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Week 7: Chapter 7: Part 1: Terms Al-Mahdi – Abbasids, dynasty of caliphs who ruled the caliphate of Islam from 750 until 1258. All of these caliphs were descended from Abbas, a member of the tribe of Quraysh of Mecca who was an uncle of the prophet Muhammad. The Abbasids seized the caliphate following the overthrow of the Umayyad dynasty of caliphs, and held it until the Mongols sacked Baghdad and killed the last caliph of the line. For most of this time their court was in Baghdad, a town founded at the command of the second Abbasid caliph, al-Mansur (754-775) in 762. The third Abbasid caliph. (Wikipedia) Harun al-Rashid - The 8th- and 9th-century caliphs Harun al-Rashid and his son Abdullah al-Mamun are especially renowned for their encouragement of intellectual pursuits and for the splendor of their courts. During their reigns scholars were invited to the court to debate various topics, and translations were made from Greek, Persian, and Syriac works. Embassies also were exchanged with Charlemagne, emperor of the West. Harun was a generous patron of learning, poetry, and music, and his court was visited by the most eminent Muslims of the age. He was celebrated in countless songs and stories, and is perhaps best known to the Western world as the caliph whose court is described in the Arabian Nights. . (Wikipedia) The Thousand and One Nights – Arabian Nights, or The Thousand and One Nights, collection of stories from Persia, Arabia, India, and Egypt, compiled over hundreds of years. Most of the stories originated as folk tales, anecdotes, or fables that were passed on orally. They include the stories of Ali Baba, Aladdin, and Sindbad the Sailor, which have become particularly popular in Western countries. The earliest record of Arabian Nights is a fragment of the collection that dates from the 800s. The collection grew during the following centuries until it reached its present form, written in Arabic, in the late 1400s or the 1500s. (Wikipedia) Buyids of Persia - The Buyids, also known as Buwayhids, Buwaihids, Buyyids, or Āl-i Būya, was a Persian Shi'a dynastic confederation from Daylaman, a region in north of Iran, on the southern shore of the Caspian Sea. In pre-Islamic times they had served as mercenaries for the Sasanian kings of Iran, but were independent from their rule. They were considered a formidable military force, especially because of their ability as foot soldiers. Succession of power was hereditary, with fathers dividing their land among their sons. During the time of Harun al-Rashid, the Alid people sought refuge among them. (Encarta) Seljuk Turks – Turkish dynasty prominent in the Middle East during the 11th and 12th centuries. Originally a clan belonging to the Oghuz, a Turkmen tribe of Central Asia, they were converted to Islam in the 10th century and established themselves in the Iranian province of Khorāsān in the early 11th century. In the period between 1040 and 1055, their chief, Togrul Beg, conquered most of Iran and Iraq and made himself protector of the caliph of Baghdād, spiritual leader of the Sunni (orthodox) Muslims. Togrul was given the title sultan by the caliph and made war on the Shia Muslims, who rejected the caliph's authority. (Encarta) Crusades – series of wars by Western European Christians to recapture the Holy Land from the Muslims (see Palestine). The Crusades were first undertaken in 1096 and ended in the late 13th century. The term Crusade was originally applied solely to European efforts to retake from the Muslims the city of Jerusalem, which was sacred to Christians as the site of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. It was later used to designate any military effort by Europeans against non-Christians. (Wikipedia) Saladin - Muslim leader, who recaptured Jerusalem from the Crusaders. Born in Tikrīt, Iraq, Saladin, as he is known in the West, was a Kurd Saladin repelled the Crusaders and took the offensive against them. In September 1171 he suppressed the dissident Fatimid regime, reuniting Egypt with the orthodox Abbasid caliphate, but his reluctance to cooperate with Nur ad-Din against the Crusaders brought him to the brink of war with his former master. (Wikipedia) Ibn Khaldun – full name Abu Zayd Abd-Ar-Rahman Ibn Khaldun (1332-1406), the greatest of the medieval Islamic historians. Born on May 27, 1332, in Tunis (now in Tunisia), of a Spanish-Arab family, Ibn Khaldun held court positions in what are today Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco, and in Granada, Spain, and was twice imprisoned. In 1375 he went into seclusion near modern Frenda, Algeria, taking four years to compose his monumental Muqaddamah, the introductory volume to his Kitab al-Ibar (Universal History). In 1382, on pilgrimage to Mecca, he was offered a chair at the famous Islamic university of Al Azhar by the sultan of Cairo, who also appointed him judge (qadi) of the Maliki rite of Islam. In 1400 he accompanied the sultan's successor to Damascus in an expedition to resist the invasion of the Turkic ruler Tamerlane. Ibn Khaldun spent several weeks as Tamerlane's honored guest before returning to Cairo, where he died on March 17, 1406. (Wikipedia) “high culture” – is a term, now used in a number of different ways in academic discourse, whose most common meaning is the set of cultural products, mainly in the arts, held in the highest esteem by a culture. In this case, it is noted that Persian replaced Arabic as the official language of the “high culture” the language of polite exchanges between courtiers as well as of history, poetic musings, and mystical revelations. (Wikipedia) Shah-Nama - Shāhnāmé, or Shāhnāma "The Book of Kings”, is an enormous poetic opus written by the Persian poet Ferdowsi around 1000 AD and is the national epic of Iran. The Shāhnāmeh tells the mythical and historical past of Greater Iran from the creation of the world up until the Islamic conquest of Iran in the 7th century. (Wikipedia) Sa’di - pseudonym of Muslih al-Din (1213?