Arabia and Islam

Geographical Setting. Arabia is a vast peninsula which forms a link be-tween Asia and Africa. This
country was the original home of the Semites (Babylonians, Aramcans, Phoenicians, Jews, and Arabs).
The interior is mostly arid desert, with occasional oases. Along the southern and western coasts, where
the soil is fer- tile and the climate good, are the cities and towns. The Arabian Peninsula is famous for
three things: (1) Islam, the religion founded by Prophet Muhammad; (2) the legendary kingdom of the
Queen of Sheba; and (3) oil, the fabulous "black gold" beneath Arabia's desert.

The Arabs. The Arabs are a brave and strong people, with dignified bearing. flashing eyes, and slender
physique. In early times, there were two types of Arabs - desert Arabs and coastal Arabs. The desert
Arabs, also called Bedouins, lived by pasturing camels, horses, and sheep. and by robbing desert
caravans. Their favorite animals were the horses, which they used in wars, and the camels, their beasts
of burden.

The coastal Arabs lived in the coastal cities and towns. They engaged in agriculture and trade. They were
more civilized than the Bedouins, with whom they had constant feuds.

Muhammad, Prophet of Allah (570-632 A.D.). The man who gave Arabia and the world a new religion
that is distinctly Arabic in flavor and universal in appeal was Muhammad. Born in Mecca about 570 A.D.,
he was named Muhammad, which means "Highly Praised." Orphaned at an early age, he lived first with
his grandfather and later with his uncle. He became a camel driver of a rich widow. Later, he married his
wealthy employer. Thereafter, he led the life of a prosperous merchant.

Deeply religious and sensitive, Muhammad used to retreat to the desert to meditate on the evils of his
times. During his spiritual retreats, he saw visions and heard voices. According to him, Archangel Gabriel,
God's messenger, appeared to him and told him to preach a new religion.

The Hegira (622 A.D.). Muhammad's first converts to his faith were his wife, relatives and friends. The
people of Mecca, particularly the other rich merchants, were hostile to him. To escape the wrath of the
Meccan unbelievers, Muhammad and his followers fled on the night of July 16, 622 A.D. to Medina,
meaning "City of the Prophet." The flight from Mecca to Medina came to be known as the Hegira, the
Arab word for "flight." It was an epochal event in Islamic history, from which the Muslim calendar
began, as the Christian calendar began with the death and resurrection of Christ.

Muhammad in Medina. At the time of Muhammad's arrival, Medina was populated by a group of clans
living on the desert oasis. Muhammad united these clans into the nucleus of an Arab empire. He
organized a government which was a theocracy. He was the ruler, judge, legislator, and prophet.

Muhammad combined fighting with preaching. In the name of Allah, he launched the first jihad (holy
war) against Mecca. In March 632 A.D., the tenth year of the Hegira, Muhammad led a strong army
against Mecca. The city surrendered without a fight. The Prophet triumphantly entered the city of his
birth. It was indeed a joyous homecoming for him.

Death of the Prophet. Muhammad's work was finished. He had established Islam in Mecca. One-third of
Arabia was Islamized. On June 8, 632 A.D., Muhammad died of a fever in Medina and was buried there.
He left no male heir and no successor.
 The Byzantine Empire (330-1453 A.D.)

This is often ignored in the study of world history. This is unfortunate because it lasted for 11 centuries
and formed a bridge between the Greek, Hellenistic and Roman cultures and the modern world. It was
the last direct heir of the Roman empire and the first Christian nation. It preserved, developed and
transmitted the Greek, Hellenistic and Roman cultures, Roman law and organization, and, most
important of all, Christianity. Although the Byzantine Empire is not well-known to Asians, it was a major
source of the cultural history of Russia, East Europe and modern Greece, where its influence passed into
the stream of world history.

Rise of Constantine the Great (280- 337 A.D.). Constantine, the real successor of the Roman emperors,
was born at Moesia around 280 A.D. His mother was St. Helena, a devout Christian who reputedly found
the true Cross of Christ at Palestine (a story celebrated in our May procession called santacruzan). His
father was Constantius, one of Diocletian's four successors. After his father's death in 306 A.D.,
Constantine was acclaimed as the new emperor by his soldiers. However, this led to civil war with the
three other "emperors." By 323 A.D., he defeated his last rival and became the sole emperor of Rome.

