Download Chapter 7 - Course Notes

Chapters 7
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Arabs: Semitic-speaking people of southwest Asia
 The region was inhabited by Bedouin Arabs and the ruling
members were called sheikh and members were selected from a
council of members called the majlis
 Ka’aba in Mecca: black meteorite and is the most sacred site of
Islamic faith
Muhammad: born to a merchant family in Mecca, orphaned by six
 Married a rich widow, Khadija and meditated in the hills
 Fled to Medina “city of the Prophet
o When he fled, marks the first day of the Islamic calendar:
Hegria
Qu’ran (“recitation”), the holy scripture of Islam: guidelines by which
followers of Allah were to live.
 Muslims are practitioners of Islam and “people of the book”
 Muslims community known as umma
Islam: monotheistic and Allah is god
 Muhammad is a prophet and a man
 Five Pillars of Islam: shahada (declaration of faith), salah
(prayer), zalah (charity), saum (fasting during Ramadan), and Hajj
(pilgrimage to Mecca)
 Shari’a was the law and drawn from existing legal regulations
(Hadith: collection of sayings of the Prophet)
After Muhammad’s death, Abu Bakr becomes caliph (successor) and
considered religious leader (imam)
Jihad: religious struggle, war
Shi’ites and Sunni: schism that broke Islam into two groups
 Shi’ites hold Muhammad’s son-in-law Ali was the rightful heir to the
empire
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Sunnis don not believe that Ali and his hereditary line are the
chosen successors
o Rather that leaders of the empire should be drawn from a
broad base of people
Abbasids built a new capital city in Baghdad
 Paper was introduced from China, Crops from India and Southeast
Asia such as rice, sorghum, cotton, glass, wine, indigo dye
Seljuk Turks changed the title of a ruler to Sultan “holder of power”
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Islamic culture: Greek works were translated and placed in “house of
wisdom” in Baghdad,
 math and linguistics text from India, paper from China
 algebra and observatory
Sufism: revision of Islam. One’s own personal relation with Allah
During the Byzantine Empire under the Reign of Justinian: Theodra
(prostitute) played a crucial role with Justinian
 Belisarius (general) restored the imperial Mediterranean world
 Codification of Law was divided into parts body of civil law,
corpus, digest, institutes and novels
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The codification until 1453 was the basis of imperial law in
Byzantine Empire
 Building projects: hippodrome, palace complex, Hagia Sophia
 Iconoclasm: religious movement against the use of icons and
important in the emergence of Protestant Reformation.
o Church outlawed use of icons; bishop and emperor
excommunicated themselves (1054)
Crusade: Byzantine people ask help from Roman Catholic.
 Constantinople fall
Women in Islam: Men are appointed guardians over women.
 The Qu’ran says to treat women equally
Rapid expansion of the Arabs:
 channeling of the energy of the new converts to Islam, an ongoing
conflict between the Persians and Byzantines made the expansion easier,
a prolonged drought on the Arab peninsula, and an attempt on the part of
the ruling elite in Mecca to expand the trade routes.
All of the following contributed to the disintegration of the Muslim Empire under
the Abbasids
 Lack of spiritual authority that weakened the caliphate in competition with
its rivals, the increase in wealth from trade also brought financial
corruption, disputes over succession created internal destruction, many
non-Arab peoples were recruited into the military
 The term al-Andulas relates to what center of Islamic civilization?
 Spain
Trade goods with the area from which those goods originated.
 Spain - leather goods, olives and wine, East Africa - gold and ivory, China - silk and
porcelain, South Asia - cotton and wheat
Who wrote a medical encyclopedia that became a basic European textbook?
 Ibn Sina
What battle did the Byzantine Empire lose Syria and Palestine to the Muslims in
636?
 Yarmuk
 The Byzantine Empire:
 Christian state, heir to Roman empire, Greek states, major influence on
Russia
Under the Macedonian dynasty, the Byzantine Empire regained much of its
former territory and was capably administered through a strong civil service.
