The question (I believe it was proposed by Mr. Sanderson) is "Why did Islam spread so quickly?"
Within a span of twenty-two years (610-632 AD), Islam became a religious powerhouse, enveloping nearly the entire Middle East. What was the cause of such incredible speed? Since there is no concrete answer, I will offer my own. I proclaim that the speed is mostly due to the loathing of the Christian world and a craving to completely separate themselves from it, even rivaling it. Imagine you are an individual among one of the scattered villages of ancient Saudi Arabia--living during the time of Muhammad. The people, there, have already labeled themselves as "other than Christian", but there is no unity, no identity to be a part of. Then, a man, a charismatic one at that, comes to your village, with many of his followers in tow, and declares that he received religious visions and directions from a god. Now that is something to get behind! No longer will you feel pressure from the enormous Christian entity near you, for you have a religion of your own. Muhammad's visits became a snowball effect of religious zeal, gathering the disunified Middle East and combining it into a singular identity. The reason people joined in troves was because of the widespread belief that they were the "others"; they wanted to be different from the Christian world.
Your explanation makes sense to me, and it's interesting because you barely even touched on the godly aspect of religion in your your reasoning. You mostly justified the spread of Islam as a means of identifying against an already existing group, Christians. This explanation of the formation of Islam reminds me of the formation of cliques in high school. oh Religion.... why must you exist?
ReplyDeleteI can totally see this as the reason for the spread happening so quickly. I believe the people of the middle east did not want to conform to the religion the missionaries brought to them because they wanted to be independent as a country. Muhammad could have seen how well Christianity had spread and so devised his own religion based off of it. When someone from your own land brings forth a religion that is so easily acceptable it made the spread of it that much faster. Instead of some white guy from Europe, a poor enlightened middle easterner proclaimed the ideas and that was probably a key concept of individualizing themselves from the west.
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