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Découvrez des articles approfondis sur l'histoire islamique. Explorez des récits, des événements et des figures qui ont marqué le monde.
La période de la jahiliyya est l'ère qui précède la révélation du Coran au Prophète Mohammed ﷺ. Le terme "jahiliyya" signifie littéralement "ignorance...
L'origine de la Maison (également connue sous le nom de Ka'bah) est indissociable de l'origine des Arabes arabisés. Pour comprendre cela, nous raconto...
Comment les autres religions se sont-elles implantées dans la péninsule arabique ? Le Judaïsme Les Juifs ont migré de Palestine vers l'Arabie en deu...
La péninsule arabique est délimitée par la mer Rouge et le Sinaï à l'ouest, le golfe Arabique à l'est, la mer d'Arabie au sud, et Al-Sham ainsi qu'une...
Si Ibrahim ﵇ et Ismail ﵇ ont construit la Ka'bah et enseigné aux hommes l'islam et le tawhid, comment se fait-il qu'au moment où le Prophète ﷺ commenç...
Le Prophète ﷺ et ses Compagnons ﵃ se mesurèrent aux puissants Quraïch, les maîtres de La Mecque et du Hijaz (la partie occidentale de la péninsule Ara...
Le marché de 'Ukaz (سوق عكاظ) était l'un des marchés les plus importants de l'époque de la jahiliyya (la période d'ignorance antérieure à l'Islam). Il...
Dans l'article Le Peuple du Livre, nous avons évoqué le retour des Abyssins au Yémen en 525 pour venger les injustices de Dhu Nawas. Dhu Nawas, dernie...
La naissance à La Mecque Le Prophète Muhammad ﷺ est né à La Mecque un lundi matin, le 9 du mois de Rabi al-Awwal, l'Année de l'Éléphant, ce qui corre...
La Guerre Sacrilège (Harb al-Fijar) Lorsqu'il avait une vingtaine d'années, une grande guerre éclata entre les Quraish et les Banu Kinanah d'un côté,...
La Rénovation de la Ka'bah Lorsque le Prophète ﷺ avait trente-cinq ans, les Quraïch avaient entrepris la rénovation de la Ka'bah. C'était en effet un...
Dans les premiers temps de l'Islam, alors que la révélation était encore toute fraîche et que l'on pouvait encore compter les musulmans sur les doigts...
Lorsque le Prophète ﷺ reçut le commandement divin, il commença à inviter les gens à l'Islam. Certains crurent en lui, d'autres exprimèrent leur incréd...
Le Prophète ﷺ se retirait régulièrement dans la grotte de Hira pour y méditer. Face à un environnement corrompu où régnaient des pratiques obscures et...
Durant la phase de cultivation, les Quraish avaient connaissance de la da'wah du Prophète ﷺ, mais n'y accordaient guère d'attention. Le message ne rep...
Plusieurs notables des Quraysh se rendirent auprès d'Abu Talib et lui dirent : O Abu Talib ! Ton neveu maudit nos dieux, critique notre mode de vie, ...
Au début de la quatrième année de la Mission Prophétique et pendant plusieurs mois, les Quraychites limitèrent leur intimidation au ridicule et à la d...
La persécution des musulmans à La Mecque s'intensifiait à mesure que le message de l'islam gagnait du terrain. Malgré la protection qu'offraient des p...
Les Quraysh avaient tout tenté : ils avaient calomnié les musulmans, les avaient chassés de leurs foyers et les avaient même soumis à la torture. Malg...
Un jour, le Prophète ﷺ était assis sur une colline près de Safa lorsque Abu Jahl passa par là et se mit à l'insulter ﷺ. Le Prophète ﷺ demeura silencie...
Après les tentatives infructueuses de compromis et les offres faites par les Quraïch au Prophète ﷺ, et après l'engagement ferme de Banu Hashim et de B...
Après la perte de ses protecteurs, le Prophète ﷺ se consacra activement au talab al-nusra (طلب النصرة), c'est-à-dire la recherche d'un soutien physiqu...
Après la perte d'Abu Talib et de Khadijah ﵂ lors de l'Année du Chagrin, le Prophète ﷺ se retrouvait désormais seul à La Mecque. Sans la protection de ...
