CHAPTER 9: THE EDGE
CHAPTER 9: THE EDGE
Key points from chapter:
West Africa possesses a rich heritage of Islamic learning in cities such as Timbuktu
Muslims in the Americas were subject to severe torture and slowly lost their Muslim identity
Islam took hold in China from as early as the 7th century
Islam spread to the furthest depths of Southeast Asia through trade
Islamic history is often confined to the Middle East and although it is true that some of it’s greatest empires rose from that region, Islam also played a major role in other parts of the world. The summary of this chapter will be split into six short sections with each looking at the different regions the author explores:
West Africa
East Africa
Americas
China
India
Southeast Asia
Islam spread in West Africa through Muslim traders from North Africa. As more traders travelled to West Africa, the Muslim population in the area grew. However, the new Muslims held on to their pre-Islamic beliefs such as magic and connections to spirits. The Murābitūn were one group who avoided this but were too small to have a lasting impact. Despite this, many great empires rose in West Africa. One of these was the Mali Empire. Located in the inner Niger Delta and founded in the 1200’s by Sundiata Keita, it reached its height under the reign of Mansa Musa (r. 1312-1337). He took power after his brother embarked on a voyage to discover lands west of Africa and took the empire to great heights. Mansa Musa is most famously known for his Hajj journey in 1324 in which 60,000 people joined him. He was personally accompanied by 12,000 people dressed in valuable silk robes and two kilograms of gold each. They distributed money to poor people on the way and the most notable distribution of gold was in Mamluk Egypt. They gave away such an extraordinary amount of gold that the Egyptian economy struggled with inflation for the next 10 years. On his return to Mali, he brought back scholars to help spread Islamic knowledge in his empire. As a result, the city of Timbuktu was built as a hub of knowledge and Ibn Ishaq, who was another person Mansa Musa brought back with him, was ordered to build schools, palaces and masjids similar to the grandeur of the rest of the Islamic world. He also sent scholars from Mali to Morocco to study Islam. Through this, Mali, and Timbuktu in particular, “became one of the leading centers of Islamic knowledge in the world at a time when Muslim civilization was on the decline in its traditional centers”(p173).
Another great West African Empire was the Songhai Empire. They eclipsed the Mali Empire and further developed Timbuktu as a hub of Islamic Knowledge. Through this, the influence of Islam in West Africa became even greater.
Islam also had a strong presence in East Africa. It first arrived in the region with the Companions of the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ, who fled from Makkah to Abyssinia. Islamic artefacts and masjids found in modern day Abyssinia have been dated back to the era of the Companions. By the thirteenth century, Islam had taken root even further along the coast in what is now Tanzania. The main avenue through which Islam spread in East Africa was commerce. There was no mass migration of Muslims to East Africa but through the settlement of a few Arab traders who intermarried with African women, Islam spread. This was a genuine intermixing of cultures that led to the development of a new hybrid culture, with Islam at its heart. These communities developed into powerful city states and were not just commercial powerhouses but religious ones too. Ibn Batuta recorded the piety of some of the leaders such as the Sultan of Mogadishu who relied on his religious advisors for day to day administrations. Another example is the Sultan of Kilwa who gave special treatment to religious scholars and descendants of the Prophet ﷺ and also regularly ate meals with the city’s poor. It is important to note that Islam was not seen as a foreign religion by East Africans. The two cultures merged and the pre-Islamic character of the region was modified to fit in with Islamic law”.
Through the Trans-Atlantic slave trade in West Africa, Islam found its way to the Americas. Muslims were taken from Africa to work on plantations in the Americas. They were subject to the same torture as non-Muslim slaves such as working longer hours, being whipped and tortured by their owners and usually receiving one set of coarse and tattered clothing. However, the key difference between the two groups was that the Muslims could not practise their religion. It was nearly impossible to take a break from work five times a day for prayers and performing the Hajj pilgrimage was out of the question. Even learning about Islam became very difficult for the Muslims. However, there were many Muslims who were more educated than their European captors which sometimes gave them the opportunity to do less demanding work such as accounting and management. Many of these learned men also rebelled such as the revolt in 1835 by scholars in Brazil. They passed notes to each other in Arabic and initiated a revolt which, although failed, struck fear into the hearts of the slavers who sent many Muslim slaves back to Africa. The passing of time coupled with being so distant from the heartlands of Islam led to Islamic knowledge and practices dying out and by the 18th century, children remembered only Islam as ancient rites practised by their forefathers.
