THE DISTORTED CONCEPT OF THE HISTORY OF THE SPREAD OF ISLAM:
Were we to draw a map of the political condition of Europe, Africa and Western Asia about the middle of the tenth century A.D. we should see that by far the greatest part of that "inhabited world", which the Greeks called "Oikoumene", was occupied by countries possessed of an Islamic government and an Islamic civilization and inhabited by Muslim people. They no longer constituted a strict political unity; but they were connected by such strong ties of common religion and culture that their inhabitants felt themselves citizens of a vast community. The development and the vast spread of Islam though continuous took place mainly in only three centuries.[4] The faith of Islam once was the main religion, or at least the religion of the majority of the peoples in an area covering more than half of the civilized world stretching over three continents from the Pyrenees and Siberia in West and North Europe to the furthest end of Asia, up to China and the southern tip of Africa, covering two thirds of the African continent. It would probably have covered Europe but for the strong resistance put up by the Francs in the eighth century.[5] The great geographer, Ibn Hauqal, about A.D. 975, wrote: "The length of the Empire of Islam in our days extends from the limits of Farghana, passing through Khurasan, al-Jibal (Media), Iraq and Arabia as far as the coast of Yemen, which is a journey of about four months; its breadth begins from the country of the Rum (the Byzantine Empire), passing through Syria, Mesopotamia, Iraq, Fars and the Kirman, as far as the territory of al-Mansura on the shores of the sea of Fars (the Indian Ocean), which is about four months' traveling, hi the previous statement of the length of the Empire of Islam, I have omitted the frontier of Maghrib (Northern Africa), and the Andalus (Spain), because it is like a sleeve of a garment...If one goes, however, beyond Egypt into the country of the Maghrib, the lands of the Sudan (the Blacks) lie to the South of Maghrib and, to its North, the Sea of Rum (the Mediterranean) and next to the territory of Rum."[6] "The rise of Islam is perhaps the most amazing event in human history. Springing from a land and a people alike previously negligible, Islam spread within a century over half the Earth, shattering great empires, ousting long-established religions, remolding the souls of races and building up a whole new world - the World of Islam".
[7]The number of those who profess Islam is steadily increasing. The 1975 edition of the "World Muslim Gazetteer", published by the "World Muslim Congress" in Karachi, gives a world total of over nine hundred million, with Muslim majority in forty six independent states. This compares with the figure of six hundred and forty-seven million given in the 1964 edition, and is in line with the rapid population growth in Asia and Africa, generally, including countries with the largest number of Muslims: Indonesia, Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Nigeria, Turkey, Egypt and Iran, (tan's 1986 general census shows that the rate of population growth has been 3.45 percent during the last ten years with the total population of fifty-seven million). The other large figures which gave concern to former Soviet Russia and China were the numbers which cannot be accurately ascertained. A safer assumption gives the figure in Sin kiang in China as over fifty million.
In modem times, the Muslim community consists of both the peoples of over 51 Muslim countries as well as the Muslim minorities in non-Muslim countries, estimated to be 400 million, namely one third of the entire world Muslim population. The largest Muslim minority communities live in India (150 million), Russia, China (at least 50 million), in Eastern Europe (18 million), in Western Europe (8 million). There are also Muslim majorities under un-Islamic or even anti-Islamic regimes such as in Ethiopia, Albania, occupied Palestine, Kashmir, Mindanao etc. The dean of the Islamic International Centre carrying out a population research at Azhar University Egypt - says that the number of Muslims in the world exceeds one billion and six hundred million Muslims who live in 90 different countries. Among them are member states of Islamic Conference Organization consisting of 51 countries and the rest live as minorities in the other half. The Centre also said that eight hundred million Muslims live in Asia, including India, China, and Central Asia Republics. 309,000,000 Muslims live in Africa, 5,000,000 in USA, Southern America and the Caribbean. 8,000,000 in European and 200,000 in Australia.
The range of the Muslim world is as wide as the human race: white, colored, yellow, and as vast as the world's culture: Arabs, Persians, Turks, Indians, Europeans, and Africans etc. Only, at the most, up to fifteen percent of Muslims speak Arabic (about 200 million Muslims of about 22 Arab states); the rest speak almost all languages of the world's major and minor languages. Today Muslims live in almost all parts and countries of the world and belong to all nationalities, in spite of global, cultural, political, social, educational, economic and commercial restrictions, exploitation of and animosity to the worldwide Muslim Community exercised by international imperialism and conspiracy and by international Zionism, the Muslim Community is increasing and Islam is spreading.
