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In order to answer the two prompted questions, “What is Islam, and how did it become a global religion,” I decided to breakdown my presentation into multiple components. I created my Prezi to act as a tutoring tool that allows the user to receive quick, and key background information to the rise of Islam, the emergence and collapse of the various Caliphates, and the eventual empire building. While Silverstein and Rodriguez, the authors whom we were allowed to use in our research, provide excellent overview and context to Islamic history, they don’t discuss the religion in depth. As such, I decided to focus on the political, and historical overtones where Islam’s interactions help explain the culture, religion, as well as politics. For example, the sources highlight the importance of the Ulema’s ability to gather the Islamic community in their fight against foreign incursion. While my Prezi follows a chronological path, I pinpointed essential points that I felt were key for my viewers.
To understand the origins of Islam as a religion, the viewers needed to first start with Muhammad and the origins of his Umma. After his Hijra, Muhammad was able to get his followers to look past their traditional allegiances to their clans, and now towards a new religious entity. This indicated that even at its beginning, Islam was a communal religion.
After his death, I chose to identify the “Four Rightly Guided Caliphs.” This is important because the split between the Sunnis and the Shiites revolves mainly around the question to how many Imams there were. Sunnis supported Abu Bakr, while Shiites pushed for Ali. In many ways, this disagreement was common in tribal societies. As such, I chose to mention the Ridda Wars because Abu Bakr spent his leadership reuniting the dissipated clans.
Furthermore, disagreements towards ascension in rule eventually led to a civil war. The Fitna became a major point in Islamic history, as it was a devastating blow to Shiite Muslims. Furthermore, we begin to see a significant development of Caliphates. Islam once again is seen as a “religion of the community,” because the Caliph was considered a spiritual successor to Muhammad, and he would work with the Ulema to control his community.
From these Caliphates, my viewers can see how they became a world religion. For example, the Umayyad and Abbasid Caliphates controlled large swathes of territory and allowed the pursuit of scientific discovery and art. Furthermore, local groups were not persecuted, but needed to pay a tax. Rodriguez discusses the Jizra tax, and limitations on the Dhimmi status groups. It’s understandable that people would be very exposed to Islam on a global scale.
As the Crusades emerged, Caliphates needed to use every tool in their arsenal to combat this foreign threat; including using religion as a tool to fight. In fact, we begin to see an even stronger militarized Islam with the Mamluks and eventually, the Turks. However, as globalization became an increasingly present entity, Islamic groups were divided over secularization and Westernization.
Islam became a major world religion that relied heavily on its community, themes today that were present since the founding of the original Umma. Through conquest, and trade Islam spread globally.