The+Rise+and+Spread+of+Islam


 * 1.1 ESPIRIT Chart on Arabian Before Islam**

The documentary begins with the quote “I witness that there is no god but God and Muhammad is the messenger of God,” which is from the Shahadah (the Islamic Creed) pillar. Then it goes on talking about Muhammad and he’s life, where he was born, etc. The video shows Islam's desire for knowledge. Most important people during this time were the poets in Bedouin. Water was a big symbol because of the desert areas. There was rich mixture of cultures in Mecca. Muslims of the time saw no contradiction between faith and natural laws. Also shows the building of great works of architecture, reading, writing, mathematics, medicine, and astronomy. The Islamic empire sent scholars throughout the world to gather all the knowledge of mankind, which was brought to Baghdad and studied by scholars. While Christians considered Aristotle and Plato blasphemous; For Muslim, trade like science brought innovation. Muslim scholars studied and admired the Greek philosophers. Islamic mathematicians devised the system of Arabic numerals we still use today, and medicine was so advanced that Muslim surgeons were performing cataract surgery a thousand years ago.
 * E || ** Economic: **
 * Towns and agriculture flourished
 * Members of the Umayyad clan dominated its commercial economy
 * Wells and spring made agriculture possible in medina (city of the prophet Muhammad)
 * Grew date palms, whose fruits and seeds were traded to the bedouins ||
 * S || ** Social: **
 * Arabian peninsula was divided into rival tribes and clans
 * Clans were put in larger tribal groupings
 * Strong dependence on and loyalty to one’s family and clan
 * Under warriors were slave families
 * Farmers and town dwellers made small communities in the western/southern parts of the peninsula
 * Important city = Mecca
 * Mecca found by Umayyad clan of the Quraysh Bedouin tribe
 * Women enjoyed greater freedom and higher states
 * Women’s milked camels and weaved clothing to raised children
 * Men were allowed to multiple marriage partners
 * Customary practices of property control, inheritance, and divorce favored men
 * Women expected to be monogamous (can't have multiple marriges)
 * Men practiced polygamy ||
 * P || ** Political: **
 * Muhammad was ruled by former Bedouin clans
 * Shaykhs (elected by councils of elder advisors) were leaders of the tribes and clans
 * Shaykhs= men with large herds + wives + many children + retainers
 * Members of the Umayyad clan dominated its politics
 * Control in Medina was by 2 Bedouin and 3 Jewish clans ||
 * I || ** Interactions: **
 * Great trading cities had fallen on hard times
 * Trading town = important roles in the emergence of Islam
 * Safety of trade rule was in the hands of the nomadic tribes
 * Clans were only congregated together in times of war or crises
 * Developed in the north links in the transcontinental trading system (From Medit. to East Asia)
 * Fear of rival groups = merchant + Bedouins go down to town for trade, exchange gossip + live city life
 * Grew date palms, whose fruits and seeds were traded to the bedouins ||
 * R || ** Religion: **
 * Clans worshiped local gods
 * Ka’ba ( one of the most religious shrines in pre-Islamic Arabia
 * Bedouin religion was blend of animism and polytheism or worship of many gods and goddesses
 * Quraysh believed in a god named Allah
 * Spirits and gods (the moon god, Hubal) tended to be associated with night, a cool period when dew covered the earth
 * Little to do with ethics ||
 * I || ** Cultural & Intellectual: **
 * Bedouin (nomadic) were cultures that developed over the centuries based on a camel and goat herding.
 * Urban root of Islam been stressed by writers on Muslim civilization
 * Mecca and medina = largely extensions of the tri bal culture of the camel nomads
 * Warriors see other taking water from their wells = kill them
 * Clan encroaching on another clans area =War broke out (often)
 * One’s honor dependent on respect to one’s clan
 * Battles fought if men insulted a warrior
 * Women wrote poems that focus on the bedouin cultural
 * In the south there was little art or architecture of worth
 * Main focus in pre-Islamic era was poetry ||
 * T || **Technology and demographic changes**:
 * Arabian Peninsula was covered by some of the most inhospitable desert in the world
 * Use watering places and grazing lands to maintain the herds ||
 * 1.2 Short Summary of Empires: Islam, the Awakening:**

