This is the essay for the 5th week of the 7th Grade Ron Paul Curriculum. It’s about The Islamic empire’s.

The Islamic Empire’s
I shall be looking at the Islamic empire’s from Muhammad’s vision to modern day.

Islam started around the 7th century AD. It all started when Muhammed was born in Mecca in 570 AD.  His father died shortly after his birth and his mother died when he was six. He was then raised by his uncle. When Muhammad was 24 he married a wealthy widow, which allowed him to become a prosperous merchant. Before Muhammad had his revelation it showed no sign of how important he would become.He had his first revelation in 610 when he was 40.

 

The revelation told him that he was a prophet of a new religion. These first proclamations were later put into the Qu’ran. The rest of the Qu’ran were put in after Muhammad had more revelations. Muhammed started promoting the religion, but Mecca was polytheistic and did not accept Muhammad’s monotheistic religion very well. His family and relatives were shunned by him and some even tried to assassinate him. Muhammed moved to Medina for safety and there he began to get more followers.

 

Soon Medina, became the first Islamist community and Muhammad became the leader of Medina. After he became leader he started waging wars against Mecca. Muhammed eventually captured Mecca and banned idolatry in Mecca in 630 AD. In 632 Muhammad led the first Islamic pilgrimage from Medina to Mecca. Muhammed died a few months later. After Muhammad’s death Islam expanded rapidly.

 

After Muhammad died the leaders of the religion were elected. The first four leaders AKA(Caliphs) after Muhammad are considered to be in the Rashidun dynasty. They were known as the Rightly Guided Caliphs. The early Caliphs were all family or companions of Muhammad.

 

The first Caliph was Abu Bakr. He was Muhammad’s father-in-law. Abu Bakr consolidated the Qu’ran into one book. After Abu Bakr was Umar. He was known for his Justice and expanding the empire. The Persians did not like Umar so they infiltrated Arabia and assassinated him in 644 AD. Uthman came after Umar, Uthman extended the empire borders, but unlike Umar he dealt with rebellions inside the empire. Uthman reigned for 12 years. In the first six years he expanded the empire and in the last six years he dealt with rebellions.

 

The last caliph of the Rashidun dynasty was Ali. Ali was the first male convert to Islam. Ali becoming a caliph caused the Islamic community to split into two sects. It split into the Shia’s and the Sunnis. The Sunnis believe that any muslim has an equal chance to become caliph. The Sunnis make up at least 75% of the population.

 

The Shia’s on the other hand believe that Ali should have been the first caliph. The Shia’s don’t even acknowledge the caliphs that came before him. They also think that Muhammad’s family has a higher chance to become a caliph than anyone else.The Shia’s make up 10-20% of the Islamic population. Ali was also assassinated.

 

After the Rashidun Dynasty came the Umayyad dynasty. During the Umayyad dynasty. The Arabian empire reached its greatest extent. During the Umayyad dynasty the empire expanded into the iberian peninsula, North-africa and modern day Iran. The Arabians stopped expanding after the Battle of Tours, between the Arabians and the French. The Arabians lost the battle and after that they stopped expanding their empire into Europe.

 

After the Umayyad dynasty came the Abbasid dynasty. During the Abbasid dynasty the Arabians started declining in size, but it started growing intellectually and politically. During the Abbasid dynasty the muslim population grew from 40% to almost a 100%. This is probably why the Abbasid dynasty is called the Islamic golden age. The Abbasid dynasty declined slowly instead of suddenly.  It eventually declined in 1258 AD due to laziness from the emperors to attend the empire’s problems. The Abbasid empire lasted around 500 years.

 

The Ottoman empire arose after the Abbasids. The  Ottomans lasted even longer than the Abbasids did lasting around 600 years. They eventually fell apart in the aftermath of world war one. Even though Islam is not being represented by one country there are a lot of Islamic countries in the Middle East and the Arabian Peninsula. Islam is still growing rapidly to this day.