How Does Islam Become Both an Empire and A Global Religion?

DBQ PART 2 THESIS STATEMENT:
Islam became both an empire and a global religion by conquering because of their beliefs, having a strong army due to their beliefs, and causing Muslims, by law, to be treated as superior to non­muslims. Document #:__
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Islam became an empire through conquering other lands because they believed in lesser jihad.
Lesser jihad is defined as “the outwards struggle against oppression.” This means that lesser jihad is fighting against anyone who expresses to them unjust treatment or control. A loose interpretation of this could mean that every outside force that is not a part of the Muslim Empire is oppressing them. This will cause the Muslims to want to complete more lesser jihad hence causing them to go out and conquer new lands. Muslims were supposed to care for others and they believed that other governments that were non­muslim ruled would not care for their citizens especially the Muslim citizens. This led them to also want to conquer due to lesser jihad.
Muslims believed that they had to complete lesser jihad by conquering other lands not part of the
Empire because they believed that those outside lands were a form of oppression to the people in it. Document #:__
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Islam became an empire because the Muslims had a strong army hence they could conquer other lands quickly. According to the Qur’an (47.4­47.6) “those who are slain in the way of