El Islam y la expansión musulmana. Contexto económico, social, político y cultural
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Date
2020-12-17
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Universidad Nacional de Educación Enrique Guzmán y Valle
Abstract
El objetivo de este trabajo de investigación fue todos los invasores del imperio romano de la orilla norte del Mediterráneo fueron, tarde o temprano, convertidos unos tras otros al cristianismo. Pese a todas sus
diferencias lingüísticas y étnicas, habían sido asimilados en mayor o menor grado por el mundo cristiano tanto latino como griego. Por el contrario, la invasión procedente del sureste del Mediterráneo tuvo un resultado muy distinto, ya que la mayor parte de las zonas conquistadas por los árabes se perdieron para el cristianismo de forma permanente.
Arabia era una zona por la que nadie se había preocupado en el Imperio Romano, ya
que sus desiertos y oasis estaban habitados por tribus beduinas seminómadas, pobres y
atrasadas. Como los árabes eran buenos soldados, tanto persas como bizantinos los
utilizaban en sus ejércitos, al igual que ocurrió con los bárbaros del norte. Las ciudades
de Arabia, situadas a orillas, o cerca, del mar Rojo, estaban culturalmente dominadas
por Siria, Egipto y Etiopía, es decir, por varias confesiones cristianas y por el judaísmo
de la diáspora (judíos establecidos fuera de Palestina). Por todo ello, nada hacía
sospechar a los dirigentes bizantinos y persas que los árabes se transformarían en un
serio peligro para sus bien establecidos estados.
En el año 622, un mercader de mediana edad llamado Mahoma (Muhammad), se
trasladó de la Meca a Medina, algo más al norte, y empezó a organizar un movimiento
religioso – militar. Este traslado o huida del Profeta, la hégira, sería considerado
posteriormente como el inicio de la era musulmana. A la muerte de Mahoma, en 632, el
movimiento que fundara se había extendido por toda Arabia. La religión mahometana
es estrictamente monoteísta, tanto por la influencia del judaísmo y el cristianismo, como
de tradiciones propias de Arabia. Aunque reconocía a la Biblia como texto sagrado,
Mahoma se consideraba inspirado por Dios (Allah) como profeta, para reclamar la
verdadera y definitiva religión – el Islam – que se iba a difundir a todos los hombres y
tierras del mundo incluso mediante la espada y la conquista, si era necesario. Las
enseñanzas de Mahoma quedaron recogidas en el Corán.
Los primeros sucesores del Profeta, o califas – Abu Bakr y Omar –, fueron dirigentes de
extraordinaria valía, capaces de convencer a sus seguidores de que luchaban por Alá.
En diez años lograron conquistar Siria, Persia y Egipto, ya que los ejércitos persa y
bizantino no podían hacer frente al fervor de los combatientes árabes. Sin duda, el
inmenso botín capturado en esas rápidas campañas supuso un incentivo importante no
sólo por las riquezas obtenidas por los combatientes, sino también por considerarlas
signos de que Alá cumplía las promesas hechas a su Profeta.
Las poblaciones de Siria y Egipto opusieron escasa resistencia, como tampoco habían
resistido mucho a las conquistas pendulares de persas y bizantinos en tiempos pasados.
La mayoría de las grandes ciudades capitularon con bastante rapidez y parece que la
destrucción fue mínima. Las élites cristianas, tanto seglares como eclesiásticas, y la
población judía aceptaron con calma a los nuevos dirigentes, que habían garantizado
que no habría injerencias en sus respectivas creencias. Por su parte, a la población
campesina no le preocupaba gran cosa a quién debía pagar sus impuestos, impuestos
que no disminuyeron, ya que los árabes mantuvieron intactos los eficientes sistemas
fiscales de Bizancio y Persia. Sólo en el corazón del mundo griego, en Anatolia, las
islas del Egeo y la propia Constantinopla, hallaron los árabes una población que había
recuperado fuerzas suficientes para resistirles, una vez que decidieron atacar tan lejos
de sus bases originarias.