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The Macedonians provided solid leadership for the empire
The Abbasids allowed non-Arab Muslims to hold civilian offices.
Chapter 8
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Early African religious belief varied from place to place
 Pantheism: belief in single creator god from whom all things came
 Lineage group: belief in an afterlife was closely connected to the
importance of ancestors to the clan
o These ancestral souls would no be extinguished as long as the
lineage group continued to perform rituals and these rituals
would benefit the people as the ancestor had the power to
influence their lives
The Berber people where nomadic people who lived in the mountains. The
Arabs of North Africa were people who settled and had a strong faith in
Islam.
 Arabs bond with North Africa (Maghrep “the west”) – Morocco,
Algeria, Tunisia, Libya = BEBER
Ghana = gold trade, Iron Age farmers
 Controlled gold trade with West Africa and were “peaceful”
Mali = gold trade
 Warlike, conquered small community. They were worry-free about
Arabs for they had money $$$ (gold, salt, etc.)
 Mansa Musa: pilgrimage to Mecca, carried gold with him
Stateless societies: no set boundaries, no laws, no structure
VICTIM HISTORY: history of people who are abused
Bantu Migration: help to make easier to spread language, knowledge,
goods
Chapter 9
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The Khyber Pass was a section of the Silk Road that passed through the
mountains northwest of India.
 It was between Asia and Europe, everyone who went on the Silk
Road went through the Khyber Pass.
o Silk road to Indus River (current Afghanistan)
o Buddhist trades used the Silk Road as away to Spread
Buddhism by Buddhist writings (ideas of the printing press)
Theravada considered Buddhism, a way of life, not a Salvationist creed.
Mahayana promoted the view that Nirvana could be achieved through
devotion and not just through painstaking attention to one’s behavior.
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Mahayana spilt because they felt Theravada teachings were too
demanding or too strict for ordinary people to follow and therefore
favored the wealthy.
 Mahayana was popular in northern India.
 Theravada was popular in Lanka and across the Bay of Bengal in
Southeast Asia.
Buddhism ran counter to traditional Hindu belief.
 Because it rejected class structure, it appealed to many of the
groups who lacked acceptance.
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It undermined the strong social bonds of the Indian caste system.
Also the transformation of Brahmanism into a revised faith known
as Hinduism.
The Delhi sultanate (new form of Muslim Power) failed to take advantage
of the disarray of its rivals as they posed a threat by the Mongols.
Tamerlane was the ruler of a Mongol khanate based in Samarkand to the
north of the Pamir Mountains.
 He was able to bring the entire region east of the Caspian Sea
under this authority, conquering Baghdad, Mesopotamia, northern
India, ad as far as Bosporus.
Southeast Asia was never unified as the civilizations where separated by
dense forest and between China and India
 Important mainland state: Kingdom of Angkor (Stone, walled city)
 People known as Khmer and the Angkor Wat is the temple
 The Mongols caused them to fall
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India influenced the early Southeast Asian societies as kings were
believed to possess special godlike qualities like the Dravidian kingdoms
of southern India.
 They had a Brahmin class as well as a social class system as the
Indians did.
 India supplied them with writing system and a form of
entertainment called wayang kulit (shadow play)
Women in Southeast Asian cultures women worked along side men, they
had a high literacy rate than men, and women could work as bodyguards.
The most common religious backgrounds in Southeast Asia were Hindu
and Buddhist ideas
 they provided an enhancing the prestige and power of the wealth
during the first millennium
Animism = spirit worship
 Spirits lived in mountains, rivers, streams and these geographical
features were considered sacred
Syncretism = blending/integration of religious systems
 What brought wealth to the Kushan kingdom?
 Trade along the Silk Road
 Who was the greatest of the Kushan rulers?
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Kanishka
The giant Buddha statues in Afghanistan, recently destroyed by the
Taliban, were located at the former Buddhist center at Bamiyan
 Who founded the Gupta dynasty?
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Chandragupta