Constantine made two important decisions. First, he gave the Christians friendship and legal status.
Before him, the Roman emperors had cruelly persecuted the early Christians as enemies of the state.
However, in 312 A.D., Constantine had a heavenly vision before the important Battle of Milvian Bridge
near Rome. A brilliant light in the form of a cross appeared in the sky with the words, "With this sign you
will con- quer." From then on, the battle flag with a cross became the emblem of Constantine's (and
later Christian) soldiers.

In gratitude for his victory, Constantine issued the Edict of Milan (312 A.D.), which allowed Christians to
practice their religion freely and to make new converts. Constantine himself was baptized shortly before
he died in 337 A.D. Finally, one of his successors, Theodosius the Great, made Christianity the only
official religion of the Byzantine Empire in 381 A.D.

Second, on May 11, 330 A.D., Constantine made his new capital at Byzantium, a Greek sea trading town.
It was renamed Constantinople (now Istanbul in Turkey). The new city stood on a strategic site at the
shortest distance between the continents of Europe and Asia. It was a magnificent city, full of many
decorated places, monasteries and churches, beautiful homes, and free hospitals and water system.
Ships brought goods for the East- West trade.

In its glory, the population was 600,000. The new empire was thus called the Byzantium Empire or
Byzantium.

Spread of Christianity. Throughout the ages, Christianity grew until it is now the largest religion in the
world, with over one billion believers. It spread through four stages as follows:

1. The Apostolic Age (30-476 A.D.). The first five centuries of Christianity were its most difficult periods
but one of its greatest rewards. Almost all of the first apostles who saw Christ resurrect from the dead
were martyred for their testimony. The early believers were all made to suffer for their belief that Jesus
was the Son of God and lives forever- more. Many died in public executions at the whim of the Roman
emperor or authorities. Christians refused to worship traditions or worship the emperor. "We must obey
God and not men," Peter said (Acts 5:29). Their faith in the face of great persecution and even painful
death in- spired more people to believe. As Origen, a Roman writer, pointed out, "the disciples would
scarcely have been willing to die for a lie." The period ended with the missionary triumph of Christianity
- it became the religion of the Byzantine Empire, heir of the Roman Empire.

2. Middle Ages (5th-16th century). After the collapse of Rome, the Roman Catholic Church in the West
and the Eastern Orthodox Church in Byzantium spread Christianity. In the West, the barbarian tribes of
Europe were converted, and in the East, Russia and the limits of the Byzantine Empire became
Christians. In the West, the Papacy (head of the Roman Catholics) grew in power and influence. Church
Fathers or Scholastics, like St. Thomas Aquinas, St Augustine and others developed Catholic dogma and
authority. St. Jerome translated the Bible into Latin, then the official language. In the East, the Byzantine
emperor, the monks and missionaries promoted Christianity until the fall of Constantinople in 1453.

3. Protestant Reformation and Catholic Counter-Reformation (16th- 17th century) This was the historic
collision of the Protestants, led by Martin Luther of Germany, with the Roman Catholics, led by the Pope
and Catholic kings. Numerous national churches and new sects (branches) or denominations were
founded. European rulers spread Christianity to their new colonies in Asia, Africa and Latin America.

4. The Modern Era (18th-20th century). During this era, Christianity experienced many revivals in
different parts of the world. Christianity also came under attack from the rise of Islam, humanism,
science, materialism, and philosophical cults. However, Jesus said, "I will build my Church, and the gates
of hell shall not prevail against it." (Matthew 16:18) So Christians continue to await the second physical
coming of Christ with eagerness and anticipation, despite the serious challenges of the modern world to
the teachings of Christ.

Decline of the Byzantine Empire

So great was Byzantium at its peak of glory that Odoacer, the barbarian who sacked Rome, offered to
become a lieutenant to the Byzantine emperor in 476 A.D. Being the first Christian nation and the
second Rome did not guarantee Byzantium immortality because Jesus him- self said, "My kingdom is not
of this world." Byzantine was only man's idea of a heaven on earth, so in time it declined and collapsed.
The causes of its decline and fall were as follows:

1.Internal intrigues.

Since the empire had no law of succession, there were regular plots and counterplots to try to seize the
throne. These struggles for power within the empire seriously weakened it.