How did the death of Muhammad lead to the Expansion of Islam? - Islamic followers worked in favorer of converting people to the Islamic faith - The empires that lacked a strong military were conquered + had them convert by force Islam’s followers = big group.
 * 1.3 Questions from Pages 136-143:**

What were the motivations for Islamic conquest? - Islamic faith gave them strength to unit - Leaving the Bedouin warlike tribes - Gave them freedom to worship

How were the Umayyads able to defeat their adversaries? - Adversaries had Political weakness - Need of unity in the Byzantine Empire (betrayed) - Byzantine Empire was also weak after battles w/ Persia.

What caused the major division in Islam? - Divided due to conflict over who becomes the leader to take Muhammad’s place as leader of Muslims (Sunni and Shi'a groups) - The Shi’a wanted Ali to take the role of leader.

What was the extent of the Islamic Empire under the Umayyads? - Extent went into Asia - Created conflict with the Buddhist religion. - Spread in to North Africa and west to India’s border - Conquered Spain. - Stopped by Charles Martel and the Franks.

How were people of the book treated under the Umayyads? - Allowed to practice any religion - Had to pay taxes - Accepted as full members of the Ummayyads - Allowed to be part of the Arab clan

Explain gender structures under the Umayyads - Women were expected to be married - Women couldn’t have more than one husband - Men could marry up to four wives - Adultery was forbidden for men/women - Women couldn’t lead prayers

What factors led to the decline of the Umayyads? - Abounded Muhammad’s teachings - Legitimate had been questioned by factions - Wanted to rest in their luxury

