Beginnings of Islam
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In the Cross and the Crescent, we see how Islam has evolved from the first revelation of God to his prophet Muhammad to become one of the world's fastest growing religions of today. The Cross and the Crescent gives the views between Islam and Christianity from the time of Muhammad to the Reformation. In chapter one we see how the expansion of Islam affected the entire western world. This chapter informs us of the historical beginnings of Islam and how the religion spread out and dominated the western world of the Middle Ages.
Christianity had already spread out substantially when Islam had started to grow. Christianity had been the exclusive faith of the Roman Empire, and had long been spreading beyond its political frontiers. The Roman world had a great cultural divide between the East and the West. The East Greek speaking, wealthier more urbanized, home of some of the great cities of antiquity was more thoroughly Christianized. The West Latin speaking, poorer, more rural, was in command by the crumbling Western Empire of the fifth century. (Fletcher 7) Christianity encountered great struggles in spreading west due to rapid growth of Islam in the western world...