Download Arab Life Lives of the Bedouin (nomad)

Arab Life
• Arabs, Israelites, Phoenicians and Chaldeans were
descendants of the Semitic tribes
• Location
– Arabian peninsula composed mainly of arid plains and
deserts with the exception of the southwestern region
• Lives of the Bedouin (nomad)
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Arab Life
• Lives of the Bedouin (nomad)
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lived in tribes made up of related families
leading each tribe was a sheikh
each tribe independent – all loosely connected
believed in retaliation – “eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth”
Expanded the caravan trade route into their area
Towns developed along trade routes
Major carriers of goods between Indian Ocean and the
Mediterranean (where Silk Road ended)
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Makkah (Mecca)
• most important town, crossroad of
commerce
• Arabs trace their ancestors to Abraham and
his son Ishmael
– Ishmael is believed to have built the Kaaba
– Kaaba revered for its association to Abraham
• Kaaba
– House of worship, cornerstone was the Black
Stone
– contained statues of many Arab deities
• Allah - supreme god, believed in other gods
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The Life of Muhammad
• Muhammad and His Message
• Muhammad was born around A.D. 570
• Khadija proposed marriage to him at 25 yrs
of age (a rich widow)
• troubled by growing gap between
– honesty and generosity of most Makkans
– Greediness of the rich trading elites in the city
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Revelation
• heard a voice calling him to be the apostle of the one
true deity – Allah (God)
– Believed Allah had revealed himself in part through Moses
and Jesus (Hebrew and Christian tradition)
– Final revelations of Allah were now being given to him
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“rise and warn” the people about divine judgment
A.D. 613 he began sharing his message
all who believed in Allah were equal
Kadija and members of Muhammad’s family became
the first Muslims – followers of Islam
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Opposition to Islam
• rejected by wealthy and other religious
leaders
• wanted to continue polytheistic worship
• forced to depart Makkah for Yathrib
• departure to Yathrib known as the Hijrah or
emigration (A.D. 622)
• the Hijrah marks the beginning of the Islamic
era and 1st year of the Muslim calendar
• center of Islam Yathrib became known as
Madinah
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Acceptance of Islam
• A.D. 630 the Makkans accepted Islam and
Muhammad as God’s prophet
• Muslims destroyed the idols in the Kaaba
and turned the shrine into a place of worship
• Makkah became the spiritual capital of Islam
• Muhammad died at Madnah in A.D. 632
• Muhammad has several daughters, no sons
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The Quran
• according to Muslim tradition the angel Gabriel
revealed divine messages to Muhammad over 22 yrs
• Muhammad’s successor was his father-in-law
Abu Bakr became the 1st caliph
• The Quran is composed of God’s messages as
revealed to Muhammad
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The Quran
• The Quran is composed of God’s messages as
revealed to Muhammad
• Quran means “recital”, the final authority in matters
of faith and life style
• contains Noah’s ark, Jonah in the whale’s belly
• Quran presents basic moral values of Islam which
are similar to Judaism and Christianity
• Contains rules for: marriage, divorce, family life,
property inheritance, business practices
• to be a Muslim is not simply to worship Allah but
also to live one’s life according to Allah’s teachings
as revealed in the Quran (compiled in 635)
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Social Structure
• Islam - all people are equal in the eyes of Allah
– reality was a fairly defined upper class:
• ruling families, senior officials, nomadic elites, and the
wealthiest merchants
– slaves were not equal
• Muslims could not be slaves
• Slaves came from Africa or from non-Islamic
populations
• many captured in war
• many military slaves were freed, some
exercised considerable power
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Social Structure
• Islamic law
– slaves should be treated fairly
– considered a good act to free them
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The Role of Women
– The Quran granted women spiritual and social
equality with men
– Women had the right to the fruits of her work and
to own and inherit property
– Women played prominent roles in the rise of Islam
during the time of Muhammad
– Islamic teachings did account for differences
between men and women in the family and social
order
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The Role of Women
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every woman had a male guardian
Parents or guardians arranged marriages
Quran – men could have no more than four wives
Women had the right to freely enter into marriage,
and right to divorce –under some circumstances
– Adultery was forbidden to both men and women
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The Role of Women
– After the spread of Islam, older customs eroded
the rights enjoyed by early Muslim women
• Some secluded in their homes
• Kept from social contact with males outside
their own families
• Had to cover virtually all parts of their bodies
when appearing in public
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Law
• law and religion cannot be separated in
Islamic society
• shari’ah – code of law containing Islamic
moral rules
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Five Pillars of Islam
• 5 essential duties of all Muslims
• 1st – Belief or Shahaodatayn
– believing there is on deity but the One God, and
Muhummad is his messenger
– Abraham, Moses and Jesus considered prophets
• 2nd – Prayer or Slaah
– fives times daily while facing Makkah
– an imam is the prayer leader
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Five Pillars of Islam
• 3rd – Charity or Zakaah
– giving alms or to the poor
• 4th – Fasting or Siyaam
– occurs during the month of Ramadan
– fast from sunrise to sunset
• 5th pilgrimage or Haji to Makkah
– making a pilgrimage to Makkah once in a lifetime
– 3 days of ceremony, prayer and sacrifice
