Islam
Islam – a monotheistic religion founded in the 7th century by the prophet Muhammad; followers are called Muslims
Muhammad – an illiterate merchant who Muslims believe became the final prophet – after the Judaic and Christian prophets such as Abraham, Moses and Jesus – after hearing the voice of the angel Gabriel
Allah – the Arabic word for the one true God (which Muslims hold is the same God recognized by Jews and Christians)
Quran – Islam’s holy book, which is said to reveal Allah’s words to Muhammad
mosque – a Muslim house of worship
Kaaba – the temple in Mecca where Muhammad returned to and destroyed its many idols, rededicating it to Allah; Muhammad believed Abraham had originally built the Kaaba to worship the one true God
Five Pillars of Islam – the basic duties observant Muslims must perform: 1) declaration of faith; 2) daily prayer; 3) alms for the poor; 4) fast during Ramadan; 5) hajj, or pilgrimage to Mecca.
jihad – a personal struggle for Muslims to overcome immorality … or a holy war to defend Islam against its enemies
Q & A
Q: Who were considered “people of the book” by Muslims, and how were they treated?
A: Jews and Christians are considered “people of the book” because the Quran teaches that Islam is God’s final and complete revelation, while Hebrew scriptures and the Christian Bible contain portions of earlier revelations. Muslims believe that God had sent other prophets, including Abraham, Moses and Jesus, but that Muhammad was the last and greatest prophet. Because of these similarities, Jews and Christians were considered superior to polytheistic idol worshippers and often had religious freedom in Muslim lands, but were required to pay a tax.
Q: What is the Sharia, and why is it important?
A: The Sharia is the body of law that regulates such things as moral conduct, family life, business practices and government. It does not separate religion from criminal or civil law and serves to unify Muslims under a common legal framework. It consists of interpretation of the Quran, examples from Muhammad’s life, and Muslim traditions.
Q: What were Sufis?
A: They were Muslim mystics who sought communion with God through meditation, fasting and other rituals. They were well respected and thus helped spread the appeal of Islam, like monks and nuns in the Christian world.
Q: How did Islam affect women?
A: Islam treated Muslim women as spiritually equal to men in the eyes of God, but with different roles and rights. It prohibited killing daughters, gave women some legal rights, encouraged education for girls and required women to dress modestly. As Islam spread, Muslims sometimes adopted the cultural practices of conquered peoples. Veiling upper-class women and secluding them in a separate part of the home came into practice, for example, when Islam spread to Persia.
Q: Explain the split between Sunni and Shiite Muslims.
A: Shiites believe that caliphs should be descendants of Ali, Muhammad’s son-in-law, and Fatima, his daughter. Sunnis believe that any good Muslim could lead the community as caliph. Today, about 90% of the world’s Muslims are Sunni. Many Shiite Muslims live in Iran.
Q: What explains the success of Muslim conquests and the rise of the Umayyad caliphate?
A: 1) the Arabs’ effective, mobile armies, which included camel and horse cavalries 2) the weakness of surrounding empires, including Byzantium and Persia 3) the Arab creation of an orderly system of administration, which provided for the fair treatment of conquered peoples and prohibited the looting and destruction of conquered lands so as to ensure continued wealth and prosperity
Q: What happened when the Umayyad caliphate gave way to the Abbasids in 750?
A: The Abbasids ended large military conquests and began allowing non-Arabs to hold important government posts. They also moved the capital from Damascus to Baghdad, which led to Persian influences to be adopted by the caliphate. Baghdad became a huge cosmopolitan city, home to a thriving marketplace and center of learning.
Muslim Civilization’s “Golden Age”
Beginning under the Abbasid caliphate and continuing through much of the Middle Ages, Muslim civilization absorbed the cultural traditions from many lands under the dar al-Islam, or “house of Islam,” and the societies with which it dealt. This was generally a flourishing time of economic prosperity marked by numerous social, cultural and scientific advancements. Its features and characteristics included the following:
§ It influenced – and was influenced by – the interconnections of Arabs, Persians, Egyptians, Africans, Europeans, Mongols, Turks, Indians and Southeast Asians.
§ Between 750 and 1350, merchants – who held an honored status in Muslim lands in part because Muhammad himself was a merchant – built a vast trading network linking: East Asia with Europe across the Silk Road … East Africa with India and Southeast Asia via ships riding the monsoon winds of the Indian Ocean … the Mediterranean with West Africa via camel caravans across the Sahara Desert.
§ This largely Muslim-facilitated network of trade helped spread many things other than economic goods: 1) the Indian number system to the Western world, where they were labeled with the misnomer “Arabic numerals;” 2) papermaking technology to the West from its origins in China; 3) agricultural crops (such as sugar and cotton) and farming techniques (such as the qanat system of underground irrigation channels) from their native lands to new lands, generally in an east-to-west flow – something that has been labeled the Muslim Agricultural Revolution; 4) new business practices, such as branch banks in major cities and the use of sakks, the ancestors of today’s bank checks.
§ A thriving market for manufactured goods developed. Steel swords from Damascus, leather goods from Cordoba, cotton textiles from Egypt and carpets from Persia were highly valued, as were glassware, furniture and tapestries (woven fabrics featuring artistic designs for use as wall hangings or furniture coverings).
