Islam

A monotheistic religion based on the revelations of Muhammad as written in the Qur’an (Koran), Islam arose in the seventh century a. d. in the city of Mecca, spread quickly through southwest Asia, northern Africa, and the Sudan in the seventh through 11th centuries, and was well established as a world religion by the 16th century, with adherents as distant as Europe, Asia, and the Americas.

Origins

Muhammad, considered by Muslims (followers of Islam) to be the final prophet in the line of Abraham and whose divine revelations between the years 610 and 632 form the text of the Qur’an, was born in Mecca in or around the year 571. He was a member of the Quraysh tribe, who controlled the haram, or sacred area, around the local shrine. The Ka’ba, reputedly built by Abraham and his son Ishmael, was the site of a long-standing tradition of pilgrimage by followers of various local and regional faiths. In 623, after Muhammad had returned victorious from his forced exile in Medina (his flight from Mecca in 622 is known as the Hijrah and marks the beginning of the Muslim calendar), he purged the Ka’ba of all its idols and claimed it solely for the worship of Allah (Arabic for God). The Ka’ba became the primary destination for Muslims making the hajj, or pilgrimage, one of the five pillars of Islam.

Islam is based on the Qur’an, the written version of Allah’s revelations through the angel Gabriel to Muhammad. The Qur’an is organized into 114 chapters, or surahs, and 6,236 verses. It is the source of Islamic law and establishes rules for daily living. The Qur’an served to unify Muslims the world over, regardless of their local customs and cultural differences. This unity is based in part on the practice of the five acts of worship, or pillars, of Islam: first, the open profession of faith through the statement “There is no god but Allah, and Muhammad is the Prophet of Allah”; second, prayer—usually five times per day, always in the direction of Mecca; third, almsgiving; fourth, fasting during the month of Ramadan (the ninth lunar month); and fifth, making the hajj to the sacred sites of Mecca and Medina during Dhu al-Hijjah (the twelfth lunar month). The hajj is only required once during an individual’s lifetime and only of those who are physically and financially able to perform this important act of worship. For some Muslims jihad— holy war or striving for faith—became a pillar as well.

In addition to the Qur’an, Muhammad established many traditions (hadith) that form the basis of Islamic custom (sunnah) pertaining to law, religion, education, worship, and devotion. Al-Sha’fi (d. 820), a Muslim lawyer in Cairo, wrote the Risalah to record the sunnah, bringing unity to a diverse religious following that placed community at the center of tradition. The Risalah in essence created a living tradition that spanned the cultural and geographic separation of the broader Muslim community. However, whereas the Qur’an is the word of Allah and therefore law, the hadith are associated with the actions and words of Muhammad and are less strictly and more selectively applied by various Muslim communities. The flexibility of the hadith and their application allowed for regional diversity within Islam and accommodated local traditions, thus making conversion to Islam easier and more appealing to a variety of peoples.

Differences between Muslim communities based on the hadith are only one source of diversity in the broader Muslim world. More significant is the split between the Sunni, who follow the tradition of electing the caliph (the spiritual and temporal leader of the Muslim community) from Muhammad’s companions, and the Shi’i, who believe that the caliphate belonged to the descendants of Muhammad through his cousin and son-in-law ‘Ali, husband of Muhammad’s only surviving child, Fatima. ‘Ali was the fourth elected caliph but was assassinated in 651, giving rise to the succession issue. The Sunni-Shi’i split formed the basis of many of the power struggles by various of the competing Islamic dynasties well into the 16th century.

Islam in the 16th Century

By the 16th century Islam dominated southwest Asia, North and West Africa, and parts of Europe. Its spread outside the Hijaz (see Mecca) can be attributed to several factors, including trade, migration—both permanent and temporary—political conquest, and cultural assimilation. Of these factors, trade had perhaps the farthest reaching and longest-lasting effects. Some of the earliest converts to Islam were Arab traders who followed trade routes between the Arabian Peninsula and the African continent through cities such as Cairo, Egypt, and Zeila on the Horn of Africa (see Djibouti) and along the Mediterranean Ocean into southern Europe. With the introduction of the camel, Muslim traders began to cross the Sahara to the Sudan, encouraging the spread of Islam to areas previously isolated from the Islamized north African and east African peoples. Goods traded on these routes included gold, ivory, kola nuts, and slaves from Africa for salt, HORSEs, cloth, copper, metal weapons, and beads from the Middle East, Europe, and Asia. Even Mecca, a city virtually closed to all non-Muslims, became a principal market for slaves from Africa by the 16th century. Accompanying these nomadic traders were teachers and holy men who traveled to cities like Djenne and Timbuktu and established mosques, converting and educating the local populations in the principles of Islam.

Although the spread of Islam often followed the path of trade routes, its adoption in various regions took different forms. In North Africa, the nomadic Berbers converted to Islam in the 11th century, establishing the Almoravid Dynasty in the Maghreb. From their base in what is today Morocco, the Almoravids (derived from the Arabic al-murabit referring to their association with the border fortresses, or ribat) were instrumental in the spread of Islam to Spain under the leadership of Yusuf ibn Tashfin and to the Sudan under Abu Bakr. The Almohads replaced the Almoravids in the 12th century and encouraged the growth of Sufi brotherhoods in the region. They fell from power in the late 13th century. Sufism became popularized in the 13th century in the Maghreb, especially through the actions of the marabout, who grew in importance in the region into the 16th century. After the Reconquista in Spain and the expulsion of Muslims from Granada in 1492, Muslims in North Africa became increasingly militarized, fighting the Christian Europeans who began infiltrating the region. Maghrebi Muslims began looking to the south as well, to the empires of the Sudan such as the Songhai, for the purposes of controlling the lucrative trades in gold and salt and eager to supply the Egyptian and North African slave trade with men and women from West and central Africa.

