Download Unit 2 Vocabulary #2

Unit 2 Vocabulary #2
AP World History
1. Mamluks - Turkic military slaves who formed part of the army of
the Abbasid Caliphate in the ninth and tenth centuries; they founded
their own state in Egypt and Syria from the thirteenth to early
sixteenth centuries
2. Medieval - Pertaining to the middle ages of European history
3. Mexica - The name given to themselves by the Aztec people
4. Middle Ages - The period of European history traditionally given
as 500-1500
5. Minaret - A tower attached to a mosque from which Muslims are
called to worship
6. Mississippians - Were a Chalcolithic (copper age) mound-building
Native American culture that flourished in the Midwestern, Eastern,
and Southeastern United States from approximately 800 to 1500
A.D., varying regionally.
7. Mita - A labor system used by Andean societies in which
community members shared work owed to rulers and the religious
community
8. Moldboard Plow - A form of plow consisting of a plowshare
(blade) and hitch attached to livestock. It turns the soil in one run
across the field, depositing the weeds and remains of the previous
crop under the soil and raising the rain-percolated nutrients back to
the surface. This plow also allowed for plowing while the ground was
wet.
9. Mound-builders - In North American archaeology, name given to
those people who built mounds in a large area from the Great Lakes
to the Gulf of Mexico and from the Mississippi River to the
Appalachian Mts. The greatest concentrations of mounds are found
in the Mississippi and Ohio valleys.
10. Neo-Confucianism - A philosophy that blended Confucianism
with Buddhism and Daoism
11. Parallel Descent - In Incan society, descent through both the
mother and father
12. Parliament - A representative assembly
13. People of the Book - A term applied by Islamic governments to
Muslims, Christians, and Jews in reference to the fact that all three
religions had a holy book
14. Quechua - Andean society also known as the Inca
15. Quipus - A system of knotted cords of different sizes and colors
used by the Incas for keeping records
16. Quran - The holy book of Islam
Unit 2 Vocabulary #2
AP World History
17. Ramadan - The holy month of Islam which commemorates the
appearance of the angel Gabriel to Muhammad; fasting is required
during this month
18. Scholar-gentry - The Chinese class of well educated men from
whom many of the bureaucrats were chosen
19. Seppuku - The Japanese formal language term for ritual suicide.
Hara-kiri is the common language term. Hara-kiri, which literally
means "stomach cutting", is a particularly painful method of selfdestruction. Only the samurai class was allowed to commit seppuku.
20. Serf - A peasant who is bound to the land he or she works
21. Shariah - The body of law that governs Muslim society
22. Shinto - The traditional Japanese religion based on veneration of
ancestors and spirits of nature
23. Shi’ite - The branch of Islam that holds that the leader of Islam
must be a descendant of Muhammad’s family.
24. Shogun - Japanese military leaders under the bakufu
25. Shogunate - The rule of the shoguns in Japan
26. Sufis - Muslims who attempt to reach Allah through mysticism
27. Sultan - An Islamic ruler
28. Sunni - The branch of Islam that believes that the Muslim
community should select its leaders; the Sunnis are the largest
branch of Islam
29. Tea Ceremony - An ancient Shinto ritual still performed in the
traditional Japanese capital of Kyoto
30. Tribute - The payment of a tax in the form of goods and labor by
subject peoples
31. Toltecs - Ancient civilization of Mexico. The name in Nahuatl
means "master builders." The Toltec formed a warrior aristocracy
that gained ascendancy in the Valley of Mexico c. AD 900 after the
fall of Teotihuacán.
32. Umma - The community of all Muslims believers
33. Vassal - In medieval Europe, a person who pledged military or
other service to a lord in exchange for a gift of land or other privilege
34. Zakat - Religious tax, one of the five basic requirements (arkan
or "pillars") of Islam. All adult Muslims of sound mind and body with
a set level of income and assets are expected to pay zakat.
* Spelling counts to some extent for each word.