I think that Islam’s cosmopolitan aspects are what defines it as such a revolutionary religion in that it allowed the religion to spread so far and encompass so many different people.
I think this cosmopolitan nature is in part due to Islam’s birthplace in an extensive and very active trade route, and its geographic positioning on the peripheries of the two major empires of the time. Islam was able to do this through three specific ways. The first way that helped establish Islamic civilization as cosmopolitan was the way in which they incorporated various aspects of all the other civilizations in the Afro-Eurasian world. By doing so they opened themselves up to more opportunities throughout the region.
A second way was the value that Islam placed on commerce. By accessing the vast network of trade through the region, it allowed them to spread Islam in ways other religions were not able to do. Muslim merchants, as Muhammed, were quite active in this world of trade. This allowed them to expand other ideas such as technology, and not just religion. The final way that allowed Islamic civilization to become a distinctive cosmopolitan civilization was their contributions to the worlds of math, medicine, and astronomy. They brought back many of the teaching of the Greeks, who were also a cosmopolitan civilization, and continued to expand upon those discoveries.