Six mois seulement après que les Banu Hashim et les Banu Al-Muttalib eurent quitté le défilé d'Abu Talib après trois ans de famine et d'isolement, le ...
Après le décès d'Abu Talib et de Khadijah ﵂, les deux piliers de la vie du Prophète ﷺ, la daʿwah à La Mecque traversait ses années les plus sombres. L...
Après le Premier Serment d'Aqaba, par lequel douze hommes de Médine avaient juré fidélité au Prophète ﷺ, une étape décisive s'imposait. Comment cette ...
Après trois années d'épreuves, la perte d'Abu Talib et de Khadijah ﵂, l'humiliation à At-Ta'if et une quête de plusieurs mois auprès des tribus arabes...
Après l'arrivée joyeuse à Médine et l'accueil chaleureux des Ansaar, le Prophète ﷺ se trouvait face à un défi immense : bâtir une société entièrement ...
Après le dramatique voyage de l'Hégire depuis La Mecque, le séjour dans la grotte de Thawr, la poursuite par Suraaqa et le séjour à Quba, le Prophète ...
Après trois nuits dans la Grotte de Thawr, protégés par Allah ﷻ, le Prophète ﷺ et Abu Bakr ﵁ quittèrent leur refuge. Les Quraïch avaient en grande par...
L'œuvre de Mus'ab ibn 'Umair ﵁ à Médine avait porté des fruits que personne n'aurait osé imaginer. En moins d'un an, ce messager solitaire du Prophète...
Avec le Second Pacte d'Aqaba, la voie vers Médine était ouverte. Les Ansars avaient engagé leur sang et leur honneur pour la protection du Prophète ﷺ....
Alors que les musulmans quittaient La Mecque l'un après l'autre pour rejoindre Médine, la panique s'emparait des dirigeants des Quraych. Ce qui avait ...
Après la construction de la mosquée et l'établissement des liens de fraternité entre les Muhâjirûn et les Ansâr, l'étape suivante et décisive consista...
Nous avons évoqué précédemment comment les Quraychites cherchaient par tous les moyens à empêcher le départ du Prophète ﷺ vers Médine. Après cet échec...
La victoire de Badr avait mis les musulmans sur la carte. Médine n'était plus une petite cité-État qui peinait à défendre sa propre existence, elle ét...
La bataille de Badr fut un tournant dans l'histoire de l'islam. Avec seulement 313 hommes face à près de 1 000 guerriers quraychites, les musulmans, a...
Les premières expéditions depuis Médine avaient mis sous pression les routes commerciales des Quraych et affirmé la présence militaire des musulmans. ...
Après Uhud, la situation des musulmans était précaire. Soixante-dix de leurs meilleurs hommes étaient tombés. Le Prophète ﷺ lui-même avait été blessé....
La bataille d'Uhud ne fut pas une surprise. Elle était la conséquence inévitable de ce qui s'était passé à Badr. Les Quraych avaient perdu leurs meill...
De toutes les épreuves qui frappèrent la première communauté islamique, Al-Khandaq fut la plus existentielle. Non parce que les combats furent les plu...
La paix de Hudaybiyya n'était pas un point d'arrivée. Elle était une respiration, et le Prophète ﷺ l'utilisa avec une précision qui n'apparut pleineme...
La paix de Hudaybiyya avait offert à l'État islamique quelque chose qu'aucune victoire militaire ne pouvait acheter : du temps et de l'espace pour reg...
Il y a dans la Sira des moments où les événements extérieurs et leur signification réelle sont si éloignés que seul le temps rend la différence visibl...
Les paroles que le Prophète ﷺ prononça alors que la poussière d'Al-Khandaq retombait encore furent brèves et sans équivoque : à partir de maintenant, ...
Mu'tah ne fut pas une bataille comme celles que les musulmans avaient menées auparavant. À Badr, à Uhud et à Al-Khandaq, la communauté de Médine s'éta...
Il y a des expéditions dans la Sira dont on se souvient pour ce qui s'y passa pendant le combat. Tabuk se souvient de ce qui se passa avant le combat,...
La Mecque était tombée sans combat notable. Dix mille hommes avaient pris une ville qui avait été pendant vingt ans le cœur de l'opposition à l'Islam....
