r/MapPorn • u/Calm-Restaurant7836 • 9h ago
Islamic Conquest from Arabian Penninsula Outward
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u/HarryLewisPot 9h ago edited 9h ago
Missing Bosnia.
And if you did Islam pushed out of Iberia couldn’t you also do the same for the Balkans, India, Xinjiang, Crimea etc?
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u/Expert_Dot_5271 8h ago
At the very least, in Xinjiang, the majority of areas are still predominantly Muslim.
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u/srmndeep 8h ago
Yes, rather Qing regime pushed out Buddhist Mongols out of Zungaria (N. Xinjiang) and replaced them with Muslims.
But later Muslims were pushed out of Shaanxi and Gansu provinces of China Proper after the Dungan Revolt.
Its also missing Sicily, where Islam actually reached in 827 AD and pushed out in 1220s.
Also, iikr in Southern Russia, Circassia saw the ethnic cleansing of Muslim Circassians.
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u/Character_Roll_6231 4h ago
This is showing the spread of Islam as a religion, not the 'Islamic conquests'. The Islamic conquests included more of the Balkans and Sicily, but wouldn't include any of the yellow areas, which were not converted as part of a major conquest.
However even as a map of the spread of Islam it is completely missing Sicily, much of the Balkan peninsula especially Thrace and Bosnia, more of India etc.
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u/the_faris 9h ago
Many of these like South East Asia, many parts of Africa and central Asia weren't even a conquest rather by trade
Funny enough the mongols converted to Islam after destroying half of the Muslim world lol
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u/Catch_ME 8h ago
The icing on the cake was there were 2 Khans. 1 Muslim and 1 Christian.
The Christian one destroyed the Middle East and the Muslim one destroyed Eastern Europe.
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u/Lucky-Substance23 8h ago
Where's the brown shade (used in the Iberian peninsula) in the legend?
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u/SeparateTrack2818 8h ago
It's not a brown shade, it's a very tight striping.
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u/Lucky-Substance23 8h ago
OK, but it looks completely different from that last row in the legend. And the text of that row is terrible, it does not say when Islam entered the Iberian peninsula.
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u/Acceptable_Mud_8680 8h ago
U missed india and burma, which all
Have hundreds of millions of muslims.
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u/theeccentricnucleus 8h ago edited 6h ago
The Islamic Conquest was less religiously motivated and instead was primarily driven by practical objectives such as securing resources and establishing political and economic stability, which are the typical motivations for wanting to build an empire. Most of the acquired territory in the MENA region didn’t become majority Muslim until about 300-500 years after the end of the Conquest, and the region retained large non-Muslim populations during this time. Initially, the Arab conquerors didn’t want anyone else to convert since they believed that Islam was for Arabs only, and since they would put a special tax on non-Muslims called the jizya tax in the territories that they controlled, having everyone convert would also mean a loss of vital revenue. Conversion to Islam mostly happened gradually through migration and trade over several centuries and was motivated primarily for political and economic reasons. Islam was especially enticing to those who wanted to climb up the bureaucratic ladder since the ruling class was predominantly Muslim.
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u/Yagrum_Bagarm 5h ago
The thing is, I would have complained that this is irrelevant than I remembered how 90% of the people's perception of Islam on this subreddit comes from post 9/11 talking points, so they probably need to know that.
It takes a special kind of dolt for you to defend a point you would have usually dismissed or disagreed with.
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u/Winter-Ad-2920 3h ago
A bit of a correction from an arab:
Arabs didn't simply think 'islam is an arab religion' it was umayyads racism that made it look that way since they were known for not recognizing non-arab Muslims simply because they weren't arab. The heavy taxation also happened with them, the rashidun maintained good relationship between Arabs and amazigh and Persians and the umayyads destroyed all of that when they forced their rule and established the first dynastic Caliphate, which wasn't how the Caliphate is supposed to work(at least from a sunni prospective, don't know how the shia view it.)
In fact, the abbasid movement and later Caliphate started gaining momentum mainly because of umayyad fuckary. And the abbasids weren't that good either but at least they were less racist towards non-arabs... they still were dynastic and directed the hate into the Quraysh tribe that the umayyads were from.
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u/theeccentricnucleus 2h ago
I paraphrased a bit by saying “Arab conquerors,” but yes you’re correct. The Umayyads applied the taxes on the dhimmis and were fairly intolerant of non-Arabs converting to Islam compared to the Rashidun.
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u/Anthemius_Augustus 1h ago
None of the primary evidence we have from the period suggests the so-called Rashidun Caliphate (wasn't called that at the time obviously) was any different in this regard to the Umayyads.
Egyptian papyri, coinage and building works all tell us that nothing much changed under the 'Rashidun' beyond who the central revenue of the state went to. We have no evidence at this early stage for conversions to Islam, simply because material evidence of any kind of Islam in the 630's-680's is limited to say the least.
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u/Achmedino 8h ago
The only major world religion where their prophet was a warlord
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u/IdleProgrammer 1h ago
The Islamophobes always on full display. Read the Old Testament and let’s talk about the Wars of Moses.
The Prophet wasn’t even alive during the Islamic Conquests.
Seeth
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u/the_faris 7h ago
Also very genius, his men crushed 2 superpowers in few decades, even mongols who tried to destroy mecca became Muslim and conquered India
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u/Smart-Second9965 3h ago
And then turned it into a wasteland…
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u/the_faris 3h ago
What I mean is that it's ironic how the people who tried to destroy Islam became its military commanders
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u/Solid_Attorney_6140 8h ago
The Somalis embraced Islam peacefully without any Arab armies like in Arabia Levant Mesopotamia North Africa Persia etc
They even didn’t Arabize
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u/kugelamarant 7h ago
Like Indonesian,Malaysia and Brunei. Now's there are more muslims there than any Arab countries.
