The Legacy of Muslim Rule in India c5.s3.2

c5.s3.2

Muhammad was born in Arabia in 569 and died in 632. In 622 he had to migrate from Mecca to Medina (called *hijrat*) and this year forms the first year of the Muslim calendar (*Hijri*). Islam got much of its mythology and rituals from Judaism and Christianity, but instead of coming closer to them it confronted them. From the very beginning Islam believed in aggression as an instrument of expansion, and so spreading with the rapidity of an electric current from its power-house in Mecca, it flashed into Syria, it traversed the whole breadth of north Africa; and then, leaping the Straits of Gibraltar it ran to the Gates of the Pyrenees.²⁸ Such unparalleled feats of success were one day bound to be challenged by the vanquished. As a result Christians and Muslims entered into a long-drawn struggle. The immediate cause of the conflict was the capture of Jerusalem by the Seljuq Turks in 1070 and the defeat of the Byzantine forces at Manzikart in Asia Minor in 1071. For the next two centuries (1093-1291) the Christian nations fought wars of religion or Crusades against Muslims for whom too these wars meant the holy *Jihad*.