1. The Rise of Islam
Founding a religion and building an empire

2. The Arabian Peninsula
•Desert Land
•Earliest Arabs moved
frequently to find
water. We call them
nomadic for they were
always on the move.
•Communities
developed along trade
routes

3. Early Arab Religion
•Most early Arabs were polytheistic, but Allah (Arabic for “God”)
was the supreme God.
•They traced their ancestry to Abraham and his son Ishmael, who
were believed to have built a shrine called the Kaaba (pictured below)
at the city of Makkah (Mecca).

4. The Founding of Islam
•Muhammad was born into a merchant family in Makkah.
•Muhammad was deeply troubled by the gap in his area between the rich
merchants, who he thought were greedy and the poor.
•He went to the hills to meditate on the matter.

5. The Founding of Islam Cont.’
•While meditating, Muslims believe, Muhammad received revelations
from God.
•Muhammad came to believe that Allah had revealed himself
partially through Moses (Judaism) and Jesus (Christianity), and that
Allah’s final revelations were to him.
•The Quran, the holy scriptures of Islam, came out of these
revelations. It contains the ethical guidelines for Muslims, those who
practice Islam.

6. •Muhammad set out to convince the people of
Makkah that his revelations were true.
•In 622, he and some of his followers moved north to
Yathrib, later renamed Madinah (Medina; “city of
the prophet”).
•This journey is known as the Hijrah, and 622
is the first year of the Muslim
•As more followed Muhammad, he became more
powerful and began to assemble communities of
Muslims and an army.
•After many military victories, even more people
turned to Muhammad as their leader.
•Though Muhammad later died, Islam continued to
spread

7. Muslims and Islam
•After the prophet’s death, Muslim scholars drew up a law
code called the shari’ah.
•It provides guidelines for daily living, and much of it
comes from the Quran.
•Muslims must follow sound principles, such as honesty and
justice.
•Muslims may not gamble, eat pork, drink alcoholic
beverages, or be dishonest.

8. The Five Pillars of Islam
•Islam stresses the need to obey the will of Allah.
•The Five Pillars of Islam represent Allah’s will
They are:
1.Belief in Allah and Muhammad as his prophet
2.Pray 5 times a day
3.Giving alms, such as food or money, to the poor
4.Observance of the holy month Ramadan, including
fasting from dawn to dusk
5.Making a pilgrimage ( hajj) to Makkah at least once
in a lifetime

10. Creation of the Arab Empire
•Muhammad did not leave a successor, so when he died, people were
unsure of who to follow
•Many of his followers chose Abu Bakr, Muhammad’s father­in­law, and
named him caliph, or successor to Muhammad
•The Arab Empire and Islam grew under Abu Bakr
•Abu Bakr instructed his followers to raid enemy villages to expand the
religion of Islam
•This is known as jihad – or “struggle in the way of God”
•By 650 C.E., Muslims had conquered all of north
Africa