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u/ginapaulo77 9h ago
Colonizers
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u/BlakeNotBleak 9h ago
Resource extraction and segregation + race supremacy which are key pillars of Colonization did not occur on a widespread scale, so no. Cope
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u/ginapaulo77 9h ago edited 8h ago
They extracted resources such as woman, slaves, precious metals, weapons, coinage, horses, armor, and every type of bootie they could carry. Koran is full of tales of what soldiers were allowed to keep and what had to be sent back to leaders or the religious authorities. Not to mention jizya which is mafia shakedown money. and still think their race is supreme just ask the Africans and Asians forced to work in Arabia. nice try
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u/Inch_High 9h ago
Reddit atheists when their favorite religion is shown to be just like Christianity, if not several orders of magnitude worse.
It was definitely colonization, but it's not called colonization because the colonizers weren't white.
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u/dartov67 5h ago
Respectfully, no historian and especially a historian who specializes in colonialism will hesitate to label Japanese or Brazilian imperialism colonialism.
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u/SeparateTrack2818 8h ago
It was definitely colonization, it is called colonization, and the colonizers are white.
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u/Yagrum_Bagarm 5h ago
It was not colonization, words have meaning you know? You happen to take it personally because it just so happens that the main founders and perpetrators of Coloniolism in our history were white. It doesn't say anything negatively about white people, but you took it as such, which says more about you than anything
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u/Usual_Coat8798 4h ago
Because alot of them don't actually care and are doing it bc they're reactive asf and resent historical Europeans being called colonizers lmao
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u/Omarmanutd 8h ago
Still a false analogy to European colonisation. Taking war boot immediately during/after a battle is something all civilisations did. What European colonialism was unique in was long term extraction of resources to the detriment of the local population but for the wealth of the home nation (see Britain in India or the Belgians in the Congo).
Jizyah is a tax to help fund the army and means that non-Muslims aren’t obliged to fight in Muslim wars. Muslims pay the zakat tax and have to fight in all Muslim wars. If you consider that a mafia shakedown money, then go cry about the income taxes and the consequences for not paying it that virtually every country in the world has.
“The non Arab is not superior to the Arab nor the Arab to the non Arab. The white is not superior to the black nor the black to the white, except in piety” - prophet Muhammad ﷺ
Doesn’t sound very racist to me
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u/Kickyouinball 7h ago
Thats just wrong. The Jizya tax is nothing more than a second class tax that in most cases was higher than the tax for muslims. Ironically it was cheaper for the wealthy non-muslims. It's nothing more than a mafia protection scheme. Also according to most schools within Islam if you didn't pay it you were enslaved or killed. As you were seen as a combatant. Also the Arabic slave trade took more black slaves out of Africa than the Atlantic slave trade ever did. So yes Arabs colonised. How do you think the Arabian Caliphates spread from east to West, the whole of North Africa to Spain. And all the people's there were settled by many arabs. Stop coping. Arabic muslims conquered and colonised.
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u/Omarmanutd 6h ago
I won’t deny that those things may have happened. I was defending Islam not Islamic history.
Jizya isn’t wealth dependent nor is it supposed to always be higher than zakat (it’s hard to compare because Jizya is a fixed amount whereas zakat is a percentage of wealth)
You complain of the punishment for not paying Jizya in Islam. What’s the punishment for Muslims not paying their zakat (look at the wars of Abu Bakr and tell me if Muslims are able to get away with not paying zakat compared to non Muslim jizyah taxes)? What happens if I refuse to pay taxes in Canada, UK or US? Is the west also a mafia protection scheme since you either pay your taxes or are imprisoned/deported?
The kidnapping of free people and turning them into slaves was condemned by the prophet Muhammad
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u/Kickyouinball 5h ago
You wont get killed nor imprisoned nor enslaved in the West if you dont pay tax lol. Slavery is literally in the Quran. And not paying the Zakat is just looked upon as a major sin. Nothing more. And you will still owe the debt.
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u/SeparateTrack2818 5h ago
Slavery is literally in the Quran.
Slavery is literally in the Bible, too, so who cares.
You wont get killed nor imprisoned nor enslaved in the West if you dont pay tax
That's literally what the punishment for non-payment of tax in the West is.
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u/Yagrum_Bagarm 5h ago
the West won't enslabe you if you dont pay tax lol.
Bahahahahahahahahahahahahahaahahahahhahaahagaghahaha
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u/SeparateTrack2818 5h ago
Indeed. European debt slavery is not exactly a closely guarded secret.
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u/Kickyouinball 4h ago
Muh Whataboutism.
You know nothing. In Western society you only could get prison time for FRAUDULENT tax evasion, and that would need to be on a large scale.
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u/SeparateTrack2818 4h ago
You know nothing.
.... and then you proceed to confirm my claim by referencing fraudulent tax evasion on large scale.
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u/Omarmanutd 5h ago
You do get imprisoned for not paying your taxes in the West lol. Can you simply opt out of paying taxes in the West?
I’d advise you research slavery in Islam before making such a dumb comment. Slaves can only be acquired through POWs in war that aren’t ransomed off (I.e you can’t capture a free person). You have to feed them and clothe them as you clothe yourself. Hitting then = their freedom and they have the right to create a contract with you to gain their freedom
Another incorrect comment. In an Islamic state, if you intentionally withhold your zakat, you can be severely punished. Abu Bakr (first caliph after prophet Muhammad ﷺ) went to war with certain Muslim tribes because they refused to pay zakat.
So how is it a second class tax when Muslims also have to pay a tax and will he punished for not paying it?
You really need to research before commenting rather than regurgitating online anti-islam BS you hear
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u/Kickyouinball 4h ago
No you get imprisoned if you commit Fraud. Not if you refuse paying tax.
So you're denying that the Arabic slave trade happened? Because those slaves are not POW's. Because that's what im talking about. That Islam itself has specific rules around who can be a slave is not directly my original point. But people born into being slaves from slave parents are allowed to be held in Islamic law. So congratulations i guess?
WRONG. He went to war with them because they didn't recognise his authority and thus didn't pay the tax. You just pick one instance in Islamic History and twist the truth as if he went to war because they didnt pay the tax, no they didnt recognise his authority, thats why he went to war with them.
Secondly throughout Islamic law it states clearly.