§ Social mobility – the ability of people to move up in social class – was greater in Muslim lands than many other places, including medieval Christian Europe. And while the Muslim slave trade was very active, Islamic law encouraged the freeing of slaves as an act of charity.
§ Muslim literature reflected numerous traditions and included Omar Khayyam’s The Rubaiyat, which pondered the fleeting nature of life, and The Thousand and One Nights, tales that would eventually reach European readers as “Aladdin” and “Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves.”
§ Because Islam prohibited the depiction of humans or animals, Muslim art took on a distinctive arabesque style characterized by floral and geometric shapes, and artists perfected the skills of calligraphy, the art of beautiful handwriting.
§ Major Muslim cities – beginning first and foremost with Baghdad but also including Cordoba, Cairo and Timbuktu – were known as centers of learning, where advances were made in philosophy, mathematics, medicine and astronomy. Muslim scholars played a crucial role in preserving ancient Greek classics, such as the works of Aristotle, and later passing them on to Europeans, who had largely lost touch with these ideas through much of the Middle Ages.
§ Muslim astronomers added information to make more accurate an ancient Greek invention, the astrolabe, which is a device used to show how the sky looks at a specific place and time. This was a key aid to navigation.
The astrolabe
§ Building on the knowledge of the ancient Greeks, Muslims made remarkable advances in medicine and public health. Eventually, European physicians began attending Muslim universities in Spain, studying the Latin translations of Arabic medical texts, which became standard in many parts of the world for 500 years. Muslim surgeons also developed a way to treat cataracts by drawing fluid out of the lenses with a hollow needle. This method was used to save patients’ eyesight for centuries.
§ Algebra comes from the Arabic word al-jabr, and its pioneer was the Muslim mathematician al-Khwarizmi.
Muslims in India
Muslims first conquered the Indus Valley (in the northwest territory of the Indian subcontinent, which is modern-day Pakistan) in 711, but it wasn’t until the late 1100s that the sultan, or Muslim ruler, of Ghur (a province of Afghanistan) defeated Hindu armies across the northern plain and made Delhi his capital. This established the Delhi sultanate, which lasted from 1206 to 1526.
Question: Why were Muslim invaders able to triumph across northern India?
Answer: They had mobile fighting forces on horseback, which was a big advantage over the slow-moving war elephants in India. Hindu princes also were divided by their differences, unable to put up a united defense against the invaders. A third reason was that large numbers of Hindus – especially from the lower castes – converted to Islam.
Muslims changed India’s government and society by bringing in many Turks, Persians and Arabs to serve as soldiers and officials. Others fled Baghdad for India during the Mongol invasions of the 1200s (which brought down the Abbasid dynasty in 1258), and this brought further Greek and Persian influences to India, where Delhi was now a thriving cultural center featuring Persian art and architecture. But the Ghaznavid Turks were harsh foes of both Buddhism and Hinduism, destroyers of shrines, temples and monasteries.
Things became further unsettled in 1398 when a central Asian Turk named Tamerlane invaded India. Modeling himself after his hero, Genghis Khan, he put together a short-lived empire that relied on taxes and tribute from allied tribal leaders. Like Genghis Khan, he was a great military conqueror ill-suited to administer a centralized imperial bureaucracy. The Delhi Sultinate was therefore fragmented and weak during the 15th and early 16th centuries.
Question: Why did Muslims and Hindus clash so violently?
Answer: Muslims were monotheistic and prohibited from worshipping idols, whereas Hindus worshipped statues and carvings of many gods and goddesses. Muslims also did not have a priestly class in society, but Hindus honored Brahmins, or male priests. They also clashed on their diets: Hindus believed cows to be sacred, but Muslims ate them (cows, that is … not Hindus).
Question: Explain the movement that tried to smooth over the differences between Muslims and Hindus.
Answer: Sikhism was a syncretic faith that sought to blend Islamic and Hindu beliefs. Sikhs believed in the unity of God and the brotherhood of man, but rejected the caste system and idol worship.
Question: Akbar the Great ruled India’s Mughal dynasty from 1556 to 1605. Explain why many historians consider him to be the greatest ruler in Indian history.
Answer: The Mughal dynasty was the rule of Muslims in Hindu-dominant India, and Akbar is remembered as a great ruler primarily because of his tolerance toward Hindus. He took a Hindu wife and eliminated the tax on non-Muslims, appointing some of them to high civil and military posts. Akbar created a strong central government with paid officials, modernized the army, encouraged trade, standardized weights and measures, and introduced land reforms. For these reasons, the Mughal dynasty tripled in size and wealth under his guidance.
Question: Describe the poignant legacy of Shah Jahan, Akbar’s grandson.
Answer: Sha Jahan was the Mughal ruler who had the magnificent Taj Mahal built as a tomb for his wife, Mumtaz, who died at age 39 after having given birth to 14 children. Designed by a Persian architect and featuring spectacular white domes and graceful minarets mirrored in clear blue reflecting pools, the Taj Mahal stands as the greatest monument of the Mughal era. Sha Jahan had plans to build a twin tomb in black marble for himself, but his son imprisoned him for the final years of his life.