**1.4 ESPIRIT Chart on Abbasid Era**
 * E || **Economic:**
 * Economics were held by the big spreading of trading with the help of merchants briging goods in and out of countries.(MI)
 * Gov’t owned workshops from necessities such as furniture and carpets to luxury items (glassware, jewelry and tapestries)
 * Mercantile concerns of luxury products of the long distance trade
 * People who converted to Islam didn't have to pay taxes and had greater opportunities for education
 * Profit of trade = building/running mosques, religious schools, bath, rest house for travelers
 * Charity (required by the Qur’an) and donations to hospitals
 * Abbasid empired saw the revival of Afro-Eurasia trading roots (Tan and San Empires in the east and Abbasid Domains int he west)
 * Growing wealth of the Abbasid elite = demand for female and male slave
 * Merchants grew rich by suppliying cities of the empires ||
 * S || **Social:**
 * Islamic civilization flourished under the Abbasids with their capital at Baghdad.(MI)
 * Abbasids had a rough treatment on the Umayyad clan
 * The rise of mawali was parallel int he Abbasid Era by the growth of wealth and social status fo the emrchants and lanlord classes of the empire
 * Ful guise of the royal executioner stood close to the throne in the publics audiences of the Abbasid rulers
 * Arab and non-Arab allowed in the Islamic community
 * Ayan were deptly entrenched landlord in the ealier decades
 * Acceptance of the Mawali (non-Arab Muslims) as equals
 * Converts were admitted on an equal footing with the first generations of believers
 * Converts = exempt from paying the head tax, greater opportunities in school and careers (administrators, traders or judges)
 * Artisans poorly paid (some worked in great workshops) artisans not slaves or drudge laborers
 * Unskilled labor was left for slaves (served caliphs and higher advisors)
 * fortunate slaves granted their freedom or were able to buy it unfortunate lifetime of labor in the great salt mines in southern Iraq (nightmare conditions)
 * most peasant didn’t own land they work on
 * Abbasid dynasty began to lose control over the Muslim empire
 * Social turmoil were offset for man Abbasid
 * Women’s increasing subjugation to men and confinement to the home in the Abbasid era
 * Seclusion of women been practice by some Middle Eastern people since ancient times
 * Slave perform domestic services in the homes of the wealthy
 * Caliphs is said to have had 11,00 eunuch among his slave corps and another said to have kept 4000 slave concubines
 * Slaves captured or purchased in the non Muslim regions (Balkans, central Asia, Sudanic Africa)
 * Female and male slaves prized for beauty and intelligence (best educated Abbasids were slaves)
 * Caliphs and high officials spent more time with their talented slaves then with their less educated wives
 * Slave and servants had more personal liberty than freeborn wives
 * Women from lower classes farmed, wove clothing/rugs, raised silkworms
 * Rich women = no career outlets beyond the home
 * Abbasid domains were divide by ever growing numbers of rival successors states ||
 * P || **Political:**
 * Abbasid political clams lived and worked within Baghdad
 * Bureaucratization of the Islamic Empire was reflected on the **wazir** (chief administrator an head of the caliph’s inner councils)
 * Sheer size, poor communication + father the town/villages from capital = royal commands don’t carry out
 * Persians (bureaucratic skills) dominated the upper levels of imperial administration
 * Abbasid rules dissolute and less interested in affairs of state = Persian became the power in the imperial system
 * By the third Abbasid caliph (**Al-Mahdi**) = Political decline were offset for many Abbasids
 * Most caliphs were pawns in the power struggles between different factions at the court
 * Wives and the concubines of the Abbasid caliphs were restricted to the forbidden quarters of the imperial palace.
 * Wives put in a good word for their sons to their husbands so they could be the next one at throne
 * Caliphs were controlled by Buyids (like puppets) after they took over Buyids
 * Buyid leaders named sultan (“victorious” in Arabic)
 * Buyids were broken by **Seljuk Turks** that took over (1055)
 * For 2 centuries the Turkic military leaders ruled the Abbasid Empire (what was left of it)
 * Seljuk military was able to restore political initiative to the much reduced caliphate
 * Also took over Byzatines which opened the way to settlement of Asia Minor/Anatolia
 * Expansion of professional classes (doctors, scholars and legal and religious experts)
 * Persian wives, concubines, advisors, bureaucrats, and Persian caliphs came to play central roles in imperial politics
 * **Mongols** (united by their war commander **Chinggies Khan**) smashed the Turko-Persian kingdoms
 * **Hulegu** (Chinggis khan grandson) rich centers of Islamic civilization, Abbasid capital (Baghdad) was taken by him/his Mongols
 * Last Abbasid caliph was put to death by the Mongols
 * Continued westward until Mongols were defeated by the **Mamluks** (Turkic slaves) who ruled Egypt ||
 * I || **Interactions:**
 * Interactions flourished by tranding across Europe and Asia. (MI)
 * Abbasids rejected man of their old allies, becoming more righteous in their defense of Sunni Islam
 * Abbasid age was linked to a revival of the Afro-Eurasian trading network (had declined with the fall of China + Rome)
 * Abbasid became the pivots of the commercial system (east)
