The Islamic and Byzantine City - Mecca: A Place Of Safety, The Rapid Spread Of The New Religion, The New Garrison Towns
urban tribes passage civilizations
Islam first developed and spread in a region of the world where urban civilizations had originated. Caravan routes crisscrossed the Fertile Crescent and the Arabian peninsula several millennia prior to the birth of Christianity, linking the urban-centered civilizations of Mesopotamia, the Nile Valley, and the Indian subcontinent. Overland routes were supplemented by water transit via the Red Sea and the Persian (Arab) Gulf, with transshipping ports in what is now Yemen. Arabia was then more fertile than it is in the early 2000s, and its products (including frankincense and myrrh) were in much demand.
The lands through which the desert caravans passed were divided into the territories of seminomadic tribes that controlled and protected passage. The islands in the narrow gulfs harbored "pirates" who could block passage, pillage, and even sink sailing dhows. If there was not to be a war of all against all, the neighboring communities, whether urban, transhumant, or nomadic, had to develop rules of trust, hospitality, and fair exchange of goods. And there needed to be centers of safety in which members of diverse tribes and communities could mingle without fear.
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Thus began the formulation of a new monotheism called Islam, considered seditious by the residents of Mecca. In 622, when Muhammad was fifty-three and in declining health, he
was forced to escape with his followers to the city of Yathrib (later renamed Al-Medina, meaning "The City") and gained the support of the local tribe there and his first converts to the new religion. The da…
Within one century of the death of the Prophet, Islam had spread to a vast area that included, in addition to the Arabian peninsula, Sassanid Persia as far north as the Caucasus and including Mesopotamia, the Fertile Crescent, and a thin coastal layer along North Africa that stretched from northern Egypt up the Nile to Cairo and had reached the westernmost tip of Morocco. The Byzantine Empire, def…
Although fewer in number and developed later, these served significant symbolic purposes, since the "royal cities" established in the emerging Islamic world were often accompanied by regime changes: the movement of the caliphate or shifts between Sunni and Shiite sects. Two notable examples were the planned princely cities of Baghdad (properly Madinat al-Salam, the "City of Pe…
Constantinople, the Christian capital of Byzantium until its conquest by Muslim forces in 1453 (officially renamed Istanbul in 1930), and the Roman-patterned cities of Aleppo and Damascus in Syria and of Tunis in North Africa, are noteworthy examples of existing cities whose plans were transformed by Islamic occupation. These walled cities had inherited from the pre-Islamic period regular streets …
This brief history is sufficient to establish several principles of Islamic expansion and its urban and social roots. …
The amsar, the ribat s, the converted Greco-Roman settlements, and the new princely capitals, while differing in origins and original plans, eventually evolved into communities that had much in common. Most were walled. The center of the city usually contained the main mosque, next to which were linear market streets specializing in books, candles, and other religious items. Nearby were the hostel…
The conquest by the Ottoman Turks of Constantinople in the mid-fifteenth century and the expansion of the Ottoman Empire to the Arab provinces in the Fertile Crescent and North Africa in the sixteenth century led to a period when the wealth of empire was concentrated in their capital Konstantiniyee (Constantinople), known by its popular Turkish name as Istanbul. Istanbul grew to become one of the …
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