In the 20th Century, the Nation of Islam attempted a revival by combining Islamic and Christian Rites. However, this was deemed too radical as it was only aimed at helping black Muslims. As highlighted in the earliest chapters, racial preferences have no precedence in Islam. In the 1960s, former members of the group such as Malcom X and W.D Muhammad led people away from this and back to a more traditional understanding of Islam. Through this, Islam remained in America and did not fade away into a distant memory.
Islam also played a significant role in regions in the far East such as China. Islam first spread here during the caliphate of Uthman (RA) who sent Sa’d ibn Abī Waqqās (RA) to the Tang dynasty. It took a greater hold in China in the 7th century when Muslim soldiers were invited to serve in this Chinese military. Through this, settlement and inter marrying occurred and a Muslim presence was established in China. However, the religion of the Chinese people was very different to the Muslims as they followed Buddhism and Confucianism which made it difficult for them to accept Islam. Therefore, Islam’s influence in China remained small and the population remained a minority. Special enclaves developed which allowed for Chinese Muslims to preserve their knowledge.
The Mongol invasions of China and the eastern Muslim world led to mass migration of Muslims to China and some Muslims even took on administrative roles in the empire. With the Muslim population in China rapidly growing, the Muslims fully assimilated into Chinese culture as Chinese countrymen with their own distinct identity – Hui. One Muslim individual of great renown was Zeng He. He was a famous explorer who was given command of a fleet of treasure ships by the Ming dynasty to establish trade and diplomatic relations with distant polities. He travelled to many lands but is perhaps most fondly remembered in southeast Asia where “he is revered as a figure who helped spread Islam in the Malay Archipelago”. The author says on Zeng He that he was “emblematic of the nature of Islam in China: fully Chinese yet fully Muslim with no contradiction between the two identities.”
Another region Islam played a significant role in was India. Its influence initially remained small, following Muhammad ibn Qāsim’s expedition in the 8th century. However, after Mahmūd Ghazni declared his independent state in the Afghan Highlands, the Muslims campaigned further into India with Mahmūd leading seventeen campaigns under his reign. He established major cultural centres in the region and his “legacy in India today is coloured by modern politics as much as anyone else.” The Ghurids, who rose up in the 9th century, marched further into India and captured Delhi in 1192. They were toppled by the Turkic slave soldiers they incorporated into their army who established the Delhi Sultanate and ruled from 1206 to 1526.
The Delhi Sultanate had some notable features such as the absence of a hereditary succession practice. At the death of their ruler, a group of nobles would elect a general to succeed the previous ruler. Additionally, the sultan could be removed from power by the nobles which “allowed the sultanate to stave off the culture of complacency that plagues many hereditary dynasties after the first few generations.” They also remained one of the few polities who respected the authority of the Abbasid Caliph, even after the Mongol invasions. Another key feature was their attempts to keep India together with the Muslim heartlands despite their distance from it. The rulers also helped to spread Sufism which offered a polytheistic and native people an inward and spiritual dimension. The egalitarian nature of Islam also offered the Hindu people a way out of the caste system which treated the lowest classes in society worse than animals. The Muslims never outnumbered the Hindus in India but through the efforts of rulers and scholars, it did find a solid foothold in the subcontinent.
Islam also found its way to Southeast Asia. Similar to East Africa, Islam spread through commerce in Southeast Asia as it offered great economic benefits to the rulers there. The author says “shared beliefs and Arabic as a lingua franca facilitated trade between regions that would otherwise not have much in common. If a king in Southeast Asia converted to Islam, he could also join this lucrative economic community.” After the rulers accepted Islam, the local population did so too and similar to India, the spread of Islam was done through Sufism. The key difference between the two regions was the schools of Fiqh that they followed. In India, Islam came from Persia so the Hanafi school become popular whilst, in Southeast Asia, Islam came from Yemen so the Shafi’i school was adopted by the masses. Large states converted in the 1200’s with Pasai being one of the first. From Pasai, Islam spread eastward to the Kingdom of Malacca, which was established around 1400. Located on the strait through which virtually all shipping between India and China travels, Malacca was one of the most important states in the region. Its Malay culture and customs were accepted by nearby kingdoms such as Malaysia and Indonesia which helped to further spread Islam in Southeast Asia.
In conclusion, it is clear that Islam did not only play a major role in the region between the Nile and Oxus rivers. It spread throughout the world, reaching the furthest points in the East and the West. Many great individuals and states rose from these distant lands which shows that Islam truly had become a global force. The spread of Islam to all four corners of the world is a testament to the veracity of the Prophethood of Prophet Muhammad ﷺ. He prophesied that Islam would enter into every house and it indeed had as demonstrated in this chapter.