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bobbieibboe t1_j784hvd wrote

Before Islam what religion were the countries that we'd now consider traditionally Muslim (for example Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan).

I'm aware that those countries didn't exist in the same form so I'm interested in the people who lived in those areas.

Are there any good (ideally not too heavy) reads about the early history of Islam? I find the spread of belief systems very interesting and enjoyed studying the history of Christianity many years ago.

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en43rs t1_j785p46 wrote

In Arabia: local polytheism, but also Christian and Jewish communities.

In the "Persian Empire" (Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan) : mainly Zoroastrians and significant Christian communities.

In the Levant (Egypt, Israel, Syria, Turkey) : Orthodox Christians.

Outside of Arab polytheists all those are still somewhat around. Mainly Christians (in Lebanon and Egypt mainly).

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luminous_curious t1_j78c2kn wrote

Additionally, Sudan: Kushite and Coptic Christianity

Pakistan & Southeast Asia: Buddhism and Hinduism

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LupusLycas t1_j7bt89c wrote

Saying the Levant only had Orthodox Christians is a huge simplification. Miaphysite Christians predominated in Egypt. There were also Nestorian Christians, which predominated in the east, since the Persians tolerated that version of Christianity because it was not the official Roman Chalcedonian Christianity. There were also Jews, who still lived in the area despite all the Roman-Jewish wars.

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bobbieibboe t1_j78ak1j wrote

Thank you. Were there any specific triggers that helped it to become so successful in the region? I'm sure I'm asking for a simple answer to a complex question, so no problem if the answer is 'no'!

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en43rs t1_j78mffr wrote

It's complex but in short, the main tenets of Islam weren't a new thing in the region. Monotheism, the Abrahamic god, all those were known. And Christianity wasn't united at all, there were a lot of variations between doctrines. So it appeared as another Abrahamic faith, it was familiar. Then the Arab Muslim won militarily very quickly and brought stability to what was a war zone between Rome and Persia.

And finally, the Muslim empire were relatively tolerant of other faiths. But if you're not Muslim you have to pay a tax. So you got a faith that isn't that far from your own, their empire is successful... and if you stay Christian/Zoroastrian you have to pay... It took time but gradually populations converted on their own.

Forced conversions were pretty rare for Muslims (that's just not a thing they do as a rule, two arguments: the Quran says not to do so, and non Muslim can be a source of cash with special taxes). They integrated local populations which drifted toward Islam on their own. Again it wasn't immediate, Egypt was still mostly Christian in the 13th century (and still is 10% Christian today).

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elmonoenano t1_j78spby wrote

>Forced conversions were pretty rare for Muslims (that's just not a thing they do as a rule, two arguments: the Quran says not to do so, and non Muslim can be a source of cash with special taxes).

You'll see some posts on /r/askhistorians about this too. But one other kind of obvious reason that the western idea of mass forced conversion, or conversion by the sword, just doesn't pan out is that often Muslims were a small minority in an area. You can't just go mass convert everyone when they have a 100 to 1 advantage over you. So it rarely happened, but there were governmental and institutional advantages to converting. You could get better patronage. There were specific additional taxes for non believers. You had a right to participate in conquest and gain land, etc. So there were lots of good practical reasons to convert.

This distrusts, and some earlier Muslims people retaining benefits only to their own class, and denying them to the new converts, manifested in the Shi'a/Sunni split. A lot of the later converting groups felt that they weren't getting their fare share of opportunities and saw Ali as willing to address that. It's not the total explanation, but part of how the split developed.

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theyfoundit t1_j78cir0 wrote

The spread of Islam saw the conquest of tribal/pastoral societies by a much more complex and organised civilisation. I found a pretty good quote on Wikipedia that holds that conversion to Islam "represented the response of a tribal, pastoral population to the need for a larger framework for political and economic integration, a more stable state, and a more imaginative and encompassing moral vision to cope with the problems of a tumultuous society."

If you can rationalise wars of conquest being relatively ‘peaceful’ paths to conversion, much more oppressive methods of subjugation and subordination - forced conversion, ethnic cleansing etc. - would come later.

From what I understand, in the early stages of the caliphate Islam was a status symbol that separated the ruling Arab elite from the masses.

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en43rs t1_j78mr43 wrote

> forced conversion, ethnic cleansing etc. - would come later.

