Origins of the Islamic State

The Arabian peninsula is marked by deserts and different zonal distinctions. Arabia has long served as a transit area between the Mediterranean and the Further East. The early centuries remain obscure because archaeology has not examined the area as it has in Egypt, Palestine, and Mesopotamia. According to tradition, the Arabian people are divided into northern and southern groupings, and the author discusses them separately. The historical chronology of the southern group is obscure until the time of Alexander the Great. The religion was polytheistic. Society was agricultural, with a high degree of development. The people of the central and northern regions were nomadic. The sates were Arab in origin but were under the influence of Hellenized Aramaic culture. Some of these states are less well-known than others of the time. Bedouin tribalism marks the people of this region, with a rudimentary political organization. There was limited foreign rule during this era leading to different influences. The city of Mecca came into being with its own government, a merchant republic governed by a syndicate of wealthy businessmen. Muhammad, the Prophet of Islam, was born into this world.

The way the state developed emerged from the contemporary situation of the Arabs and from the culture they

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nd coherence in Islam. The caliph enforced legal decisions, safeguarded the divinely revealed restrictive ordinances, maintained the armies and guarded the community of Islam from external attack, enforced order and security, meted out justice, received and distributed the zakah and other alms, maintained the Friday services and public institutions, decided between disputants, served as supreme judges in matters bearing legal claims, married minors who had no guardians, distributed booty gained in war, and generally catered to a variety of needs brought before him by the faithful (Farah 155). The history of Islam can be divided into distinct phases --the period of emergence extended from 610 to 661; the period of classical elaboration, or the Golden Age, from 661 to 1258; and the era of repetition and scholastic fragmentation from 1258 to 1800, followed by a time of reactivation and political militancy in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries (Arkoun 3). Islam began with Muhammad and the revelations he made to his followers and others. The first Muslim was Khadija, the Prophet's wife, and the second was either his freed slave or his teenage cousin. In a short time, he had about 40 converts. The new doctrine took shape in Me
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Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page)

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