The Islamic foundations "Muhammad's ﷺ Legacies"

 Muhammad ﷺ had instilled a sense of brotherhood and a connection of faith among his followers from the inception of Islam, both of which contributed to the development of a close relationship among them, which was accentuated by their experiences of persecution as a nascent community in Mecca. This connection of trust was solidified by a strong attachment to the Quranic revelation's precepts and the obvious socioeconomic meaning of Islamic religious rituals. When the Prophet traveled to Medina in 622 CE, his preaching was quickly embraced, and the Islamic community-state arose.

During this time, Islam developed its distinctive ethos as a religion that encompassed both the spiritual and temporal sides of life and sought to control not only the individual's relationship with God (by conscience) but also human relationships in a societal setting. As a result, society is governed not just by an Islamic religious institution, but also by Islamic law, the state, and other institutions. Some Muslim intellectuals did not distinguish between religious (private) and secular (public) until the twentieth century, and in some locations, such as Turkey, the two were formally separated.

The astonishing success of the early generations of Muslims can be attributed to Islam's dual religious and social character, which manifests itself in one way as a religious community commissioned by God to bring its own value system to the world through the jihad ("exertion," commonly translated as "holy war" or "holy struggle"). They had placed a huge section of the globe under an Arab Muslim empire within a century of the Prophet's death in 632 CE, from Spain to Central Asia to India.

The first phase of Islam's spread as a religion occurred during the period of Islamic conquests and empire building. Islam's fundamental egalitarianism within the community of believers, as well as its public discrimination against adherents of other religions, attracted a large number of converts quickly. Jews and Christians were given unique status as scripture-bearing communities, dubbed "people of the Book" (Ahl al-Kitab), and were thus granted religious liberty.

In contrast to pagans, who were forced to either adopt Islam or perish, they were made to pay a per capita tax known as jizyah. The same status as "people of the Book" was later extended to Zoroastrians and Hindus in specific times and places, but many "people of the Book" converted to Islam to avoid the jizyah's infirmity. The Sufis (Muslim mystics), who were primarily responsible for the spread of Islam in India, Central Asia, Turkey, and Sub-Saharan Africa after the 12th century, started a much more widespread expansion of Islam (see below).

Apart from jihad and Sufi missionary activity, another factor in the spread of Islam was the far-reaching influence of Muslim traders, who not only introduced Islam to the Indian east coast and south India early on, but also proved to be the primary catalysts (along with the Sufis) in converting people to Islam in Indonesia, Malaya, and China. Islam was introduced to Indonesia in the 14th century, but it had little time to establish itself politically before falling under Dutch control.

Islam's huge diversity of races and cultures (an estimated 1.5 billion people globally in the early twenty-first century) has resulted in significant internal divisions. However, common faith and a sense of belonging to a single community bind all elements of Muslim society. Instead of shrinking with the loss of political authority throughout the period of Western colonialism in the 19th and 20th centuries, the Islamic community (ummah) grew stronger. In the mid-twentieth century, Islam's faith aided many Muslim peoples in their quest for political freedom, and Islam's oneness contributed to later political solidarity.