COMMUNITY EAST AND WEST

The first generations of Muslims lived through extraordinary times. In less than a century after the Prophet's death in 10/632, the community's twin birthplaces of Mecca and Medina had become the religious centers of a far-flung patchwork of dominions stretching west across North Africa and into the Iberian peninsula and to the east as far as the Great Wall of China. The famous scholar Muhammad b. Jarir al-Tabari (d. 310/923) traced the course of Muslim expansion in his History of Prophets and Kings. In the year 92 of the new Muslim era (710 ce), he records how some 12,000 troops crossed from North Africa into al-Andalus and fought hard “until God killed the Christian king Roderick.” This marked the beginning of a Muslim presence in the peninsula which lasted eight hundred years, until it was finally reconquered for the church in Rome. In 96/714, again according to al-Tabari, there occurred in the East a brief encounter between a delegation of Muslims and “the ruler of China.” No enduring Muslim presence, however, resulted from this exchange. Indeed, the first short session between the Muslims and the emperor's courtiers seems only to have left the latter bemused at their guests' appearance.