Historical maps of the spread of Islam are being prepared. Each map will have its own date and source, from Muhammad's Arabia and the early caliphates to the Muslim world of today.
Journey through fourteen centuries of the events, people, ideas, and conflicts that shaped Islam and the Muslim world.
Follow the Prophet from Mecca to Medina, the caliphates from Damascus and Baghdad to Córdoba and Cairo, the scholars of the Golden Age, the great sultanates and empires, and the movements that made Islam a global faith.
Meet every caliph from Abu Bakr to Abdulmejid II, and the rival caliphs who challenged them.
The Prophet Muhammad and the caliphs who succeeded him as leaders of the Muslim community, from Abu Bakr in 632 to the abolition of the Ottoman caliphate in 1924, grouped by caliphal line. Rival caliphates, from the Fatimids and the Umayyads of Córdoba to Sokoto, and the Ahmadiyya khalifas have their own tabs. Shia Muslims recognise a line of imams rather than these caliphs.
A Journey Through the Ages
Islam began with the revelations received by Muhammad in Mecca in 610 and is today the faith of about a quarter of humanity.
Within a century of the Prophet's death the caliphate stretched from Iberia to Central Asia. Baghdad, Cairo and Córdoba became centres of law, science and philosophy, while Sunni and Shia traditions took shape.
Turkic and Mongol sultanates, the Ottoman, Safavid and Mughal empires, colonial rule and modern independent states followed. Traders and Sufis carried the faith across Africa, South and Southeast Asia, and migration has made it global.
Explore the eight periods below through selected events from the timeline. Reliable worldwide counts of Muslims exist only from 1900; earlier population figures are not given.
1,000 BCE – 609
Incense kingdoms in the south, caravan cities and oases, Bedouin tribes and poets, and the Kaaba at Mecca, between Byzantium, Persia and Aksum.
Before Islam, Arabia was a world of trading towns, oases and nomadic tribes between the Byzantine and Persian empires, with polytheist, Jewish and Christian communities and the sanctuary of the Kaaba in Mecca.
610 – 660
The first revelation, the Hijra to Medina and the conquest of Mecca; then Abu Bakr, Umar, Uthman and Ali, the conquest of Persia, Syria and Egypt, the written Quran and the First Fitna.
Muhammad preached in Mecca from 610, migrated to Medina and united much of Arabia before his death in 632. Under the first four caliphs, Arab armies conquered the Persian Empire and Byzantine Syria and Egypt, the Quran was standardized, and civil war opened lasting divisions.
661 – 749
Damascus rules from the Atlantic to the Indus: Karbala, the Dome of the Rock, Arabic coinage and administration, and the advance into Iberia and Sindh.
Ruling from Damascus, the Umayyads extended the caliphate from Spain to Central Asia and Sindh, Arabized administration and built the first great monuments of Islamic art.
750 – 1054
Baghdad, the House of Wisdom and the schools of law; Fatimid Cairo and Umayyad Córdoba; Buyid and Samanid rule.
From Baghdad the Abbasids presided over a flowering of law, theology, science, philosophy and literature, while regional dynasties and rival caliphates in Cairo and Córdoba divided political power.
1055 – 1452
Seljuks, Crusades, Saladin, Mongols and Mamluks; Sufi orders and madrasas; Islam in Anatolia, India, Mali and the Indian Ocean world.
Turkic, Berber and Mamluk sultanates held power under a symbolic caliphate, facing the Crusades and Mongols while Islam spread into Anatolia, India, West Africa and Southeast Asia.
1453 – 1797
Ottomans, Safavids and Mughals: Istanbul, Isfahan and the Taj Mahal, Shia Iran, the end of al-Andalus and the rise of European sea power.
The Ottoman, Safavid and Mughal empires dominated much of the Muslim world, producing monumental architecture and arts, while Muslim rule ended in Iberia and European powers rose at sea.
1798 – 1945
Napoleon in Egypt, colonial rule, the Tanzimat and Islamic modernism, the fall of the Ottomans and the end of the caliphate.
Population estimate: Center for the Study of Global Christianity, Status of Global Christianity 2026 (World Christian Database), rows 'Muslims' and 'Total population'
European colonial expansion, Ottoman reform and collapse, and the abolition of the caliphate provoked movements of resistance, revival, modernism and nationalism across the Muslim world.
1946 – present
Independent Muslim states, Pakistan, oil, the Iranian Revolution, Afghanistan, 9/11, the Arab Spring and a global faith of two billion.
Population estimate: Center for the Study of Global Christianity, Status of Global Christianity 2026 (World Christian Database), rows 'Muslims' and 'Total population'
Independent Muslim-majority states, oil wealth, revolutions, wars, migration to the West and rapid demographic growth have shaped Islam as a global faith of about two billion people.
Fourteen centuries of Islamic history have shaped faith, law, science, art, language and trade far beyond the Muslim world itself, for good and for ill.
The Quran and the example of the Prophet gave rise to hadith scholarship, the schools of Islamic law, theology and Sufi mysticism. Sunni, Shia, Ibadi and other traditions still interpret them. Arabic became a language of scripture, scholarship and administration from the Atlantic to Central Asia, and it shaped Persian, Turkish, Urdu, Swahili, Malay and many other languages.
Scholars in Baghdad, Cairo, Córdoba, Samarkand and elsewhere translated, preserved and extended Greek, Persian and Indian learning. Algebra, optics, medicine, astronomy and philosophy advanced, and madrasas and observatories flourished. Latin translations of their works helped shape medieval and Renaissance Europe.
From the Dome of the Rock and the Great Mosque of Córdoba to Isfahan, the Süleymaniye and the Taj Mahal, Islamic architecture joined geometry, calligraphy and gardens. Poetry, from the pre-Islamic odes to Rumi and Hafez, travelled far beyond the Muslim world, and so did textiles, ceramics and book arts.
The hajj, caravan routes across the Sahara and Silk Road, and Indian Ocean shipping connected Africa, Asia and Europe. Merchants and scholars moved goods, crops, paper and ideas along them. Much of the spread of Islam in West and East Africa and Southeast Asia came through trade and Sufi networks rather than conquest.
Conquest, civil war, sectarian conflict, slavery, colonial domination and modern extremism are all part of this history. So are long periods in which Muslims, Christians and Jews lived side by side. Reformers, modernists and revivalists have argued since the eighteenth century about how Islam should meet the modern world.
With about two billion followers, Islam is the world's second-largest religion and one of its fastest growing. Most Muslims live in Asia and Africa, and Indonesia, Pakistan, India and Bangladesh have the largest Muslim populations. Arabs are a minority among them, and growing communities live in Europe and the Americas.
The timeline is built from the project's own event and caliph datasets. Each event and caliph has its own source links. The datasets are a work in progress: the linked articles are starting points for checking the facts, not proof that every claim has been independently verified. Early dates are often approximate, and Islamic and Common Era dates can differ by a year where sources convert Hijri dates differently. There is no reliable worldwide count of Muslims before 1900.