Il y a des conquêtes qui entrent dans l'histoire comme des tournants sanglants : des villes qui brûlent, des peuples asservis, des vainqueurs qui impo...
La dixième année de l'Hégire, le Prophète ﷺ annonça qu'il accomplirait le Hajj. La nouvelle se répandit à travers la péninsule arabique et des gens af...
Before Gao became Gao, there was Kukiya, a name that is quietly passed over in most popular history books and yet is indispensable, for without Kukiya...
Before there were kings, before there were trade routes, before the first Islamic scholar heard of the Niger bend, there was a river. And before that ...
There is a moment in history when a region ceases to exist only for itself and becomes part of something larger, and for West Africa that moment was g...
Behind every great empire stands a people, and behind Wagadou, ancient Ghana, the first great power of West Africa, stand the Soninke. But who were th...
The First Encounter with Islam > Islam entered West Africa without a conquering army or a missionary's banner, on the back of a camel, in a saddlebag...
Beneath the sun of the western Sahara lie slabs of rock salt in the ground like forgotten letters of a dried-up sea, and for centuries it was precisel...
The Intensification of the Trans-Saharan Trade Routes > What for centuries had been a footpath now became a highway. And along this highway traveled ...
Islamic Takrur > On the Senegal River, where fishing nets hang heavier than anywhere else, one king spoke a word no one in West Africa had spoken bef...
Two towns, six miles apart, one of which had a mosque on every corner while the other had a sacred grove around the throne, together nonetheless forme...
To understand what the Almoravids were, we must picture a place that in the eleventh-century world barely appeared on the map: somewhere in the wester...
The Sosso Period > Not every page in the history of Islam is a flowering. Sometimes a setback comes. And in the twelfth century, on the ruins of Ghan...
Mali under Sundiata Keita: The Lion and the Child Who Could Not Walk > A prince who shuffled across the earth on hands and knees before he would shar...
The Formation of the Mali Empire > Mali did not import Islam but wove it into what already stood, and grew into a civilisation that spanned three riv...
The Battle of Kirina: Where an Empire Rose Out of the Earth > One field, one day, one arrow. And the West African map was redrawn for the next three ...
The Silence After Sundiata: An Empire Searches for Its Direction > A hero dies, and an empire must learn to live without him. Between 1255 and the ri...
The Sublime King: How Musa Became Mansa > Ibn Kathir calls him al-malik al-ashraf, the sublime king. But before he earned that name for himself, some...
The Year Cairo Lost Its Gold > July 1324. A caravan enters Cairo. Twelve years later, Egyptian merchants are still complaining about the inflation. T...
What a Mansa Builds After He Returns > A Hajj is a moment. A legacy is a generation. Between 1325 and his death around 1337, Mansa Musa built an infr...
How an Empire Slowly Loses Itself > A death is rarely enough to bring an empire down. What killed Mali was not a single blow, but a slow convergence ...
Sunni Ali Ber: The Warrior, the Heretic, the Founder > He built an empire that would last a century and a half, and he did it in a way that the schol...
The Rise of Songhay: From Vassal State to Regional Power While Mali slowly collapsed under its own weight, an empire came to life at the eastern bend...
The Takeover of Askia Muhammad > In the same year that Granada fell and Columbus set course, on the Niger a king was deposed who in the name of Islam...
Askia Muhammad the Great: The Full Islamic State Model > Where Mansa Musa laid the foundations, Askia Muhammad completed the building. For thirty-fiv...
The Jurist from Tlemcen: Muhammad al-Maghili ﵀ and the Law for Black Rulers > In the last years of the fifteenth century, a Maghrebi jurist leaves hi...
The Neighbours of Songhay: Hausaland, Aïr and Bornu > Songhay was the largest empire of its age, but it was never the only one. East of the Niger ben...
The Decline of Songhay: Patricide on the Niger > What Askia had built up in thirty-five years, his sons began to demolish in one generation. And on t...
Tondibi and the Death Blow: The End of the First West African Era > On an afternoon in March 1591 a Songhay army of forty thousand men stood facing f...
The Ocean That Devoured Names: The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade And The West African Muslims Who Disappeared Into It > Between 1501 and 1867, twelve an...