Al contrario que los estados germánicos que sucedieron al imperio romano, el nuevo
imperio árabe estuvo, desde el principio, basado en las grandes ciudades. Por esta
razón, los árabes fundaron nuevas ciudades como Basora y Kufa en Mesopotamia, y
algo más tarde Bagdad, sobre el Tigris, así como El Cairo en Egipto y Kairuán en el
norte de África (Túnez). La población de las ciudades conquistadas se fue convirtiendo
al Islam en un lento proceso que duró varios siglos, aunque las comunidades judías se
resistieron casi por completo a convertirse. Desde fines del siglo VII, el árabe se usaba
como idioma oficial en la administración, aunque tardaría en llegar a ser la lengua
común de las poblaciones de Oriente Medio y del norte de África, si bien nunca llegó a
reemplazar al persa en Irán.
Una gran parte de la política interna del imperio islámico giraba en torno a la cuestión
de la auténtica sucesión del Profeta. Las discusiones, sectas y divisiones surgidas por
esta cuestión parecen haber jugado, en el plano emocional, un papel similar al de las
grandes herejías y discusiones acerca de la verdadera naturaleza de Cristo, desarrolladas
en el imperio romano de Oriente, si bien el contenido formal o intelectual de estas
discusiones fue muy distinto. Desde la óptica popular, en ambos casos se trataba de que
la correcta naturaleza y posición del mediador entre Dios y los hombres determinara la
salvación personal. Aunque el califa, a diferencia de Cristo, siempre fue contemplado
simplemente como hombre, era considerado como dirigente político y espiritual del
Islam. De este modo, desde épocas bastantes tempranas, la sociedad islámica tendió a la
fragmentación.
A mediados del siglo VIII, los califas omeyas, que habían sido los grandes
conquistadores de la primera expansión islámica y habían establecido su capital en
Damasco, Siria, fueron desplazados por los abasíes, descendientes de un tío del profeta
Mahoma. Como el principal apoyo de los abasíes se hallaba en Persia septentrional, así
como en Mesopotamia, trasladaron su capital a Bagdad. En la milenaria lucha por el
dominio del Próximo y Medio Oriente, era esta otra gran victoria perso –
mesopotámica, si bien bajo colores religiosos distintos.
En el 711, bereberes y árabes cruzaron el estrecho de Gibraltar y entraron a la península
Ibérica, a la que controlarían en siete años, a excepción de unos pocos núcleos
cristianos en la zona montañosa del norte y noroeste. La gran mayoría de la población
cristiana y judía de la península tenía las mismas ganas de combatir por el reino
visigodo que las que habían tenido sirios y egipcios de combatir por el imperio
bizantino. Solo después de cruzar los Pirineos y adentrarse en Francia, hallaron los
musulmanes alguna resistencia, y en 732 fueron derrotados completamente por Carlos
Martel en la batalla de Tours y Poitiers, en la Francia central, y rechazados de nuevo a
la península. Por todo ello, se ha sugerido que los árabes sólo tuvieron éxito en aquellas
regiones del Mediterráneo que presentaban una semejanza con su propio solar de
Arabia, tanto geográfica como climática.
En la antigua Hispania, los árabes no constituían más que una reducida élite dirigente,
mientras que los bereberes musulmanes procedentes del norte de África, eran algo más
numerosos. En 756, un príncipe omeya que había escapado a la masacre del resto de su
familia, ordenada por los abasíes, estableció un principado (emirato) en la península
Ibérica, con capital en Córdoba. Abd al – Rahman I fue el primer emir, y aunque
reconocía formalmente al califato abbasí de Bagdad, al – Andalus (nombre de la
Hispania musulmana) era, de hecho, un Estado independiente. Abd al – Rahman inició
la construcción de la grandiosa mezquita de Córdoba, concebida como verdadero
bosque de columnas coronadas por arcos dobles que quería rivalizar con el otro gran
centro musulmán de Damasco. Tanto Córdoba como Constantinopla se convertirían en
capitales fronterizas y caerían, finalmente, en manos de sus mortales enemigos:
Córdoba, en manos de los cristianos castellanos, y Constantinopla, a manos de los
turcos otomanos.
