What is Islam? If I was asked with that question a two week, I probably would have just responded with the answer:  “A majority faith believed in the middle east” and I couldn’t have said much than that. Recognizing that I had almost no knowledge on Islam what so ever, I was intimidated by the idea of doing a project about Islam. Knowing how complex a religion could be, I choose to start off reading the smaller book “Islamic history: a very short introduction”, after I read thoroughly through the short book. I started my first point by describing the founding of Islam by Prophet Muhammad, as I figure that the founder of Islam would play a huge part of Islamic history. I described how Prophet Muhammad was expelled from his home town with polytheistic due to his monotheistic belief.

Then, I moved on to how he unified the entire Arabia under his Umma by defeating the Meccan. It’s impressive to see how Prophet Muhammad started with a few followers fleeing to a new town was able to unify the entire peninsula with only 10 years. However, even though the Prophet was an excellent commander and a brilliant religious leader, he was still not able to change the Arabian need to raid for food. Before the unification of Arabia, they could have just raided each other; however, this is no longer possible as Islamic beliefs prohibit the raiding of brethren. Therefore, this caused the Arabian to look outwards, seeking to raid their heathen neighbors. With along with raiding, I also mentioned how the Arabian camel had served Arabian well with trading, raiding, and military conquest for many years to come. As the camel raider sacked entire towns and cities of their neighboring country, this time they have left something of their own behind: Islam.

Besides mentioning the development of Islam, I also provided the description on what’s going on in the world as the prophet unites Arabia under his banner. Seeing how the political satiation around the Islamic world had even help the spread of Islam and the expansion of the Islamic world. After I mention and explain the expansion of the Islamic world, I moved on to Shiite Islam and Sunni Islam. It was basically a disputed succession of the Caliph. Since this dispute on the successor regarding the Caliph, the title of “Caliph” no longer holds the meaning that it once did. The meanings of the title are now much closer to the name of “Emperor” than a religious figure head. After I suggest some of the result of the disputed succession between Shiite and Sunni, I moved on to the internal struggle of disloyal vassal and battle of religious authority. It’s quite intriguing to see as the Islam also had to face the challenge that the catholic had faced, by comparing the Islam scholar and the Pope of the Catholic Church. I also mentioned Sufiism and how it integrates different people into the religion. At last, I brought up the subject that there are multiple “outsider” ethnicities had huge impact on the Muslim world.

Prezi Link: https://prezi.com/z-chxrihdtah/the-history-of-islam/