The Eastern Slave Trade: Misconceptions and Truths > Long before the first European ship carried an African captive across the Atlantic, caravans of ...
The Muslims Among The Enslaved: Three Names Against Oblivion > No one counted them, and no one can now, but among the ten million Africans who surviv...
The Shaykh From Degel: Usman dan Fodio ﵀ and the Long Road to Gudu > He was born in a village that today almost no one can still point out on a map. ...
The Flag at Gudu: The Fulani Jihad and the Price of an Islamic State > On 21 February 1804 a green flag is raised in a village on the north-western f...
A City Out of the Drought: The Establishment of the Sokoto Caliphate (1809–1817) > Alkalawa was still smouldering, and Usman dan Fodio ﵀ did somethin...
The Brother Who Stopped at Kano: Abdullahi dan Fodio and the Conscience of the Jihad > He was the man who wrote the legal handbooks, recited the qasi...
The Sultan Who Wrote: Muhammad Bello and the Administrative Consolidation of Sokoto > His father had lit the fire and his uncle had drafted the laws;...
Hamdullahi: The Caliphate of Seventeen Years and Forty Scholars > In 1818 a lean Fulani cleric from the marshes of Massina raises his staff and decla...
Omar ibn Said ﵀: The Man Who Wrote Arabic on the Wall > Fayetteville, North Carolina, 1810. A prisoner of about forty picks up a piece of charcoal fr...
What Was Lost, What Remains > Sapelo Island, Georgia, in the 1920s. An old woman recites something in Arabic for her granddaughter. Then she switches...
The Caliphate at Its Zenith: How Sokoto Looked Around 1850 > Half a century after its founding, the Sokoto Caliphate stretched from the Niger Bend to...
The Saber and the Rosary: The Jihad of Umar Tall ﵀ and the Rending of the Tariqas > Between 1852 and 1864, a Toucouleur scholar with a Tijani wird in...
The Last Hijra: How Sokoto, Kano and the Whole Western Sudan Fell in Seven Years > Between 1893 and 1903 the last Islamic states of West Africa fall ...
His full name is: Abu Bakr ʿAbdullah ibn Abi Quhafah ʿUthman ibn ʿAmir ibn ʿAmr ibn Kaʿb ibn Saʿd ibn Taym ibn Murrah ibn Kaʿb ibn Luʾayy ibn Ghalib a...
The plain that waited Between the desert of the Hijaz and the palm oases of Bahrain, in a long band of sand plains and low rock ridges, lies al-Yamam...
The decision to march out Medina in the first months of the caliphate of Abu Bakr ﵁ was a city holding its breath. The expedition of Usama ibn Zayd ﵁...
The Stillness of a Great Storm When the army of Usama ﵁ had departed from Medina for the Roman frontier and the prayers over the Messenger of Allah ﷺ...
An Army on the Threshold of a Changed World Three miles north of Medina, in a camp called al-Jurf, an army of several thousand men stood ready to mar...
A Minbar, a Day After the Stillness The morning after the Saqifah broke over Medina as though the city itself were breathing out a long-held breath. ...
The Afternoon the World Fell Still It was Monday, the twelfth of Rabīʿ al-Awwal in the eleventh year of the Hijra. The sun stood high over Medina, a ...
The Battle of the Chains (Dhāt al-Salāsil) In Safar of the twelfth year, Khalid ibn al-Walid ﵁ crossed the south-eastern frontier and met the first P...
A Caliph Who Owned Nothing When one seeks the image that captures the entire caliphate of Abu Bakr ﵁ in a single scene, one finds it not on a battlef...
The threshold of the peninsula In the twelfth year after the Hijra, when the Ridda had died down and the tribes of Najd, Bahrain, Oman, Hadramawt, an...
Four quarters of the heavens, one answer Whoever, in the twelfth year after the Hijra, had unrolled a map of the Arabian Peninsula and taken Medina a...
The wound that would not dry Medina in the first weeks after the Battle of al-Yamamah was a city in two tempos. Outside the mosque, in the streets an...
The man behind the Khilafah We have now followed him into his death, and we have followed him into his succession. We have seen him die at the Fajr p...