Al Andalus, muy próspera y tolerante en religión, permaneció abierta a las influencias
culturales de todo el Mediterráneo. Sus mercaderes y estudiosos de habla árabe viajaban
a lo largo de toda la enorme extensión del mundo islámico. Al mismo tiempo, nunca se
perdería el contacto con el norte latino católico. Solo mucho más tarde volvería a ser la
península ibérica tierra de frontera en la lucha contra cristianos y musulmanes.
A mediados del siglo IX, el mundo islámico mantenía una unidad que el mundo
cristiano había perdido hacía siglos. La dinastía fatimí emprendió un intento de
reunificar el mundo islámico. Con ayuda de unas cuantas tribus de fieros bereberes
conquistaron Egipto, fundaron El Cairo, que sería la nueva capital y allí establecerían
un califato shií, el rival del califato sunní de Bagdad. A mediados del siglo XI habían
llevado conquistas a lo largo de las costas de Arabia y Siria, pero fracasaron en su
intento de convertir a la mayoría sunní de sus súbditos a la fe shií. La unidad religiosa
islámica no sería restablecida nunca. Durante cierto tiempo, el califato fatimí de Egipto
representaba la parte más vital del Islam por su política religiosa, en general tolerante,
su prestigio militar y el esplendor legendario de la corte califal de El Cairo. No
obstante, los ejércitos en los que tenían que confiar los califas eran extranjeros:
bereberes del norte de África, nubios del Sudán y los más importantes y eficaces, los
turcos seljúcidas.
Los turcos seljúcidas eran un pueblo nómada de Asia central que desde hacía mucho
tiempo había ido infiltrándose en el norte de Persia y Armenia, en grupos relativamente
pequeños, y que habían sido utilizados por los califas abasíes de Bagdad como
soldados y colonos. En el siglo XI irrumpen en estas zonas en grandes unidades. Con
las ventajas típicas de los nómadas, de habilidad para luchar, movilidad y total crueldad
hacia los pueblos sedentarios, unidas a un uso inteligente de sus instituciones político –
administrativas, conquistaron a un enorme imperio, que se extendía desde Tashkent y
Bujara a Siria. A fines del siglo XI parecía solo cuestión de tiempo que la
contraofensiva sunní – seljúcida absorbiera el Egipto fatimí, puesto que los generales y
soldados seljúcidas se habían adentrado a la ciudad del Cairo. Los cruzados bloquearon
de hecho el avance seljúcida en Egipto, pese a ser hostiles, tanto a los turcos como a los
fatimíes de Egipto, permitiendo la supervivencia del califato fatimí durante casi cien
años más.
