The Ancient and Medieval
World HST 108 The Islamic World
Key Terms from Lecture and Textbook| Muhammad |
ulama |
Medina |
Hasan |
| Quran |
Abu' al-Abbas |
Ka'ba |
Husayn |
| Five Pillars of Islam |
Abbasid Caliphate |
Quraysh tribe |
Yazid |
| Hijrah |
imam |
muruwah |
mawali |
| jihad |
Seljuk Turks |
Abu Thalib |
Umar II |
| caliph |
Tughril Beg |
Khadija |
Al-Mansur |
| Abu Bakr |
Alp Arslan |
People of the Book |
Hashun al-Rashid |
| Umar | Sharia Law |
Haddith |
Bayt al-Hikmah (House of Wisdom) |
| Uthman | Dhimmis |
Umayyad clan |
mamluks |
| Ali | Ibn Battuta |
muhajirum |
Fatimids (Isma'ilis) |
| Mu'awiya | Sufism |
asabiyah |
Ahmad ibn Tulun |
| Umayyad Caliphate | dervishes |
ansar |
al-Hakim |
| Sunni | Ibn Kaldun |
Battle of Badr |
ghazis |
| Shia | Hijaz |
jizya |
Salah al-Din (Saladin) |
| Sunna |
Mecca |
kharja |
Mamluk Sultanate |
| Muhammad |
c. 570 - 632 |
| Early Caliphs (Rashidun Caliphate) |
632-661 |
| Umayyad Caliphate |
661-750 |
| Abbasid Caliphate |
750-1258 |
| Fatimid Caliphate |
909-1171 |
| Crusades |
1096-1487 |
| Ayyubid Caliphate |
1171-1250 |
| Mamluk Sultanate |
1250-1517 |
A. Arabia [MAP]
1. most people were polytheistic nomads called Bedouins
2. they lived in tribes with chieftains called sheikhs
3. tribal warfare was common
4. caravan route developed by the 6th century
5. Mecca was the greatest of the trading cities on the caravan route
B. Muhammad
1. born in Mecca around 570
2. became a caravan trader
3. during his travels, he met many monotheists (Jews and Christians)
4. began to spend time thinking about religion and spirituality
5. while meditating in his late 30s, he had a mystical experience
6. he was told that he was the messenger of God
7. these revelations were later written down by his followers and became the Quran
C. the faith of Islam
1. Muhammad believed in one God (monotheism)
2. he was very influenced by Jews and Christians on his travels
3. Islam borrows a lot from the Old and New Testaments of the Bible
4. Muslims believe that Muhammad was the last of the great prophets (Abraham, Moses, Jesus, Muhammad)
5. Muhammad's beliefs
a. the duty of the people is to carry out the will of God
b. Islam means "the surrender"; followers must surrender to God
c. those who surrender join the umma muslima
d. Five Pillars of Islam
1. profess one's faith
2. pray five times each day
3. fast during Ramadan
4. make the Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca
5. give charity to the poor
D. the spread of Islam in Arabia
1. Muhammad tried to convince those in Mecca that he was the prophet of God
2. most did not believe him; they saw him as an agitator
3. in 622, he and a few supporters fled to Medina in the north
4. this is called the Hijrah (Hejira, Hegira)
5. he attracted local Bedouins to his teachings and became their leader
6. in 630, he returned to Mecca and conquered it
7. the tradition of tribal warfare combined with Muhammad's goal of spreading his beliefs to form the idea of the jihad
8. jihad means "striving in the way of the lord"
9. you must fight for your community; compare to Athens
10. this is NOT a Holy War; they are not declaring war on another religion - especially not Christianity or Judaism
11. they are fighting their political enemies, the polytheistic tribes
12. by his death in 632, Muhammad had conquered most of Arabia and converted most people to monotheism
E. the spread of Islam outside of Arabia [MAP]
1. Muhammad's successors (caliphs) conquered most of the Middle East
2. they defeated the Byzantines and conquered Syria and Israel (632)
