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Key Concept 3.1: Expansion & Intensification of Communication & Exchange
Networks
Cross-Cultural Exchange
 Environmental Knowledge & Technological Adaptation
o Sasanids and Byzantines
 Subsidized Arab chieftains to protect their empire from
invasion
o Arab pastoralists
 Southern, remained isolated and independent seldom engaging
the attention of the shahs or emperors
 In these interior lands Islam took form
 “Empty Quarter”
o Caravan trading
 Link among people
 Nomads derived income from providing camels, guides and
safe passages to merchants
 Dominance of the caravan trade was boosted with the
invention of the militarily efficient camel saddle
 Contributed to the rise of Arab-dominated caravan
cities
 Mecca
o Pilgrimage city as well: Ka’ba and Abraham’s
sacrifice of his son (Ishmael not Isaac)
 Languages
o Arabic
 Not adopted by entire empire
 Islam
o Medina
 Haija (marks beginning of calendar year)
 Umma
o Conquests spread religion
 Arab conquests began under the second caliph Umar
 Took Syria and Egypt from Byzantines
 Defeated the Sasanid shah
 Conquered Tunisia, Spain, and Pakistan (Sind)
 Prohibited from assuming ownership of land conquered
o Military service: regular pay, military camps
o Kept army together and ready for action and
preserved normal life in the countryside
 Led by Muhammad’s close companions
 Authority of Medina reestablished with Abu Bakr, ensured
obedience
 Ruling minority of Arabs lived off the taxes paid by those
conquered
o Umayyad Caliphate
 First Caliphates
 Syrians
 Fell to Shi’ite and Kharijite attacks questioning the Umayyad
family’s legitimacy
 Non-Syrian Arabs envied the Syrian domination of the
caliphs and the more pious Muslims resented the
secular behavior of the caliphs
o Abbasid Caliphate
 The family of Abbas, Muhammad’s uncle controlled the secret
organization that led the revolt to take down the Umayyad
 Befriended their relatives in Ali’s family
 Held power until Mongols killed the last of them in Baghdad
Cross-Cultural Diffusion
 Christianity
o Arabs accompanying the caravans became familiar with the lifestyles
of the Sasanid and Byzantine Empires and many adopted a form of
Christianity
 Islam
 Abu Baker
o Quran
 Word of God not of Muhammad
o Sharia (became a religion/way of life)
o Hadith
 A tradition relating the words or deeds of Muhammad
 Referenced through chain of oral authorities
 Southeast Asia
 Sub-Saharan Africa
o Ghana
Trade
 Due to Large Empire
o Islamic Empire
 Trading cities
o Baghdad
 As more Arabs converted to Islam, the ruling elite in Baghdad
became more cosmopolitan
 Greek, Iranian, and Central Asian cultural currents that met in
the capital gave ride to literary works
 The Arabian Nights
o Reflected the splendor of the Abbasid court
 Fragmentation of the Abbasid Empire between 850-1050 cut
the flow of tax revenues to Baghdad thereby increasing local
prosperity
o Ghana
 Salt for Copper and manufactured goods
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Land of gold
First lands outside of the orbit of the caliphate to experience a
gradual and peaceful conversion to Islam
Luxury goods
Commercial Tech aided this spread
o Caravanserai
o Camel Saddles
Economic tools
o Government coins
 Muslim silver and gold coins represented new order
 Silver dirhams and gold dinars bearing Arabic religious
phrases circulated in monetary exchanges from Morocco to the
frontiers of China
Key Concept 3.2: Continuity & Innovation of State Forms & Their Interactions
Two groups dominate the politics of this era:
 Islam (661-1258 CE)
o Medina
 City-state
 Muhammad had unchallenged control of a state that was
coming to dominate the Arabian peninsula
 New Forms of Government
o Caliphate
 Caliph “Successor”
 Abu Bakr
 Muhammad ALONE could receive revelations
 Did not leave instructions for a successor
 Unclear of powers
 Muslim armies fought to confirm the authority of the Caliphate
o Led by succession of Caliphs until 1258
o NEED TO KNOW
 Abbasids
 See below
 Muslim Iberia (Al-Andalus)
 Islamic Spain
 Last remaining Umayyad from the Abbasid rebellions
fled to Spain and developed a principality
 Cut off from the rest of the Islamic World by the Strait
of Gibraltar
 Blended Roman, German, Jewish, Berber and Arab
cultures
 Represented the political diversity and local awareness
that coincided with Abbasid decline
 Islamic Umma stayed in tacked
o Sunni and Shi’a
 After the third caliph Uthman was assassinated, Ali
(Muhammad’s cousin and son-in-law) was nominated as
caliph
 Two of Muhammad’s companions and his favorite wife A’isha
challenged him and he defeated them in the Battle of the
Camel
 After the battle, the governor of Syria, Mu’awiya (kinsman of
Uthman from the Umayya clan of the Quraysh) challenged him
 Inconclusive battle = Arbitration
 Ali rejected conclusion, but was assassinated by his own
supporter
 Mu’awiya offered the caliph to Ali’s son Hasan
 Then Mu’awiya chose his OWN son Yazid to succeed him…
 Umayyad Caliphate
 Hasan’s brother Husayn revolted and Yazid had him and his
family killed
 Husayn’s martyrdom transformed Shi’ism from a political
movement into a religious sect
 Shi’a
 Ali and his descendants are the rightful Imams
 Caliph is a secular office
 Sunni
 Caliphs are Imams
 Community should select its own leadership
 Imams are fallible
 Kharijite
 Reject the infallibility of the Imam
 Extremist
o Caliphate differs from the Pope
 Does not have the power to define true belief, expel heretics,
and discipline clergy, little basis for reestablishing their
universal authority once they lost political and military power
o Took on Persian Influences
 Abbasid roots in semi-Persianized Arabs of Khurasan
 Adopted the ceremonies and customs of the Sasanid
shahs
o Islamic growth that lead to the Crusades
o Cultural transfer
 Abbasids with Tang China
Key Concept 3.3: Increased Economic Productive Capacity & Its Consequences
Labor management
 Military

o Umayyad
 Prohibited from assuming ownership of land conquered
 Military service: regular pay, military camps
 Kept army together and ready for action and preserved
normal life in the countryside
o Abbasid
 Fragmentation due to breakaway provinces led to a mistrust of
generals and troops
 Caliphs purchases Turkic slaves: mamluks
 Standing army
 When the government could not pay them, the mamluks
took it upon themselves to seat and unseat caliphs
 Samarra
 New capital
 The Truks could dominate Samarra without
interference from an unruly Baghdad populace
Taxes
o Allowed Sasanid and Byzantine administrative practices to continue
o Gradually replaces non0Muslim secretaries and tax officials with
Muslims and introduce Arabic as the language of government
Spread of Religions led to major changes
 Gender relations
o Lived in seclusion and veiling in public
 Already in existence in Sasanid and Byzantine times
 Influential in the family but not in public roles
 Literate, but did not study with unrelated men
 Only slave women could preform before unrelated men as
musicians and dancers
 A man could marry as many as four wives and have as many
slave concubines as he wished
 Women had more rights under Islamic law than Christian
women and Jewish women under their respective laws
 Daughters were granted an inheritance equal to hald
that of a son
 Legal financial burden solely on the husband
 Women could remarry if their husbands divorced them and
received a payment upon divorce
 Women could initiate divorce under specific conditions
 Could use birth control
 Could go on pilgrimage
 Worst “fears” of men: women infidelity and political
manipulation