IF you deny that Zakat is obligatory youre considered an apostate and can be killed. But thats pretty much denying Islam. Nice hu? Getting killed for being an apostate? So progressive Islam is.And if you don't want to pay because of greed they see it as a sin and the state may forcefully take it. That's it.
Islam is a backward religion.
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u/Yagrum_Bagarm 3h ago edited 3h ago
Me when I just say bullshit
This person is talking about Tax Evasion, so what did you do? Bring up Tax Fraud, absolute Genius, these are very much the same thing of course!1!1
"He went to war with them because they didn't recognize his authority and thus didn't pay the tax."
Yes that's the point, you yourself litterlarly admitted to it was the Ultimate expression of disobeying the state?? Like what??
"the state may forcefully take it. That's it."
Yeah, tell me what happens when an entire town decides not to pay taxes... I wonder if the military would interven their? Kinda like the Ridda Wars, no? I mean it's not like state would crack down domestically on even a single individual guilty of Tax Evasion, right?
Also, you bringing up the Trans Saharan Slavery is irrelevant to point out against scripture. Ismalic rulers drank alcohol, does that make Alcohol moral in Islam? Christian Lords frequently took and gave loans, does that make Usury no longer a law in Catholicism? If you want to judge the theological framework of a religion, you have to look at scripture (of which there are plenty of contradictions in Islam, chalk full of it, like any religion), you can't shift the goal post to what specific individuals did.
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u/Omarmanutd 2h ago
- In the UK, US and Canada, if you refuse to pay your taxes, they’ll take it from you by force through fines, penalties or debt collection powers. If you refuse to oblige, what happens next? Imprisonment
There is no scenario where a western government just lets you refuse paying tax. I can’t believe you don’t understand this
Yes kidnapping Africans by Arabs is wrong and unislamic. I’m defending Islam here - not Islamic history
Abu Bakr said, "By Allah! I will fight those who differentiate between the prayer and the Zakat as Zakat is the compulsory right to be taken from the property (according to Allah's orders) By Allah! If they refuse to pay me even a she-kid which they used to pay at the time of Allah's Messenger (ﷺ) . I would fight with them for withholding it" (Bukhari and Muslim)
He’s clearly fighting those who refused to pay zakat. Sorry buddy, your argument doesn’t hold up
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u/ginapaulo77 6h ago
Notice “the Muslim wars” and no rebuttal to the extraction of everything mentioned after saying “we didn’t take nuffin” and hey pay let’s not start quoting the mafia warlord, you won’t like some of the other ones about who to decapitate and who not to
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u/Omarmanutd 6h ago
I did respond to it. Read the first paragraph. It seems you’re not responding to my counter argument to you
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u/ginapaulo77 6h ago
Ahhh the part where you justified the taking slaves women money and resources, and extracting them back to the leadership in Mecca, as somehow different bc Muslims did it after invading and colonizing the country. Makes a lot of sense thanks for that
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u/Omarmanutd 6h ago
Now you’re changing the topic. You made the claim that Islamic conquests are colonial, I explained why that’s a false analogy. Instead of defending your argument you’ve ran away to the morality of taking slaves, women, resources etc
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u/ginapaulo77 6h ago
Ugh you’re hopeless….they invaded colonized extracted resources of every kind took over the government and demanded both tribute and deference most especially as it pertained to not criticizing their actions or religion. All undeniable facts. Wake up
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u/SeparateTrack2818 6h ago
They stopped extracting resources of every kind within several generations, and the rest of your facts are irrelevant to your claim by definition. Wake up
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u/Omarmanutd 5h ago
lol you’re the hopeless one. Tried to change topics and now you’re just making baseless statements. You can’t make these claims without backing them. Where’s your evidence and examples?
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u/Murat499 8h ago
Literally everyone throughout history saw their own religion as supreme and took taxes from the people they conquered its not something exclusive to Muslims.
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u/ginapaulo77 8h ago
“Taxes” just like the mafia
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u/Murat499 8h ago
U are just an ignorant person, u think the Romans didn't take taxes from the people they conquered? U know what they used to do to people who refused to pay taxes in medieval Europe?
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u/ginapaulo77 8h ago
Do you know what they do to people who don’t want to be Muslim anymore, today?
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u/Murat499 8h ago
That has nothing to do with what we were discussing about historical taxation models. Changing the subject doesn't make your comparison of ancient state taxes to a mafia racket any more historically accurate.
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u/ginapaulo77 8h ago
Wake up - it’s not a tax is a shakedown for not being Muslim. Muslims don’t have to pay it
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u/Yagrum_Bagarm 5h ago
They do pay taxes lol. Sometimes the Zakat was actually more than Jizya. I don't know why you are trying to exoticize what was already a practice of the rich bullying the poor into giving them for "protection", something that every state participated in, and matter of fact, is fundamental to the very nature of a state.
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u/SeparateTrack2818 8h ago
"Taxes as mafia shakedowns" is the stationary bandit paradigm. As you pointed out initially, it's not exclusive to Islamic nations at all.
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u/Kickyouinball 7h ago
The Arab slave trade anyone? Much bigger than the Atlantic slave trade. At least the Western Slave traders didn't cut off the reproduction bits of their African slaves. Muslim caliphates imposed, an in general, more expensive secondary citizenship tax on people who's religion is older than Islam and what they were practising before they got conquered by the Islamic hordes. The Ancient romans were much more lenient on the peoples they conquered and their religion. Often incorporating it into their religious system. That's why for example you can find eastern religious temples in the UK from Legions that came from the Eastern Roman Empire.
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u/Murat499 6h ago
The transatlantic slave trade was chattel slavery where you were born and died a slave with zero legal path to freedom, unlike Islamic legal traditions where slaves could buy freedom, marry, and had legal rights, the claim that black slaves were systematically castrated is false as millions of Afro-Arabs today are direct descendants of enslaved populations who integrated and mixed into Arab societies, pre-Islamic archaeology and indigenous religious minorities (like Copts, Assyrians, Maronites) still exist in Muslim-majority countries today, whereas Christian Europe completely wiped out and genocided all indigenous pre-Christian European faiths and their followers. And i don't understand what point u are trying to make how is all this connected to Muslim States taxing their own subjects?