3. they conquered Egypt (641)
4. they conquered the Persian Empire (650)
5. quick and effective conquests
a. unified and cohesive state
b. fervent faith in their new religion
c. Byzantines and Persians were worn out from fighting each other
6. further conquests in the 8th century
a. all the way to northwestern India in the east
b. all the way across the Mediterranean to Spain in the west
1. Spain was easily taken because the Visigothic kingdom there had been weakened by civil war
2. but they were stopped by the Carolingians in France
II. The Caliphate and the Sunni-Shia Split
A. the early caliphs (the Rashidun Caliphate)
1. Abu Bakr (632-634)
a. Muhammad's father-in-law
b. governed based on the prestige of his connection to Muhammad
c. controlled the military, served as religious leader
2. Umar (634-644)
- firmly controlled the Bedouin tribes
3. Uthman (644-656)
a. asserted the right to protect the community's economic interests
b. published a definitive text of the Quran in 651
4. Ali (656-661)
a. Muhammad's cousin and son-in-law
b. married to Muhammad's daughter Fatimah
c. his supporters claimed that he was personally chosen by Muhammad to succeed him
d. but Muhammad's followers quickly chose Abu Bakr to maintain stability and unify the people
e. then Abu Bakr chose Umar on his deathbed
f. then on his deathbed, Umar chose a committee to appoint a successor and they chose Uthman
g. Uthman was assassinated, possibly because he gave too many powerful positions to his Meccan family members
h. those opposed to Uthman supported Ali
i. but when Ali took over as caliph, the dissension continued
B. the Umayyad Caliphate (661-750) [MAP]
1. Mu'awiya
a. Uthman's cousin; governor of Syria
b. refused to accept Ali as caliph; led to civil war
c. Ali stabbed by an assassin in 661
d. Ali's followers chose his son Hasan as his successor
e. Mu'awiya defeated Hasan and became caliph
2. new capital city is Damascus
3. shift from election to hereditary succession
- Mu'awiya forced tribal leaders to accept his son Yazid as successor
C. the Sunni-Shia split
1. Shia
a. means supporter or follower; it refers to the supporters of Ali
b. they opposed the Umayyad dynasty
c. they argued that Ali was the true successor of Muhammad
1. he had been chosen by Muhammad
2. he was a blood relative of Muhammad
3. Muhammad had appointed him imam, leader of community prayer
2. Sunni
a. the supporters of Mu'awiya
b. they argued that blood relation to Muhammad was not the issue
c. the issue was that the true Muslim leader must follow the Sunna
d. the Sunna are the precedents set by Muhammad during his life
e. thus, they are called Sunnis
3. essential differences
a. Shia
1. they believe that the imam is invested with divine insight
2. thus, the imam has religious authority
3. i.e., the imam gets to interpret the Quran and the Sunna
b. Sunni
1. religious authority rests with the ulama
2. the ulama is a group of religious scholars
3. over time, the interpretations of the ulama became a set of laws called the Sharia
4. conflict
a. Sunni and Shia constantly fought
b. the Shia stirred up trouble for the ruling Sunnis
c. that created a situation that allowed someone to seize power
III. The Abbasid Caliphate (750-1258) [MAP]
A. Abu' al-Abbas
1. head of the Abbasid clan
2. agitated the Shia to encourage dissension
3. led a rebellion against the Umayyad Caliphate
4. took over as caliph in 750
B. the capital moved from Damascus to Baghdad
C. Persian influence
1. divine right monarchy
2. elaborate court life
D. slave armies
1. al-Mutasim (833-842)
