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.