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Islam
Islam – a monotheistic religion founded in the 7th century by the prophet
Muhammad; followers are called Muslims
Muhammad – an illiterate merchant who Muslims believe became the
final prophet – after the Judaic and Christian prophets such as Abraham,
Moses and Jesus – after hearing the voice of the angel Gabriel
Allah – the Arabic word for the one true God (which Muslims hold is the
same God recognized by Jews and Christians)
Quran – Islam’s holy book, which is said to reveal Allah’s words to
Muhammad
mosque – a Muslim house of worship
Kaaba – the temple in Mecca where Muhammad returned to and
destroyed its many idols, rededicating it to Allah; Muhammad believed
Abraham had originally built the Kaaba to worship the one true God
Five Pillars of Islam – the basic duties observant Muslims must
perform: 1) declaration of faith; 2) daily prayer; 3) alms for the poor; 4) fast
during Ramadan; 5) hajj, or pilgrimage to Mecca.
jihad – a personal struggle for Muslims to overcome immorality … or a
holy war to defend Islam against its enemies
Q&A
Q: Who were considered “people of the book” by Muslims, and how were
they treated?
A: Jews and Christians are considered “people of the book” because the
Quran teaches that Islam is God’s final and complete revelation, while
Hebrew scriptures and the Christian Bible contain portions of earlier
revelations. Muslims believe that God had sent other prophets, including
Abraham, Moses and Jesus, but that Muhammad was the last and greatest
prophet. Because of these similarities, Jews and Christians were considered
superior to polytheistic idol worshippers and often had religious freedom in
Muslim lands, but were required to pay a tax.
Q: What is the Sharia, and why is it important?
A: The Sharia is the body of law that regulates such things as moral
conduct, family life, business practices and government. It does not
separate religion from criminal or civil law and serves to unify Muslims
under a common legal framework. It consists of interpretation of the
Quran, examples from Muhammad’s life, and Muslim traditions.
Q: What were Sufis?
A: They were Muslim mystics who sought communion with God through
meditation, fasting and other rituals. They were well respected and thus
helped spread the appeal of Islam, like monks and nuns in the Christian
world.
Q: How did Islam affect women?
A: Islam treated Muslim women as spiritually equal to men in the eyes of
God, but with different roles and rights. It prohibited killing daughters,
gave women some legal rights, encouraged education for girls and required
women to dress modestly. As Islam spread, Muslims sometimes adopted
the cultural practices of conquered peoples. Veiling upper-class women and
secluding them in a separate part of the home came into practice, for
example, when Islam spread to Persia.
Q: Explain the split between Sunni and Shiite Muslims.
A: Shiites believe that caliphs should be descendants of Ali, Muhammad’s
son-in-law, and Fatima, his daughter. Sunnis believe that any good Muslim
could lead the community as caliph. Today, about 90% of the world’s
Muslims are Sunni. Many Shiite Muslims live in Iran.
Q: What explains the success of Muslim conquests and the rise of the
Umayyad caliphate?
A: 1) the Arabs’ effective, mobile armies, which included camel and horse
cavalries 2) the weakness of surrounding empires, including Byzantium
and Persia 3) the Arab creation of an orderly system of administration,
which provided for the fair treatment of conquered peoples and prohibited
the looting and destruction of conquered lands so as to ensure continued
wealth and prosperity
Q: What happened when the Umayyad caliphate gave way to the
Abbasids in 750?
A: The Abbasids ended large military conquests and began allowing nonArabs to hold important government posts. They also moved the capital
from Damascus to Baghdad, which led to Persian influences to be adopted
by the caliphate. Baghdad became a huge cosmopolitan city, home to a
thriving marketplace and center of learning.
Muslim Civilization’s “Golden Age”
Beginning under the Abbasid caliphate and continuing through much
of the Middle Ages, Muslim civilization absorbed the cultural traditions
from many lands under the dar al-Islam, or “house of Islam,” and the
societies with which it dealt. This was generally a flourishing time of
economic prosperity marked by numerous social, cultural and scientific
advancements. Its features and characteristics included the following:
 It influenced – and was influenced by – the interconnections of
Arabs, Persians, Egyptians, Africans, Europeans, Mongols, Turks,
Indians and Southeast Asians.
 Between 750 and 1350, merchants – who held an honored status in
Muslim lands in part because Muhammad himself was a merchant –
built a vast trading network linking: East Asia with Europe across the
Silk Road … East Africa with India and Southeast Asia via ships riding
the monsoon winds of the Indian Ocean … the Mediterranean with
West Africa via camel caravans across the Sahara Desert.
 This largely Muslim-facilitated network of trade helped spread many
things other than economic goods: 1) the Indian number system to
the Western world, where they were labeled with the misnomer
“Arabic numerals;” 2) papermaking technology to the West from its
origins in China; 3) agricultural crops (such as sugar and cotton) and
farming techniques (such as the qanat system of underground
irrigation channels) from their native lands to new lands, generally in
an east-to-west flow – something that has been labeled the Muslim
Agricultural Revolution; 4) new business practices, such as branch
banks in major cities and the use of sakks, the ancestors of today’s
bank checks.
 A thriving market for manufactured goods developed. Steel swords
from Damascus, leather goods from Cordoba, cotton textiles from
Egypt and carpets from Persia were highly valued, as were glassware,
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furniture and tapestries (woven fabrics featuring artistic designs for
use as wall hangings or furniture coverings).