The first khutbah of ʿUmar ﵁ and the title Amir al-Muʾminin The minbar ascended once more In the previous article we followed the Tuesday on which A...
The bayʿah of ʿUmar ibn al-Khattab ﵁ A Tuesday in Jumada al-Akhirah It was a Tuesday in Medina, eight days before the end of the month of Jumada al-...
A Year Before Death It should have been an ordinary meal. A dish, a few guests, a date-powder of the season, a thin sauce of goat-fat and herbs. In t...
A Caliph on the Road to ʿArafat It was Dhul-Hijjah of the year 12 after the Hijra, and the caravans gathered once more around Medina. The Ridda was b...
The Northwestern Gate Whoever stood in Medina in the twelfth year after the Hijra and let his gaze travel across the horizon saw three principal dire...
Further Conquests under ʿUmar ﵁ — Sham, Iraq and the Years Between The Year-Table as Backbone Whoever wishes to see the history of the caliphate of ...
Governance, Justice and Humility under ʿUmar ﵁ The Man Who Prayed for Gentleness on the Minbar Whoever wishes to grasp the image of ʿUmar ibn al-Kha...
The Battle of al-Qadisiyyah A plain on the edge of two worlds Between the Euphrates and the desert edge of Najd, south of what would later be called...
The Battle of Yarmuk The riverbed in which an empire was lost South of the Sea of Tiberias, on the border of what is today called Syria and Jordan, ...
The Institution of the Hijri Calendar: The Counsel of ʿAli ﵁ and the Starting Point of a New Reckoning of Time In the month of Rabīʿ al-Awwal of the ...
The Fall of Madāʾin Kisra: the First Jumʿah in the Hall of Khosrau In the sixteenth year after the Hijra, which in the Gregorian reckoning correspond...
The Expansion of the Two Sanctuaries under ʿUmar ﵁ Two Walls That Had to Carry More People In the year 17 after the Hijra, the Gregorian year 638, t...
The Founding of Kufa and Basra: Garrison Cities for a New Geography Between the fourteenth and the seventeenth year after the Hijra, which in the Gre...
The Fall of Jerusalem and the Umariyya Treaty: the Khalifah ﵁ at the Gate of the Holy City In the sixteenth year after the Hijra, shortly after Saʿd ...
The Year of Ash and the Plague of Amwas A Year in Which the Heaven Was Silent In the eighteenth year of the Hijra, which in the Gregorian chronology...
A Promise from Tabuk When ʿUmar ﵁ in the twentieth year of the Hijra took a decision that would forever change the composition of the Hijaz, he did s...
The Establishment of the Diwan Muharram, the Twentieth Year of the Hijra In Muharram of the twentieth year of the Hijra, which in the Gregorian reck...
The Conquest of Egypt The Twentieth Year In the twentieth and twenty-first years of the Hijra, which in the Gregorian reckoning falls in the years 6...
Nahawand, the Opening of Openings The Twenty-First Year In the twenty-first year of the Hijra, which in the Gregorian reckoning corresponds to the y...
--- slug: jaar-neusbloedingen title: The year of the nosebleeds and the first khutbah arabicName: عام الرعاف language: en eventDate: 644-01-01 wordCou...
--- slug: bayah-uthman title: The bayʿah of ʿUthman ibn ʿAffan ﵁ arabicName: بيعة عثمان بن عفان language: en eventDate: 644-06-01 wordCountTarget: 350...
The Question That Wanted No Heir In the three full days between the attack of Abu Luʾluʾah and his death, ʿUmar ibn al-Khattab ﵁ had a question to an...
A Dream of a Cock In the last weeks of his life, in the month of Dhul-Hijjah of the twenty-third year of the Hijra, ʿUmar ibn al-Khattab ﵁ dreamed a ...
The Last Hajj of ʿUmar ﵁ A Caliph Who Had Led Every Hajj Himself After writing the letter to Abu Musa al-Ashʿari ﵁ and after establishing the diwan ...
--- slug: bestuur-en-gouverneurs title: Administration and governors under ʿUthman ﵁ arabicName: ولاة عثمان language: en eventDate: 645-01-01 wordCoun...