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u/SeparateTrack2818 6h ago
The Arab slave trade anyone?
Slave trade precedes colonialism by several millennia.
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u/Yagrum_Bagarm 5h ago
Western Slave traders didn't cut off the reproduction bits of their African slaves.
What? How can you be that confidentally incorrect
And The romans were not Leniant, there is a reason why the Islamic caliphates got to keep their Roman Territories without them breaking off to the Eastern Roman empire or facing a massive rebellion, it's because taxation was Leniant and people were allowed to freely own land.
I don't know how the Roman tax system that was so harsh that is basically caused the invention of the world's largest religion is "lenient".
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u/Yagrum_Bagarm 5h ago
I don't think comparing them to the mob is the gotcha you think it is. Feudalism is also pretty analogous to the Mafia... Does that somehow change what Feudalism was?
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u/YourLocalMoroccan 9h ago
as if jews and christians dont believe that their religion is supreme too LOL
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u/Little_Concern9307 8h ago
yes and thats the point
they are all colonizers
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u/Yagrum_Bagarm 5h ago
A specific class and group of people were colonizers, the rest were at best states that Ran on levy-and-tribute system of resource extraction (which colonialism is not by definition).
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u/ScipioCoriolanus 8h ago
Literally every religion thinks the other religions are wrong.
As of race, you're wrong. The fact that people should be judged by their faith and not by their race or the color of their skin is literally one of the most important principles in Islam.
Nice try.
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u/ginapaulo77 8h ago
Same with Judaism and Christianity which have people of all races. It’s the other Islamic principles that are problematic
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u/BlakeNotBleak 9h ago
Their religion is explicitly against racial supremacy and the jizya was essentially just a tax in turn for not fighting in war which is fair
And no, they didn't extract resources back to the homeland
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u/ginapaulo77 8h ago
Colonizing means invading using military or religious cover, moving foreigners in, building homes and cities, often taking over governments and control of resources. Making your own authority and law supreme. They did all these things and worse. Accept facts.
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u/dartov67 5h ago
“Colonizing” is the act of moving people from one place to another. You can “colonize” uninhabited land.
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u/Kickyouinball 6h ago
The homeland? Whats the homeland? A Caliphate extends its reach by conquering other peoples land, taxes those people, extract resources locally and all that goes back to the centre of Power. Just like the Arab slave trade took Africans slaves from Sub-Saharan Africa and made them to a march through the dessert and use them as capital in the 'homeland' of the Caliphate or the Ottoman Empire. How is that no extracting resources?
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u/MrPresident0308 9h ago
in what way did they extract resources that is so much worse than any other government using the resources available to them to improve the economy? and the jizya the non-muslims had to pay was not an extra tax, but an alternative, and in fact lower tax
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u/_psykovsky_ 9h ago
Only a fool would believe your jizz extortion apologetics. A religion with mafia shakedown built in.
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u/MrPresident0308 8h ago
ok, so you have no arguments and just want to hate. glad we cleared that up
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u/SeparateTrack2818 8h ago
Resource extraction and segregation + race supremacy which are key pillars of Colonization
That's the key pillars of Colonialism, not Colonization.
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u/dartov67 5h ago
It’s amazing to me how many people haven’t taken an intro to euro history class or something and learned the difference. You’re like the only commenter bothering to separate colonialism and colonization. Good on you man, regardless of downvotes lol.
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u/Yagrum_Bagarm 5h ago
What did Islam colonize exactly? You can complain about warmongerering or whatever, but this is just not colonialism.
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u/Anarcho_Communists 7h ago
Half that region wasn’t even done by conquest. They willingly converted.🤣
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u/whowouldvethought1 9h ago
I def think Islam reached parts of Somalia much earlier than this. There’s a whole masjid in Seylac facing Jerusalem as the qiblah.
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u/BeriasBFF 5h ago
Colonial settlers. Wonder why no outrage over this…
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u/Yagrum_Bagarm 5h ago
When was the last time you saw someone complain about the Chola conquests into south east Asia... Why is there no outrage over this?
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u/BeriasBFF 4h ago
Could whatabout this with a hundred conquests. Thats my point but a portion of reddit commenters never seem to grasp that. But we all have our biases and such
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u/Baxx222 5h ago
Because it was over 1000 years ago, unlike Israel who are doing it today in the West Bank and Syria.
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u/itsnotthatseriousbud 5h ago
Except Muslims are still doing it today. Unlike judism, Islam is not native to the levant.
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u/BeriasBFF 4h ago
Israel was given the country by the UN, a country created from the ashes of twentieth century conflict like Turkey, Pakistan, Syria…all which have blood on their hands, moreso than Israel. But no one cares because they listen to the history they want. Read Montifiore’s new book called The Cauldron, great read that paints the best picture I’ve read yet of the modern Middle East
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u/Baxx222 4h ago
What are you talking about? Israel being created by the UN, or Turkey, Pakistan and Syria having big conflicts have nothing to do with anything talked about in this thread.
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u/BeriasBFF 3h ago
It’s all connected and if you don’t see that then your view of the current conflict(s) is missing some rather large pieces. Unsurprisingly you brought up Israel after all.
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u/Baxx222 3h ago
Feel free to explain how the UN or Turkey, Pakistan and Syria have anything to do with what was talked about.
I brought up Israel because the only people calling the Arab conquests "colonialism" are people who want to defend Israel's colonialism in the West Bank and Syria, with the goal of making it seem like it's fair or a form of decolonisation. And based on your responses, I was 100% correct.
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u/alt-right-del 2h ago
“Given” that’s a nice twist to the terrorist attacks on the British mandate by Zionist 😂
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u/Key_Fee158 3h ago
We aren’t holding the modern world to the standards of 500 AD.
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u/BeriasBFF 2h ago
So what’s your demarcation line then? I’m guessing somewhere after 1947 but before 1949
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u/Key_Fee158 2h ago
I wonder what happened in 1945 that made the world decide that ethnic cleansing needs to be condemned…hmm.
