# How Islam began and spread

From the first revelation and the Hijra through the succession crisis, Karbala, the caliphates, and the modern era.

*This story part of: Religion and ideology*
*Zoroastrianism: heaven, hell, and the first cosmic battle parallel this story*
*The history of mathematics parallel this story*
*The history of science parallel this story*
*The Ottoman Empire part of this story*
*The Sephardic Jews: golden age and exile parallel this story*
*Armenia: the first Christian nation parallel this story*
*The Byzantine Empire: Rome in the east parallel this story*
*Precolonial Kenya: peoples, states, and faiths parallel this story*

## c. 500 — The Kaaba and pre-Islamic Arabia

Before Islam, Mecca is a trading town whose Kaaba shrine houses idols of many tribal gods; Muslims later call this era the jahiliyya, the age of ignorance. Pilgrimage and trade fairs draw Arabian tribes to the city. This is the world into which Muhammad is born around 570.

## c. 610 — Muhammad's first revelation

Islamic tradition holds that Muhammad receives his first revelation from the angel Gabriel while meditating in a cave on Mount Hira. The revelations, continuing until his death, form the Quran and begin the religion of Islam.

## c. 613 — Early persecution of the first Muslims in Mecca

Muhammad begins preaching publicly, calling for worship of one God and drawing early followers among the poor and the young. The ruling Quraysh, whose wealth is tied to the shrine's pilgrim trade, meet the message with mockery and pressure. Some Muslims flee to Christian Abyssinia to escape it.

## c. 622 — The Hijra

Muhammad and his followers migrate from Mecca to Medina, founding the first Muslim community. The event marks year one of the Islamic calendar and the start of Islam's rise into a world religion and civilization.

## January 630 — Conquest of Mecca

Muhammad returns to Mecca at the head of a large force and takes the city with little fighting. He clears the Kaaba of its idols and rededicates it to the worship of one God. Most of the Quraysh accept Islam, and Arabia's tribes increasingly align with Medina.

## 8 June 632 — Death of Muhammad and the succession crisis

Muhammad dies in Medina without a universally accepted successor. Abu Bakr becomes the first caliph, but disagreement over rightful leadership plants the seed of the later Sunni-Shia division.

## c. 636 to c. 651 — Muslim conquest of Sasanian Persia

Arab armies defeat the Sasanian Empire in a series of battles beginning at al-Qadisiyyah, and by 651 the last Sasanian ruler is dead. Persia passes into Muslim rule, and over following centuries most Persians adopt Islam. Persian scholars and administrators go on to shape Islamic civilization deeply.

## c. 647 to c. 709 — Arab conquest of North Africa

Arab forces push west from Egypt across the Maghreb, founding the garrison city of Kairouan around 670 as a base. By the early 700s Muslim rule reaches the Atlantic, and Berber peoples convert in large numbers. North Africa becomes the launch point for the crossing into Spain.

## c. 650 — Uthman standardizes the Quran

Caliph Uthman commissions a standard written text of the Quran and orders variant copies destroyed. The Uthmanic codex becomes the basis of the Quranic text used across the Muslim world.

## 661 — Umayyad Caliphate established

After the civil war that followed the killing of Caliph Ali, Muawiya founds the Umayyad dynasty and moves the capital to Damascus. The caliphate becomes a hereditary empire stretching from Spain to Central Asia. The dispute over Ali's line hardens the divide between Sunni and Shia Muslims.

## 10 October 680 — Battle of Karbala

Husayn ibn Ali, grandson of Muhammad, is killed with his small band by Umayyad forces. His martyrdom becomes the defining event of Shia identity and hardens the Sunni-Shia split.

## 711 — Muhammad bin Qasim's conquest of Sindh

An Umayyad army under Muhammad bin Qasim conquers Sindh in the Indus valley, the first lasting Muslim foothold in the Indian subcontinent. It opens the long history of Islam in South Asia. Larger Muslim states there follow with the Delhi Sultanate centuries later.

## 711 — Muslim conquest of Hispania

A largely Berber army under Tariq ibn Ziyad crosses from North Africa and defeats the Visigoths, bringing most of the Iberian Peninsula under Muslim rule within a few years. The region, called al-Andalus, becomes a center of learning and religious mixing for centuries. Muslim rule in parts of Spain lasts until 1492.

## 750 — Abbasid Revolution

The Abbasids overthrow the Umayyad dynasty and found a new caliphate, soon moving the capital toward Iraq. The shift opens Islam's leadership to non-Arab Muslims, especially Persians. It sets the stage for the flowering of learning known as the Islamic Golden Age.

## c. 750 to c. 900 — The four Sunni schools of law take shape

The legal traditions of Abu Hanifa, Malik, al-Shafii, and Ibn Hanbal crystallize into the four madhhabs of Sunni jurisprudence. Together they define how Sunni Muslims interpret Islamic law to this day.

## c. 830 — House of Wisdom and the Islamic Golden Age

In Baghdad the Abbasid caliphs sponsor a major translation and research effort often linked with an institution called the House of Wisdom. Scholars translate Greek, Persian, and Indian works and advance mathematics, medicine, and astronomy. The era anchors Islam's reputation as a carrier of learning.

## 4 April 970 — Founding of al-Azhar

The Fatimids begin building the al-Azhar mosque in their new capital of Cairo, completed in 972. It grows into one of the world's oldest centers of Islamic learning and, after Egypt's return to Sunnism, the leading authority of Sunni scholarship.

## 1273 — Rumi and the flowering of Sufism

The poet Jalal al-Din Rumi dies at Konya, leaving verse that becomes among the most loved in the Muslim world. His followers form the Mevlevi order, known for whirling dance as worship. Sufism, the mystical strand of Islam organized in such orders, spreads the faith widely through devotion and poetry.

## c. 1400 — Islam reaches Southeast Asia

Muslim traders carry Islam along the sea routes to the Malay world, and the port of Malacca becomes a Muslim sultanate and hub for its spread. Conversion comes largely through trade and Sufi teachers rather than conquest. Today Indonesia is the world's most populous Muslim country.

## January 1517 — Ottoman sultans assume the caliphate

Selim I conquers Mamluk Egypt, ending the Abbasid shadow caliphate in Cairo. Ottoman sultans thereafter claim the title of caliph, a claim they press with increasing weight in later centuries.

## c. 1744 — Wahhabi movement founded

Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab allies with Muhammad ibn Saud, pairing a strict revivalist interpretation of Islam with Saudi political power. The pact shapes the religious character of the later Saudi state.

## 23 March 1889 — Ahmadiyya movement founded

Mirza Ghulam Ahmad accepts the first pledges of allegiance from followers, founding the Ahmadiyya movement. His claim to be the promised messiah leads most other Muslims to reject the group, which nonetheless spreads worldwide.

## 3 March 1924 — Abolition of the caliphate

The Turkish Grand National Assembly under Ataturk abolishes the Ottoman caliphate, ending an institution dating to Muhammad's successors. Its absence reshapes debates about religious authority across the Muslim world.

## March 1928 — Founding of the Muslim Brotherhood

Schoolteacher Hasan al-Banna founds the Muslim Brotherhood as a religious and social reform society. It becomes the model for modern Islamist movements across the Middle East.

## January 1978 to February 1979 — Iranian Revolution

1978-1979 revolution that overthrew the Iranian monarchy