About six centuries after the Prophet Muhammad first started to preach Islam, the Abbasid caliphate started to weaken with underlying states becoming almost independent. In 1258, the first great catastrophe, the Mongol invasion, struck the Muslim world. Wreaking havoc in Asia, Mongols turned to the Muslim world when Hulagu Khan, Genghis Khan's grandson, completely destroyed the capital Baghdad. It took Mongols forty days just to slaughter more than eight hundred thousand civilians including the caliph and his family. It is said that the Euphrates and Tigris rivers flew with ink for days when millions of books were thrown into it. Islam has a habit of conquering its conquerors. Although most of Mongols became Muslim, the damage was done. The Arabic world has never fully recovered from the disaster.

Dynamic independent states replaced the commonwealth of the Abbasid Caliphate. Rulers carried the title of 'sultan' meaning the one who possesses power and authority. In time, three great empires emerged from the ashes regaining the magnificence of the past. The West of the vast Muslim world was dominated by the Ottoman Empire, which covered North Africa, Eastern Europe and the Arab World. In the centre, the Safavid Empire covered present day Iran and Caspian regions while the Mughal Empire ruled over the Indian subcontinent.

Starting as a small Turkish state at the fringe of Asia Minor in 1299, the Ottoman Empire reached its zenith with Suleyman the Magnificent (1520-1566). The Ottoman expansion in Europe was only stopped by the failed siege of Vienna in 1683. Ottoman sultans revived the institution of caliphate from 1517 and used it very effectively to give the Muslims a sense of unity. One of the distinctive features of the Ottoman social administration was the 'millet' system, where different religious communities within the Empire were recognised and given independent rule over the social and legal affairs of their communities.

Originally starting as a Sufi brotherhood, the Safavids in Persia gained power in 1501 after turning into a political movement with a heavy Shiite emphasis. The Shii interpretation of Islam was imposed on the population of Iran through a process of persecution and assimilation. The Safavid Empire was at its peak during the rule of celebrated Shah Abbas (1588-1629), who has achieved great reforms in administration, the military and the economy.

Founded in the sixteenth century, the Mughal dynasty matched the success of its Ottoman and Safavid counterparts in India. Emperor Akbar (1566-1605) took the empire to its zenith through political centralisation and the social integration of Muslim and majority Hindu populations. Akbar promoted religious understanding and tolerance. However, he went further and attempted to combine all religions into one. Religious revivalists such as Shaykh Ahmad Sirhindi (1564-1624) strongly resisted the last move.

Behind what appeared to be political fragmentation, Muslims enjoyed an international Islamic order, which transcended state boundaries. A Muslim traveller could travel the vast area in safety and could find a consistency of culture and religious emphasis that positioned a Muslim as part of a transnational community of believers. Despite differences in nuance, all Muslims believed in one God, His Prophet and the same unadulterated Qur'an while they practised the same five Pillars of Islam and were bound by the same law, Sharia. Society was cultured and developed to such an extent that civil foundations and endowments, called wakf, completely funded and managed educational and social services. Every service imaginable included not only humans but also animals and the environment. For example, vakfs were established to look after animals such as storks injured on their migration journey.