Despite the geographical, ethnic, national and political diversity of the Muslim Community, over one and a half billion Muslims of the world share the common belief that there is no deity other than Allah, that Allah sent many Messengers to guide humanity the last of whom was Muhammad (PBUT). They share a common ideology, a common history and Book, common culture, common aspiration and common enemy. They all pray five times a day facing the Kabah. They fast during the month of Ramadan and perform Hajj (if they can afford it). They also share the same enemy: Satan. They have all been ordered by Allah, the Quran and the Prophet to be United and live as a family in the spirit of brotherhood and sisterhood.
The spread of Islam, challenged at the beginning by other religions, such as Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, Paganism, Buddhism, Shamanism, Zoroastrian-ism, etc., is due to factors, incentives, circumstances and conditions mainly religious and spiritual. People can be forced to do things physically but they cannot be forced to accept a certain faith, religion, spiritual doctrine or Creed. The spread of Islam, always in the form of conversion, is therefore mainly due to mental and spiritual factors, helped occasionally by material factors.
Of course some of those who accepted Islam did not have a definite answer as to what had attracted them particularly to Islam, for as a rule the whole and inexplicably coherent structure of moral teaching and practical life program of Islam had allured them. As one Muslim convert, scholar and writer put it: "Islam appears to me like a perfect work of architecture. All its parts are harmoniously conceived to complement and support each other, nothing lacking, with the result of an absolute balance and solid composure. Everything in the teaching and postulate of Islam is in its proper place".[8] This was so with individuals. Group conversion to Islam has been usually due to a factor or certain major incentives. Islam, unlike other religions, is not only a spiritual attitude of mind, but also a self-sufficing orbit of culture and social system of clearly defined features.[9]
This does not necessarily mean that every group that has accepted Islam has studied it exclusively, extensively and deeply, and then accepted it as a whole; they usually fall in love with it for some reason or another.
A scholarly and an intellectual way to embrace Islam requires a comprehensive study of Islam and this is the way which has been adopted by scholars and intellectuals all ages,[10] and in modern times,[11] but mass conversion is not likely to take place this way. It is really the mass conversion which has rapidly increased the number of Muslims throughout its history.
"Islam as preached in the century after Muhammad (or centuries) is an example of an idealization system. In accepting Islam, men were accepting this idealization system and the images embedded in it. Most men probably accepted the system as a whole without being clearly aware of the importance attached to the various aspects. Yet almost certainly they were moved by certain images or parts of the system more than others; and different men would be moved by different images,[12] e.g. those groups which became Shiite Muslim were doubtless from the first attracted and moved by the dynamic image of the charismatic leader which was present in the figure of Muhammad, the messenger sent by God, and the Imams, his divine successors: while for those who became Sunnites, the attraction would be the image of the holy or charismatic community (Umma and Jama'at) which had received and was based on the Word of God."[13]
We simply want to examine some of the factors leading peoples or persons to Islam. Whether a certain factor or group of factors led certain group or groups to the acceptance of Islam needs further research. It is the same with the question whether those who accepted it simply fell in love with it or accepted it after careful intellectual examination or were led to it by scholars who had already studied it and preferred it to other religions which also need a much more exclusive survey. The study of peoples' incentives for accepting Islam also needs an independent survey.
Zealous Muslims and their missionary activities were always behind the success of Islam and its spread. The spirit, zeal and love for truth in the hearts of Muslims chiefly inspired them to present the truth to others and to carry the message of Islam to the peoples of the countries into which they penetrated. But, analyzing the whole question of the Muslim faith and the history of its spread, we are bound to come to the conclusion that various factors, causes and conditions (social, economic, educational, cultural, spiritual, political, psychological, historical, geographical) are responsible for the wide acceptance of Islam even among Christian nations of Europe, Africa and Asia.
Of course the doctrine of "Amr bi al-Ma'roof', which makes the spread of truth and Islam the religious duty of every Muslim, has helped the spread of Islam. This is the reason why a large amount of controversial and proselytizing literature has been created in Islam,[14] some of it by the new converts.[15] However, even the doctrine of "Amrbi al-Ma'roof' is closely associated with the religious, psychological and spiritual values of Islam.
The task of Guiding the Misled to virtuous behavior and persuading them to stop doing wrong (al-Amr bi al-Ma'roof waal-Nahy an al-Munkar) is laid on each Muslim and it is his religious duty to lead people to a good life (Shariah). This is why every Muslim is supposed to preach righteousness and decency. It is not the duty only of certain professional preachers, but of all. Muslims bound by their religious duty took up the work of preaching Islam wherever they went and whenever they thought it was suitable to do so. It is true that Islam has no professional priesthood, and that it did not, therefore, have any organized system of propaganda, no tract societies, agencies or missionary work. But the spirit of truth (Islam: submission to God who is the whole truth, the only truth and nothing but the truth) in the hearts of Muslims cannot rest unless it manifests itself in thought, word and deed to everybody.[16] This is the basic explanation for the spread of Islam.
