Unit 2 – Chapter 8

Islam and the Muslim Empire

The Beginnings of Islam

Islam = submission to the will of God

Arabian Peninsula – Physical Environment• South of Asia Minor lies the

Arabian Peninsula, home of the Arabs.

• The Arabian Peninsula is a wedge of land of about 1 million square miles between the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf.

• The southwestern area, across from the northeast coast of Africa, has well-watered valleys nestled between mountains.

• The rest of the peninsula, however, consists of arid plains and deserts.

• By the A.D. 500s: many Arab tribes settled around oases or in fertile valleys to pursue either farming or trade. – Merchants soon founded market towns.

• The most important of the market towns was Mecca, a crossroads of commerce about 50 miles inland from the Red Sea.

• Arabs also visited Mecca to worship at the peninsula’s holiest shrine, the Kaaba, which contained statues of the many Arab deities.

• Muhammad, the prophet of Islam, was born in the bustling city of Mecca around A.D. 570.

• Tradition states that he was orphaned at an early age and raised by an uncle.

• During his teens, Muhammad worked as a caravan leader on a trade route.

• At about 25, he accepted a marriage proposal from his employer, a wealthy widow of 40 named Khadija.Muhammad in Islamic

Calligraphy

The First Muslims

• As he reflected on life, the greed of Mecca’s wealthy citizens, the worship of idols, and the mistreatment of the poor troubled Muhammad.

• A.D. 610: Muhammad experienced a revelation, or vision– He heard a voice calling him to be the apostle of the

one true God – Allah.

– A second revelation commanded Muhammad to “rise and warn” the people about divine judgment.

• Khadija and members of Muhammad’s family became the first Muslims, or followers of Islam.

• Many other converts came from Mecca’s poor.

• Most Meccans, however, rejected Muhammad’s message– Merchants feared that monotheistic worship would

end the pilgrimages to Mecca and ruin the city’s economy.

• Driven by these fears, the merchants persecuted Muhammad and the Muslims.

– Threats against his life forced Muhammad to go to YathribYathrib, a small town north of Mecca.

• Muhammad’s departure to Yathrib is known in Muslim history as the Hijrah, or emigration.

• The year in which the Hijrah took place, A.D. 622, marks the beginning of the Islamic era and is recognized as the first year of the Muslim calendar.

– City renamed Medina

• Medina Compact – A.D. 624 –Muhammad laid the foundation of an Islamic state

– He decreed that all Muslims were to place loyalty to the Islamic community above loyalty to their tribe.

– All areas of life were placed under the divine law given to Muhammad and recorded in the Quran (or Koran), the holy scriptures of Islam

• Muhammad considered Moses and Jesus as prophets of Islam

• AD 630: Muhammad and his followers conquered Mecca• AD 632: Muhammad died; most of Arabian Peninsula had

accepted Islam

Islamic Teachings

• Quran (Koran), name means “recital,” holy scriptures of Islam– Muhammad never wrote his teachings down (like Socrates &

Buddha); his followers wrote them down– lays down specific rules to guide Muslims in their daily activities

with respect to eating, family life, and business practices

• Muslims are commanded to:– honor their parents

– show kindness to their neighbors

– protect orphans and widows

– give generously to the poor

• The Quran also presents the Five Pillars of Islam, or the five essential duties that all Muslims are to fulfill.– The confession of faith

• “There is no god but God; Muhammad is the messenger of God.”

– Prayer – 5 times a day

– Almsgiving = charity to the poor

– Fasting ( during the month of Ramadan; 9th month of Muslim calendar)

– The pilgrimage to Mecca = hajj• takes place two months and ten days after the Ramadan fast

• No organized priesthood– Imams – prayer leaders in a mosque

Man at prayer in a mosque – Muslim place of worship

The

white

“dots”

are

people.

The Hajj

The 1st

Page of the 1st

Chapter of the Quran

The Islamic World

The Muslim Empire

• AD 632: The first caliph – successor – was Muhammad’s father-in-law and close friend, Abu Bakr. – Military campaigns against neighboring states

• Mid-600s: united Arabia

• Attacked Byzantine & Persian empires

• Spread across North Africa• Late 600s: defeated Persian empire; took modern day

Iran & Iraq.– Pushed into Armenia and into Afghanistan & northern India

• AD 711: defeated the German Visigoths in Spain; remained in Spain until 1492

• AD 732: attempted to invade France; defeated at Battle of Tours

– They were united in the belief that they had a religious duty to spread Islam.

– They saw the conquests conquests as a jihad, or holy struggle to bring Islam to other lands.