-1292?), Persian poet, admired for his blend of cynical wisdom and kindness, and for the elegance of his verse. Born in Shīrāz, Iran, Sa'di studied in Baghdād and later traveled widely in North Africa, Iraq, and perhaps India. He also made several pilgrimages to Mecca, the most sacred of the Islamic holy cities. After returning to Shīrāz in the 1250s, Sa'di wrote his most famous works: the Bustan (The Orchard, 1257), a verse collection of fables, maxims, and histories illustrating Islamic virtues; and the Gulistan (The Rose Garden, 1258), a book of prose stories and anecdotes interspersed with short poems and maxims. Sa'di is also renowned for his lyric poetry and his panegyrics (written works of praise), composed in both Persian and Arabic. His tomb in Shīrāz remains one of the prominent sights of the city.(Wikipedia) Al-Ghanzali - Al-Ghazâlî (c.1055–1111) was one of the most prominent and influential philosophers, theologians, jurists, and mystics of Sunni Islam. He was active at a time when Sunni theology had just passed through its consolidation and entered a period of intense challenges from Shiite Ismâ’îlite theology and the Arabic tradition of Aristotelian philosophy (falsafa). Al-Ghazâlî understood the importance of falsafa and developed a complex response that rejected and condemned some of its teachings, while it also allowed him to accept and apply others. (http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/al-ghazali/) Sufism/Sufis – Islamic mysticism that began to develop in the 7th century, the first century of Islam. The term sufi (Arabic, “man of wool”) was coined in the early 9th century as a name for mystics whose ascetic practices included wearing coarse woolen garments, or sufu; soon the term referred to all mystics, whether or not they followed ascetic practices. Sufism arose out of various influences, among them a mystical overtone in some of the teachings of Muhammad, the founder of Islam; a desire to escape the hardships due to the social and political upheavals of the time; and a tendency toward quietism in reaction to the worldliness and extravagance of the early caliphs. (Encarta) Mongols – pastoral people now found predominantly in East Asia, as well as parts of eastern Russia, who speak one of the Altaic languages. Their written language, Mongolian, dates from at least as early as the 11th century. The Mongols are thought to have been a loose confederation of tribes until the Mongol conqueror Genghis Khan united them into one formidable nation in the early 13th century. Under his leadership, they developed a powerful army that swept west into Europe and east into China, eventually forming a widespread Eurasian empire. The descendants of Genghis Khan ruled large areas of China, East Asia, Russia, Iran, and Turkey for long periods of time. The Mongols were subsequently overcome, and they returned to relative political obscurity. The Mongols now number approximately 6 million, with most of the population practicing Buddhism and the remainder embracing shamanism. The Mongols are still largely a nomadic people, and their wealth consists of sheep, horses, cattle, camels, and goats. (Wikipedia) Chinggis Khan – was the founder, Khan (ruler) and Khagan (emperor) of the Mongol Empire, the largest contiguous empire in history. He came to power by uniting many of the nomadic tribes of northeast Asia. After founding the Mongol Empire and being proclaimed "Genghis Khan", he started the Mongol invasions and raids of the Kara-Khitan Khanate, Caucasus, Khwarezmid Empire, Western Xia and Jin dynasties. During his life, the Mongol Empire eventually occupied a substantial portion of Central Asia. Before Genghis Khan died, he assigned Ogedei Khan as his successor and split his empire into khanates among his sons and grandsons. He died in 1227 after defeating the Tanguts. He was buried in an unmarked grave somewhere in Mongolia at a location unknown. His descendants went on to stretch the Mongol Empire across most of Eurasia by conquering and/or creating vassal states out of all of modern-day China, Korea, the Caucasus, Central Asian countries, and substantial portions of modern Eastern Europe and the Middle East. In 1206 Genghis Khan assumed the title Great Khan of the Mongols, and the title was used by his successors in every country from Europe to China. (Wikipedia) Mameluks – a warrior caste dominant in Egypt and influential in the Middle East for over 700 years. Islamic rulers created this warrior caste by