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The Rightly Guided Caliphs
• 1st four caliphs elected for life
• 1st caliph was Abu Bakr, Muhammad’s
father-in-law – Muhammad did not have any
sons
• the last was this son-in-law Ali, who married
Fatimah
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The Arab Empire and Its Successors
• Creation of an Arab Empire
– Abu Bakr named caliph, successor to
Muhammad
– Quran permitted fair, defensive warfare as
jihad or “struggle in the way of God”
– Muhammad’s successors expanded the
territory
– Arab soldiers believed that they were
assured a place in Paradise if they died in
battle
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The Arab Empire and Its Successors
• Creation of an Arab Empire
– No clear successors to Abu Bakr – next
two caliphs were assassinated
– 656 Ali became caliph – assassinated after
5 yrs
– Conquered people not forced to convert to
Islam – required to be loyal to Muslim rule
and to pay taxes
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The Umayyads
• 661 Gen. Mu’awiyah, Ali’s rival became caliph
– Made the office of caliph (caliphate)
hereditary - establishing the Umayyad
dynasty
– Moved the capital from Madinah to
Damascus
– The spread of Islam into Europe was
halted by Charles Martel’s victory in
France
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Division Within Islam
• A.D. 661 Ali was killed by a disillusioned
follower
• Ali’s eldest son refused the caliphate
• Mu’awiyah became the 1st caliph of the
Umayyad dynasty
• Shiite – followers of Ali never accepted
Mu’awiyah’s rule
– they claimed the caliphate for Ali’s son Husayn
– Umayyad troops massacred Husayn and his men,
cut off his head as a gift
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Division Within Islam
• murders of Ali and Husayn led to a
permanent schism in the Islamic world
– the Sunni – majority in the Muslim world
– the Shiite – majority in Iraq and Iran
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Abbasids – 750 - 1258
• Abu al-Abbas, descendant of Muhammad’s
uncle
– Overthrew the Umayyad dynasty
– Established the Abbasid dynasty
• the Abbasids built a new city Baghdad on the
Tigris River
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Abbasids – 750 - 1258
• Harun al-Rashid
– Best known caliph
– Reign described as the golden age of Abbasid
rule
• Baghdad became the center of enormous
trade
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Decline and Division
• Harun al-Rashid died – two sons fought to succeed
him, almost destroying Baghdad
• Rulers of the provinces began to break away from
the central authority and establish independent
dynasties
• New dynasty under the Fatimids established in
Egypt
• Fatimid dynasty in Egypt became the dynamic center
of Islamic civilization
• By 973 the Muslim empire was politically divided
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The Seljuk Turks
• Nomadic people from central Asia
• Converted to Islam, soldiers for the Abbasid
caliphate
• 11th century they took over the eastern
provinces of the Abbasid Empire
• 1055, Turkish leader captured Baghdad and
took command of the empire
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The Seljuk Turks
• His title was sultan or “holder of power”
• Turks held the real military and political
power
• Abbasid caliph remained the chief religious
authority
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The Crusades
• Byzantine emperor Alexius I
– asked the Christian states of Europe for help
against the Turks
– a series of crusades began in 1096
• 1169 Saladin made himself sultan, ending the
Fatimid dynasty
– 1187 invaded Jerusalem and destroyed the
Christian forces there
– Did not allow a massacre of the population
– Allowed the Christian religious services to
continue
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The Crusades
• Crusades had little lasting impact on Southwest Asia
• except to breed centuries of mistrust between
Muslims and Christians
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The Mongols
• pastoral people who swept out of the Gobi in
13th century to seize control over much of
the known world
• destructive in their conquest
– burned cities to the ground
– destroyed dams
– reduced farming villages to point of mass
starvation
– goal was to create such terror that people
would not fight back
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The Mongols
• led by Genghis Khan in North China
• Hulegu (brother of Kublai Khan)
– Seized Persia and Mesopotamia
– ended the Abbasid caliphate at Baghdad
• attempt to seize Egypt failed
– in part because of resistance from the
Mamluks
– Mamluks were Turkish slave-soldiers who
overthrew the administration set up by
Saladin and seized power for themselves
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The Mongols
• Mongol rulers converted to Islam and began
to intermarry locals
• New Islamic center became Cairo, in Egypt
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Islamic Achievements
• Abbasid caliph Ma’mum
– founded the House of Wisdom in Baghdad as a
center of research
• Mathematics
– Gupta mathematicians in India devised the Arabic
numerals and the concept of zero
• Chemistry and Medicine
– al-Razi classified chemical substances as animal,
mineral or vegetable – system still used today
– Ibn Sina wrote the Canon of Medicine – book of
medical knowledge
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Art and Architecture
• calligraphy – script written in Arabic
• arabesques were geometric designs used in
decoration
• No representation of the prophet Muhammad
adorns a mosque, in painting or in any other
art form
– Quran does not forbid representational painting
– The Hadith, an early collection of the prophet’s
sayings, warns against any attempt to imitate God
by creating pictures of living beings
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Literature
• Cordoba was a Umayyad center with over 70
libraries
• Omar Khayyam
– wrote the Rubaiyat – best known work of the
period
• The 1001 Nights (The Arabian Nights) was
another
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Philosophy and History
• Moses Maimonides – great Jewish
philosopher who wrote in Egypt;
– Tried to reconcile his faith with the teachings of
Aristotle
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