• What was the impact of the creation of the Islam religion?

Explanation:

The Impact of Islam

As Islam spread across the Arabian Peninsula and later across North Africa and the Middle East, it had an aggregating effect. The occupants of these areas had been nomadic tribes for a very long time. They were polytheistic and reaped all the political problems associated with polytheism. Remember, although tribes or regions may share the same pantheon of gods, they tend to place primary importance on different individual gods. Consequently, the belief in many gods lends itself very readily to conflicting loyalties and competition in politics. This had long been an impediment to peace or unification in many areas into which Islam would spread.

Conversion to monotheism meant that these barriers were no longer relevant and unification became easier. Likewise, one’s ancestral bloodline—once the unifying bond within a tribe—gave way to a new loyalty based on a common faith in one god. As a result, Islam facilitated the rise of large empires in areas once characterized by small kingdoms, marauding bandits or tribal nomads.

Another effect of the spread of Islam was an increase in trade. Unlike early Christianity, Muslims were not reluctant to engage in trade and profit; Muhammad himself was a merchant. As new areas were drawn into the orbit of Islamic civilization, the new religion provided merchants with a safe context for trade. The application of sharia—Islamic law derived from the Koran—ensured a certain measure of uniformity in the application of criminal justice. Sharia law protected commerce and imposed stiff punishments for theft and dishonesty. Muslim jurists called qadis were established to resolve disputes through the application of sharia. Merchants were thus provided with a forum for making complaints and having them resolved in a consistent and systematic way. Trade and travel were not as risky or perilous as before and both thrived with the coming of Islam.

Despite these generalizations, Islam’s effect in any given area was dependent on the institutions and belief systems already in place. It is necessary to look at some of these areas individually.

no because we were not ready for war