Download WHAP Teacher Copy The Rise of Islam and the Making of an Arab

The Rise of Islam and the Making of an Arab Empire
WHAP/Napp
Objective: To identify and explain the impact of
the rise of Islam on Southwest Asia
Do Now: List the Five Pillars of Islam
Cues:
Notes:
I. The Birth of Islam
A. Central region of the Arabian Peninsula has long been inhabited by
nomadic Arabs, known as Bedouinsfiercely independent
B. Arabialocated on trade routesgave rise to commercial cities
1. Meccasite of Kaaba, most significant shrine in Arabia, housed
representations of some 360 deities and destination of many pilgrims
2. Mecca’s dominant tribe, Quraysh, came to control access to Kaaba-grew
wealthy by taxing the local trade that accompanied the pilgrimage
C. Muhammad Ibn Abdullah (570-632 CE) was born in Mecca
1. Orphaned, adopted by uncle, widely traveled trader, eventually married
to a wealthy widow, Khadija, Muhammad changed world history
2. Deeply troubled by the religious corruption and social inequalities of
Meccaprayed and meditated in mountains outside city
3. Had an overwhelming religious experience that left him convinced that
he was Allah’s messenger to the Arabs
4. According to Muslim tradition, Muhammad’s revelations began in 610
and continued periodically over the next twenty-two years
5. The Quran (the holy book of Islam), attracted many followers
D. Muhammad’s Message
1. Radically monotheistic
2. Muhammad was the “Seal of the Prophets” or the final prophet in a long
line of prophets beginning with Abraham
3. Submission to Allah (“Muslim” means “one who submits to God”)
4. Quran demanded social justice and a return to older values of solidarity,
equality and concern for the poor
E. Five Pillars of the Faith
1. Absolute monotheism
2. Prayer, preferably five times a day facing Mecca
3. To give generously to maintain the community/help the needy (Charity)
4. A month of fasting from sunrise to sunset during the month of Ramadan
5. Pilgrimage to Mecca (Hajj)
6. Further requirement, sometimes called sixth pillar, “struggle” or jihad
a) Greater jihad” was personal effort against greed and selfishness
b) The “lesser jihad” was of the sword
F. Muhammad’s Flight
1. By 622, Muhammad and followers emigrated to the more welcoming
town of Yathrib, soon to be called Medina, the city of the Prophet
2. Known as hijra was a momentous turning point in the early history of
Islam and thereafter marked the beginning of a new Islamic calendar
Summaries:
Cues:
G.
1.
2.
3.
The Umma or Community
Membershipmatter of belief not birth, allowing it to expand rapidly
All authority, both political and religious, was concentrated in Muhammad
In Medina, Muhammad not only began to create a new society but also
declared Islam’s independence from its earlier affiliation with Judaism
a) When some Jewish groups allied with his enemies, Muhammad acted
harshly to suppress them, exiling some and enslaving or killing others
b) Not a general suppression of Jews, since others remained loyalBut
now Muslims redirected their prayer-from Jerusalem to Mecca
H. Rise of Empire
1. Early military successes against Muhammad’s Meccan opponents convinced
other Arab tribes that the Muslims and their God were on the rise
a) In 630, Mecca voluntarily surrendered and Muhammad purged the
Kaaba of its idols, declaring it a shrine to the one God, Allah
2. Muhammad was not only a religious figure, but a political and military
leader able to implement his vision of an ideal Islamic society
3. One law, known as the sharia, regulated every aspect of life
a) The sharia (literally, a path to water, which is the source of life) evolved
over the several centuries following the birth of Islam
4. Within a few years of Muhammad’s death in 632, Arab armies engaged the
Byzantine and Persian Sassanid empires, the great powers of the region
5. An Islamic/Arab empire stretching from Spain to India and penetrating
both Europe and China while governing most lands between them emerged
I. Changes
1. Most enduring was the mass conversion of Middle Eastern peoples to Islam
2. Converts to Islam could avoid the jizya, a tax imposed on non-Muslims
3. But ideal of unified Muslim community, important to Muhammad, proved
difficult to realize as conquest and conversion enlarged Islamic umma
4. A central problem was leadership and authority in absence of Muhammad
5. First four caliphs (successors to Muhammad), known as the Rightly Guided
Caliphs (632-661)  close “companions of the Prophet”
a) But third and fourth caliphs, Uthman and Ali, were both assassinated
6. By 656, less than twenty-five years after the death of Muhammad, civil war
pitted Muslim against Muslim
a) On one side were the Sunni Muslims, who held that the caliphs were
rightful political and military leaders, selected by the Islamic community
b) On the other side was the Shia (an Arabic word meaning “party” or
“faction”) branch of Islam
1. Shia felt strongly that leadership in the Islamic world should derive
from the line of Ali and his son Husayn, blood relatives of Prophet
2. For Sunni Muslims, religious authority emerged from community,
particularly from the religious scholars known as the ulama
3. Shia Muslims invested their leaders or imams with a religious
authority that the caliphs lacked
4. Shia viewed Umayyad caliphs as illegitimate usurpers (661-750)
Summaries:
Questions:
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In what ways did the early history of Islam reflect its Arabian origins?