The objective of this research work was that all the invaders of the Roman Empire on the northern shore of the Mediterranean were, sooner or later, one after another converted to Christianity. Despite all his linguistic and ethnic differences, had been assimilated to a greater or lesser degree by the Christian world, both Latin and Greek. In contrast, the invasion from the southeastern Mediterranean had a very different result, as most of the areas conquered by the Arabs were permanently lost to Christianity. Arabia was an area that no one had bothered about in the Roman Empire, since that its deserts and oases were inhabited by semi-nomadic Bedouin tribes, poor and late. Since the Arabs were good soldiers, both Persians and Byzantines they used in their armies, just as it happened with the northern barbarians. the cities of Arabia, located on or near the shores of the Red Sea, were culturally dominated by Syria, Egypt and Ethiopia, that is, by various Christian confessions and by Judaism Diaspora (Jews settled outside of Palestine). For all this, nothing did suspect the Byzantine and Persian leaders that the Arabs would be transformed into a serious danger to their well-established states. In the year 622, a middle-aged merchant named Mohammad (Muhammad), moved from Mecca to Medina, a little further north, and began to organize a movement religious-military This transfer or flight of the Prophet, the hijra, would be considered subsequently as the beginning of the Muslim era. On Muhammad's death in 632, the The movement he founded had spread throughout Arabia. The Mohammedan religion is strictly monotheistic, both because of the influence of Judaism and Christianity, and of Arabian traditions. Although he recognized the Bible as a sacred text, Muhammad considered himself inspired by God (Allah) as a prophet, to claim the true and definitive religion – Islam – that was to spread to all men and lands of the world even by sword and conquest, if necessary. The Muhammad's teachings were recorded in the Koran. The first successors of the Prophet, or caliphs - Abu Bakr and Omar - were leaders of extraordinary worth, able to convince his followers that they were fighting for Allah. In ten years they managed to conquer Syria, Persia and Egypt, since the Persian armies and Byzantine forces could not cope with the fervor of the Arab fighters. Without a doubt, the immense loot captured in these rapid campaigns was a major incentive not not only for the riches obtained by the combatants, but also for considering them signs that Allah fulfilled the promises made to the Prophet of him. The populations of Syria and Egypt offered little resistance, nor had they resisted much to the pendular conquests of Persians and Byzantines in past times. Most of the big cities capitulated fairly quickly and it seems that the destruction was minimal. Christian elites, both secular and ecclesiastical, and the Jewish population calmly accepted the new leaders, who had guaranteed that there would be no interference in their respective beliefs. On the other hand, the population peasant woman did not much care who should pay her taxes, taxes that did not diminish, since the Arabs kept intact the efficient systems prosecutors of Byzantium and Persia. Only in the heart of the Greek world, in Anatolia, islands of the Aegean and Constantinople itself, the Arabs found a population that had recovered enough strength to resist them, once they decided to attack so far from their original bases. Unlike the Germanic states that succeeded the Roman Empire, the new The Arab empire was, from the beginning, based on the great cities. For this reason, the Arabs founded new cities like Basra and Kufa in Mesopotamia, and somewhat later Baghdad, on the Tigris, as well as Cairo in Egypt and Kairouan in the North Africa (Tunisia). The population of the conquered cities gradually became to Islam in a slow process that lasted several centuries, although the Jewish communities almost completely resisted conversion. From the end of the 7th century, Arabic was used as the official language in the administration, although it would take time to become the common to the populations of the Middle East and North Africa, although it never reached replace Persian in Iran. A large part of the internal politics of the Islamic empire revolved around the question of the authentic succession of the Prophet. The discussions, sects and divisions arising from this question seem to have played, on the emotional plane, a role similar to that of the great heresies and discussions about the true nature of Christ, developed in the Eastern Roman Empire, although the formal or intellectual content of these discussions was very different. From the point of viewpopular, in both cases it was that the correct nature and position of the mediator between God and men will determine the personal salvation. Although the caliph, unlike Christ, was always seen simply