section_path: Early Middle Ages/Rise of Islam
section_name: Rise of Islam
paragraph_text: Rise of Islam
  
  Religious beliefs were in flux along the Eastern Roman and Persian frontiers, as state-sponsored Roman missionaries proselytised among the pagan steppe peoples and the Persians made attempts to enforce Zoroastrianism on the Christian Armenians. The emergence of Islam in Arabia during the lifetime of Muhammad (d. 632) brought about more radical changes. After his death, Islamic forces conquered Syria, Persia, and Egypt. The Eastern Romans halted the Muslim expansion at Constantinople in 674–78 and 717–18; in the west, Islamic troops conquered North Africa, annihilated the Visigothic Kingdom in 711, and invaded southern Gaul beginning in 713.
  
  The conquerors bypassed the mountainous northwestern region of the Iberian Peninsula and a small kingdom, Asturias, emerged as the centre of local resistance. The defeat of Muslim forces at the Battle of Tours in 732 led to the reconquest of southern France by the Franks, but the main reason for the halt of Islamic growth in Europe was the overthrow of the Umayyad Caliphate and its replacement by the Abbasid Caliphate. The Abbasids were concerned with the Middle East, losing control of portions of the Muslim lands in the west. Umayyad descendants took over Al-Andalus (or Muslim Spain), the Aghlabids controlled North Africa, and the Tulunids became rulers of Egypt. The Islamisation of the countryside in Al-Andalus was slow. Christians were regularly employed in state administration, but violent inter-religious conflicts could lead to their mass migration to the north. Except for Byzantium, Muslim Spain was the only place in Europe where eunuchs played a preeminent role in administration and social life, holding positions such as guardians of religious shrines or harem servants.