Rise of Islam

Zoroastrianism, also called Mazdayasna or Behdin, is an Iranian religion centred on the Avesta and the teachings of Zarathushtra Spitama, who is more commonly referred to by the Greek translation, Zoroaster (Greek: Ζωροάστρις Zōroastris). Among the world's oldest organized faiths, its adherents exalt an uncreated, benevolent, and all-wise deity known as Ahura Mazda (𐬀𐬵𐬎𐬭𐬀⸱𐬨𐬀𐬰𐬛𐬁), who is hailed as the supreme being of the universe. Opposed to Ahura Mazda is Angra Mainyu (𐬀𐬢𐬭𐬀⸱𐬨𐬀𐬌𐬥𐬌𐬌𐬎), who is personified as a destructive spirit and the adversary of all things that are good. As such, the Zoroastrian religion combines a dualistic cosmology of good and evil with an eschatological outlook predicting the ultimate triumph of Ahura Mazda over evil. Opinions vary among scholars as to whether Zoroastrianism is monotheistic, polytheistic, henotheistic, or a combination of all three. Zoroastrianism shaped Iranian culture and history, while scholars differ on whether it significantly influenced ancient Western philosophy and the Abrahamic religions, or gradually reconciled with other religions and traditions, such as Christianity and Islam.

Originating from Zoroaster's reforms of the ancient Iranian religion, Zoroastrianism began during the Avestan period (possibly as early as the 2nd millennium BCE), but was first recorded in the mid-6th century BCE. For the following millennium, it was the official religion of successive Iranian polities, beginning with the Achaemenid Empire, which formalized and institutionalized many of its tenets and rituals, and ending with the Sasanian Empire, which revitalized the faith and standardized its teachings. In the 7th century CE, the rise of Islam and the ensuing Muslim conquest of Iran marked the beginning of the decline of Zoroastrianism. The persecution of Zoroastrians by the early Muslims in the nascent Rashidun Caliphate prompted much of the community to migrate to the Indian subcontinent, where they were granted asylum and became the progenitors of today's Parsis. Once numbering in the millions, the world's total Zoroastrian population is estimated to comprise between 110,000 and 120,000 people, with most of them residing either in India (50,000–60,000), in Iran (15,000–25,000), or in North America (22,000). The religion is thought to be declining due to restrictions on conversion, strict endogamy, and low birth rates.

The word "Saracen" (/ˈsærəsən/ SARR-ə-sən) was commonly used in medieval Europe to refer to a person who lived in or near what the ancient Romans knew as Arabia Petraea and Arabia Deserta. Its original meaning in Greek and Latin is not known with certainty. By the early medieval period, it had come to be associated with the Arabian tribes. Following the rise of Islam, which occurred in Arabia, the word's definition evolved to refer not only to Arabs, but to Muslims as well. It eventually became the standard adjective among European Christians for all people and things from the Muslim world, regardless of whether they were Arab in origin.

The oldest known source mentioning "Saracens" in association with Muslims is the Greek-language Christian tract Doctrina Jacobi, which was compiled in the Byzantine Empire amidst the Muslim conquest of the Levant. The word became particularly widespread in European societies during the Crusades, when it was used by the Roman Catholic Church and by several European Christian political and military figures.

The era of pre-Islamic Arabia encompasses human history in all parts of the Arabian Peninsula before the rise of Islam. During the prehistoric period, humans first migrate and settle into the peninsula. In the early first millennium BC, writing and recorded history are introduced into the Peninsula, along with the rise of the first kingdoms in the south. In the early seventh century, the pre-Islamic period quickly comes to a close, from the beginning of Muhammad's preachings of Islam, to his establishment of the first Islamic state in 622 in Medina, and the subsequent conquest and political unification of the peninsula shortly after Muhammad's death, in the 630s. Some strands of Islamic tradition interpret the pre-Islamic period as a barbaric, morally un-enlightened period known as the "Jahiliyyah" (Arabic: جَاهِلِيَّة), but historians have not adopted this convention.

Pre-Islamic Arabia's demographics included both nomadic and settled populations, the latter of which eventually developed into distinctive civilizations. Eastern Arabia was home to the region's earliest civilizations, such as Dilmun, which is attested as a prominent trade partner of Mesopotamia during the Bronze Age; and its later pre-Islamic history is marked by the reign of consecutive Iranian empires, including those of the Parthians and the Sasanians. From the early 1st millennium BCE onward, South Arabia became home to a number of kingdoms, such as Sheba and Ma'in; while part of North Arabia became home to the Nabataean Kingdom, which was conquered and annexed by the Roman Empire in 106, thereafter being known as Arabia Petraea and initiating the centuries-long Roman period in Arabia.

The history of the Arabs is recorded to have begun in the mid-9th century BCE, corresponding with the earliest known attestation of Old Arabic. Tradition in the Abrahamic religions holds that Arabs are the descendants of Ishmael, who was the son of the Hebrew patriarch Abraham and his Egyptian concubine Hagar. The Syrian Desert, which includes an extension of the Arabian Peninsula, is the home of the first attested "Arab" groups, as well as other defined Arab groups that spread in the land and existed for millennia.

Before the expansion of the Rashidun Caliphate (632–661) during the early Muslim conquests, the word "Arab" referred to any of the largely nomadic or settled Arab tribes in the Arabian Peninsula, the Levant, and Upper and Lower Mesopotamia. Today, "Arab" refers to a variety of large numbers of people whose native regions form the Arab world due to Arab migrations and the concurrent spread of the Arabic language throughout the region, namely the Levant and the Maghreb, following the rise of Islam in the 7th century. During this period, they forged the Rashidun Caliphate (632–661), the Umayyad Caliphate (661–750), and the Abbasid Caliphate (750–1258). These Arab dynasties ruled some of the largest land empires in history, reaching southern France in the west, China in the east, Anatolia in the north, and Sudan in the south. In 1517, the Mamluk Sultanate of Cairo was conquered by the Ottoman Empire, which went on to rule much of the Arab world until World War I, after which it was defeated and dissolved and its territories partitioned, forming the modern Arab states. Following the adoption of the Alexandria Protocol in 1944, the Arab League was founded on 22 March 1945. The Charter of the Arab League endorsed the principle of an Arab homeland while respecting the individual sovereignty of its member states.