That's not really something Muslim states do. There are massacre in war times, there are individual war bands who harass minorities. There are heavy discriminations (ghetto like conditions, special tax and humiliating laws). But mass conversion and ethnic cleansing is more of a Iberian Christian thing than something Muslim states did historically (I'm talking about antiquity and medieval period here, 18-19th centuries are a totally different thing and are more closely related to nationalism than anything in the case of Turkey for example).

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theyfoundit t1_j7960f0 wrote

Sorry - that part of my response was poorly worded, and you have quite clearly articulated what I had intended to say.

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GSilky t1_j79u5gi wrote

Don't underestimate the efforts of Muslim traders. This is how Islam spread to most places. If you look at a map of the Muslim world, it is far wider than any of the military conquests. In fact India, where Islam had it's most successful militarism, is not considered part of the Muslim world. Regardless, the most populous Muslim nation was converted through trade and culture. So was most of West Africa. The Muslim traders even worked on the nations that became the caliphate. Trade conquered the Turks as well.

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Star-Lord0069 t1_j792x92 wrote

Egypt had local polytheism (ancient Egyptian religion and mythology) before it was subjucated by Roman Empire. After which, the Roman polytheism was imposed on them. Egypt ultimately switched to Islamic faith when early Islamic empires conquered Egypt.

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en43rs t1_j795ixv wrote

That wrong. Rome didn’t impose its polytheism. According to Roman theology the Egyptian gods were basically the same as theirs. Traditional beliefs were kept in place with some Greek influences and some syncretism. The last traces we have of traditional Egyptian religion is around the 4th century AD.

When the Muslims arrived the country was Christian. And wasn’t imposed and neither was the shift quick. It’s only in the late Middle Ages that Islam became the majority religion.

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Star-Lord0069 t1_j7duvtz wrote

Wow.. I stand corrected, thank you for letting me know🙂

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jezreelite t1_j78oqta wrote

To add to the other comment, a lot of Middle Eastern Christians were (and still are) Nestorian and Miaphysite Christians, rather than Chalcedonian, which is what the Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic Churches are often called before their schism in 1054.

Nestorianism, today represented by the Assyrian Church of the East, is the belief that Jesus Christ was two distinct persons, one divine and one human. It was condemned as heretical at the Council of Ephesus in 451 and many Nestorians fled Byzantine lands to the Sassanid Empire, because the largely Zoroastrian Sassanids were not interested in enforcing Christian orthodoxy.

Miaphysitism, today represented by the Copts, Armenian Apostolic Church, and the Syria Orthdoox Church, is the belief that Jesus Christ was both fully human and fully divine, in one nature.

The Chalcedonians (which today comprises Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholics, and most Protestants) take the position that Jesus was one person with two natures, divine and human.

This differences might seem small, but they led to a lot of bloodshed in Western Asia and North Africa in the 5th and 6th centuries. Further hardening the differences is that the Chalcedonians believed that Greek and Latin were the only acceptable liturgical languages, whereas a number of Nestorian and Miaphysite Christians used Coptic, Assyrian, Armenian, or Syriac instead.

It is worth noting that a number of Byzantine writers tended to assume that Islam was a form of Nestorian or Miaphysite Christianity as did the Catholic chronicler, Guillaume of Tyr.

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elmonoenano t1_j78pz5d wrote

Some of what you'd expect, there were Jewish and Christian communities there. The Christian community is actually kind of interesting b/c they were a Gnostic sect that believed there was kind of a heist to move Jesus out of his tomb and that's the version of Christianity that Muhammad was familiar with so it shows up in hadith a lot. There were Zoroastrians. These are the groups usually described as dhimmi.

There were also pre Abrahamic religions, like the Yazidi we heard about with ISIS. There were some of the cults from Roman times still hanging out,. And besides Zoroastrianism, there were some other religious groups from Persia, like the Manichean. There was even some Buddhism.

But there was a lot of idol worship. It's stuff that was varied, but would include household/tribal gods, ancestor worship, and animism. Before Islam, the Kabba was actually surrounded by idols from all these different groups and was already an area of regional worship.

Basically there was a lot of stuff, as you would expect from an area that served as kind of a crossroads of the ancient world. They got beliefs from the east and west going through. Some beliefs were adopted, some had parts taken and amalgamated into new religions or combined with older religious traditions.

Karen Armstrong is a popular writer and has a short history of Islam that you might like.

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