--- slug: uitbreiding-moskeeen title: The Expansion of the Masjid al-Haram and the Masjid an-Nabawi arabicName: توسعة المسجدين language: en eventDate:...
The battle of Sbeitla and the conquest of Ifriqiya under ʿUthman ﵁ A land beyond the desert of Barqa In the same year of the Hijra in which, in the ...
The conquest of Cyprus and the first Islamic fleet under ʿUthman ﵁ An island in a sea that no Muslim had yet seen In the twenty-seventh year of the ...
The continuation of the conquests in the east under ʿUthman ﵁ Four years in which the horizon shifted once more In the years 28 to 31 of the Hijra, ...
The Burning of the Divergent Codices The Moment After the Uniting When, in the previous article, we paused at the official Mushaf of ʿUthman ﵁, we p...
Prosperity and criticism The year in which the treasuries overflowed In the year 30 of the Hijra, which corresponds in the Gregorian reckoning to 65...
The compilation of the Qur'an The moment on the northern front It was not in Medina that the history of the official Mushaf of ʿUthman ﵁ began. It b...
The Banishment of Abu Dharr ﵁ to Rabadha In the year 32 of the Hijra, in a poor hamlet on the edge of the Hijaz, there died a man whom the Prophet ﷺ ...
The turning point after six quiet years In the preceding articles we followed the Caliphate of ʿUthman ibn ʿAffan ﵁ from his bayʿah in Muharram of th...
The battle of Dhat al-Sawari The question that ʿUmar ﵁ did not wish to ask Before we come to this battle on the Lycian coast, we must go back to a l...
The Battle of the Camel On a day in Jumada al-Akhirah of the year 36, two armies of Muslims stood facing one another outside the gates of Basra. The ...
Conflict with Talha ﵁, Zubayr ﵁ and Aisha ﵂ Two months after the bayʿah, Talha ﵁ and Zubayr ﵁ requested of ʿAli ﵁ leave to go to Mecca for the ʿumrah...
First Administration and the Replacement of Governors The day after the bayʿah, ʿAli ﵁ took decisions that immediately laid bare the dividing lines. ...
The Pledge of Allegiance to ʿAli ibn Abi Talib ﵁ Five days after the martyrdom of ʿUthman ﵁, Medina once again stood without a khalifah. On the eveni...
On the threshold of the breaking-in In the preceding article we followed ʿUthman ibn ʿAffan ﵁ in his encirclement. We followed the three ways out tha...
From political conflict to a besieged house In the preceding article we followed the build-up of the fitna as az-Zuhri ﵀ and Saʿid ibn al-Musayyab ﵀ ...
The Martyrdom of ʿAmmar ibn Yasir ﵁ at Siffin On a hot day in Safar of the year 37, on the plain along the Euphrates, upstream to the west of Raqqa, ...
The Battle of Siffin On the plain along the right bank of the Euphrates, upstream to the west of Raqqa, in Safar of the year 37 two armies of Muslims...
Negotiations with Muʿawiya ﵁ Between Kufa and Damascus, in the winter of 36–37, couriers rode with letters and delegations, in a final series of atte...
The Move of the Capital to Kufa In Rabiʿ al-Akhir of the year 36, ʿAli ﵁ left Medina for the last time as khalifah. After the Battle of the Camel he ...
The Loss of Egypt and the Death of Muhammad ibn Abi Bakr ﵁ While ʿAli ﵁ in Kufa strove in vain to move his army to a renewed campaign against Sham, M...
The Battle of Nahrawan In a one-sided confrontation to the east of the Tigris, the Khawarij lost in a few hours almost their entire army. Among the f...
The rise of the Khawarij After Siffin, a group walked out of the camp of ʿAli ﵁ and built its rejection of the arbitration into a theology of its own...
The Arbitration and the First Fitna Months after the battle of Siffin the two arbiters met at Dumat al-Jandal. What began as a religious procedure ac...
The Last Years and Governance In the two years still granted to him, ʿAli ﵁ held his office in Kufa, exercised judgement in the Masjid al-Aʿzam, dict...
Martyrdom and Legacy In Ramadan of the year 40, ʿAli ibn Abi Talib ﵁ stepped out of his house for the fajr prayer in the Masjid al-Aʿzam of Kufa. At ...
