Download The First Global Civilization: The Rise and Spread of Islam

Stearns, Chapter 11
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Bedouin
Social organization = clans
Shaykhs, slave families, rivalries
Constant fighting
Mecca dominated by Umayyad clan
Medina is disputed territory
Women have status and don’t wear veils
Why does Islam flourish here?
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Muhammad
Khadijah
610- revelations
Quran
Umayyads plot against him – why?
Flees Mecca to Medina
Hijra – flight (622)
Treaty in 628 with Quraysh
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The new religion offers society…
Monotheism
Umma
Ethical system
Zakat
Universal Elements….
Five pillars
Ramadan
Hajj
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Term combining the ideas of a leader,
successor, and deputy (of the Prophet)
Abu Bakr was the first caliph; 2 years
Muslim teaching maintained that there is no
distinction between the temporal and spiritual
domains; social law is a basic strand in the
fabric of comprehensive religious law.
Abu Bakr led many assaults; Ridda Wars
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Umar, Uthman, Ali
Caliphate becomes an ‘institution’
Umar began conquests outside Arabia
Prohibited Arabs from assuming ownership of
conquered territory
Collected taxes from non-Arabs; remained the
minority (language)
Did not try to convert the conquered
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Asserted the right of the caliph to protect the
economic interests of the entire umma
Publication of the definitive text of Qur’an
Armies consisted of Muslim Arabs
Introduce Arabic as official language
Distinctive Muslim coinage; new order
Accused of nepotism; appointed power
positions to family
Assassinated in 656
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Refused to punish the soldiers that killed
Uthman
Umayyads reject Ali’s claim to the throne
Warfare erupts; Ali’s experience gives him the
upper hand
Battle of Siffin; accepts mediation
Mu’awiya (Uthman’s cousin) proclaimed
caliph in Jerusalem
Ali was assassinated a year later
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Sunnis backed the Ummayad
Shi’a were supporters of Ali
Over the years differences have compounded
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Mu’awiya switched capital to Damascus (Syria)
Reached from Spain to central Asia (biggest
since the Romans)
‘Arab conquest state’
Muslim Arabs only taxed for charity
Muslim warrior elite kept isolate
Intermarriage meant a loss of taxes
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Mawali
Still had to pay taxes; Received no share of the
‘booty’
Couldn’t get good gov’t positions; Not
members but ‘clients’
Frustrated by the royal elaborate caliphal court
The hajib, or chamberlain, resisted access to
the caliph, who now received visitors seated on
a throne surrounded by bodyguards
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Royal harems
‘aloof’ in their pleasure gardens and marble
palaces
Soldiers in Iran began to resent orders from
Damascus
Marched under the banner of ‘al-Abbas’,
Muhammad’s uncle in 747
Shi’a and Mawali all help in the defeat
Umayyad are slaughtered (p 253)
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New capital in Iraq
Gradually became more ‘Sunni’ although Shi’a
continued to support them. Why?
Bureacrats, servents and slaves
Wazir – chief administrator, royal executioner
Integration of new converts; mass conversions
Growth of merchant class, urban expansion,
dhows, guilds, slaves often rose to power
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Priceless works of Plato, Aristotle, Galen,
Hippocrates, Ptolemy and Euclid were saved
and written in Arabic
Material was spread throughout the empire
Made the Scientific Revolution possible
Read p 258 – Global Connections