 * Arab dhows (Western Med to South China Sea) carried the goods of one core to be exchanged w/ another.
 * Merchants had a diff Sabbath = do business all week
 * Interactions with Asia, African, Europe (between the Indian Ocean and med Sea)
 * Harun al-Rashid’s death = first of several full0scale civil wars over succession
 * **Buyids of Persia** invaded the heartlands of the Abbasid empire and captured Baghdad
 * Europeans demanded for Middle eastern rugs and textiles
 * Muslim influenced affected western Europe (Persian and Arabic words, games (chess), chivalric ideals troubadour ballads, and foods (dates, coffee and yogurt)
 * Through Arab traders imported glass, cloth, raw materials from Europe
 * Muslim, Jewish, Christians supplied the cities of the empire with staples (grain and barley) essentials (cotton and woolen textiles for clothing) luxury items (precious gems, citrus fruits and sugar cane)
 * Trade flourished through out Middle East and Mediterranean Europe and between coastal India and island southeast Asia, in addition to China ||
 * R || **Religion:**
 * Islam became a universal religion that spread across of North Africa + Euro-Asia. (MI)
 * Building on Christianity and Judaism, Arab nurtured Islam (great universal religion of humankind)
 * **Harun al-Rashid** (al-Mahdi eldest son) dazzled Christian w/ splendor of Baghdad’s mosques, palaces, and treasure troves
 * Shi’a sects, instigated peasant uprisings
 * Resurgence of mysticism injected Islam with a new vibrancy
 * Orthodox religious scholar (**ulama**) grew
 * Religious movement was centered on the Sufis movement (like Buddhist and Hindu ascetics earlier in India)
 * **Sufis** were wandering mystics who sought a personal union with Allah
 * Sufis insisted on a cleat distinction between Allah and humans
 * Sufis used asceticism or bodily denial to find Allah (meditation, songs, drugs or ecstatic dancing)
 * Sufis gained reputations as great healers and workers of miracles
 * Sufis led militant bands that tried to spread Islam to nonbelievers
 * Sufis teachings = Allah permeated the universe in way that appeared to compromise his transcendent status ||
 * I || **Cultural & Intellectual:**
 * Recovering + preserving the learning of the ancient civilizations (ex. Greeks key subjects such as medicine, algebra, geometry, astronomy, anatomy, and ethics) (MI)
 * Islamic had contributions to learning on the sciences and mathematics
 * Greek writing = way into Christendom (Authors: Aristotle, Galen, Hippocrates, Ptolemy and Euclid)
 * Greek/Arab mathematics + Indian numbers = Scientific Revolution in western Europe
 * Arts and sciences relied on classical civilization of Greece and Mesopotamia
 * Important contributions to learning then past on by armies/religious teacher to Europe, Arica and Asia
 * Europeans mastered Arabic numerals and the decimal system
 * Europeans benefited from the advances Arab and Persian thinkers had made in mathematics and many of the sciences
 * Artists and artisans continued the great achievement in architecture and the crafts that had begun in the Umayyad period.
 * Mosques and palaces grew larger
 * Muslim engineers and architects created great architectural treasures of all in Córdoban Spain
 * Tapestries + rugs of Muslim (Persians) were demanded from Europe to China
 * Persian gradually replaced Arabic as the primary written language at the Abbasid court
 * Arabic – language of religion/law/natural sciences
 * Baghdad + major cities = Persian was the chief language of “high culture”
 * Persian language = polite exchange between courtiers/history, poetic musings and mystical revelations
 * **Shah-Nama** (book of kings) in Persian was read aloud to musical accompaniment
 * Persian writers wrote on many subject (from doomed love affairs and statecraft to incident from everyday life and mystical striving for communion with the divine)
 * Islamic civilization outstripped all others in scientific discoveries, new techniques of investigation and new technologies.
 * Advances in the use of basic concepts of trigonometry (the sine, cosine, and tangent)
 * Chemistry discoveries were creation of the objective experiment and al-Razi’s scheme of classifying all material substances into three categories (animal, vegetables and mineral)
 * Al-Biruni was able to calculate the weight of 18 major minerals
 * **Al-Ghazali** (greatest Islamic theologian) struggled to fuse the Greek and Qur’anic traditions (ideas rejected by orthodox scholars) ||
 * T || **Technology and demographic changes**:
 * Muslims technology's (weapons, buldings, etc) were improved by what was preserved from Greeks(MI)
 * Muslim weapons were highly prized + “copied by the Europeans
 * Weapons were named famous damascene swords (named after the city of Damascus)
 * Muslim techniques of building fortification were adopted by many Christian rules (ex. Castles built in Normandy and coastal England by William the Conqueror )
 * Islamic civilization outstripped all others in scientific discoveries, new techniques of investigation and new technologies.
 * Boasted some of the best hospitals in the world (Cairo, Muslim)
 * Doctors and pharmacists had to take a course of study + pass a formal examination before they were allowed to practice
 * Muslim scientist did important work on optics and bladder ailments
 * Muslim Traders introduced to Islamic world and Europe basic machines and techniques (papermaking, silk wearing, and ceramic firing)
 * Muslim scholars made some of the world’s best amps which were copied by geographers from Portugal to Poland ||