HISTORY 70B Lecture Notes - Lecture 9: Ulama
Document Summary
One reason why islam had such immense religious and political/military success was because converting to islam was not done by force. Rather, living in an islamic- governed state provided a variety of incentives for claiming muslim identity (strayer. 374), therefore many where encouraged to convert to islam voluntarily. People aspiring for official positions found converting to islam an aid to social mobility (strayer 374) and merchants found a religion friendly to commerce (strayer 374). Moreover, the byzantine empire and sassanid empire soon fell out of power, allowing the islamic state to take over and spreading islam to a new population. Finally, islam experienced success in converting people to islam because it shared a lot of similarities with those of jews", christians", and zoroastrians" beliefs and practices. At the core, those who practiced islam all had the same commitment to allah. Islam was soon fragmented into different groups, sunni vs. shia vs. sufi.
