Islamic state in the context of "Jihadism"

The early Muslim conquests or early Islamic conquests (Arabic: الْفُتُوحَاتُ الإسْلَامِيَّة, romanized: al-Futūḥāt al-ʾIslāmiyya), also known as the Arab conquests, were a series of wars initiated in the 7th century by Muhammad, the prophet of Islam. He established the first Islamic state in Medina, Arabia that expanded rapidly under the Rashidun Caliphate and the Umayyad Caliphate, culminating in Muslim rule being established in Asia, Northern Africa, and Southern Europe over the following century. According to historian James Buchan: "In speed and extent, the first Arab conquests were matched only by those of Alexander the Great, and they were more lasting." At their height, the territory that was conquered by the Arab Muslims stretched from Iberia (at the Pyrenees) in the west to India (at Sind) in the east; Muslim control spanned Sicily, most of the Middle East and North Africa, and the Caucasus and Central Asia.

Among other drastic changes, the early Muslim conquests brought about the collapse of the Sasanian Empire and great territorial losses for the Byzantine Empire. Explanations for the Muslim victories have been difficult to discover, primarily because only fragmentary sources have survived from the period. American scholar Fred McGraw Donner suggests that Muhammad's establishment of an Islamic state in Arabia coupled with ideological (i.e., religious) coherence and mobilization constituted the main factor that propelled the early Muslim armies to successfully establish, in the timespan of roughly a century, one of the largest empires in history. Estimates of the total area of the combined territory held by the early Muslim polities at the conquests' peak have been as high as 13,000,000 square kilometres (5,000,000 sq mi). Most historians also agree that, as another primary factor determining the early Muslim conquests' success, the Sasanians and the Byzantines were militarily and economically exhausted from decades of warfare against each other.

Dhimmī (Arabic: ذمي ḏimmī, IPA: [ˈðimmiː], collectively أهل الذمة ʾahl aḏ-ḏimmah/dhimmah "the people of the covenant") or muʿāhid (معاهد) is a historical term for non-Muslims living in an Islamic state with legal protection and certain restrictions. The word literally means "protected person", referring to the state's obligation under sharia to protect the individual's life, property, as well as freedom of religion, in exchange for loyalty to the state and payment of the jizya tax, in contrast to the zakat, or obligatory alms, paid by the Muslim subjects. Dhimmi were exempt from military service and other duties assigned specifically to Muslims if they paid the poll tax (jizya) but were otherwise equal under the laws of property, contract, and obligation. Dhimmis were subject to specific restrictions as well, which were codified in agreements like the Pact of ʿUmar. These included prohibitions on building new places of worship, repairing existing ones in areas where Muslims lived, teaching children the Qurʾān, and preventing relatives from converting to Islam. They were also required to wear distinctive clothing, refrain from carrying weapons, and avoid riding on saddles.

In Islam, the ulama (US: /ˈuːləmɑː/ OO-lə-mah; also spelled ulema; Arabic: علماء, romanized: ʿulamāʾ, lit. 'the learned ones'; singular عالم, ʿālim; feminine singular عالمة, ʿālimah, plural عالمات, ʿālimāt) are scholars of Islamic doctrine and law. They are considered the guardians, transmitters, and interpreters of religious knowledge in Islam.

"Ulama" may refer broadly to the educated class of such religious scholars, including theologians, canon lawyers (muftis), judges (qadis), professors, and high state religious officials. Alternatively, "ulama" may refer specifically to those holding governmental positions in an Islamic state.

Arabic has had a great influence on other languages, especially in vocabulary. The influence of Arabic has been most profound in those countries visited by Islam or Islamic power.

Arabic loanwords have made into many languages as diverse as Abkhaz, Afrikaans, Amharic, Albanian, Armenian, Assyrian, Azerbaijani, Balochi, Bengali, Berber, Bosnian, Bulgarian, Catalan, Chechen, Circassian, Croatian, English, French, Georgian, Greek, Gujarati, Hausa, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Indonesian, Italian, Kazakh, Kurdish, Kyrgyz, Macedonian, Malay, Mongolian, Montenegrin, Nepali, Odia, Ossetian, Pashto, Persian, Portuguese, Punjabi, Romani, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Sicilian, Spanish, Sindhi, Somali, Swahili, Tagalog, Tajik, Tatar, Tigrinya, Turkish, Turkmen, Ukrainian, Urdu, Uyghur, Uzbek, Visayan, Wolof, Xhosa, Yoruba, Zulu, as well as other languages in countries where these languages are spoken. Other languages such as Maltese and Nubi derive from Arabic, rather than merely borrowing vocabulary. Arabic words were being used from the Iberian Peninsula all the way to Maritime Southeast Asia prior to the spread of European international words.