as a man, he was regarded as the political and spiritual leader of the Islam. Thus, from quite early times, Islamic society tended towards fragmentation. In the middle of the eighth century, the Umayyad caliphs, who had been the great conquerors of the first Islamic expansion and had established their capital in Damascus, Syria, were displaced by the Abbasids, descendants of an uncle of the prophet Muhammad. As the main support of the Abbasids was in northern Persia, so as in Mesopotamia, they moved their capital to Baghdad. In the millenary fight for the domination of the Near and Middle East, was this another great victory perso – Mesopotamian, albeit under different religious colors. In 711, Berbers and Arabs crossed the Strait of Gibraltar and entered the peninsula Ibérica, which they would control in seven years, except for a few nuclei Christians in the mountainous area of the north and northwest. The vast majority of the population Christian and Jewish of the peninsula had the same desire to fight for the kingdom Visigoth than those that the Syrians and Egyptians had had to fight for the empire Byzantine. Only after crossing the Pyrenees and entering France did they find the Muslims some resistance, and in 732 they were completely defeated by Charles Martel at the battle of Tours and Poitiers, in central France, and repulsed again to the peninsula. For all these reasons, it has been suggested that the Arabs were only successful in those regions of the Mediterranean that presented a resemblance to his own solar Arabia, both geographical and climatic. In ancient Hispania, the Arabs were no more than a small ruling elite, while the Muslim Berbers from North Africa were somewhat more numerous. In 756, an Umayyad prince who had escaped the massacre of the rest of his family, ordered by the Abbasids, established a principality (emirate) on the peninsula Iberian, with capital in Córdoba. Abd al-Rahman I was the first emir, and although he formally recognized the Abbasid caliphate of Baghdad, al-Andalus (name of the Muslim Hispania) was, in fact, an independent state. Abd al-Rahman initiated the construction of the great mosque of Córdoba, conceived as a true forest of columns surmounted by double arches that wanted to rival the other great Muslim center of Damascus. Both Córdoba and Constantinople would become border capitals and would finally fall into the hands of their deadly enemies: Córdoba, in the hands of the Castilian Christians, and Constantinople, in the hands of the Ottoman Turks. Al Andalus, very prosperous and religiously tolerant, remained open to influences cultures from all over the Mediterranean. Its Arabic-speaking merchants and scholars traveled throughout the vast expanse of the Islamic world. At the same time, never would lose contact with the Catholic Latin North. Only much later would it become the Iberian Peninsula border land in the fight against Christians and Muslims. In the middle of the ninth century, the Islamic world maintained a unity that the world Christian had lost centuries ago. The Fatimid dynasty undertook an attempt to reunify the Islamic world. With the help of a few tribes of fierce Berbers conquered Egypt, founded Cairo, which would be the new capital and there they would establish a Shia caliphate, the rival of the Sunni caliphate in Baghdad. By the middle of the eleventh century they had led conquests along the Arabian and Syrian coasts, but failed in their attempt to convert the Sunni majority of its subjects to the Shia faith. religious unity Islamic would never be restored. For a time, the Fatimid Caliphate of Egypt represented the most vital part of Islam because of its generally tolerant religious policy, its military prestige and the legendary splendor of the caliphal court of Cairo. No However, the armies that the caliphs had to rely on were foreign: Berbers from North Africa, Nubians from the Sudan and the most important and effective, the Seljuk Turks. The Seljuk Turks were a nomadic people of Central Asia who had long time had been infiltrating northern Persia and Armenia, in groups relatively small, and which had been used by the Abbasid caliphs of Baghdad as soldiers and settlers. In the eleventh century they break into these areas in large units. With the typical advantages of the nomads, of fighting ability, mobility and total cruelty towards sedentary peoples, together with an intelligent use of their political institutions – administrative, they conquered a huge empire, stretching from Tashkent and Bukhara to Syria. At the end of the eleventh century it seemed only a matter of time before the counteroffensive Sunni - Seljuk absorbed Fatimid Egypt, since the generals and Seljuk soldiers had entered the city of Cairo. The Crusaders blocked in fact the Seljuk advance in Egypt, despite being hostile, both to the Turks and the Fatimid of Egypt, allowing the survival of the Fatimid Caliphate for almost a hundred More years.
