Streets. Shops encroached on the avenues, the upper stories of residences were built to overhang the streets, and roads were blocked by new buildings. Private enterprise had become king, and if the neighbors did not protest, no one else would interfere. Besides, many saw positive advantages in the new confusion: In terms of personal comfort, narrow streets provided more shade; and, strategically, they were easier to close off and defend in times of external attack or internal riot.
There were also economic reasons for favoring a labyrinthine street plan. Throughout the eastern Mediterranean, camels and other pack animals were replacing wheeled traffic for the transportation of goods. The camel was a cheaper and more efficient carrier of goods than the oxcart; and if beasts were being used, then it was no longer necessary to maintain streets at the former high standards and width.
It was into this idiosyncratic urban world that the Muslim Arabs burst in the 630s while engaged in a holy war to expand the frontiers of Islam. The invaders were almost unstoppable. Their campaigns were carefully planned and coordinated, and their soldiers were highly motivated; Not only did they fight to acquire plunder and territory in this life, but should they die in the struggle, they would gain—according to the tenets of their religion—paradise in the next. By AD 637, the Arabs had occupied Persia and Iraq and had marched into the Byzantine city of Damascus. They stopped short of taking Constantinople, but in the ensuing decades, Egypt, North Africa, part of India, and most of Spain fell under the sway of the warriors of the faith.
Although its fighting men may have come from the desert, Islam was essentially an urban religion, first preached and practiced by the prophet Muhammad in the cities of Mecca and Medina. Its teachings advocated both a communal spirit and a strict preservation of privacy, which in some cases virtually amounted to a civic code; According to the Prophet, for example, a householder had the right to attach a beam to the outer wall of a neighbor's dwelling but not to overlook a neighbor's courtyard. Thus, when the armies of Islam swept out of the Arabian Peninsula on their trajectories of conquest, the victors did not disperse themselves in the countryside to become rural landlords. Instead they preferred to settle, with their families and retinues, where they felt most at home: in towns.
The newcomers imposed themselves on existing populations as an alien aristocracy, often underlining their dominance by building brand-new settlements outside the subject towns themselves. But initially, they made few changes in the way cities were run. Muslim conquerors were tolerant of different religions, and the taxes they imposed were less oppressive than those of previous regimes.
The most obvious change was the introduction of a new faith. Life in any Islamic town, whether old or new, was centered around a mosque—either one of the many masjids, small structures serving a particular locality, or the jami, the religious focal point of the city. In addition to offering spiritual solace, the mosques provided a forum for practical matters. Their airy, spacious interiors served as public offices where political issues could be debated, where new decrees and taxes were publicized, and where the community's treasury might be located. Here, experts in Islamic law delivered opinions on contentious issues and taught informally both religious and secular subjects. And from the minarets of every mosque, the muezzin called the faithful to their five daily prayers, his voice defining the sections of the working day.
Outside the mosque, there were usually a fountain and basin in which lesser ritual ablutions could be performed; and a hammam, or bathhouse, was built nearby for the performance of more thorough cleansing before going in to pray. Although the
World History
