David Garrison / Newsweek
In the 8th century, the Great Imam, Abu Hanifa (699-767), coined the term “House of Islam” (Dar al-Islam) as those places where Muslims enjoyed peace and security under the rule of an Islamic government. The rest of the world Hanifa designated Dar al-Harb or “the House of War.”
Hanifa’s triumphalist worldview had been earned by Islamic armies that had already defeated both the Byzantine and Persian superpowers in their first century of existence. In Hanifa’s own lifetime, these Prophet-inspired warriors rolled unabated across Buddhist Central Asia and South Asian Hindustan. By the time of Abu Hanifa’s writing, Islamic kingdoms stretched from the borders of France to the Indonesian archipelago.
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