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Entry 96 of 240Reform

The Rise of Islam

622 CE/Arabia/Early Islamic community
Today Arabia (Mecca and Medina, modern Saudi Arabia)Span Rashidun & Umayyad expansion · 632–750 CE

In 622 the prophet Muhammad and his followers migrated from Mecca to Medina — an event so pivotal it marks year one of the Islamic calendar. Within a single century, the community he founded had burst out of Arabia to rule an empire reaching from Spain to the borders of India, larger than Rome at its height.

◆ Worth knowingThe Islamic calendar counts its years not from Muhammad's birth or death but from the moment he and his followers migrated to Medina — so a faith's founding year is dated, fittingly, to an act of flight.
◆ The mechanismIdeological movement

A belief system rises, spreads, institutionalizes, and then schisms — changing the rules people accept as legitimate.

Also: Military-technological disruption · Trade-route shift

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