r/AskHistorians • u/Ayem_De_Lo • 1d ago

Islam how quick and complete was the process of islamisation in the lands conquered by Arabs?

Do we have any data how muslim was the population of Egypt in, say, 995? Or population of Iran in 820?

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u/Remarkable-Pilot-111 1d ago

A long time, in Egypt for instance it took around 600 years for the majority of the population to become Muslim, that's why we know the Arabs didn't kill them.

Archeology shows that in the levant most settlements remained christians until the end of 12th century, Islamization of the population only gained strength after Saladin's conquest. This means that not only did Saladin won political control for islam, he also won the population to the Islamic empire.

Before that, Muslims were a ruling minority, we know it because christians were employed in the courts of emyrs, caliphs, and princes.

Christians were the ones employed to build ships, architecture was heavily influenced by pre-arabic christians, Arabs were also introduced to classical Greek literature by them. Even Muslim theology was heavily influenced by Nestorian christians.

I don't have knowledge about Iran. It's not my area of study, nevertheless I guess the process wasn't very different considering that even today Iranians aren't considered Arab. 

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u/Ayem_De_Lo 13h ago

thanks for the answer! A follow-up question: if it took 500 years for Islam to take over Egypt and Levant, can the same be said about Christianity taking over that same area? In other words, for how long did pre-christian religions survive in the Christian Egypt and Levant? When the Muslims came, did they face only Christians there, or was it a three-way co-existence for some time?