Download Muslim Empires: Guided Notes (plza Crusades 2) Islam means

Muslim Empires: Guided Notes
(plza Crusades 2) Islam means submission to the will of Allah, the Arabic word for God. Therefore one
who submits is a Muslim. The best example for how one is to do this can be found in the life and actions
of Islam’s founding prophet, Muhammad. This traditional example of the behaviors/actions of
Muhammad is known as the Sunna. One of these actions necessary in establishing the religion among
the Bedouin or Arab people was to build an army of followers in the city of Medina in the northern
Arabian dessert in order to forcefully establish _______ to the south as the religion’s holiest city.
Despite the quick spread of the religion after Muhammad’s death in 632, there was immediate tension
among its followers as to whom should be the Prophet’s successor or _______ ; the rightful leader of
this ever growing empire in the Middle East. In 644 the official caliph was chosen from the ___________
clan of Mecca after a long civil war with the supporters of Muhammad’s cousin and son in law, Ali. The
Umayyad’s and their followers considered themselves true Muslims in that they were ________ or
followers of the Sunna (the way of the Prophet). But many of Ali’s supporters refused to accept
Umayyad leadership and Sunnis as true Muslims and became known as the ______ or Shiites. They
believe true Muslims are only those who follow an imam or a religious leader that is directly descended
from Muhammad like Ali was. Ever since the mid-7th century when Ali and another direct descendant,
Husayn, became martyrs for the Shia; they have been the ones to most often use Muhammad’s example
of ______ in a violent manner, and continue to do so to this day against all who they do not consider
Muslim, including Sunni’s . One such opportunity came in the late 740’s in present day Iran & Iraq when
a Shiite family known as the __________ wiped out almost all of the Umayyad family and took over
leadership of the Muslim World. They also moved Islam’s capital from Mecca to the Ancient city of
Babylon, which they renamed ____________ and began to rule in the governmental style of the
Persians. This allowed for Islam to spread and for Muslims to experience _________ _________ that led
to many great achievements in the arts, math, and sciences. It was during the Abassid dynasty that
Muslims invented the ___________ which first helped sailors navigate the seas by calculating the
positions of stars and planets. It was also at this time that al-Khwarizmi invented _______. Despite Islam
no longer being a distinctly Arab religion under the Abassids, the Arabic language was glorified as an art
form through _____________ and is still the only language in which the Koran is allowed to be written
or read from by a Muslim. Because of this cultural diffusion, however, Abbasid rule started to weaken
by the end of the 10th century as descendants of Muhammad’s daughter called the Fatimids came to
control Egypt, North Africa, and Spain and by 1055 a group of nomads who had converted to Sunni Islam
called the Seljuk Turks took over the Abassid caliphate as well as huge parts of the Byzantine Empire like
Anatolia and the Holy Lands (Jerusalem). This would lead to a series of wars between Turkish ______
with European Christian knights known as the Crusades.
(plzaOtt) Like the rest of Asia in the 1200’s, the Seljuks were briefly conquered by the Mongolians , until
a great Turkish ghazi named Osman built an independent state in Anatolia in the 1300’s that came to be
known as and grow into the ___________ Empire. Their rulers with supreme authority or emperors
were known as ________ and they ruled through local governors appointed by the central govt. called
________. But perhaps the most powerful man in the Ottoman Empire was the sultan’s right hand man
or chief minister known as his ______ ________. Although the Ottomans were Sunni’s and practiced
religious tolerance of Christians and Jews already living in their borders, the ultimate goal was to spread
Islam by creating an empire. And the Byzantine empire stood in its way. To take over the Byzantines
they used ______________, a special group of soldiers loyal only to the ________ because they had
been ______________ in the Balkans as boys and kidnapped and converted to Islam and trained to be a
loyal and elite Turkish fighting force. Their training in the use of gunpowder weapons like cannons
enabled them to finally conquer the city of ____________ in 1453 and rename it ____________ as their
new capital under the leadership of ___________ II or the Conqueror. The merchants capable of getting
things like gunpowder from overseas were very wealthy as a result. The Ottomans produced many fine
works of art such as pottery, jewelry, prayer rugs, and many fine buildings, particularly mosques like the
Blue one. Unlike in previous Muslim societies and many today, women had many rights such as owning
land, seeking divorce, and having govt. jobs. The greatest of the Ottoman emperors was without a
doubt, ___________ I the Magnificent or the Lawgiver, under whom the empire reached its height in
the mid-1500’s. (plza Ott)
Around this time as well to the East in Persia or present day Iran, a Shia Muslim Empire was being
founded by a 14 year old boy named __________ who was the chosen leader of a group called the
_____________. He of course used the Persian title for king or ruler, often used today in Arabic/Islamic
Empires, which was _____. Because the geography of Persia placed limits on trade, Ismail and his
successor Shah Abbas felt that they had no choice but to declare ______ on the ____________ and
ironically become allies with European states as a result. Because of this ____ and _______ the Safavid
culture became a perfect blend of Persian and Turkish influence, along with European and even Chinese
with whom the Europeans traded. They became famous for their paintings and especially for their
carpets. To this day, however, in Shiite civs. like the Safavid Empire, women must stay secluded and
wear burkas if allowed out in public.