Is “never again” supposed to apply to everyone or just some?
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u/InternationalBad625 1h ago
The largest ethnic cleansing in history was Germans moved out of lands given to Poland by the allies AFTER WW2. There's also India-Pakistan where the Muslims were the equivalent of Jews demanding a state be carved out for them regardless of consequences.
Famously, the Nazis were not simply moving people around.
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u/EffortEither9620 8h ago
india held out for almost 1500 years. goated
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u/the_faris 7h ago
Not really 1/3 of Indian subcontinent is Muslim, in fact it's the region with most Muslims in the world twice as many as the Arab speaking world
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u/Sl33pyGary 7h ago
Some of the very first converts outside of Arabia were in Kerala via traders, not conquest, too
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u/Auctorxtas 4h ago
Respect to the Rashtrakutas and Pratiharas for not letting the Caliphate cross Sindh. 🙏🙏
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u/Little_Concern9307 8h ago
islamic conquest colonialism
stop trying to make imperialism look cool
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u/FuckTheTile 8h ago
They were conquests. Colonialism refers to a specific era of history, and usually refers to overseas territories
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u/Little_Concern9307 8h ago
"Colonialism refers to a specific era of history"
no it doesn't, colonialism is even used to describe migrations in ancient greece
"and usually refers to overseas territories"
so the ottoman empire and russia aren't colonial empires ? that's ridiculous
european colonialism and arabic colonialism both forced their institutions, exploited the locals and replaced the rulers with theirs
imperialism is imperialism
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u/SeparateTrack2818 8h ago
colonialism is even used to describe migrations in ancient greece
A well known misapplication of the term.
imperialism is imperialism
And colonialism is colonialism - not imperialism.
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u/kugelamarant 7h ago
Arabs don't replace local rulers.Instead local rulers turn into muslim instead after conquering large muslim population (like Turks and Mongols rulers who converted) of trade perks like how SE Asian turns muslim.
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u/FuckTheTile 8h ago
Yes, it does. It’s a term coined to describe the European colonial age. The Arabic conquests, are usually called conquests, and that’s an entirely accurate term.
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u/hivisawsome 7h ago
Umayyad Caliphate never conquered northen iran ,(daylam and tabarestan) , tabarestan was later conquered 760 by the abbasids and the daylamites kept their independence in gilan
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u/IRC_1014 2h ago
Excluding eastern Ethiopia here as this map does is quite wrong. The Adal Sultanate nearly conquered the entire kingdom in the 16th century.
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u/Late_Company6926 1h ago
As if it stopped in 1700???? What do you think is going on in Sudan and other places the Muslim Brotherhood has plans
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u/aziad1998 8m ago
There was no Islamic conquest in southeast asia. Islam spread there through traders. As for Europe, there was Islamic conquest from Arabia in Sicily, but never in Albania, that was the Turks, not peninsulan armies.
This is a map of when a region became mostly Muslim. Different meaning.
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u/AgentDeuce007 4h ago
Can someone tell me which Islamic army invaded and conquered Somalia? As a Somali this my first time hearing about this, we've only ever been invaded by Europeans. To the people spreading this fake history can you tell me which Arab army invaded Somalia and when please provide historical proof.
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u/GSilky 3h ago
Are we calling peacefully converting large swaths through trade "conquest"?
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u/Expat_in_Korea 3h ago
LOL Muhammad just conquered through trade?!?
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u/GSilky 3h ago
Mohammed didn't conquer shit besides Mecca. Islam spread through trade in Central Asia, SE Asia, and Africa south of the Sahara.
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u/Expat_in_Korea 2h ago
And the caliph directly after him conquered through peace??? 😂
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u/GSilky 2h ago
It wasn't to spread the religion, it was taking advantage of a power vacuum left by Rome and the Persians fighting each other to exhaustion. The conquest was purely political and economic. Arab Muslims were kept apart from the conquered population and conversion was frowned upon, because they wanted tax revenues. The population of the middle east eventually converted heavily during the Abbasid caliphate, which was open to non Arab talent. Aristocrats and place seekers started converting to get government jobs. Forced conversion wasn't really a thing in Islam.
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u/Specific_War5484 8h ago edited 7h ago
Fun fact! Muhammad bottomed a gay orgy. Just look up 'Men of Al-Zutt'. And before you guys come in with 'uhhhh not every hadith is valid cause I cherry pick my religion', just know it comes up in multiple hadiths.
edit: looks like this one triggered the takfirs lol
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u/the_faris 7h ago
Yarkaboun used to mean to gather around you, ofc your head is filled with porn, you would understand the colloquial term
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u/dartov67 5h ago
I remember when I was young and got a rush out of trolling. Enjoy it while it lasts you get bored eventually
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u/Omarmanutd 8h ago
Only a dumbass with a sick mind like you could interpret “they climbed over him” (I.e to listen to the Quran) as a gay orgy. Sorry Islamic stories don’t fulfil your secret fantasies
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u/kugelamarant 7h ago
1400 years of Islamic scholarship even during the Abbasid when rationalist debates flourish didn't even mention this and suddenly in 21st century redditors think they discover something new.
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u/Omarmanutd 7h ago
100%. Even in the 21st century, no serious academic suggests the prophet Muhammad had a gay orgy. It’s just low IQ critics of Islam that makes this argument
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u/Specific_War5484 8h ago edited 8h ago
They used a word that specifically meant sex and numerous other contemporary works use that word in that context. Muhammad is a gay icon and anyone who says otherwise is a takfir
edit: the word is 'yarkabun'. which means 'to mount/ride'. When talking about a person, it infers sexual intercourse.
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u/Omarmanutd 7h ago
Ah I didn’t realise we had an Arabic expert amongst us! So when Noah uses the word “yarkab” to tell his son to get on the ark during the flood in the Quran, is he asking his son to have sex with the ark?
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u/gooseneck123456 9h ago
this was not colonialism! it’s different!
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u/ginapaulo77 8h ago
We wuz Caananites!
