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~~!!!!!!~~~'!.'!.'!.'!.II!..I1!..'!...1II1 ~::e Class Connections: Links Between Geography and History The Spread of Islam The Middle East is sometimes called the "World of Islam," for this common faith acts as a unifying force in a scattered and diverse region. Yetthe Islamic world today extends far beyond the borders of Arabia. Islam claims more than 1 billion oUhe e<!rth's_~pUl!Qn!nhabita_nts-one in every five. Muslims predominate in the Middle East, North Africa, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Indonesia. Smaller but still substantial numbers live in central and southern Africa, India, China, the Philippines, and parts of Northern Eurasia and Western Europe. A Wildfire from the Desert The map on the next page shows where Islam began. At Mecca, a trade crossroads in the desert of the Arabian Peninsula, an Arab named Muhammed was born in A.D. 570. A thoughtful man who often prayed alone in the desert, Mun.am::i..cd in the year 610 had a vision in which the angel Gabriel told him that he was to become the "Messenger of God." After this vision, Muhammed came to see himself as a prophet whose central teaching was the absolute unity of God - Allah, in Arabic. He called on men and women to submit to the "will of Allah" - the literal meaning of Islam. At first, the new religion grew slowly. Many Arabs preferred their many gods to the Allah preached by Muhammed. But as Islam won converts, some Meccans began to worry that Muhammed's monotheistic teaching would undercut the lucrative pilgrimage traffic to the shrines of the many Meccan deities and decided to kill him. Muhammed secretly fled Mecca in A.D. 622 with a small band of believers for the neighboring town of Medina-an emigration, or hef{ira, from which Muslims date their calendar. Eventually, Muhammed and his followers won control of Medina, and in 630, Muhammed returned to Mecca with 10,000 warriors-the most powerful religious and political leader in Arabia. After Muhammed's death in A.D. 632, leaders called caliphs carried on his mission ,- 84 Unit7 Under the leadership of the first four caliphs, the new religion spread like wildfire. In just 20 years, Arabic armies, skilled in the ways of desert warfare and enflamed with zeal for jihad, or the holy war that would guarantee their entrance into paradise, swept over the wide, flat deserts of North Africa and Southwest Asia. From 661 to 750, a new dynasty of caliphs directed the Muslim empire from Damascus what is wave now Syria. Under conquests their leadership, ain second of military shook the world. Parts of Central Asia and India came under Islamic control, as did all of northern Africa. Then the Muslims crossed the Strait of Gibraltar and pushed onto the Iberian Peninsula, across the Pyrenees, and on into southern France. Finally, 100 miles from the gates of Paris, the Islamic warriors were stopped in the Battle of Tours (732) and forced back to the iberian Peninsula. The Golden Age of Islam and Beyond In 750, yet another dynasty of caliphs-the Abbasids-shifted the capital once again, this time to Baghdad in modern-day Iraq. For the next 500 years, while European culture was in eclipse, the Abbasids preserved -and translated into Arabic-Greek science and philosophy and Persian literature and history. In addition, they made significant contributions of their own, especially in the fields of mathematics, astronomy, architecture, medicine, and geography. Corlneetions' Links Bt'tween Geography and History l ~ ~ Class ~ During this cultural flowering, Islam continued to spread to ever more distant realms. Now, however, it was transmitted more often by traders than by warriors. Camel caravans carried the faith across the Sahara to Mali, Songhai, and Bornu in West Africa. Merchant ships transmitted it to East Africa and those parts of Southeast Asia known today as Indonesia and Malaysia. In time, a number of non-Arabic ethnic groups embraced Islam and forged their own Muslim empires: the Mughals in India; the Safavids in Persia (now Iran); the Ottoman Turks in Asia Minor (the peninsula bordered by the Mediterranean, Black, and Aegean seas), Egypt, Syria, and much of southeastern Europe, western Asia, and North Africa. Today the era of vast empires unified by the Islam religion has passed. Yet Islam remains the heart of most Middle Eastern cultures. And outside this core region, the Muslim faith continues to expand. According to some estimates, it is the fastest-growing religion in the world. The Spread of Islam, 632-1258 ASIA D . H first four caliphs. Territory added under A 632-661 I~'~' Terrtlory . under Ummayadadded Caliphate. ~'~I~I_' , 661-750 AFRICA ....•: :.. !.".\.' •.. Abbas.d Territory Caliphate. added under 750-1258 :1 T 500 Kilometers \ 60' E Directions: Use information from the essay and the map to complete the activities. Write your answers on the back of this paper or on a separate sheet of paper. A. Geography Focus 1. Interaction What physical feature slowed the Umayyad cali?hs as they pushed northward from the Iberian Peninsula? 2. Movement In what two main ways was Islam spread throughout the world? B. Critical Thinking 1. Distinguishing false from Accurate Images What facts in the essay refute the commonly held assumption that nll Muslims are Arabs7 2. Predicting Consequences If the Arab Muslims had not been stopped at Tours, what might the consequences have been 7 ~=========.~_====0_=======_========================~~========== - - -------------------------------------------------