This research paper analyzes the circumstances that led to the rise of Islam. It focuses on the following: (1) the underlying conditions prevailing in the early seventh century which predisposed the society of western Arabia, especially the towns of Medina and Mecca, where the Prophet Muhammad was born in 571 A.D., to be receptive to his religious teachings; (2) the reasons why a religious polity arose there and in the surrounding areas under the Prophet's inspired leadership until he died in 632; and (3) the factors which facilitated the rapid spread of Islam in Arabia and elsewhere by military conquest under the rule of his immediate successors (633-661).
Political, economic, social and religious conditions in western Arabia in the early seventh century were ripe for a fundamental transformation of Arab society. Because of the arid climate and the saline soaked soil, the sparsely populated Arabian peninsula, which was on the periphery of the rival Byzantine Empire to the north and west, and the Sasanid or Persian hordes to the east, could only sustain a static, nomadic, pastoral way of life. However, changes were occurring. Outside influences were being felt in the oasis of Mecca, which "had become one of the important caravan cities of the Middle East" (Lapidus 17). Situated on the crossroads of trade within the region, Mecca "acquired a sphere of influence among the nomads," some of whose tribes could interdict that trade by raids which were "raised by the economic and social conditions of desert life to the rank of a national institution" (Hitti 15).
The Quraysh tribe into which Muhammad was born was the keeper of the shrine of Ka'ba in Mecca to which the Bedouins made pilgrimages. The Quraysh "dominated life in Mecca" (Fisher 20). The religion of the Bedouins was animist and polytheistic, but because of the presence of Jewish and Christian merchants in Mecca, the teachings of wandering preachers and soothsayers and press...