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u/Dry-Cat1911 7h ago
Yes and any DNA test will confirm that ziobot
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u/itsnotthatseriousbud 5h ago
DNA tests will prove Muslims are Canaanites? Really now🤡😂
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u/Dry-Cat1911 4h ago
Are you dense? You think I'm claiming an Indonesian is a Canaanite? Obviously I'm referring to the people from the Levant area smartass
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u/itsnotthatseriousbud 2h ago
The topic is about the Islamic conquest of the Middle East and North Africa. No where in this topic was it just about the levant.
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u/Dry-Cat1911 1h ago
Why do you think the user ginapaulo77 mentioned Canaanites? Please think critically. If you want more evidence that he's talking about Israel/Palestine just look up their post history, you'll realize very fast that he's an Israeli
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u/ginapaulo77 6h ago
DNA = Departed from Northern Arabia
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u/dartov67 4h ago
The same DNA tests that prove Palestinians have majority southern Levantine ancestry and continuity with pre-Arab and Bronze Age populations also prove that Jews have the same ancestry lol, shooting yourself in the foot with that snark
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u/hela_2 7h ago edited 2h ago
Colonisation and genocide
Edit:
The early Muslim conquests (roughly 632–750 CE, spanning the Rashidun and Umayyad periods) were a rapid, expansionist series of military campaigns that overthrew the Byzantine and Sasanian empires and seized North Africa, parts of the Iberian Peninsula, Central Asia, and beyond. They involved large-scale violence, massacres of civilians, systematic enslavement (including sexual slavery), destruction of religious sites, imposition of discriminatory subordination, and processes of Arabization and Islamization that permanently altered the demographic, cultural, and religious character of conquered lands.
Contemporary and near-contemporary non-Muslim sources (Coptic, Armenian, Syriac, Byzantine) and even some Muslim chronicles describe widespread brutality. Later apologetic narratives often minimize this by emphasizing eventual “tolerance” under dhimmi status or gradual conversion, but the conquest phase itself was frequently ruthless.
Massacres and Civilian Slaughter
Arab armies routinely killed adult males of fighting age after victories or sieges and sometimes wiped out entire populations of towns that resisted. Examples include:
- In Egypt under Amr ibn al-As, the 7th-century Coptic bishop John of Nikiu recorded systematic slaughter: at Behnesa, Fayum, Aboit, and Nikiu, inhabitants who surrendered or were encountered in streets and churches—men, women, and children—were put to the sword. He described the Muslim yoke as heavier than Pharaoh’s.
- In Syria/Palestine, the region between Gaza and Caesarea was devastated in 634; thousands of Christian, Jewish, and Samaritan peasants defending their land were massacred. Monasteries were sacked and monks killed in Mesopotamia. Armenian chronicles describe populations of Assyria and districts around Lake Van being decimated.
- In Persia/Elam and Susa, populations and dignitaries were put to the sword. At Jalula (637) and other battles, large numbers of Persians were killed and survivors enslaved.
- In North Africa, resistance by Berbers (including under the leader Kahina) was crushed with heavy force; large numbers of Christian Berbers were enslaved and deported. Carthage and other centers fell after prolonged campaigning that combined battle with subjugation.
- Earlier, in the lifetime of Muhammad, the Banu Qurayza Jewish tribe in Medina faced execution of adult males (traditional accounts range from hundreds to around 600–900, though numbers are debated and some modern Muslim scholarship disputes the scale) after judgment for alleged treachery during the Battle of the Trench; women and children were enslaved. This set a pattern of collective punishment for groups judged hostile.
These were not isolated excesses of war in a brutal age (Byzantines and Sasanians also committed atrocities against each other and subjects). They were part of a conquest ideology that offered conversion, payment of jizya under subordination, or the sword.
Enslavement, Sexual Slavery, and Human Tribute
Conquest produced massive numbers of captives treated as war booty (ghanima). Women and children were routinely enslaved; adult male combatants were often killed. Sexual access to female captives (“those whom your right hands possess”) was religiously sanctioned.
- Thousands were enslaved after the fall of Caesarea Maritima, Cyprus, and other places. In Persia, Zoroastrians captured in war could gain freedom by converting. Umar is recorded expressing concern about the children that would be born to slave women.
- In North Africa, Arabs levied human tribute on Berber tribes, supplying slaves (especially females) to the ruling class. Even some later caliphs criticized the practice, indicating it was widespread.
- Slave markets expanded. Concubinage with enslaved women became common; data from biographical sources show a rise in children born to umm walad (enslaved mothers who bore children to free Muslim men) during the height of imperial expansion. Captives from different regions were transported and sold.
- In Sind (later under Muhammad bin Qasim, still within the early expansionary period), accounts describe mass killings of adult males, forced circumcision attempts, and large-scale enslavement of women and children.
This was not uniquely Islamic—slavery was ubiquitous in the late antique world—but the scale of new captives generated by the conquests was enormous, and Islamic jurisprudence formalized rules for their ownership, sale, inheritance, and sexual use rather than abolishing the institution.
Colonization, Arabization, and Demographic Transformation
The conquests functioned as colonization. Arab tribal armies established garrison cities (amsar) such as Kufa, Basra, and Fustat. Arab settlers and administrators formed a ruling stratum that extracted resources. Non-Arab converts (mawali) were often treated as second-class even after conversion, facing continued taxation and social discrimination under the Umayyads—fuel for later resentment that contributed to the Abbasid revolution.
- Language and administration were Arabized (especially under Abd al-Malik): Greek, Persian, Coptic, and Aramaic bureaucratic use was replaced by Arabic.
- Indigenous Christian communities in North Africa largely disappeared over subsequent centuries; Berbers were Islamized and partially Arabized. Zoroastrian Persia saw a long decline of its traditional religion under pressure of jizya, social restrictions, occasional violence, and incentives to convert. Fire temples and churches were destroyed or converted in many places during and after the conquests.
- Demographic change was real: Arab settlement, intermarriage (often involving enslaved women), conversion incentives/pressures, and the subordinate status of non-Muslims shifted population balances over generations. This was imperial replacement and cultural transformation, not mere political succession.