How does the core message of Islam compare with those of Judaism and
Christianity?
In what ways was the rise of Islam revolutionary, both in theory and in practice?
Why were Arabs able to construct such a huge empire so quickly?
What accounts for widespread conversion to Islam?
What's the difference between Sunni and Shia Islam?
1. Which of the following Arabic terms
refers to the “community of the
faithful”?
(A) Hijab
(B) Hajj
(C) Hadith
(D) Zakat
(E) Umma
2. Which religious schism stemmed
from disputes over legitimate
succession of leadership after the
death of its key or founding figure?
(A) Eastern Orthodox and Catholic
(B) Catholic and Protestant
(C) Mahayana and Theravada
(D) Sunni and Shia
(E) Mahayana and Zen
3. Upon whom did Muhammad depend
most directly for economic support?
(A) Local chieftains
(B) The urban poor
(C) His wife, Khadija
(D) Roman imperial administrators
(E) Byzantine merchants
4. Which best qualifies as the largest
durable tricontinental civilization?
(A) Roman
(B) Hellenistic
(C) Islamic
(D) Han
(E) Mongol
5. Pre-Islamic Arab society is best
characterized as
(A) Pastoral nomadic
(B) Sedentary agricultural
(C) Highly urbanized
(D) Maritime trade-based
(E) Hunter-gatherer
6. Which two Muslim cities retain the
greatest symbolic or religious
significance in Islam to this day?
I. Baghdad
II. Istanbul
III. Mecca
IV. Timbuktu
V. Medina
(A) I and II
(B) II and III
(C) II and IV
(D) III and V
(E) II and V
7. Which choice does NOT belong in a
list describing the status of Muslim
women in the early Islamic period?
(A) Male adultery was condemned in
the Koran.
(B) Female infanticide was forbidden.
(C) Females and males both were
allowed multiple spouses.
(D) Female inheritance rights were
strengthened.
(E) Divorce rights for women existed.
Excerpt from time.com
For his day, the Prophet Muhammad was a feminist. The doctrine he laid out as the
revealed word of God considerably improved the status of women in 7th century Arabia. In
local pagan society, it was the custom to bury alive unwanted female newborns; Islam
prohibited the practice. Women had been treated as possessions of their husbands; Islamic
law made the education of girls a sacred duty and gave women the right to own and inherit
property. Muhammad even decreed that sexual satisfaction was a woman's entitlement. He
was a liberal at home as well as in the pulpit. The Prophet darned his own garments and
among his wives and concubines had a trader, a warrior, a leatherworker and an imam.
Of course, ancient advances do not mean that much to women 14 centuries later if reform
is, rather than a process, a historical blip subject to reversal. While it is impossible, given
their diversity, to paint one picture of women living under Islam today, it is clear that the
religion has been used in most Muslim countries not to liberate but to entrench inequality.
The Taliban, with its fanatical subjugation of the female sex, occupies an extreme, but it
nevertheless belongs on a continuum that includes, not so far down the line, Saudi Arabia,
Kuwait, Pakistan and the relatively moderate states of Egypt and Jordan. Where Muslims
have afforded women the greatest degree of equality--in Turkey--they have done so by
overthrowing Islamic precepts in favor of secular rule…
Part of the problem dates to Muhammad. Even as he proclaimed new rights for women,
he enshrined their inequality in immutable law, passed down as God's commandments and
eventually recorded in scripture. The Koran allots daughters half the inheritance of sons. It
decrees that a woman's testimony in court, at least in financial matters, is worth half that of
a man's. Under Shari'a, or Muslim law, compensation for the murder of a woman is half
the going rate for men. In many Muslim countries, these directives are incorporated into
contemporary law. For a woman to prove rape in Pakistan, for example, four adult males
of "impeccable" character must witness the penetration, in accordance with Shari'a.
Family law in Islamic countries generally follows the prescriptions of scripture. This is so
even in a country like Egypt, where much of the legal code has been secularized. In Islam,
women can have only one spouse, while men are permitted four. The legal age for girls to
marry tends to be very young. Muhammad's favorite wife, A'isha, according to her
biographer, was six when they wed, nine when the marriage was consummated. In Iran the
legal age for marriage is nine for girls, 14 for boys. The law has occasionally been exploited
by pedophiles, who marry poor young girls from the provinces, use and then abandon
them. In 2000 the Iranian Parliament voted to raise the minimum age for girls to 14, but
this year, a legislative oversight body dominated by traditional clerics vetoed the move. An
attempt by conservatives to abolish Yemen's legal minimum age of 15 for girls failed, but
local experts say it is rarely enforced anyway. (The onset of puberty is considered an
appropriate time for a marriage to be consummated.) Wives in Islamic societies face great
difficulty in suing for divorce, but husbands can be released from their vows virtually on
demand, in some places merely by saying "I divorce you" three times…
Thesis Statement: Comparative: Women in Western Christendom and the Islamic World
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