the Islamic conquest of the Middle East, Southwest Asia, North Africa, and Spain during the period from 622 to 675.
The Islamic conquests of 622 to 675
In the period 622 to 632, Muhammad unified the tribes of Arabia under his authority, using a combination of force and negotiation. The Constitution of Medina, signed by the participating tribes, governed inter-community relations as well as other matters of government, including the provision that Jews were free to practice their religion and the appointment of Muhammad as the head of state.
Following the death of the Prophet in 632, a clan from Medina elected Abu-Bakr to the position of Caliph, or Muhammad’s successor. However, the election was disputed by those closest to the Prophet—the House of the Prophet—who maintained that Muhammad had designated ‘Ali Ibn Abi Talib to be his successor. But in recognition of the threat posed by the external and internal enemies of Islam, ‘Ali decided not to fracture Islamic unity in a struggle for succession.2
Abu-Bakr launched a war against the Bedouin tribes of Arabia, reuniting them under the Islamic banner, overcoming the uncertainty caused by the death of Muhammad. He proceeded on a campaign against the Byzantine empire in Palestine to the West, attaining decisive victories in Jerusalem and Gaza on July 30, 634. Abu-Bakr’s successor Umar captured Jerusalem, and he marched against the Persian Empire and captured Damascus in 635.
According to the Encyclopedia of Invasions and Conquests, the Islamic invasion of the Byzantine Empire was aided by the fact that the population was hostile to the Empire, as a result of years of taxation and religious persecution. The people welcomed the Muslim invaders as liberators from the repression of Constantinople. Similarly, the Sassanid Persians were disliked by their subject peoples, such that the Muslim invasion provoked a swift downfall of the Sassanid dynasty.
The Islamic forces proceeded to take the Persian capital at Ctesiphon, followed by Mesopotamia and Iraq. The ancient Persian capital of Ecbatana was captured in 641. By 645, the Islamic forces controlled the Persian Gulf. At the same time, separate Islamic forces captured Egypt, defeating Byzantine forces at Heliopolis in 640, and attaining the surrender of Alexandria in 642.
In 695, Islamic forces captured Carthage, putting to an end the influence of the Roman Empire in North Africa. By the beginning of the 700s, Islamic armies reached India and the border of China. To the west, Arabs conquered Morocco and proceeded across the Straits of Gibraltar to capture Toledo, Cordova, Sevilla, and Merida, encountering little opposition. The Islamic forces did not succeed in capturing Constantinople, the center of the Empire, but Byzantine influence in the region had been much reduced.
The Encyclopedia of Invasions and Conquests maintains that the Muslims did not enforce their faith on those they defeated, notwithstanding a reputation to the contrary. “For the most part, Muslim rulers followed Muhammad’s dictates to respect the rights of other faiths.”
The dialectic of domination and development in the Islamic World
The Islamic conquests for the most part were attained not against tribes but against empires that previously had attained a level of economic, technological, and cultural development. The Islamic conquests were of such a character that they built upon the previous advancements of the conquered empires. They did not destroy what the previous conquests had built; rather, they appropriated from and improved upon the cultures of the conquered empires to forge a transcultural integration. The Arab conquerors appreciated that as a people with a nomadic past recently converted into merchants and soldiers, they had much to learn from other peoples. As a result of Arab respect for the cultures of the conquered, the Islamic civilization that was developed during the period 800 to 1500 was advanced, perhaps the most advanced that the world has known.
In La Civilización de Islam,3 Ricardo Elía documents the civilizational advances of the Islamic world. As I wrote in my commentary on “The Islamic Civilization” of February 18, 2022, “For seven centuries, from 800 to 1500, the Islamic Civilization led the world in the territorial extension of its governments, in moral norms, in humanitarian legislation, in religious toleration, in literature, science, medicine, architecture, and philosophy. Its culture was widely dispersed and integrated: sovereign caliphs, merchants, and doctors could be philosophers.”
In architecture, Arabs employed artists and artisans from Byzantium, Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Iran, and India in the construction of mosques and palaces. They forged a single, magnificent architectural style that was a synthesis of these different cultures, a transcultural integration.