Discriminatory Legal and Religious Regime
Survivors who did not convert lived as dhimmis (protected but inferior subjects). They paid the jizya poll tax (often accompanied by rituals of humiliation), faced restrictions on building or repairing places of worship, public religious display, bearing arms, riding certain animals, and testimony in court. The “Pact of Umar” tradition codified many of these disabilities. Forced conversion was not the universal policy of the earliest period (pragmatic rulers preferred tax revenue), but pressure, episodic violence, destruction of temples/churches/synagogues, and the inferior legal status made conversion the rational long-term choice for many. Apostasy from Islam was punishable by death.
John of Nikiu and other Christian writers portrayed the new order as oppressive. Zoroastrians and others faced similar or harsher treatment in places. Idolaters/polytheists had even fewer protections under classical interpretations.
Genocide and Scale
“Genocide” in the modern legal sense (intent to destroy a group in whole or in part) is anachronistic for the 7th century, but the pattern included targeted mass killing of resisting populations, cultural erasure through destruction of religious infrastructure, mass enslavement that broke families and communities, and policies that over time eliminated or marginalized entire religious majorities in their homelands (Coptic Egypt and North African Christianity declined dramatically; Zoroastrianism was reduced to a tiny minority). The conquests eliminated two great late-antique imperial systems and subordinated their populations to a new Arab-Muslim elite that extracted wealth and prestige from them.
Apologists stress that conversion was often gradual, that some Christian communities survived for centuries, that jizya could be preferable to Byzantine or Sasanian taxation/persecution in certain contexts, and that the conquerors sometimes offered relatively orderly administration after initial violence. These points have limited force against the primary evidence of massacres, mass enslavement, temple destruction, and the permanent imposition of a hierarchical religious order favoring the conquerors. The early Muslim expansion was a classic imperial conquest involving the brutalities typical of such enterprises—on a scale and with a lasting demographic and civilizational impact that few others matched in so short a time.
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u/Yagrum_Bagarm 5h ago
The internet is crazy because people can just say shit and act topical
1
u/hela_2 3h ago
The early Muslim conquests (roughly 632–750 CE, spanning the Rashidun and Umayyad periods) were a rapid, expansionist series of military campaigns that overthrew the Byzantine and Sasanian empires and seized North Africa, parts of the Iberian Peninsula, Central Asia, and beyond. They involved large-scale violence, massacres of civilians, systematic enslavement (including sexual slavery), destruction of religious sites, imposition of discriminatory subordination, and processes of Arabization and Islamization that permanently altered the demographic, cultural, and religious character of conquered lands.
Contemporary and near-contemporary non-Muslim sources (Coptic, Armenian, Syriac, Byzantine) and even some Muslim chronicles describe widespread brutality. Later apologetic narratives often minimize this by emphasizing eventual “tolerance” under dhimmi status or gradual conversion, but the conquest phase itself was frequently ruthless.
Massacres and Civilian Slaughter
Arab armies routinely killed adult males of fighting age after victories or sieges and sometimes wiped out entire populations of towns that resisted. Examples include:
- In Egypt under Amr ibn al-As, the 7th-century Coptic bishop John of Nikiu recorded systematic slaughter: at Behnesa, Fayum, Aboit, and Nikiu, inhabitants who surrendered or were encountered in streets and churches—men, women, and children—were put to the sword. He described the Muslim yoke as heavier than Pharaoh’s.
- In Syria/Palestine, the region between Gaza and Caesarea was devastated in 634; thousands of Christian, Jewish, and Samaritan peasants defending their land were massacred. Monasteries were sacked and monks killed in Mesopotamia. Armenian chronicles describe populations of Assyria and districts around Lake Van being decimated.
- In Persia/Elam and Susa, populations and dignitaries were put to the sword. At Jalula (637) and other battles, large numbers of Persians were killed and survivors enslaved.
- In North Africa, resistance by Berbers (including under the leader Kahina) was crushed with heavy force; large numbers of Christian Berbers were enslaved and deported. Carthage and other centers fell after prolonged campaigning that combined battle with subjugation.
- Earlier, in the lifetime of Muhammad, the Banu Qurayza Jewish tribe in Medina faced execution of adult males (traditional accounts range from hundreds to around 600–900, though numbers are debated and some modern Muslim scholarship disputes the scale) after judgment for alleged treachery during the Battle of the Trench; women and children were enslaved. This set a pattern of collective punishment for groups judged hostile.
These were not isolated excesses of war in a brutal age (Byzantines and Sasanians also committed atrocities against each other and subjects). They were part of a conquest ideology that offered conversion, payment of jizya under subordination, or the sword.
Enslavement, Sexual Slavery, and Human Tribute
Conquest produced massive numbers of captives treated as war booty (ghanima). Women and children were routinely enslaved; adult male combatants were often killed. Sexual access to female captives (“those whom your right hands possess”) was religiously sanctioned.
- Thousands were enslaved after the fall of Caesarea Maritima, Cyprus, and other places. In Persia, Zoroastrians captured in war could gain freedom by converting. Umar is recorded expressing concern about the children that would be born to slave women.
- In North Africa, Arabs levied human tribute on Berber tribes, supplying slaves (especially females) to the ruling class. Even some later caliphs criticized the practice, indicating it was widespread.
- Slave markets expanded. Concubinage with enslaved women became common; data from biographical sources show a rise in children born to umm walad (enslaved mothers who bore children to free Muslim men) during the height of imperial expansion. Captives from different regions were transported and sold.
- In Sind (later under Muhammad bin Qasim, still within the early expansionary period), accounts describe mass killings of adult males, forced circumcision attempts, and large-scale enslavement of women and children.
This was not uniquely Islamic—slavery was ubiquitous in the late antique world—but the scale of new captives generated by the conquests was enormous, and Islamic jurisprudence formalized rules for their ownership, sale, inheritance, and sexual use rather than abolishing the institution.
Colonization, Arabization, and Demographic Transformation
The conquests functioned as colonization. Arab tribal armies established garrison cities (amsar) such as Kufa, Basra, and Fustat. Arab settlers and administrators formed a ruling stratum that extracted resources. Non-Arab converts (mawali) were often treated as second-class even after conversion, facing continued taxation and social discrimination under the Umayyads—fuel for later resentment that contributed to the Abbasid revolution.