2. created a professional army out of thousands of Turkish slaves
3. disagreement about whether or not they remained slaves
4. they were paid wages for their service
E. rise in power of the Shia in the 10th-11th centuries
1. Baghdad overrun by a Shia clan in the mid-10th century
2. the caliph was a puppet under Shia control
3. Shia clan called the Fatimids conquered north Africa in 10th c.
4. they and other Shia clans dominated the Muslim world
IV. The Rise of the Turks
A. origins
1. skilled horsemen from the east, possibly as far as Mongolia
2. had settled around the Caspian Sea
3. made good targets for Muslim slave raids
4. Sunni caliphs filled their armies with Turkish slaves
5. many converted to Islam, especially so they wouldn't be taken as slaves (Muslims couldn't take fellow Muslims as slaves)
B. Seljuk Turks (Sunni Muslim) [MAP]
1. migrated into Persia
2. conquered Persia, Iraq and Syria by the mid-11th century
3. the caliph again became a puppet ruler in 1055
4. the Seljuk leader Tughril Beg controlled the caliphate
5. Tughril Beg was succeeded by his nephew Alp Arslan
6. Alp Arslan defeated the Byzantine Empire at the Battle of Manzikert in 1071
7. they controlled much of modern-day Turkey
8. this is one of the major causes of the Crusades
V. Islamic Society
A. social hierarchy and relations with Christians
1. social hierarchy
a. full-blooded Arab tribesmen
b. foreign converts
c. Dhimmis (protected people)
1. monotheists, such as Jews, Christians, Zoroastrians
2. could practice their own religion
3. had to pay a small tax
4. had to recognize the Muslims as political leaders
2. relations with Christians
a. good at first; served in the caliph's government
b. Muslims pirates struck fear into Christians in southern Europe
c. the Crusades led to intense hostility that still exists today
B. slavery
1. very common
2. men
a. soldiers and rowers on ships
b. manual labor
3. women
a. housework
b. entertainers
c. concubines
1. often secluded
2. harem's often guarded by eunuchs
4. different than early modern slavery
a. slaves often freed after a certain amount of service
b. the Quran encourages humane treatment of slaves
c. nothing to do with race and ethnicity
d. generally not hereditary
C. women
1. virtually no legal right in Arab tribal society
a. sold into marriage by fathers
b. generally no property rights
2. Islam initially brought more rights for women
a. the Quran intended women to be religiously equal to men
b. they could participate in public rituals
c. they could travel widely
d. they could own property
3. but the Quran came to be interpreted in more patriarchal ways
a. women are incapable of public duties
b. fathers arranged marriages for daughters
c. daughters married off at 12 or 13 to husbands 10+ years older
d. duty to have children, especially male children
e. most wealthy men had multiple wives
4. veiling and seclusion
a. nothing to do with Islam
b. pre-Islamic practices of the Byzantines and Persians
c. seclusion more the case for the wealthy
d. compare to Athens
D. commerce
1. Muslims were prolific traders
2. led to cultural interaction and exchange
3. borrowed the compass from the Chinese
4. using bills of exchange and joint-stock companies well-before the Europeans
5. Ibn Battuta (1304-1368) [MAP]
a. from Tangiers in Morocco
b. traveled all over the Muslim world, as well as to India, China and Sub-Saharan Africa
c. excerpts from his writings:
1. We crossed the Nile and…
journeyed with a party of Arabs through
a desert… One of our halts was at
Humaythira, a place infested with
hyenas. All night long we kept driving
them away, and indeed one got at my
baggage, tore open one of the sacks,
pulled out a bag of dates, and made off
with it. We found the bag next morning,
torn to pieces and with most of the
contents eaten.
2. I was accompanied by a merchant called
Abu Bakr ibn Ya'qub… We came to a wide channel
which flows out of the Niger and can only be
crossed in boats…. On reaching it I saw sixteen
beasts with enormous bodies, and marveled at them,
taking them to be elephants, of which there are
many in that country. Afterwards I saw that they
had gone into the river, so I said to Abu Bakr,
"What kind of animals are these?" He replied,
"They are hippopotami.” They are bulkier than
horses, have manes and tails, and their heads are
like horses' heads, but their feet like elephants'
feet. I saw these hippopotami again when we sailed
down the Niger from Timbuktu… They were swimming
in the water and lifting their heads and blowing.
The men in the boat were afraid of them and kept
close to the bank in case the hippopotami should
sink them.
1. schools
a. primary schools for boys
b. madrasas for young men
2. memorization
a. similar to Europe and China
b. primary school students memorized the Quran
c. older students memorized legal and grammatical works
3. schools were run by religious authorities
a. similar to Europe
b. different than China where schools were run by local and regional governments
4. academic validation and success
a. Muslim world - certificate granted by instructor
b. Europe - validation by the institution, such as a university
c. China - validation by state-run civil service exam
5. mystical tradition
a. Sufism arose in the 9th-10th centuries
b. it was a reaction against Umayyad materialism and worldliness
c. Sufis embraced asceticism in order to achieve a personal union with God
d. later in the Middle Ages, they became a bit more unorthodox
e. dervishes