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Islam

The Arabic term for "asceticism" is zuhd. The Islamic prophet Muhammad and his followers practiced asceticism. However, contemporary mainstream Islam has not had a tradition of asceticism, but its Sufi groups have cherished their own ascetic tradition for several centuries. Islamic literary sources and historians report that during the early Muslim conquests of the Middle East and North Africa (7th–10th centuries), some of the Muslim warriors guarding the frontier settlements were also ascetics; numerous historical accounts also report of some Christian monks that apostatized from Christianity, converted to Islam, and joined the jihad, as well as of several Muslim warriors that repudiated Islam, converted to Christianity, and became Christian monks. Monasticism is forbidden in Islam. Scholars in the field of Islamic studies have argued that asceticism (zuhd) served as a precursor to the later doctrinal formations of Sufis that began to emerge in the tenth century through the works of individuals such as al-Junayd, al-Qushayrī, al-Sarrāj, al-Hujwīrī and others.