The Arab

While cultural styles used to radiate from Baghdad, the Mongol destruction of Baghdad led Egypt to become the Arab heartland while Central Asia went its own way and was experiencing another golden age.

 Beside this the Safavid dynasty of Persia made ties with India and Persian poetry rose to new heights while Arabic poetry was in state of decline.

 The Muslims in China who were descended from earlier immigration began to assimilate by adopting Chinese names and culture while Nanjing became an important center for Islamic study.

The Muslim world was generally in political decline, especially relative to the non-Islamic European powers.

 Large areas of Islamic in Central Asia were seriously depopulated largely as a result of Mongol destruction.

 The Black Death ravaged much of the Islamic world in the mid-14th century.

This decline was evident culturally; while Taqi al-Din founded an observatory in Istanbul and the Jai Singh Observatory was built in the 18th century, there was not a single Muslim country with a major observatory by the twentieth century.

 The Reconquista, launched against Muslim principalities in Iberia, succeeded in 1492 and Muslim Italian states were lost to the Normans.

 By the 19th century the British Empire had formally ended the last Mughal dynasty.


 The Ottoman period ended after World War one and the Caliphate was abolished in the year of 1924.

Reform and revival movements during this period include an 18th century Salafi movement led by Ibn e Abd al-Wahhab in today's Saudi Arabia.

 Referred to as Wahhabi, their self designation is Muwahiddun (unitarians).

 Building upon earlier efforts such as those from the logician Ibn Taymiyyah and Ibn e al-Qayyim, the movement seeks to uphold monotheism and purify Islam of later innovations.

 Their zeal against idolatrous shrines led to the destruction of sacred tombs in Mecca and Medina, including those of the Prophet and his Companions.

 In the 19th century, the Deobandi and Barelwi movements were initiated from here.


 Iranian revolution and Islamic revival


The Kul Sharif Mosque in Kazan the city of Russia

Contact with industrialized nations brought Muslim populations to new areas through the economic migration.

Eventualy, most Muslims migrated as indentured servants, from mostly India and Indonesia, to the Caribbean, forming the largest Muslim populations by percentage in the Americas.

The resulting urbanization and increase in trade in sub-Saharan Africa brought Muslims to settle in new areas and spread their faith, likely doubling the Muslims population between 1869 and 1914.


 Muslim immigrants, many as guest workers, began arriving, largely from former colonies, into several European nations in the 1960s and 1970s, particularly France and the UK.