The Saracens began their conquests from Arabia and spread from there in every direction. At its greatest extent, their empire stretched from Spain, south and east across North Africa, through Egypt, the Middle East, Asia Minor, and across all of Central Asia to the borders of India and China.

By 613 the prophet Mohammed was preaching a new religion he called Islam. Largely ignored in his home city of Mecca, he withdrew to Medina, built up a strong following there, and returned to attack and capture Mecca. Following his death in 632, his teachings were collected to form the Koran, the Islamic holy book. In 634 his followers began their jihad, or holy war. Within five years they had overrun Egypt, Palestine, and Syria. Their tolerance of Jews and Christians eased their conquest because these people had been suffering some persecution from the Byzantines under Heraclius.

In the next 60 years, North Africa to the west and Persia to the east both fell to Islam. In the early 8th century, Saracens from Tangiers invaded Spain and conquered the Visigoth kingdom established there after the fall of Rome. They took Sicily and invaded Italy, although they never achieved a lasting presence there. In Asia they took Asia Minor from the Byzantines and attempted to capture Constantinople with a combined attack from land and sea. The great walls of the city frustrated the land attack and the Saracen fleet was defeated thanks to the secret Byzantine weapon, Greek fire. Later in this century the Arabs were pushed out of Asia Minor by the Byzantines. In the west, a Saracen invasion of modern France was stopped in 732 by Charles Martel of the Franks at Tours.

Frustrated in the west, the forces of Islam turned east. By 750 they had conquered to the Indus River and north over India into Central Asia to the borders of China.

Islam spread rapidly in part because those who converted to the new religion were made exempt from taxes. Jews and Christians were tolerated for religious reasons, but also because they were industrious and provided much of the tax revenues of the caliph. Slaves became an important source of labor freeing Muslims for religious duties. In general the Muslim territories were more advanced than the west, especially in the arts, science, and medicine. Ancient knowledge had been preserved in the Middle East. Much of this was rediscovered in the West following the reconquest of Saracen, or Moorish, Spain.

Muslim influence spread over a diverse geography and the economys of the different states were equally diverse. Muslim Spain and Egypt were two of the richest Muslim states. Much of the Muslim wealth came from trade from the east passing through to the west. Although the Crusades disrupted this trade at times, the net effect was a tremendous increase in trade as the western cultures developed an even greater taste for eastern spices, silks, jewelry, textiles, and other goods.

The word "Islam" is Arabic for surrendering to the will of God. The teachings of Muhammad were written down after his death in the Koran. The writings in the Koran are organized in order of length rather than by subject. Muhammad often used invented names for places and people, making the Koran difficult to understand. This has led to many further writings to interpret the teaching of Muhammad.

The Muslims believed in five duties, known as the Pillars of Islam: to state publicly that there was no god but Allah and that Muhammad was his prophet; to pray five time daily in the direction of Kaaba in Mecca (a holy black stone, possibly a meteorite); to give aid or money to the poor; to fast from sunrise to sunset each day of Ramadan (the ninth month of the Islamic year); and to make a pilgrimage to the Kaaba in Mecca.

The Saracen soldiers were primarily light infantry and light cavalry mounted on horses and camels. Their principal weapons were the bow, javelin, and scimitar, their unique curved sword. They were formidable foes because of their religious fervor and high morale. They believed dying in battle against non-believers would bring a heavenly reward. In battle they preferred to fight from good terrain using their composite bows. They kept an escape route open, preferably into the desert where their use of camels gave them an advantage.

The Assassins were a fanatical Muslim sect who believed that anyone who did not worship exactly as they did was a traitor. The were led by the Old Man of the Mountain who became a very powerful leader within the Muslim movement. Other Saracen leaders who did not act upon his orders were subject to assassination. The word "assassination" derives from the name of this sect. The assassins themselves were destroyed eventually by the Mongols in the 13th century.

Immediately following the death of Muhammad, the Saracens were ruled by the caliph, a representative of the prophet. Civil war broke out in 656 between two groups, however, the Sunnites and Shiites. The Shiites demanded that a member of Muhammad's family be caliph, while the Sunnites wished to elect any capable Muslim to the post. They also differed on whether the Koran needed more explanation or not. The result of the 60 year war was that the Islamic state broke into pieces, some governed by Sunnites (Spain) and others by Shiites (Egypt, modern Iraq). The new Islamic states acted independently, thereafter.

Muslim Spain developed into one of the great states of Europe during the early Middle Ages. Muslims, Jews, and Christians lived together in relative harmony and a rich culture rose out of these multiple influences. There was a flowering of the arts, architecture, and learning. By 1000, however, Muslim Spain had divided into warring factions. This civil war allowed the tiny Christian states of Castile and Aragon to begin the slow reconquest of the peninsula (the Reconquista). Only the Muslim state of Granada was left by 1252. It survived for two centuries by paying massive sums in tribute to Castile but fell finally in 1492.

Asia Minor and the Muslim Middle East were conquered by Muslim Turks in the early 11th century. The Turks were much less tolerant of Christian pilgrims to Palestine and travel in the area became very dangerous. In response to a call for aid from the Byzantines, a series of Crusades were launched from Europe to regain Palestine from the Turks. The independent Muslim states in the area lost Palestine and the Eastern Mediterranean coast to the First Crusade. In the last part of the 12th century the great Muslim leader Saladin succeeded in uniting Egypt, Syria, and smaller states. He retook Jerusalem and largely frustrated the Crusaders during his lifetime.

The Muslim states remained independent long after the Middle Ages and eventually developed into the modern Arab nations of the Middle East and North Africa. They went into economic decline, however, when the European nations opened trade routes of their own to Asia in the 15th and 16th centuries.

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