– The Byzantines and the Persians were weakened from continual warfare.

– Members of unofficial religions in both empires readily accepted Muslim rule.

• Success came because…

• When Ali became the fourth caliph in A.D. 656, one of Ali’s powerful rivals, Mu’awiyah, carried out conquests in Egypt and Iraq, steadily weakening Ali’s hold on the caliphate.

• A.D. 661: Ali was murdered by a disillusioned follower, and Mu’awiyah became the first caliph of the powerful Umayyad dynasty.

Divisions Within Islam

• A.D. 680: Ali’s son Husayn and many of his followers were massacred by Umayyad troops in a battle at Karbala in present-day Iraq.

• The murders of Ali and Husayn led to a significant division in the Islamic world that has lasted to modern times.

• The majority of Muslims, known as the Sunni, or “followers of the way,” believed that the caliph was primarily a leader, not a religious authority.

• The Shiite, the smaller group of Muslims who followed Ali and Husayn, believed that only descendants of Muhammad should hold the caliphate.

• Today, about 80-90% of Muslims are Sunnis; – Shiites, the minority, live primarily in Iran,

Iraq, and Lebanon.

• Other Muslims developed a mystical form of Islam known as Sufism, which sought direct contact with God through prayer, meditation, fasting, and spiritual writing.

– Members are called dervishes.

"The Whirling Dervishes", believe in performing their dhikr, remembrance of

Allah, in the form of a "dance" and music ceremony called the sema.

Muslim Civilization

• Between the A.D. 800s-1300s: Islamic scientists made important contributions in several scientific areas, such as mathematics, astronomy, chemistry, and medicine. – They based their work on two main intellectual

traditions – those of Greece and India.

• A.D. 800s: Baghdad (capital of modern Iraq) = leading intellectual center– Abbasid caliph Ma’mun founded the House of

Wisdom at Baghdad in A.D. 830• research center; specialized in the translation of Greek,

Persian, and Indian scientific texts into Arabic.

• Scientific experiments and mathematical breakthroughs

• Muslim mathematicians:– Adopted Arabic numerals (Remember, these numerals

originated in India.) and used them in a place-value system, a system today used worldwide

– Invented algebra and expressed equations to define curves and lines

– Worked in geometry; led to the development of trigonometry, used to calculate distances to stars and the speeds of falling objects.

• At Ma’mun’s observatory in Baghdad, astronomers:– checked the findings of the ancient Greeks

– made observations of the skies

– produced physical and mathematical models of the universe

– improved the Greek astrolabe, with which they determined the positions of stars, the movements of planets, and the time.

• By the A.D. 1100s: Muslim geographers had determined the basic outlines of Asia, Europe, and North Africa, producing the first accurate maps of the Eastern Hemisphere.

• Why this interest in math, astronomy, and cartography?– Needed to know where Mecca was and what time to

pray. • No matter where a Muslim is in the world, he/she must pray 5

times a day facing Mecca

• Muslim physicians founded the science of optics - study of light and its effect on sight.

• Artists used calligraphy, or the art of elegant handwriting, to decorate the walls of mosques and other public buildings.– You will never see a picture

of Muhammad or other important Muslim figures in a book or in a mosque.

• Why? To avoid a slip back to polytheism

• Often they used arabesques – calligraphy accompanied by geometric designs entwined with plant stems, leaves, flowers, and stars–to decorate books, carpets, swords, and entire walls

• During the Abbasid period, Islamic literature blossomed as a result of contact with Greek thought, Hindu legends, and Persian court epics.

– Córdoba, the Umayyad capital in Spain, had 70 libraries and more than half a million books.

• A.D. 1000s: Persian became a second literary language in the Muslim world.

– Persian authors wrote epics about warrior-heroes, religious poetry, and verses about love.• One of the best known works of this period is A

Thousand and One Nights, also known as The Arabian Nights.

– Well known stories from the Nights include Aladdin, Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, and The Seven Voyages of Sinbad the Sailor.

• One of the best known works of this period is A Thousand and One Nights, also known as The Arabian Nights.

– Well known stories from the Nights include Aladdin, Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, and The Seven Voyages of Sinbad the Sailor.

• In the A.D. 1000s Persian became a second literary language in the Muslim world.

– Persian authors wrote epics about warrior-heroes, religious poetry, and verses about love.

The Caliphs of Damascus and Baghdad

Umayyad Dynasty• The Umayyad dynasty, which was founded by

Mu’awiyah, ruled from A.D. 661 to A.D. 750, and moved the capital from Medina to Damascus, Syria.