The partition of the Ottoman Empire (30 October 1918 – 1 November 1922) was a geopolitical event that occurred after World War I and the occupation of Constantinople by British, French, and Italian troops in November 1918. The partitioning was planned in several agreements made by the Allied Powers early in the course of World War I, notably the Sykes–Picot Agreement, after the Ottoman Empire had joined Germany to form the Ottoman–German alliance. The huge conglomeration of territories and peoples that formerly comprised the Ottoman Empire was divided into several new states. The Ottoman Empire had been the leading Islamic state in geopolitical, cultural, and ideological terms. The partitioning of the Ottoman Empire after the war led to the domination of the Middle East by Western powers such as Britain and France, and saw the creation of the modern Arab world and the Republic of Turkey. Resistance to the influence of these powers came from the Turkish National Movement but did not become widespread in the other post-Ottoman states until the period of rapid decolonization after World War II.

The League of Nations mandate granted the French Mandate for Syria and the Lebanon, the British Mandate for Mesopotamia (later Iraq) and the British Mandate for Palestine, later divided into Mandatory Palestine and the Emirate of Transjordan (1921–1946). The Ottoman Empire's possessions in the Arabian Peninsula became the Kingdom of Hejaz, which the Sultanate of Nejd (today Saudi Arabia) was allowed to annex, and the Mutawakkilite Kingdom of Yemen. The Empire's possessions on the western shores of the Persian Gulf were variously annexed by Saudi Arabia (al-Ahsa and Qatif), or remained British protectorates (Kuwait, Bahrain, and Qatar) and became the Arab States of the Persian Gulf.

Byzantine art comprises the body of artistic products of the Eastern Roman Empire, as well as the nations and states that inherited culturally from the empire. Though the empire itself emerged from the decline of western Rome and lasted until the Fall of Constantinople in 1453, the start date of the Byzantine period is rather clearer in art history than in political history, if still imprecise. Many Eastern Orthodox states in Eastern Europe, as well as to some degree the Islamic states of the eastern Mediterranean, preserved many aspects of the empire's culture and art for centuries afterward.

A number of contemporary states with the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire were culturally influenced by it without actually being part of it (the "Byzantine commonwealth"). These included Kievan Rus', as well as some non-Orthodox states like the Republic of Venice, which separated from the Byzantine Empire in the 10th century, and the Kingdom of Sicily, which had close ties to the Byzantine Empire and had also been a Byzantine territory until the 10th century with a large Greek-speaking population persisting into the 12th century. Other states having a Byzantine artistic tradition, had oscillated throughout the Middle Ages between being part of the Byzantine Empire and having periods of independence, such as Serbia and Bulgaria. After the fall of the Byzantine capital of Constantinople in 1453, art produced by Eastern Orthodox Christians living in the Ottoman Empire was often called "post-Byzantine." Certain artistic traditions that originated in the Byzantine Empire, particularly in regard to icon painting and church architecture, are maintained in Greece, Cyprus, Serbia, Bulgaria, Romania, Russia and other Eastern Orthodox countries to the present day.

The first Islamic state was established by the Islamic prophet Muhammad in Medina in 622 under the Constitution of Medina. It represented the political unity of the Muslim Ummah (nation). After Muhammad's death, his companions known as the Rightly Guided Caliphs (Rashidun) founded the Rashidun Caliphate (632–661), which began massive expansion and motivated subsequent Islamic states, such as the Umayyad Caliphate (661–750) and Abbasid Caliphate (750–1258).

Muhammad came to the city of Medina following the migration of his followers in what is known as the Hijrah (migration to Medina) in 622. He had been invited to Medina by city leaders to adjudicate disputes between clans from which the city suffered, and was received positively by the city's Jewish and pagan residents as an arbitrator. As a result, he was accepted by popular consensus as the city's political leader, establishing the first Islamic state with his role.

Ummah (/ˈʊmə/; Arabic: أُمَّة [ˈʊm.mæ]) is an Arabic word meaning Muslim identity, nation, religious community, or the concept of a Commonwealth of the Muslim Believers (أمة المؤمنين ummat al-muʼminīn). It is a synonym for ummat al-Islām (أمّةْ الإِسْلَامُ, lit. 'the Islamic nation'); it is commonly used to mean the collective community of Muslim people. In the Quran, the ummah typically refers to a single group that shares common religious beliefs, specifically those that are the objects of a divine plan of salvation. The word ummah (pl. umam [ˈʊmæm]) means nation in Arabic. For example, the Arabic term for the United Nations is الأمم المتحدة al-Umam al-Muttaḥidah, and the term الأمة العربية al-Ummah al-ʻArabiyyah is used to refer to "the Arab Nation".

Ummah is distinguished from shaʻb (شَعْب [ˈʃæʕb], "people"), which means a nation with common ancestry or geography. The word ummah differs from the concept of a country or people. In its greater context it is used to describe a larger group of people. For example, in Arabic the word شعب shaʻab ("people") would be used to describe the citizens of Syria. However, the term ummah is used to describe the Arab people as a whole, which includes Syrians as well as the people of the Arab world. Ummah can be a supra-national polity with a common history and identity based on religion. Pan-Islamism advocates for the unity of Muslims in one nation as an Islamic country or an Islamic state.