Rise and Spread of ISLAM

Arabian Peninsulanomadic pastoralists

bedouinscaravan tradeMecca - Ka’baByzantine and

Sassanid (Persian) Empires

Yathrib

Muhammad

•Kadija - wife

•Meditates - Gabriel - revelation

•Prophet

•Islam - Muslims

•important vocab.

Muhammad’s Teachings and

what comes after•Five Pillars

•the Quran

•the Hadith

•the Shariah

After Muhammad’s Death•Abu Bakr

•fighting between nomads turns to fighting for conquest after united

•Schism: Shiite v. Sunni

• jihad = two definitions

•Important themes: unity and trade

•equality of believers under the eyes of Allah = universal appeal like... Christianity

Important vocab.

•caliph = caliphate

•sultan = sultanate

•Umayyad and Abbasid Caliphates, Ottoman Sultanate and then a Caliphate

Umayyad Dynasty661 - 750

•dar-al-Islam “the Islamic Empire”

•Arab minority ruling a non-Arab majority

•jizya = a tax on non-Muslims

•shows conversion not a goal in expansion

•Damascus = capital city

Umayyad Caliphateal-Andalus Fatimid Dynasty Damascus

Abbasid Caliphate750 - 1258

•cosmopolitan, urban empire

•People of the Book = religious toleration

•open policy for conversion = migration to urban centers

•converts = mawalis

•harun al-Rashid r776-809

•Thousand and One Nights

Abbasid Caliphate

•caliph - palaces and harems reinforced claim of absolute power

•bureaucracy - taxation, coinage

•standing army

•regional governors

•maintained excellent road system

•collect taxes and tribute

Abbasid Caliphate

•vizier or wazir = chief administrator or chief minister

•royal executioner - always stood next to caliph - reinforced caliph’s absolute power

•both usually Persian

Religion in Muslim Society

•Five Pillars

•Quran = Arabic = literacy

•the Hadith

•Shariah = civil and criminal laws

•madrassas - religious schools - universities

•sufis = mystic, missionaries

Golden Age of Islam•architecture = mosques - domes,

minarets

•Muslim and Jewish scholars preserved ancient texts of Greeks: Aristotle, Hippocrates, Ptolemy, Euclid

•transmit Indian number system to west

•scholars and merchants carried ideas

Mosque

Because human and animal images were forbidden, geometric designs, passages from the Quran in swirling Arabic, and the flower and plant motifs were favored.

Economy of Abbasid Era

•wealth and merchants and urbanization

•Arab dhows = sailing vessels with lateen (triangular) sails

•trade specialized in luxury items for elites

•profits reinvested in new commercial businesses, purchase of land or

•building hospitals, mosques, religious schools - almsgiving one of 5 Pillars

Why trade? •Muhammad states honest merchants

would stand alongside martyrs to the faith on judgement day

•geographic position - center of trade routes

•good roads, Persian, Roman, their own

•camel saddle

•astrolabe from Hellenistic - calculated latitude

More on trade:•Arab and Persian traders

•banking developed with a system of loans and sakks (checks)

•silk and ceramics from China

•gold, salt and slaves Africa

•amber, furs from Scandinavia and Russia

•textile, cotton from India

Slavery

•performed unskilled labor

•domestic slaves

•freedom could be earned

•hard labor for those in rural estates or government projects = Zanj slaves or non-Muslim slaves captured in east Africa

Decline of the Abbasid•Internal problems:

•increase in slavery, peasant revolts

•civil war over succession

•growth of power of viziers

•caliphs isolated in palaces due to assassination plots

•mamluks hired as bodyguards

Caliphs no longer rule

•puppet government or mere figureheads

•Mamluks revolt

•Buyid family = Shiite

•Seljuk Turks = Sunni

•1258 = Mongols sack Baghdad

•future Muslim empires will be sultanates

Comparing the spread of Islam in...

India Sub-Saharan Africa

Comparing the effects of the spread of Islam in ...

Spain

Anatolia

The Reconquista of Spain