• Converted Berbers of North Africa to Islam• Extended Muslim rule into Afghanistan and Pakistan• Umayyad caliphs built a powerful Islamic state that

stressed the political, rather than the religious, aspect of their office.

• To help unite the lands they ruled, the Umayyads:– made Arabic the official language

– minted the first Arabic currency

– built roads

– established postal routes

• A.D. 747: anti-Umayyad Arabs and non-Arab Muslims in Iraq and Persia joined forces, built an army, and, in three years of fighting, overwhelmed the Umayyads.

The Abbasid Dynasty• After defeating the Umayyad in 741, Abu’l-’Abbas, a

descendant of one of Muhammad’s uncles, established the Abbasid dynasty.

• His successor, al-Mansur, had the city of Baghdad built on the banks of the Tigris River.– Lay at the crossroads of the land and water trade routes that

stretched from the Mediterranean Sea to East Asia.• The Abbasids ruled the Islamic state from A.D. 750 to A.D.

1258. – 900s: North Africa broke away

• Fatimids took over North Africa.

– By the A.D. 1000s: the Abbasids ruled little more than the area around Baghdad.

– 1258: Mongols from Asia conquered Baghdad.

The Seljuk Turks

• Around A.D. 800 weak Abbasid rulers centered in Baghdad hired Turkish warriors to fight in their armies.

• The Turks became powerful and soon controlled the Abbasid government.

• About A.D. 1000: the Seljuk Turks moved from central Asia into the Middle East.

• Seljuk warriors defeated the Byzantines at the Battle of Manzikert in A.D. 1071.– Byzantine emperor Alexius I Comnenus, appealed to the pope

and the monarchs of western Europe for aid.

– About 20 years later, the Seljuk conquest of Palestine led to Pope Urban II's calling of the First Crusade.

• Saladin– 1171: Ended Fatimid rule in Egypt

– 1187: captured Jerusalem from Christians in Third Crusade

– Had very little wealth upon his death

• Mongols later threatened the Seljuk Turks

The Mongols• Late A.D. 1100s: the Mongols

became the dominant nomadic group in central Asia

• About A.D. 1206: a Mongol leader named Temujin organized the scattered clans under one government– As a result of his efforts, Temujin

was recognized as khan, or absolute ruler, and was called Genghis Khan, or “universal ruler.”

• Genghis Khan died in A.D. 1227, but the Mongols continued their advance. – By A.D. 1279, all of China's

territory was in their hands.

• A.D. 1230s and A.D. 1240s: Mongols conquered East Slavic lands and then crossed the Carpathian Mountains into eastern and central Europe

• A.D. 1258: the commander Hulagu (grandson of Genghis Khan) captured BaghdadBaghdad, the old Abbasid capital, executed the caliph, and enslaved its inhabitants.– He also attempted to take over Egypt.

• The Mamluks, a Muslim military group that ruled Egypt, halted the Mongol advance.

– conquered much of the Byzantine territory and made Constantinople their capital in 1453 – Muhammad II.

• Advantage of advanced military technology

– Cannons and foot soldiers with muskets

• The Christian city of Constantinople was transformed into a Muslim city and renamed Istanbul.

– By the 1500s, the Ottomans controlled the Balkan Peninsula and parts of eastern Europe.

• Yugoslavia, Albania, for example

The Early Ottoman Empire• During the late 1200s, Turkish clans – calling

themselves Ottoman Turks – settled part of Asia Minor.

– Also got the people of Venice to pay them a yearly tax thanks to the threatening Ottoman navy

The Fall of the Ottoman Empire• Suleiman I (the Magnificent): Ottoman ruler from 1520 to 1566

– Heroic military commander, a skillful administrator, and a patron of the arts.

• For example, built the Dome of the Rock over the ruins of Solomon’s temple in Jerusalem

– Acted as both the sultan, political ruler, and the caliph, religious leader

– Under him, Ottomans recruited military officers from among the conquered peoples of their empire.

• Some Christian families in the Balkans were required to turn their young sons over to the government.

– The boys converted to Islam.

– The best soldiers became janissaries, members of an elite force in the Ottoman army.

– Reformed the legal system of the empire; also given title “Law Giver.”

• By 1600: the Ottoman Empire had reached the peak of its power; thereafter it slowly declined.

– Why? Internal Disorder – nations broke free of Ottoman rule; government and corruption

– European Advances• 1571: Under Philip II of Spain fought and

defeated the Ottoman fleet at the Battle of Lepanto.

• By the 1700s: European commercial, military, and industrial technologies far surpassed that of the Ottomans.