In Spain, the Arab conquerors confiscated the property of the clergy and the nobility, establishing peasant proprietorship, according to the Encyclopedia of Invasions and Conquests. They provided slaves and serfs with an easy path to freedom and a higher standing of living.
The high point of the Islamic civilization was the tenth century. However, the political-administrative unity of Islam was broken by the Mongolian destruction of the caliphate of Baghdad in 1258, isolating Iran from the Arab Near East. Nonetheless, the Islamic world was able to maintain a social unity, on the basis of a common system of sacred laws. This social unity of Islam was reinforced by the popular narratives of Islamic writers who journeyed throughout Islamic lands.
Even though the Golden Age of Islam was over, the Islamic capacity for conquest and development was not completely spent. Mehmet II in 1453 captured Constantinople, the capital of the Byzantine Empire. He changed its name to Istanbul and built a magnificent palace that was a city within a city, where fifteen thousand people worked. Istanbul was the most powerful place on earth for three centuries, the center of the Ottoman Empire.
Elía writes that the Ottoman empire in the sixteenth century encompassed “the Iranian plateau in the East, the Strait of Gibraltar in the West, the regions near the Black Sea and the Caucasus Mountains in the North, and the deserts of Africa and Asia in the South. That gigantic expansion resulted in the conversion of millions of men and women to the Islamic faith, whose descendants continue praying five times a day in Bosnia, Kosovo, Chechnya, Cyprus, and Greece.” The Ottomans built mosques, hospitals, schools, public baths, bridges, and aqueducts in European cities like Budapest, Belgrade, Sarajevo, Mostar, Bucharest, and Sofia, and in Arab cities like Baghdad, Damascus, Jerusalem, Cairo, Mecca, and Medina. The Ottoman Empire was known for its tolerance: Jews, Armenians, Orthodox and Eastern Christians enjoyed liberty and prosperity.
The Islamic civilization was characterized by a high commitment to knowledge, an integrated knowledge that includes philosophy, theology, physics, mathematics, and politics. It had great advances in astronomy, which were applied to navigation. Its advances in medical sciences were applied to the development of pharmacies and hospitals throughout the Islamic world. It produced a number of outstanding historians, including Ibn Jaldún (1332-1406), who formulated a scientific and sociological conceptualization of history, rooted in a theological framework.
Islamic culture sought to form an integral human being, capable of contributing to economic productivity, and of contributing to the learning and personal development of others, in accordance with the human destiny, revealed to the Prophet by God, of building a society of peace, prosperity, equality, and justice.
Conclusion
The story of conquest would continue to unfold. Beginning in the sixteenth century, the Western European conquest of the world transformed the economies of the conquered empires, kingdom, nations, and societies, thus creating a more penetrating form of conquest, with deep structures for reducing the autonomy and increasing the poverty of the conquered peoples. As it developed, it would replace the traditional integral human quest for the true and the right with a unidimensional and all-consuming desire for money. The modern era, therefore, could be considered a regression, a fall from the moral and political heights of the Islamic civilization, even though it took important steps toward the theory and practice of democracy.
Today, leading countries of the Third World plus China are seeking to form an alternative to the Western-centered capitalist world-economy and neocolonial world-system. They are drawing upon their traditional values in this ongoing reconstruction, which is unfolding in theory and practice. Among them are important Islamic countries, including Iran, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Algeria.
Meanwhile, as governments increasingly seek a more just alternative to a world-system in decadence, the religious institutions of Islam continue to invite all persons, regardless of nationality or country, to personal conversion to the faith of the Prophet and to the living of a clean life, guided by fundamental moral principles.
In my next commentary, I will review that the conquests that led to the development of the modern world-system.
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Paul K. Davis, Ed. Encyclopedia of Invasions and Conquests, 4th edition (Millerton, NY: Grey House Publishing, 2023.
Mulammad Husain Beheshtí and Muhammad Yauád Bahonar, Introducción a la Cosmovisión del Islam (Qom, Islamic Republic of Iran: Fundación Cultural Oriente, 1988), P. 481.
Ricardo H.S. Elía, La Civilización de Islam, 2nd edition (Qom, Islamic Republic of Iran: Fundación Cultural Oriente, 2012).