2. Rivalry between the Roman and Eastern churches. The clashes be- tween the two branches of
Christianity in- volved theological, political and territorial disputes. The theological disputes in- volved
church dogma and the interpretation of the Bible. One of the most traumatic conflicts involved the use
of icons (images) to represent in a physical form the invisible form of God and His saints. One opinion
held that icons were educational tools, an aid in worship for those who could not read scripture.
Another opinion said that icons were idols and dis- obeyed the second commandment of God (Exodus
20: 4-6). In 726 A.D., Byzantine Emperor Leo III issued an edict advocating iconoclasm - the breaking up
of images, including the crucifix. It became a full-blown controversy: riots broke out in Constantinople
and unrest spread throughout Greece and Italy. At the Seventh Ecumenical Council in 787 A.D., the use
of images or icons was restored.
Other disputes were political in nature because in 800 A.D., the Roman Pope crowned Charlemagne as
emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. This was considered an attack on the universal authority and
supremacy of the Byzantine emperor.

Finally, the two churches also competed for new converts to Christianity. In the 9th century, they
quarreled and hindered the spread of missionaries to East- ern Europe. In 1054, the two churches
excommunicated each other. This great schism between the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox
Churches has not fully been ended. Repeated attempts at reunion have failed. In 1965, Pope Paul VI and
Archbishop Makarios, head of the Greek Orthodox Church, lifted the mutual ex- communication, and a
better climate of understanding has prevailed in the spirit of ecumenism (unity). However, the two
branches of Christianity have three heads the Pope at Rome heads the Roman Catholics, the Patriarch of
Constantinople heads the Greek Orthodox Church, and the Metropolitan of Moscow heads the Russian
Orthodox Church.

3. Western competition in trade. From the 11th century on, the growth of Venice and other Italian city-
states caused a big drop in Byzantine business. Rather than go to Constantinople to trade goods from
the East and the West, merchants took their goods to Italy. Economic depression set in. As money grew
short, the splendor and power of the empire also vanished. By the end of the 4th century, the
population had declined to 100,000, one-sixth of what it was before.

4. The Crusades. Ironically, during the Crusades, Christians fought each other at Byzantium. The Fourth
Crusade (1204), originally sent to fight the Muslims in Egypt and the Holy Land, was di- verted to
Constantinople to take the city into the fold of Roman Catholicism. While the city was attacked and
sacked, fellow Christians furiously fought and killed each other-in the name of religion. The Catholic
crusaders burned, looted and destroyed the beautiful churches, palaces, monasteries, libraries and villas
of Constantinople. What they could not destroy, they looted. The stolen treasures of Byzantine found
their way to Western Europe (e.g. the famous horse statues at St. Mark's Square in Venice, Italy). The
crusaders established a "Latin Empire of Constantinople," but this lasted only until 1261. So bad was the
memory of the Crusades to the Byzantines that they re- fused to unite with Rome even during the
Muslim threat. "Better the Sultan's turban than the Cardinal's hat" said a popular slogan in
Constantinople. This Christian rivalry indirectly contributed to the fall of Constantinople to the Turks in
1453.

5. The invasions by Muslim Turks. From the 11th to the 15th centuries, Islamic Turks troubled the
Byzan- tine Empire. At first, Seljuk Turkish warriors successfully raided and invaded Byzantine territories.
When the Ottoman Turks replaced the Seljuks in the 14th century, they continued to take Byzantine
land. By 1397, all what was left to Byzantium was the city of Constantinople and its immediate
surroundings.

Finally, on May 29, 1453, Constantinople fell to the Ottoman Turks after a 2-month siege. The last
Byzantine emperor, seeing that all was lost got off his horse and threw himself into the thickest part of
the battle, never to be seen again. Sultan Muhammad II, the leader of the Turks, and later called
"Conqueror of Constantinople," allowed his troops the customary three days of pillage and plunder. He
converted Hagia Sophia into a mosque.

End of the Byzantine Empire. With the fall of Constantinople in 1453, the Byzantine Empire had ceased
to exist. However, its influence and legacy passed on to Russian and modern Greece.
When Constantinople fell, Ivan III of Russia married the daughter of the last Byzantine emperor. He
claimed that, whereas Constantinople was the second Rome, Moscow was now the third Rome. He
adopted Byzantine ceremony and the double-headed eagle, insignia of the Byzantine emperor. His
successors took the title of Czar (Caesar). Russia became the principal heir of Byzantium, keeping alive
the Eastern Orthodox Church, to which Prince Vladimir was converted in 1000 A.D. when he was dazzled
by the splendor of the Byzantine churches and liturgy.

Back in their original homes, the Greeks expelled their Turkish overlords in 1821 and founded modem
Greece, which is also a child of Byzantium. In the island of Cyprus, it is interesting to note that the head
of the Greek Orthodox Church, Archbishop Makarios, became the head of state in 1959-1977.