Introduction
The origins of Islam and its early military expansion remain contentious subjects in modern scholarship. Traditional narratives, largely shaped by Abbasid-era historiography, present Islam’s rise as a religious revolution led by Muhammad and his successors. However, revisionist scholars such as Günther Lühling, Peter Sivers, and Gabriel Said Reynolds have challenged this view, arguing that Islam’s formation was a more complex process, deeply intertwined with existing Jewish-Christian sectarian movements and the broader geopolitical struggles of late antiquity. One of the key focal points of this debate is Jerusalem, particularly the Temple Mount, which played a significant role in Umayyad religious policy. This essay examines the military expansion of early Islam, its engagement with Jerusalem, and the symbolic role of the Temple Mount—questioning whether the Umayyads’ appropriation of the site was driven by eschatological and messianic expectations akin to Jewish and Christian restorationist movements.
Early Military Expansion and the Context of Conflict
The early seventh century was marked by the prolonged Byzantine-Sassanian wars (602–628), which weakened both empires and created a power vacuum in the Levant. The Arab conquests that followed were not a sudden eruption of religious zeal, as later Islamic sources claim, but a series of pragmatic military campaigns that capitalized on existing fractures within the region. The rapid expansion into Persia, Syria, and Egypt suggests a combination of tribal dynamics, economic incentives, and political opportunism rather than a monolithic jihadist mission.
Gabriel Said Reynolds argues that the early Muslim movement was still in theological flux, with a strong engagement with Jewish and Christian traditions. The Quran, rather than presenting a fully formed Islamic doctrine, often appears to be responding to and reinterpreting biblical narratives. The language of the Quran, particularly its use of Syriac and Aramaic loanwords, indicates that its earliest audiences were familiar with Jewish midrashic and Christian apocalyptic traditions (Reynolds, The Qur’an and Its Biblical Subtext, 2010).
This period also saw the continued influence of eschatological expectations. Many Jewish and Christian groups in the Levant anticipated divine intervention, and some may have viewed the Arab conquests through a messianic lens, similar to the way some Jews saw the Persian King Cyrus as a liberator. Whether early Arab rulers deliberately adopted this framework or were simply drawn into it by historical circumstances remains an open question.
The Temple Mount and the Umayyad Vision
Jerusalem, though not a central focus in early Islam, became increasingly significant under the Umayyads. The construction of the Dome of the Rock (691–692) under Abd al-Malik was not just a political assertion over the Christian Byzantine Empire but also a theological statement. The inscriptions inside the Dome explicitly challenge Christian doctrines, particularly the divinity of Jesus, emphasizing God’s absolute oneness (tawhid). This aligns with Reynolds’ argument that early Islam did not emerge in a vacuum but was engaged in a sustained theological dialogue with Christian and Jewish communities.
The question arises: Was the Umayyad focus on Jerusalem merely political, or did it carry eschatological overtones? The Quran’s reference to Muhammad’s Night Journey (Isra’) in Surah Al-Isra 17:1 speaks of a journey to the “Furthest Mosque” (Al-Masjid Al-Aqsa). Traditional Islamic exegesis identifies this with the Temple Mount, but Reynolds and others have pointed out that this interpretation may be retroactive, as no mosque existed there at the time. Some scholars propose that Aqsa originally referred to a more abstract or metaphorical concept, possibly linked to Jewish or Christian apocalyptic traditions (Reynolds, 2010).
If we consider the Umayyad project in light of Jewish messianic traditions, a parallel emerges with Zionist and Christian restorationist movements that sought to rebuild the Temple as a prelude to the Messiah’s arrival. While the Umayyads did not reconstruct the Temple itself, they established an Islamic presence on the sacred site, effectively superseding Christian claims to Jerusalem. This could be interpreted as an attempt to position Islam within the broader Abrahamic eschatological framework, similar to Jewish and Christian movements that sought to bring about divine fulfillment.
Eschatology, Messianism, and Political Legitimacy
The Quran and early Islamic traditions contain significant apocalyptic elements, suggesting that early Muslims—like their Jewish and Christian counterparts—believed in an imminent divine intervention. The Dome of the Rock inscriptions, which proclaim Muhammad as the final prophet and deny Jesus’ divinity, may reflect an early Islamic reinterpretation of messianism, one that places Muhammad as a prophetic figure within a redemptive timeline rather than as a military conqueror alone.
Reynolds’ analysis of Quranic language and its biblical subtext further supports this idea. He argues that the Quran’s messianic and apocalyptic themes are often obscured by later Islamic exegesis, which sought to distance Islam from its Jewish and Christian roots. If early Islam was originally a movement that saw itself as fulfilling Jewish and Christian prophecies, then the Umayyad use of the Temple Mount may not have been merely symbolic but an active attempt to hasten eschatological fulfillment.
The connection between military expansion, religious ideology, and eschatology is not unique to Islam. Byzantine and Sassanian rulers had long used messianic rhetoric to legitimize their reigns, and Jewish groups in the Second Temple period similarly saw foreign rulers like Cyrus and later Bar Kokhba as divine instruments. The Umayyads may have followed this precedent, using the Dome of the Rock not just as a political structure but as an eschatological marker, reinforcing Islam’s place as the final revelation in a prophetic sequence.
Conclusion
Early Islam’s military expansion and its eventual focus on Jerusalem should be understood within the broader geopolitical and theological context of late antiquity. The Abbasid-era Islamic narrative presents the rise of Islam as an independent, divinely guided mission, but revisionist scholars like Gabriel Said Reynolds have shown that Islam’s formation was deeply entangled with existing Jewish and Christian traditions. The Temple Mount’s role in early Islam may have been more than a political assertion; it could have been part of an effort to position Islam as the culmination of Abrahamic revelation, akin to Zionist and Christian restorationist movements that sought to fulfill messianic expectations.
By reexamining early Islamic history through a critical, intertextual lens, we uncover a more complex picture—one in which military conquest, theological adaptation, and eschatological expectation were deeply intertwined. The Umayyad engagement with Jerusalem, particularly through the Dome of the Rock, suggests an early Islamic messianic consciousness, one that saw itself not just as an inheritor of biblical traditions but as their ultimate fulfillment. Whether this vision was originally shared by Muhammad’s followers or was an Umayyad innovation remains a crucial question for future scholarship.
Key Sources Cited
1. Gabriel Said Reynolds, The Qur’an and Its Biblical Subtext (2010).
2. Günther Lühling, A Challenge to Islam for Reformation(2003).
3. Peter Sivers, The Early Islamic Conquests (2011).
4. Alfred-Louis de Prémare, Les Fondations de l’Islam(2002).
5. S.D. Goitein, Studies in Islamic History and Institutions(1966).
6. Stephen J. Shoemaker, The Death of a Prophet (2012).
7. Fred Donner, Muhammad and the Believers (2010).