Islam in the Sudan (West Africa) took on more of an elite cast. In many of the Sudanic empires, including Ghana, Mali, and Songhai, only the kings and their courtiers converted to Islam, and even then it was often nominal in character. By the time of Mansa Musa I of Mali, who made a famous pilgrimage to Mecca in 1324, Islam began to gain more popular acceptance, but according to the chronicler Ibn Battuta, traditional forms of religion persisted and were even integrated with the laws and customs of Islam. By the 16th century and the apex of the Songhai Empire, Islam was firmly ingrained in Sudanic society.

Conversion to Islam in European cultures was less prevalent than in African and frequently was achieved only through jihad. Muslim forces arrived on the Iberian Peninsula in 710 from Morocco and retained control over parts of the region until they were ousted from Granada in 1492. Ottoman Turks attacked eastern Europe beginning in the 11th century and nearly captured Vienna under the leadership of Suleiman I in 1529. Islam posed a threat to Christian Europe for nearly 1,000 years (both physically and ideologically), but in the 16th century the tide turned. The rise of European commercial powers shifted the balance of power against the Islamic states. European cities such as Venice, entrenched in trade with the Levant, often showed only minor toleration for Muslim merchants. Despite this seeming disdain, the Islamic Mamluks of Egypt had diplomatic relations with Venice beginning in 1506, and by the end of the 16th century envoys between Venice and Istanbul (the capital of the Ottoman Empire, which defeated the Mamluks in 1517) were a regular occurrence.

As in Europe and Africa, the major means of Islam’s spread to the Americas was trade. However, in this instance Muslims were the traded, not just the traders. The majority of slaves taken to the Americas came from west and central African kingdoms, including Cayor, Senegambia, and Cameroon, many of them held at the port of Calabar to be shipped across the Atlantic. These regions had long histories of Muslim influence, and it is probable that a significant number of the humans forced into bondage and taken across the ocean on the middle passage were practicing Muslims. Although many of them were forced to give up their names and their cultural and social practices, the influence of Islam remains evident in some African American traditions that can be traced back to the 16th century.

Further reading: Peter B. Clarke, West Africa and Islam: A Study of Religious Development from the 8th to the 20th Century (London: Edward Arnold, 1982); L. P. Harvey, Islamic Spain, 1250-1500 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990); Mervyn Hiskett, The Development of Islam in West Africa (London: Longman, 1984); Albert Hourani, A History of the Arab Peoples (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1991); Bernard Lewis, Islam and the West (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993); -, The Muslim Discovery of Europe (New York: Norton, 1982); I. M. Lewis, Islam in Tropical Africa, 2nd ed. (Bloomington: International African Institute in association with Indiana University Press, 1964); Nabil Matar, Islam in Britain, 1558-1685 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998); Maxime Rodinson, Muhammad, 2nd ed., trans. Anne Carter (London: Penguin Books, 1996); J. Spencer Trimingham, The Influence of Islam upon Africa, 2nd ed. (London: Longman, 1980).

—Lisa M. Brady

Itzcoatl (1381-1440) military leader Itzcoatl was fourth great speaker of the AzTECs, whose military leadership led to the overthrow of their Tepaneca overlords, the establishment of the Aztecs as an independent nation, and the beginnings of the expansion that would leave them the dominant power in central Mexico.

Itzcoatl ascended to the throne as an experienced military leader, having held the office of tlacochcalcatl, or supreme commander of the army, for more than 20 years. He was proclaimed lord of the Aztecs (Mexica) on April 3, 1427, but Maxtla, lord of the Tepanecs (of whom the Mexica were tributaries at the time) refused to recognize his authority, prompting Itzcoatl to forge an alliance with Nezahualcoyotl, lord of neighboring Texcoco. The two leaders conquered the Tepaneca capital of Azcapotzalco in 1428, killing Maxtla and sacking and burning the city. This event marked the beginnings of the Mexica as a sovereign people, with a capital established at Tenochtitlan.

Itzcoatl governed from 1427 to 1440, going on to conquer, according to the Codex Mendoza, 24 neighboring cities in the valley of Mexico and beyond. Although many of these conquests did not bring the conquered lands directly under Aztec control, they did provide levies and dependencies within easy range of Tenochtitlan that gave the Aztecs a springboard for farther ranging campaigns. In 1431 Itzcoatl formed a more permanent alliance, both defensive and offensive in character, with the lords of Texcoco and Tacuba. The military leadership of this “triple alliance” was reserved to the Aztec great speaker.

Together with his adviser Tlacacla Itzcoatl introduced a series of reforms based on an extensive rewriting of his people’s history to reflect a mystic-visionary view that placed them as the true heirs to the Toltecs and ordained lords of the region, whose responsibility it was to keep the sun moving across the sky by means of captive sacrifices gained in many wars of conquest.

Itzcoatl also worked to improve the quality of life in his capital, ordering the construction of temples to Cihuacoatl and Huitzilopochtli as well as construction of the causeway linking the island-city to the lake’s northern shore. To reinforce the idea that his reign began a new era, he ordered the destruction of all existing records containing any reference to his people’s existence as a tributary state.

Further reading: Michael Coe, Mexico: From the Olmecs to the Aztecs, 4th ed. (London: Thames & Hudson, 1994); Nigel Davies, The Aztec Empire: The Toltec Resurgence (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1987); Susan D. Gillespie, The Aztec Kings: The Construction of Rulership in Mexica History (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1989).

—Marie A. Kelleher