The objective of this research work was that all the invaders of the Roman Empire on the northern shore of the Mediterranean were, sooner or later, one after another converted to Christianity. Despite all his linguistic and ethnic differences, had been assimilated to a greater or lesser degree by the Christian world, both Latin and Greek. In contrast, the invasion from the southeastern Mediterranean had a very different result, as most of the areas conquered by the Arabs were permanently lost to Christianity. Arabia was an area that no one had bothered about in the Roman Empire, since that its deserts and oases were inhabited by semi-nomadic Bedouin tribes, poor and late. Since the Arabs were good soldiers, both Persians and Byzantines they used in their armies, just as it happened with the northern barbarians. the cities of Arabia, located on or near the shores of the Red Sea, were culturally dominated by Syria, Egypt and Ethiopia, that is, by various Christian confessions and by Judaism Diaspora (Jews settled outside of Palestine). For all this, nothing did suspect the Byzantine and Persian leaders that the Arabs would be transformed into a serious danger to their well-established states. In the year 622, a middle-aged merchant named Mohammad (Muhammad), moved from Mecca to Medina, a little further north, and began to organize a movement religious-military This transfer or flight of the Prophet, the hijra, would be considered subsequently as the beginning of the Muslim era. On Muhammad's death in 632, the The movement he founded had spread throughout Arabia. The Mohammedan religion is strictly monotheistic, both because of the influence of Judaism and Christianity, and of Arabian traditions. Although he recognized the Bible as a sacred text, Muhammad considered himself inspired by God (Allah) as a prophet, to claim the true and definitive religion – Islam – that was to spread to all men and lands of the world even by sword and conquest, if necessary. The Muhammad's teachings were recorded in the Koran. The first successors of the Prophet, or caliphs - Abu Bakr and Omar - were leaders of extraordinary worth, able to convince his followers that they were fighting for Allah. In ten years they managed to conquer Syria, Persia and Egypt, since the Persian armies and Byzantine forces could not cope with the fervor of the Arab fighters. Without a doubt, the immense loot captured in these rapid campaigns was a major incentive not not only for the riches obtained by the combatants, but also for considering them signs that Allah fulfilled the promises made to the Prophet of him. The populations of Syria and Egypt offered little resistance, nor had they resisted much to the pendular conquests of Persians and Byzantines in past times. Most of the big cities capitulated fairly quickly and it seems that the destruction was minimal. Christian elites, both secular and ecclesiastical, and the Jewish population calmly accepted the new leaders, who had guaranteed that there would be no interference in their respective beliefs. On the other hand, the population peasant woman did not much care who should pay her taxes, taxes that did not diminish, since the Arabs kept intact the efficient systems prosecutors of Byzantium and Persia. Only in the heart of the Greek world, in Anatolia, islands of the Aegean and Constantinople itself, the Arabs found a population that had recovered enough strength to resist them, once they decided to attack so far from their original bases. Unlike the Germanic states that succeeded the Roman Empire, the new The Arab empire was, from the beginning, based on the great cities. For this reason, the Arabs founded new cities like Basra and Kufa in Mesopotamia, and somewhat later Baghdad, on the Tigris, as well as Cairo in Egypt and Kairouan in the North Africa (Tunisia). The population of the conquered cities gradually became to Islam in a slow process that lasted several centuries, although the Jewish communities almost completely resisted conversion. From the end of the 7th century, Arabic was used as the official language in the administration, although it would take time to become the common to the populations of the Middle East and North Africa, although it never reached replace Persian in Iran. A large part of the internal politics of the Islamic empire revolved around the question of the authentic succession of the Prophet. The discussions, sects and divisions arising from this question seem to have played, on the emotional plane, a role similar to that of the great heresies and discussions about the true nature of Christ, developed in the Eastern Roman Empire, although the formal or intellectual content of these discussions was very different. From the point of viewpopular, in both cases it was that the correct nature and position of the mediator between God and men will determine the personal salvation. Although the caliph, unlike Christ, was always seen simply as a man, he was regarded as the political and spiritual leader of the Islam. Thus, from quite early times, Islamic society tended