Ministry of Hajj
Ministry of Hajj
Ministry of Hajj
Hajj Notices
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The Spread of Islam

The Grand Mosque Click to view high resolution version

Abu Bakr Al Siddiqi Mosque in Madinah

Abu Bakr succeeded the Prophet (peace be upon him) and, in his short period as Caliph, completed the unification of the Arabs of the peninsula. Under the command of the second Caliph, Umar bin Al-Khattab, the Arabs, now united and a formidable, battle-hardened force, swept north into Iraq and Syria, and west into Egypt. In 636 CE, at the Battle of Yarmuk, the Muslims defeated the Byzantine army and Muslim control of Palestine was established. The fate of the Persian Empire, under the Sassanids, was determined in 637 CE at the battle of Qadisiyyah where another Muslim victory led to the fall of the Sassanid capital Ctesiphon. In the period 639 to 641 CE, Muslim rule was extended to Egypt. By 641 CE, the Muslim empire covered the whole of the Arabian peninsula, Syria, Palestine and Egypt. Muslim armies then marched on along the north African coast. In 642 CE, the Muslim commander Amr bin al Aas conquered Cyrenaica. By the end of the decade, Muslim control extended across all of Libya. In 670 CE, the Muslims swept into Tunisia, finally taking Carthage in 693 CE. By 710 CE the Muslims had reached Morocco. Two years leter, the victorious Muslim army crossed the Meditarranean into Spain and, in three years, extended the Muslim writ to all of Spain except for the mountainous northern region.

In one hundred years, the Muslims had grown from a small band of committed followers of the Prophet (peace be upon him) into masters of a massive empire which extended from the Atlantic in the West to the Himalayas in the east.

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