# Islam and Muhammad

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/islam-and-muhammad/172646>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [May 2, 2003, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/islam-and-muhammad/172646 "2003-05-02T15:42:15Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Meatros](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Meatros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Meatros)\
**Post date:** [May 2, 2003, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/islam-and-muhammad/172646/1 "2003-05-02T15:42:15Z")

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I was engaged in a relatively friendly chat with a friend of mine and the subject of Islam came up.

I seem to recall (from my religion class at college) that Mohammad actually asserted control (as in ‘rule’) over a section of the middle east. My memories fuzzy, hence my question in GQ;

Did Mohammad use Islamic followers to take over certain countries/cities while he was alive? I’m fairly certain that Islam was _later_ spred by muslims (ie, taking over other countries), but I was wondering if Mohammad actually did this himself.

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**Author:** ![Schnitte](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/schnitte/32/9033_2.png) [@Schnitte](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Schnitte)\
**Post date:** [May 2, 2003, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/islam-and-muhammad/172646/2 "2003-05-02T17:14:37Z")

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IANA expert on Arabic history, but I definitely know that under his leadership, Islamic troups conquered his birthplace, the city of Mecca.

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**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\
**Post date:** [May 2, 2003, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/islam-and-muhammad/172646/3 "2003-05-02T17:41:38Z")

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When Mohammed was born, Arabia had no government of any kind. Clans and tribes were everything. Independent cities such as Mecca and Medina were not really city-states; public order was merely an uneasy peace between clans.

By the time of his death, Mohammed had established a theocratic state, a de facto monarchy, that united what are now Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Oman, and the United Arab Emirates. It was an ethnically homogeneous state – practically all its people were Arabs, apart from a Jewish minority.

It was the Prophet’s successors who expanded the Islamic empire into non-Arab countries – North Africa, Egypt, Mesopotamia (Iraq), and Persia (Iran). This stimulated Islam to evolve from an ethnic religion of the Arabs into a universalist religion.

For more details check out “Islam: A Short History,” by Karen Armstrong (Modern Library Chronicles series, 2000).

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**Author:** ![Meatros](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Meatros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Meatros)\
**Post date:** [May 2, 2003, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/islam-and-muhammad/172646/4 "2003-05-02T18:06:06Z")

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Cool, thanks for the info! 😃

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**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\
**Post date:** [May 4, 2003, 1:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/islam-and-muhammad/172646/5 "2003-05-04T01:22:13Z")

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By the way, you an also find a good (and fun-to-read!) account of the rise of Islam in “The Cartoon History of the Universe III,” by Larry Gonick (2002, W.W. Norton & Co.).