Jihad

In the decades following Muhammad's death, the Arab Muslims conquered Arabia, Syria, Palestine, Iraq, Egypt, and Iran; Central Asia, North Africa, Spain, and other regions came soon afterward. Among the explanations for these successful conquests, an important point of difference involves the jihad. Were these conquests "Islamic" or "Arab"? According to the "Islamic" view, the Muslims fought because God commanded them to do so. They were motivated by neither fear nor greed but by a desire to propagate the faith. "Arab" explanations, on the other hand, which prevailed among Western specialists until fairly recently, looked at conditions in ancient Arabia. By the seventh century, it was thought, desiccation and desertification had reduced many of Arabia's centers of civilization to ruins; meanwhile the peninsula suffered from overpopulation. Inevitably the Arabs felt pressure to migrate, raid, or conquer. More recently others have emphasized the political aspects of the conquests. It is increasingly clear, however, that religion and jihad did take a major role.