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Spread of Christianity and Islam
The Middle East is surrounded by a historical significance that is very strange. This has been the place of birth of majority of cultures as it has been the place of birth most of the religions. The Fertile Crescent of this place is the source of the oldest hearth of culture which is the basis of development of civilization. This is also the region where the ancient world’s greatest kingdoms like Babylon and also Persia came from for the purpose of shaping the history. This is also the place where Judaism owes its roots. It is also the place of formation of Israel, the country of the chosen people by God. The later developments in this place saw the emergency of the most important religions in terms of their size and history namely Christianity and the Islam. The proliferation of the two religions from the Middle East was associated with considerable impact in their history, the two religions contributed to substantial development during the initial 200 years of progress. There were however some important differences between the growth of the two churches in the initial two centuries despite the existence of some commonalities in their initial modes of spread
The presence of Christianity has been documented to be a number of centuries before Islam came into being. At a time when Muhammad was founding Islam in the area of origin, the Middle East Christianity had shifted its focal point to Europe and form a firm establishment to become the official church. The sprouting of Christianity is rooted in the Middle East following the resurrection of Christ in 30 A.D. this religion started in Jerusalem and its environs and its gospel initially targeted the Jews exclusively. The growth of the church was so rapid as has been documented that in tune of 3000 Jews had in one extraordinary day being converted into the religion ( ).
During this era, however, the expansion of Christianity hardly went beyond Jerusalem and the vicinity of Jerusalem, a situation that was to change in the near future. The changes were prompted by the terrible persecutions that were sparked by the instance that Stephen was stoned, marking the era of the peace that the church enjoyed. The leaders of the Jews sort after Jesus followers and imprisoned them. This resulted to the scattering of the church into the countryside that surrounded the Middle East such as Judea, Samaria, among others. It was actually he starting point of the expansion of Christianity on a worldwide perspective.
The founding of Islam came much latter in the year 550 A.D. the first experience underwent by this religion have some striking similarity to the ones that were faced by the church of the Christians. Muhammad, who was a Quraysh tribe native in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, made some claims in the year 610. The claims related to Gods revelations to him to undertake the task of preaching Islam, the new religion. The initial ...