- Language and administration were Arabized (especially under Abd al-Malik): Greek, Persian, Coptic, and Aramaic bureaucratic use was replaced by Arabic.
- Indigenous Christian communities in North Africa largely disappeared over subsequent centuries; Berbers were Islamized and partially Arabized. Zoroastrian Persia saw a long decline of its traditional religion under pressure of jizya, social restrictions, occasional violence, and incentives to convert. Fire temples and churches were destroyed or converted in many places during and after the conquests.
- Demographic change was real: Arab settlement, intermarriage (often involving enslaved women), conversion incentives/pressures, and the subordinate status of non-Muslims shifted population balances over generations. This was imperial replacement and cultural transformation, not mere political succession.
Discriminatory Legal and Religious Regime
Survivors who did not convert lived as dhimmis (protected but inferior subjects). They paid the jizya poll tax (often accompanied by rituals of humiliation), faced restrictions on building or repairing places of worship, public religious display, bearing arms, riding certain animals, and testimony in court. The “Pact of Umar” tradition codified many of these disabilities. Forced conversion was not the universal policy of the earliest period (pragmatic rulers preferred tax revenue), but pressure, episodic violence, destruction of temples/churches/synagogues, and the inferior legal status made conversion the rational long-term choice for many. Apostasy from Islam was punishable by death.
John of Nikiu and other Christian writers portrayed the new order as oppressive. Zoroastrians and others faced similar or harsher treatment in places. Idolaters/polytheists had even fewer protections under classical interpretations.
Genocide and Scale
“Genocide” in the modern legal sense (intent to destroy a group in whole or in part) is anachronistic for the 7th century, but the pattern included targeted mass killing of resisting populations, cultural erasure through destruction of religious infrastructure, mass enslavement that broke families and communities, and policies that over time eliminated or marginalized entire religious majorities in their homelands (Coptic Egypt and North African Christianity declined dramatically; Zoroastrianism was reduced to a tiny minority). The conquests eliminated two great late-antique imperial systems and subordinated their populations to a new Arab-Muslim elite that extracted wealth and prestige from them.
Apologists stress that conversion was often gradual, that some Christian communities survived for centuries, that jizya could be preferable to Byzantine or Sasanian taxation/persecution in certain contexts, and that the conquerors sometimes offered relatively orderly administration after initial violence. These points have limited force against the primary evidence of massacres, mass enslavement, temple destruction, and the permanent imposition of a hierarchical religious order favoring the conquerors. The early Muslim expansion was a classic imperial conquest involving the brutalities typical of such enterprises—on a scale and with a lasting demographic and civilizational impact that few others matched in so short a time.
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u/Yagrum_Bagarm 3h ago
Nice AI reply yet I don't see any colonization, and as for genocide
- “‘Genocide’ in the modern legal sense (intent to destroy a group in whole or in part) is anachronistic for the 7th century"
Yeah congratulations you admitted it yourself 👍. Pick up a dictionary next time.
and again, the issue is about being Topical, you bring up "Colonization and Genocide" which is not topical, and worst yet isn't even applicable, if you had the slightest sense of reading comprehension you would know that. Yet you wasted your time with (and if I have good faith to you) a well thought out reply to an irrelevant statement.
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u/hela_2 3h ago edited 2h ago
Yeah congratulations you admitted yourself 👍
Glad to know you skimmed through the atrocities and realised that your ancestors were violent jihadists out for blood. Also i do this to learn myself so it's good to know that genocide is more apt for current events, despite its description being extremely fitting for population and cultural erasure.
topical
Both are absolutely topical and relevant 😂
Equivalent of genocide in the modern day
but the pattern included targeted mass killing of resisting populations, cultural erasure through destruction of religious infrastructure, mass enslavement that broke families and communities, and policies that over time eliminated or marginalized entire religious majorities in their homelands.
Islamic conquests were a form of colonisation, isn't it surprising that you and your friends whine about white people all day but didn't know your ancestors were far worse?
The conquests functioned as colonization. Arab tribal armies established garrison cities (amsar) such as Kufa, Basra, and Fustat. Arab settlers and administrators formed a ruling stratum that extracted resources. Non-Arab converts (mawali) were often treated as second-class even after conversion, facing continued taxation and social discrimination under the Umayyads—fuel for later resentment that contributed to the Abbasid revolution.
issue is about being Topical
Well your issue is wrong, both these terms are popular presently, but i didnt really care about that, I want people reading these posts to be aware of history and not be brainwiped by the reddit taqiyya corp
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u/Yagrum_Bagarm 2h ago
My ancestors
So you randomly decided my ancestors were Muslim Arabs?
"Well your issue is wrong, but i didnt really care about that..."
What...? So you just admit you weren't being Topical? What kind of point is that?
And I am not the one dictating the Terms for Genocide, the fine print itself has it written, black on white (or white on black in this case perhaps). You are fundamentally confusing imperial conquest and assimilation with Genocide, something you were free to point out and criticize, but that doesn't sound as good and dramatic as the G word does it?
And Taqqiya? Really? Again, my point exactly, all this is highly emotional babble so you get to project your own pre conceived notions.
We have a concept in Academic writing called topicality, but judging by your ability to misinterpret a one paragraph comment and complete devotion to culture war identity politics you probably didn't even make it past an Honors in English reading brochacho.
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u/Pleasant_Porcelain 6h ago
It wasn’t a conquest! It was a harmonious acceptance of anti-colonialist action and liberation
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u/kutkun 7h ago
BuT cRussAdDDE ArE bAD !!!
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u/the_faris 5h ago
You know crausades were done against pagans in Europe as well, right?
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u/Usual_Coat8798 4h ago
lmao don't tell that goofball that the Crusaders also massacred tons of Christians, aswell as sacking arguably the most important Christian city in the world
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u/Lothronion 9h ago
Terrible map, it suggests that Islam did not reach the Balkans except for Albania.