Islamization

Categories: Islam | Islam-related stubs

Islamicization is a neologism coined to describe the process of a society's conversion to the religion of Islam, or the increase in observance by an already Muslim society.

Originally Islamicization closely followed the rapid political expansion of the Arabs in the first centuries after Muhammad. While Islamic governments were soon established in North Africa and Iran, the conversion of the population was a much longer process. For the most part, conversion to Islam was not mandatory, but non-Muslims were often discriminated against and excluded from the political and economic elite. It should be noted that it was common for the elite in all countries of the time to discriminate against members of other religions or against ethnic minorities. In many areas Islamicization was closely linked to Arabization.

Although the military expansion of the Arab empires eventually slowed, Islamicization continued in other ways. Muslim countries dominated trade in the Indian Ocean and the Sahara and it was through trade, and conversion of the locals, that Islam grew in areas such as the Sahel and the East Indies. Muslim political control only came after sizeable portions of the population had converted to Islam.

A strand of European thought depends on a rhetorical suggestion that an Islamicization of European culture is to be resisted (see, e.g., Jean-Marie le Pen). It is thought that French resistance to the possibility of Turkish entry into the European Union in part led to the rejection in the spring of 2005 of the proposed European Union Constitution.