Practice question · True or false
The Arab conquests were followed within a generation by the conversion of most of the conquered population to Islam.
Hints
- Ask what the state gained from a subject who converted.
- Bulliet’s work on name-changes puts the Muslim majority in Iran around the tenth century.
Show the answer
False
Why
False, and the gap is centuries rather than decades. Conquest transferred political and fiscal control; conversion followed slowly, unevenly, and against the fiscal interest of provincial governors. Egypt probably did not become majority-Muslim until well after Iran did.
Practise The Making of an Islamic World
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More questions on The Making of an Islamic World
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