collecting non-Muslim slave boys and training them as cavalry soldiers especially loyal to their owner and each other. They converted to Islam in the course of their training. The Mamluks were first used in Muslim armies in Baghdad by the Abbasid caliphs in the 9th cent. and quickly spread throughout the Muslim world. They served the Ayyubid sultans from the 12th cent. onward and grew powerful enough to challenge the existence of the rulers who were theoretically their masters. Aybak, the first Mamluk to actually rule, persuaded (1250) the mother of the last Ayyubid sultan to marry him after she had murdered her son. For more than 250 years thereafter, Egypt and Syria were ruled by Mamluk sultans supported by a caste of warrior slaves, from which the sultans were chosen. The Mamluks took advantage of their power to become the principal landholders in Egypt.(Wikipedia) Harsha – (590?-647), also called Harshavardhana or Siladitya, the last important Hindu monarch of India, who ruled (606-647) a vast empire in northern India. He used his power to defeat Bengal and all the other kingdoms of northern India, thus becoming the ruler of an alliance of subordinate realms. (Wikipedia) Kannauj – town, central Uttar Pradesh state, northern India. Kannauj is situated near the Ganges (Ganga) River northwest of Kanpur, with which it has road and rail connections. Its name probably has more popular spellings than any other place-name in India. Kannauj has existed since ancient times and contains numerous ruins and artifacts. It was important during the Gupta empire, and in the early 7th century it became the capital of Harsha’s empire, which included much of northern India. The town entered a period of great splendour during the 9th and 10th centuries, at which time a large number of Hindu temples and Buddhist monasteries were built. In 1018, however, it was razed by Maḥmūd of Ghazna. It was plundered again in 1194, by which time it was almost totally destroyed. Since then, Kannauj has been of minor importance, though it is renowned for perfumes and tobacco. Pop. (2001) 71,727. (http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/311203/Kannauj) Hajjaj – Arab governor in India: the governor of the eastern provinces of India during the Arab Umayyad dynasty. (Encarta) Muhammad ibn Qasim – (c. 31 December, 695–18 July, 715), born Muhammad bin Qasim bin Ukail Sakifi, was a Syrian general who conquered the Sindh and Punjab regions along the Indus river (now a part of Pakistan). The conquest of Sindh and Punjab began the Islamic era in South Asia. (Wikipedia) Mahmud of Ghazni – Ghaznavids, Turkish Muslim dynasty that ruled Afghanistan and neighboring Punjab for more than 200 years. The greatest of the Ghaznavids was Sultan Mahmud of Ghaznī (971-1030), Alptigin's grandson, who led numerous raids into the Punjab, looting Indian cities of enormous wealth that he used to convert Ghaznī into one of the great centers of Islamic culture. Before his death Mahmud annexed the Punjab to his kingdom, and in 1160 the Ghaznavid capital was moved to Lahore. (Wikipedia) Muhammad of Ghur – (died 1206), Muslim conqueror of northern India. In 1173 Muhammad rose to control the Turkish Ghurid Empire, centered in what is now west central Afghanistan. Finding his ambitions to control Central Asia blocked by other Turkish-influenced states, he embarked on yearly raids into northern India, which was then largely Hindu. Between 1175 and 1186 he overran the regions of Sind and Punjab, although he was defeated in an attempt to subdue Gujarāt. In 1191 he was dealt a major defeat by a confederation of Indian princes in present-day Haryāna State. However, Muhammad fought the princes again at the same site the next year and won a convincing victory. In 1193 his armies pushed as far as Bihār in northeastern India (on the presentday border with Nepal), thus making Muhammad the dominant power in northern India. (Wikipedia) Quth-ud-din Aibak – Lieutenant of Muhammad of Guhr; established kingdom in India with capital at Delphi; proclaimed himself Sultan of India. (Encarta) Delhi – The capital of the new Muslim empire. Delhi’s location is in the very center of northern India. (Encarta) Dehli Sultanate – principal Muslim state in India before the advent of the Mughal Empire. It was founded in 1206 by Qutubuddin Aybak, a lieutenant of Muhammad of Ghur, the Muslim conqueror of north India. It remained confined to the north under Qutubuddin Aybak's Slave dynasty (so called because he was once a slave of Muhammad). Under the Khalji dynasty (1290-1320) its control was extended over most of the subcontinent. Alauddin, the second Khalji sultan, repelled an attempted invasion by the Mongols, but in 1398, following a period of internal strife, the territory of the sultanate was overrun by the armies of the Turkic conqueror Tamerlane. Under the Sayyid (1414-1451) and Lodi (1451-1526) dynasties the sultanate's power was greatly reduced and was finally destroyed by the Mughal emperor Humayun in 1555-1556. (Wikipedia) Bhakti – a Sanskrit term derived from the verb bhaj, meaning “to love, adore, enjoy, eat, or make love to”; it denotes passionate devotion to a Hindu god, primarily Krishna, Rama, Shiva, or Devi. In this sense the word appears in the Bhagavad-Gita, where Krishna teaches bhakti as the third religious path, after the paths of works and knowledge. Under the influence of vernacular sectarian movements, particularly in southern India and Bengal, the word assumed connotations of intensity and self-abandon. (Wikipedia) Kabir – (1440?