The Moghul or ________ Empire was the Sunni Muslim Empire founded by _______ that controlled
India beginning in the 1500’s and would later fall victim to British imperialism. In order to stay in
control, Muslim rulers like _______ the Great, who gained control of almost all of India, obviously had to
be tolerant of the _______ majority and allowed for semi-independent states to exist that they simply
collected taxes from on a regular basis using officials called _______________ who would keep a portion
of what he collected in lieu of a salary. The Mughals too would fight the Safavids along with the
Ottomans and as a result gain cultural influence from them. The finest aspect of Mughal culture,
however can be seen in its architecture.; Particularly the _____ __________, built by emperor ______
_______ as a memorial for his wife. Women were of great importance to Moghul society.
African Cultures, Civilizations/Empires
The northern third of the continent of Africa is home to the ____________ desert, the largest one on
Earth. It is of course uninhabitable, so most people and animals live along or below the Sahel (or its
southern edge) in the Savannah regions. Most of these people are __________, the Dutch word for
farmers, since it was most likely European explorers from the Netherlands that first exposed their way
of life to the rest of the “Civilized” world. Most traditional societies of sub-Saharan Africa lived together
in clans or extended family groups in which they hunted and gathered or farmed until nature forced
them to move on. As a result, the “history” of these communities’ was passed on __________ through
storytelling and/or _________ because a ____________ language was never necessary without trade.
They relied on one another and nature as semi-nomadic peoples beyond the Middle Ages and some still
do to this day. The oldest known sub-Saharan civilization in fact was the kingdom of ________ on the
Upper Nile in Nubia or what is today called Sudan. Their civilization emerged sometime after 300 BC
thanks to the influence of the Egyptians. The Kushite civilization declined around 300 AD due to the rise
of a new powerful civilization that arose in the highlands of what is now Ethiopia known as ________.
This kingdom’s success was due to the fact that is was located along the _____ ______ and was involved
in extensive _____ ________ with the Byzantine Empire. As a result, ______________ soon became its
official religion and is still the predominant religion in Ethiopia today. The oldest trade empire in West
Africa also began around 300 AD as a result of their location near what is today known as the _______
Coast. The people of the Empire of _________ traded their plentiful gold with the Berbers or Arabs of
North Africa’s Mediterranean Coast who began crossing the Sahara desert on Camels. When they
crossed the desert these Berbers brought ______, which was plentiful along the Med. Coast and was
used to preserve food and of course improve its taste as it is today. Since the Berbers were able to get
items made of gold from other places through sea trade and the people of West Africa also lived near
the Atlantic Ocean, the ______/_______ trade between _________ & ________ Africa across the Sahara
went both ways and supported future empires like _______ and its famously thriving trading city of
________________.
Ancient Empires of India
India’s civilization as we know it is based around not just the _________ River for which it is named but
also the _____________ River where the Aryans settled and made special to the ________ religion and
its many gods. These rivers are almost guaranteed to flood at some point due to seasonal ___________
during the summer months that come with the _______________ from the Southwest off the Indian
Ocean. In 321 BC Alexander’s General Seleucus was defeated and most all of India was united by a man
named _________________ Maurya and the _____________ Empire began. The greatest ruler of this
Empire, in fact the greatest ruler in the history of India, however, was ___________. He converted to
_______________ and based many of the empires laws on its principles that the Hindu majority could
agree on such as their impact on _________________, the soul’s rebirth after death. Despite his
success, the empire and India in general went into decline after his rule until the 4th century AD when it
became the “middle man” of Trade in the world under the emperor ___________ Gupta of the
____________ Empire.