ABSTRACT
The Persian Archaemenid empire then extended to Turkestan and the borders of India, and included Asia Minor up to the Caucasus. The Shia split in turn into a number of sects, which at different times won support in different parts of Persia, Mesopotamia and North Africa. The crusader states created in Syria by European invaders in the twelfth century were an ephemeral episode, and the Muslims placed under Christian rule by the Reconquista in Spain were either absorbed or expelled. Most, however, tried in some degree to combine new ideas and old beliefs to modernise Islamic society and doctrine. As political parties emerged, and secular nationalism challenged specifically religious claims, this nationalism was at first territorial rather than linguistic. Claims were made for the independence of Egypt, Tunisia or Morocco rather than for the creation of a single free Arab homeland. The political problems of the French territories in North Africa differed substantially.