-1518), Indian poet and mystic, whose teachings blend elements of Islam and Sufism with the ideas of the bhakti (passionate devotion) movement of Hinduism. (Wikipedia) Empire of Shrivijaya – former trading empire in SE Asia: an Indonesian kingdom centered in Palembang, Sumatra, that dominated the maritime trade of Southeast Asia between the 7th and 14th centuries.(Encarta) Malacca - historic Southeast Asian state on the southern coast of the Malay Peninsula (in modern Malaysia), on the Strait of Malacca. Parameswara, a prince from Palembang on the island of Sumatra, founded Malacca about 1400. He converted to Islam, which Indian traders had previously brought to the region, and the kingdom quickly flourished as Southeast Asia’s regional trade center and as a center for the Muslim faith. The size of Malacca’s trade is evidenced by the fact that as many as 2000 boats were routinely anchored in its harbor. Malacca’s reputation for security, well-ordered government, and unrivaled commercial facilities contributed to its economic success. The kingdom’s prosperity enabled it to sustain a rapidly expanding population, which by the beginning of the 16th century had reached 100,000. (Encarta) Demak - was Muslim state located on Java's north coast in Indonesia, at the site of the present day city of Demak. A port fief thought to have been founded in the last quarter of the fifteenth century, it was influenced by Islam brought by Arab and Gujarat traders. The sultanate played an important role in the establishment of Islam in Indonesia; the new religion's influence manifest by the Great Demak Mosque reportedly built by the Wali Songo. (Wikipedia) Week 7: Chapter 7: Part 2: Questions 1. What were the causes for the weaknesses of the later Abbasid Empire? Large distances caused issues in transporting armies as well as monitoring local administrators. Many were loyal to local rulers rather than the empire as a whole. Slave and peasant uprisings as well as Mongol invasions weakened and eventually destroyed the state. An unsuccessful succession policy also encouraged decline at the end of AlMahdi’s reign. 2. What was the position of women in the Abbasid Empire? Males dominated society, segregating women in all aspects, with the exception of family. Harems and veils appeared and became representative of the females’ subjugation to males. The elite were separated and kept in the home, lower class still were economically viable. Marriage occurred early for women with the goal of childbearing. Elite women found a voice only in pressing fro advancement of their son’s careers. 3. Describe the economy of the later Abbasid Empire. Heavy tax burdens for peasants, agricultural villages saw abandonment thus causing irrigation works to fall into disrepair. Rulers often overspent 4. Discuss theological developments within Islam during the Abbasid Empire. Mysticism is developed by the Sufis, however religious scholars often became more conservative. The Ulama became increasingly suspicious of non-Muslim influence, in particular Greek rationalism. The theologian, al-Ghazali, in turn attempted to fuse Greek and Quranic traditions. The Sufis push for a more personal relationship with Allah, by asceticism, songs, meditation and dance. 5. Discuss the stages of Islamic incursion into India. The 7th century saw the first invasion, initially demonstrating conflict, yet eventually circumventing tensions to establish peaceful commercial and religious exchange. Invasions in the North were often welcomed as many Indians saw the invasion resulting in religious tolerance and lighter taxes. The Brahmin castes were respected by the invaders and many officials kept their positions. After initial conquests, much of India was retaken until the 10th century. A new state was formed, with its capital at Delhi on the Ganges plain. Following dynasties became military states though their authority was often limited. 6. To what extent were Muslims successful in converting Indians to Islam? In most regions Islam initially had little impact as high-caste Hindus did not accept the invaders as their equals. There was greater success in the lower castes as lower and “”untouchables” were welcomed into mosques and schools. Buddhists were among the most highly converted as ongoing spiritual decline paved the way for greater interest in Islam. Others converted not out of spiritual reasons, but for practical ones – hoping to escape taxes or via intermarriage. 7. Describe how Islam spread to Southeast Asia. In the 8th century, Muslim traders began to dominate the seas by taking control of Indian Commerce. A 13th century collapse of a major Buddhist trading port on the Straits of Malacca allowed them to gain a foothold in Southeast Asia. Islam quickly spread through trade routes connecting converts to Indian Ocean ports. Toleration for existing religious beliefs allowed for converts to embrace the new religion, but for traditional laws to still dictate social interactions.