The early conquests included the area you learned about in the previous section: the ancient Jewish homeland, which Jews call the Land of Israel. As you may recall, this area became part of the Roman Empire as the province of Judea and the Romans renamed it Palestine following Jewish revolts to regain independence. In the centuries that followed, this province remained part of the Eastern Roman Empire (which scholars call the Byzantine Empire) except for a brief period when it was under Persian rule. When the Arabs established their empire, they included this area as a district of the province of Greater Syria.

This empire covered an enormous area. It completely absorbed the Persian Empire and almost all of the Byzantine Empire’s southern provinces. Over the next hundred plus years, the Arab empire continued to grow dramatically.

This map shows three periods of Arab and Muslim conquests. The white borders on the map represent modern countries. How many modern countries in the conquered areas can you name?

By the mid-eighth century, caliphs ruled an enormous empire that stretched from Central Asia to Spain. This led to two major demographic shifts. First, through migrations and intermarriage much of Southwest Asia and North Africa became predominantly Arab.

Second, Islam spread throughout the empire. Idolaters were given the choice of death or conversion, but “People of the Book” were allowed to keep their religion. The term “People of the Book” originally referred to Jews and Christians because they have a sacred text that teaches there is only one God. These People of the Book, and later other religious minorities, were given dhimmi status.

Dhimmis had a combination of legal restrictions and legal protections that you will read about on the next page. Over time, though they had the right to keep their faith, most people in the areas taken during the Arab conquests converted to Islam. There were various reasons for this including the facts that Muslim missionaries were active and eloquent, non-Muslims faced restrictions that Muslims did not face, and Muslims paid fewer taxes.

At the beginning of this topic, you learned that Muhammad’s successors are called caliphs. Until the year 750, a single caliph ruled all the lands the Muslim Arab armies conquered. In 750, a new dynasty (ruling family), the Abbasids, overthrew the previous dynasty, the Umayyads. However, an Umayyad prince survived and fled to the area that is today Spain. He established a separate kingdom there. From this point on, there would be multiple Muslim kingdoms and rulers.

The Abbasid Empire continued to fragment in the years that followed. Separate dynasties were established in lands that were once united under a single Caliph. Some were ruled by Arabs. Some were ruled by other ethnic groups who had converted to Islam. The various kingdoms had differences but were also united by their Islamic heritage. They are often referred to collectively as the Muslim world.

Their shared Islamic heritage linked different Muslim kingdoms in more ways than just religious belief. For example, there were significant similarities in their artwork and architecture. One of the most notable examples of this is the use of the arabesque. The arabesque is a way of decorating paintings, objects, and buildings with sinuous lines or floral patterns. The image above is from the walls of a 10th century Arab Muslim palace outside of Córdoba, Spain. The arabesque style built on styles used by earlier cultures and was also used by later non-Muslim cultures. However, the style is especially prominent in Islamic art. What do you think the origin of the word arabesque might be?