Social mobility – the ability of people to move up in social class – was
greater in Muslim lands than many other places, including medieval
Christian Europe. And while the Muslim slave trade was very active,
Islamic law encouraged the freeing of slaves as an act of charity.
Muslim literature reflected numerous traditions and included Omar
Khayyam’s The Rubaiyat, which pondered the fleeting nature of life,
and The Thousand and One Nights, tales that would eventually reach
European readers as “Aladdin” and “Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves.”
Because Islam prohibited the depiction of humans or animals,
Muslim art took on a distinctive arabesque style characterized by
floral and geometric shapes, and artists perfected the skills of
calligraphy, the art of beautiful handwriting.
Major Muslim cities – beginning first and foremost with Baghdad but
also including Cordoba, Cairo and Timbuktu – were known as centers
of learning, where advances were made in philosophy, mathematics,
medicine and astronomy. Muslim scholars played a crucial role in
preserving ancient Greek classics, such as the works of Aristotle, and
later passing them on to Europeans, who had largely lost touch with
these ideas through much of the Middle Ages.
Muslim astronomers added information to make more accurate an
ancient Greek invention, the astrolabe, which is a device used to show
how the sky looks at a specific place and time. This was a key aid to
navigation.
The astrolabe
 Building on the knowledge of the ancient Greeks, Muslims made
remarkable advances in medicine and public health. Eventually,
European physicians began attending Muslim universities in Spain,
studying the Latin translations of Arabic medical texts, which became
standard in many parts of the world for 500 years. Muslim surgeons
also developed a way to treat cataracts by drawing fluid out of the
lenses with a hollow needle. This method was used to save patients’
eyesight for centuries.
 Algebra comes from the Arabic word al-jabr, and its pioneer was the
Muslim mathematician al-Khwarizmi.
Muslims in India
Muslims first conquered the Indus Valley (in the northwest territory
of the Indian subcontinent, which is modern-day Pakistan) in 711, but it
wasn’t until the late 1100s that the sultan, or Muslim ruler, of Ghur (a
province of Afghanistan) defeated Hindu armies across the northern plain
and made Delhi his capital. This established the Delhi sultanate, which
lasted from 1206 to 1526.
Question: Why were Muslim invaders able to triumph across northern
India?
Answer: They had mobile fighting forces on horseback, which was a big
advantage over the slow-moving war elephants in India. Hindu princes also
were divided by their differences, unable to put up a united defense against
the invaders. A third reason was that large numbers of Hindus – especially
from the lower castes – converted to Islam.
Muslims changed India’s government and society by bringing in
many Turks, Persians and Arabs to serve as soldiers and officials. Others
fled Baghdad for India during the Mongol invasions of the 1200s (which
brought down the Abbasid dynasty in 1258), and this brought further Greek
and Persian influences to India, where Delhi was now a thriving cultural
center featuring Persian art and architecture. But the Ghaznavid Turks
were harsh foes of both Buddhism and Hinduism, destroyers of shrines,
temples and monasteries.
Things became further unsettled in 1398 when a central Asian Turk
named Tamerlane invaded India. Modeling himself after his hero, Genghis
Khan, he put together a short-lived empire that relied on taxes and tribute
from allied tribal leaders. Like Genghis Khan, he was a great military
conqueror ill-suited to administer a centralized imperial bureaucracy. The
Delhi Sultinate was therefore fragmented and weak during the 15th and
early 16th centuries.
Question: Why did Muslims and Hindus clash so violently?
Answer: Muslims were monotheistic and prohibited from worshipping
idols, whereas Hindus worshipped statues and carvings of many gods and
goddesses. Muslims also did not have a priestly class in society, but Hindus
honored Brahmins, or male priests. They also clashed on their diets:
Hindus believed cows to be sacred, but Muslims ate them (cows, that is …
not Hindus).
Question: Explain the movement that tried to smooth over the
differences between Muslims and Hindus.
Answer: Sikhism was a syncretic faith that sought to blend Islamic and
Hindu beliefs. Sikhs believed in the unity of God and the brotherhood of
man, but rejected the caste system and idol worship.
Question: Akbar the Great ruled India’s Mughal dynasty from 1556 to
1605. Explain why many historians consider him to be the greatest ruler
in Indian history.
Answer: The Mughal dynasty was the rule of Muslims in Hindu-dominant
India, and Akbar is remembered as a great ruler primarily because of his
tolerance toward Hindus. He took a Hindu wife and eliminated the tax on
non-Muslims, appointing some of them to high civil and military posts.
Akbar created a strong central government with paid officials, modernized
the army, encouraged trade, standardized weights and measures, and
introduced land reforms. For these reasons, the Mughal dynasty tripled in
size and wealth under his guidance.
Question: Describe the poignant legacy of Shah Jahan, Akbar’s
grandson.
Answer: Sha Jahan was the Mughal ruler who had the magnificent Taj
Mahal built as a tomb for his wife, Mumtaz, who died at age 39 after having
given birth to 14 children. Designed by a Persian architect and featuring
spectacular white domes and graceful minarets mirrored in clear blue
reflecting pools, the Taj Mahal stands as the greatest monument of the
Mughal era. Sha Jahan had plans to build a twin tomb in black marble for
himself, but his son imprisoned him for the final years of his life.