towards fragmentation. In the middle of the eighth century, the Umayyad caliphs, who had been the great conquerors of the first Islamic expansion and had established their capital in Damascus, Syria, were displaced by the Abbasids, descendants of an uncle of the prophet Muhammad. As the main support of the Abbasids was in northern Persia, so as in Mesopotamia, they moved their capital to Baghdad. In the millenary fight for the domination of the Near and Middle East, was this another great victory perso – Mesopotamian, albeit under different religious colors. In 711, Berbers and Arabs crossed the Strait of Gibraltar and entered the peninsula Ibérica, which they would control in seven years, except for a few nuclei Christians in the mountainous area of the north and northwest. The vast majority of the population Christian and Jewish of the peninsula had the same desire to fight for the kingdom Visigoth than those that the Syrians and Egyptians had had to fight for the empire Byzantine. Only after crossing the Pyrenees and entering France did they find the Muslims some resistance, and in 732 they were completely defeated by Charles Martel at the battle of Tours and Poitiers, in central France, and repulsed again to the peninsula. For all these reasons, it has been suggested that the Arabs were only successful in those regions of the Mediterranean that presented a resemblance to his own solar Arabia, both geographical and climatic. In ancient Hispania, the Arabs were no more than a small ruling elite, while the Muslim Berbers from North Africa were somewhat more numerous. In 756, an Umayyad prince who had escaped the massacre of the rest of his family, ordered by the Abbasids, established a principality (emirate) on the peninsula Iberian, with capital in Córdoba. Abd al-Rahman I was the first emir, and although he formally recognized the Abbasid caliphate of Baghdad, al-Andalus (name of the Muslim Hispania) was, in fact, an independent state. Abd al-Rahman initiated the construction of the great mosque of Córdoba, conceived as a true forest of columns surmounted by double arches that wanted to rival the other great Muslim center of Damascus. Both Córdoba and Constantinople would become border capitals and would finally fall into the hands of their deadly enemies: Córdoba, in the hands of the Castilian Christians, and Constantinople, in the hands of the Ottoman Turks. Al Andalus, very prosperous and religiously tolerant, remained open to influences cultures from all over the Mediterranean. Its Arabic-speaking merchants and scholars traveled throughout the vast expanse of the Islamic world. At the same time, never would lose contact with the Catholic Latin North. Only much later would it become the Iberian Peninsula border land in the fight against Christians and Muslims. In the middle of the ninth century, the Islamic world maintained a unity that the world Christian had lost centuries ago. The Fatimid dynasty undertook an attempt to reunify the Islamic world. With the help of a few tribes of fierce Berbers conquered Egypt, founded Cairo, which would be the new capital and there they would establish a Shia caliphate, the rival of the Sunni caliphate in Baghdad. By the middle of the eleventh century they had led conquests along the Arabian and Syrian coasts, but failed in their attempt to convert the Sunni majority of its subjects to the Shia faith. religious unity Islamic would never be restored. For a time, the Fatimid Caliphate of Egypt represented the most vital part of Islam because of its generally tolerant religious policy, its military prestige and the legendary splendor of the caliphal court of Cairo. No However, the armies that the caliphs had to rely on were foreign: Berbers from North Africa, Nubians from the Sudan and the most important and effective, the Seljuk Turks. The Seljuk Turks were a nomadic people of Central Asia who had long time had been infiltrating northern Persia and Armenia, in groups relatively small, and which had been used by the Abbasid caliphs of Baghdad as soldiers and settlers. In the eleventh century they break into these areas in large units. With the typical advantages of the nomads, of fighting ability, mobility and total cruelty towards sedentary peoples, together with an intelligent use of their political institutions – administrative, they conquered a huge empire, stretching from Tashkent and Bukhara to Syria. At the end of the eleventh century it seemed only a matter of time before the counteroffensive Sunni - Seljuk absorbed Fatimid Egypt, since the generals and Seljuk soldiers had entered the city of Cairo. The Crusaders blocked in fact the Seljuk advance in Egypt, despite being hostile, both to the Turks and the Fatimid of Egypt, allowing the survival of the Fatimid Caliphate for almost a hundred More years.
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Citation
Ramos Huaman, C. F. (2020). El Islam y la expansión musulmana. Contexto económico, social, político y cultural (Monografía de pregrado). Universidad Nacional de Educación Enrique Guzmán y Valle, Lima, Perú.