Islam: A Short History is an overview of the political and theological history of Islamic societies by Karen Armstrong, a British author known for her popular works on comparative religion. Armstrong aims to write an account of Islam that is accessible to non-Muslim, Western readers, Addressing Commonly Held Misconceptions About Islam and highlighting External Influences on Islamic Thought, Politics, and Culture. The book follows her 1991 work, Muhammad: A Biography of the Prophet, and precedes The Battle for God: Fundamentalism in Judaism, Christianity and Islam (2000), both of which also address incorrect and harmful beliefs about Islam that are commonly held by non-Muslims.

This guide refers to the 2007 ebook edition of the text, published by Modern Library.

Content Warning: This guide and its source material contain discussions of religious discrimination, anti-Muslim bias, antisemitism, religious violence and terrorism, misogyny, and war.

Language Note: Islam: A Short History frequently uses Arabic words that have been transliterated into English. Many of these words do not have a standardized spelling in English, so for the most part, this guide uses Armstrong’s spellings for the purposes of consistency. Certain words may be spelled differently in other sources. Note that while Armstrong uses the spelling 'Shii' to refer to individuals who practice Shia Islam, this guide will use the spelling 'Shia,' as it is more familiar to general readers.

Summary

The history of Islam begins with the life of the Prophet Muhammad, a Quraysh tribesman who began receiving revelations from the angel Gabriel in 610. He communicated his revelations verbally to his followers, but they would later be compiled into what is now the Quran, the holy text of Islam. Among the core teachings of the Quran were egalitarianism within communities and care for the poor. Armstrong argues that Muhammad viewed these teachings as a call to return to the ancestral values of his culture, rather than the invention of a completely new religion. As Muhammad gained more followers, he was increasingly viewed as a political threat by the political elites of Mecca. They forbade non-Muslims from trading with Muhammad’s clan, which resulted in starvation for the group and the death of Muhammad’s beloved wife, Khadijah. Eventually, Muhammad and his followers fled to the predominantly Jewish community of Yathrib (now Medina), where he established the first ummah, a community of his followers who lived according to the teachings of the Quran. Meanwhile, in need of more resources to sustain the ummah, Muhammad began launching limited raiding campaigns against neighboring groups. Eventually, he had accrued enough power to return to Mecca and take control of the city. By the end of his life, the Muslims had taken control over the entire Arabian Peninsula.

Following Muhammad’s death, there ensued a prolonged period of political unrest; his four immediate successors, the Rashidun, struggled to enact policies that supported both the spiritual and political wellbeing of the ummah. The Muslim population was concerned that the Rashidun were engaging in political leadership at the cost of their spiritual integrity. There was also disagreement over how to determine leadership succession. This led to consistent infighting amongst the Muslim population, and eventually the religion split into two branches: the Sunni, who accept the legitimacy of the Rashidun, and the Shia, who only view Ali, the fourth Rashidun and Muhammad’s son-in-law, as having had a legitimate claim to rule.

After the assassination of Ali in 661, the Umayyad family claimed control of the faith and established a capital in Damascus. The Umayyad Caliphate would maintain control of the Islamic world for just under a century, until 750. Armstrong characterizes the Umayyads as preoccupied with religious debates about absolute monarchy; even though absolutist rule was antithetical to the teachings of the Quran, the Umayyads controlled a vast enough empire that there did not seem to be another practical way to rule it. Dissent amongst the Shia population helped to destabilize the Caliphate, allowing a new dynasty, the Abbasids, to take control.

When the Abbasids took over the Caliphate, they moved their capital to Baghdad, where they began implementing absolutist policies that solidified their control. The Abbasid Caliphate was culturally vibrant, particularly in Baghdad, which became a center of innovative art, literature, philosophy and science, influenced in part by exposure to Greek and Roman philosophy. Amidst this intellectually rigorous atmosphere, a new set of religious subcultures, which Armstrong terms the Esoterics, emerged. These mystical theologies were sparked in response to the highly pragmatic, jurisprudential approach to Islam that had been adopted by the Abbasids.

Following the collapse of the Abbasid Caliphate, the Islamic world was politically fragmented but also expanding. Armstrong argues that this was a period of religious liberation and unified identity for people across the Islamic world. This spiritual ascension was unexpectedly cut short when the Mongols, led by Genghis Khan, swept across West Asia in a violent campaign of conquest and took over much of the Muslim world. The Mongol Empire destroyed a great deal of Islamic stability before it began to build it back up again. Armstrong views this as a traumatic event that instilled a suspicion of foreign cultures into the Islamic psyche.

In the Early Modern Era, three great Islamic Empires emerged: the Ottomans in Anatolia, the Mughals in India, and the Safavids in Iran. All three empires were faced with the question of how much to tolerate non-Muslims following the trauma of the Mongol Era. The Mughals were the most tolerant, accepting India’s ancient ethos of religious coexistence. The Safavids were the most intolerant, demanding the conversion of all Iranians to Shia Islam. Finally, the Ottomans wavered between tolerance and intolerance, especially as they conquered the Balkans and came into contact with rapidly developing European cultures. Ultimately a movement of religious conservatism instilled fear about European innovations in the Ottoman population, which Armstrong argues left them unprepared for Europe’s meteoric rise to global hegemony.

In Armstrong’s framing, Europe’s colonial conquest of much of the Islamic world, and its enforcement of secular politics on Islamic culture (which had always infused religious ideas into politics), fostered a deep resentment towards Western culture among some Muslims. Armstrong notes that the extreme fundamentalisms developing in Islam at the time she was writing were contemporaneous with fundamentalist movements in other religions worldwide. Ultimately, she argues that in order to achieve a less contentious future, Europeans will have to gain a deeper respect for Islam and give Islamic cultures room to develop democratic governments on their own terms.