In addition to the socio-economic factors which contributed to the rise of Islam and the increase in converts to the religion, one has to also take into consideration that the ethos and teachings of the Prophet Muhammed's religion appealed to those who converted.
The socio-economic factors that drew people to the religion of Islam stems directly from the teachings of the Prophet Muhammed and the religion that he preached. One has to consider the teachings of Muhammed and the words of the Quran directly influenced ideas of social justice and resistance to oppression that immediately attracted converts.
An early example of this comes from the fact that some of the first people to join Muhammed's cause was a child slave, Zaid ibn Haritha. Social context intersects with the divine in this case, as after Muhammed had adopted the ex-slave, Zaid, it was revealed by God that an adopted child was to retain the name of their biological father, thereby not distorting the truth behind lineage.
And yet, Islam acknowledged lineage while also underlining that this was not to be the basis of status in any way. This was summed up, when Muhammed, fearing he was to be gripped by death, delivered his Final Sermon, in which he declared:
"An Arab has no superiority over a non-Arab, nor does a non-Arab have any superiority over an Arab; a white has no superiority over a black, nor does a black have any superiority over a white; [none have superiority over another] except by piety and good action. Learn that every Muslim is a brother to every Muslim and that the Muslims constitute one brotherhood."
Transcending the borders of ethnicity, and nationalism, the message of Muhammed aimed to stamp out the idea of both status by race or lineage. It was not the idea that a certain lineage denoted brotherhood, but beliefs and "good action" instead. When rule by lineage and Arab cultural superiority began to creep back into the Islamic world during the time of the Umayyad Caliphate, the above-mentioned ethos stated by Muhammed was drawn, helping to bring the Umayyad Caliphate to an end (circa 750) and the Abbasid Caliphate to power. The latter transferred sought to counter Arab cultural superiority by bringing Persian bureaucrats into the court's employ.
It was a testament to the strength (and prevalence) of the faith that with the fall of the Umayyads, Islam itself did not fall, but the message was carried through by others.
"You will neither inflict nor suffer any inequity."
The above quote, also from Muhammed's Final Sermon, both indicates a guide to live by as well a reminder of the past; an atmosphere where pre-Islamic Arabs were burying their daughters alive and engaging in the oppression of others through the employment of usury in money-lending.
Ideas of justice and equity can be seen as just one aspect that aided the spread of Islam after its advent in the seventh century CE. Muhammed's teachings and ideological legacy, in unison with the word of God in the Quran, formed a basis from which Muslim leaders, like the second Caliph, Umar, led and developed communities as the Islamic realm expanded, employing previously unseen methods of social welfare which inevitably led to the willingness of converts to Islam.
In the early seventh century, a merchant trader named Muhammad received revelations from the Angel Gabriel about the final word of God. According to the Islamic faith, born out of this event, Muhammad became the final prophet of Islam, and it was his mission to spread the faith. Muhammad began by spreading his faith in Mecca. After a longer story, involving a flight to Medina, gathering followers, and having to claim Mecca for the Islamic faith, Muhammad is successful in creating a base for Islam in Mecca.
Prior to Islam, Mecca was a trading city that engaged with a lot of monotheistic faiths but remained polytheistic. One trend we see in world history is that it is easier to convert a population away from polytheism towards monotheism, but it is harder to convert from one monotheistic faith to another (on a large scale). Islam was the first successful monotheistic religion to take hold in Mecca and the larger Arabian Peninsula.
Through the Umayyad Dynasty, the empire that formed after Muhammad's death, originally headed by a loyal follower named Abu Bakr, Islam spread throughout the old Persian lands to the East and North Africa (and into Spain!) to the West. While sometimes this spread was militant, Islam mostly spread through peaceful means. For example, people living in Islamic territories were granted religious tolerance. However, non-Muslims who practiced Christianity or Judaism (called dhimmi, or "people of the book") were charged a tax that non-Muslims did not have to pay, called the jizya. This encouraged non-Muslims to convert.
Conversion also brought a better economic relationship with the Muslim World, who at this point in history (600 CE–1450 CE) were the most successful traders on the Silk Roads and Indian Ocean. One example of this is in the West African Sahelian Kingdom of Mali, whose King Sundiata converted to Islam, along with some of the African elites. Later Malian Kings, like Mansa Musa, went on the pilgrimage (hajj) to Mecca, spreading faith and African goods along the way. Converting to Islam connected African Kings to the Trans-Saharan Trade network, where Muslims in North Africa were interested in buying Sahelian products like gold and salt.
We also see mass peaceful conversion in Southeast Asia, particularly in port cities like Malacca. Sufi mystics, Islamic missionaries who used fused Qur'anic faith with local practices, converted many Hindu and Buddhist traders due to the promise of equality and community that comes with Islam. Low-caste Hindus especially appreciated the concept that all followers were equal under the eyes of Allah, something they did not experience with the highly restrictive caste system. Traders in SE Asian port cities converted to Islam to engage in trade and to experience a more egalitarian religion. Today, Indonesia has the highest percentage of Muslims of any country in the world, including Islam's homeland, Saudi Arabia.
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