1. OVERVIEW OF CHAPTERS 6-7-8: ISLAM IN THE POSTCLASSICAL PERIOD
Dr. Afxendiou
AP World History – Sachem North High School

2. THE ISLAMIC WORLD – Dar al-Islam
Islam “submission”
2nd largest number of supporters in the world today
Started in Arabian Peninsula among the Bedouins
Bedouins – nomads who controlled trade routes across the desert.
Trade towns linked long caravan routes – Mecca and Medina
Mecca also a religious destination due to Ka’aba – contained the black stone

3. THE ISLAMIC WORLD – Dar al-Islam
Founding of Islam
In Mecca by Muhammad
Muhammad – trader (married to Khadija – wealthy widow). Began to meditate in mountains outside Mecca. Angel Gabriel revealed himself to him.
Believed himself to be the last of the prophets of the one true god.
Started spreading the new religion
Muslims – his followers – people who have submitted to the will of Allah

4. THE ISLAMIC WORLD – Dar al-Islam
Founding of Islam
Muhammad’s preaching of monotheism was a threat to the social and economic order – threatened pilgrimage business to Ka’aba
622 hijra (hegira) flight to Yathrib which he renamed Medina – marks the beginning of the Islamic calendar
Many converts to Islam – created the community of believers – the Umma
Became a political and military leader – 630 captures Mecca, destroys idols around Ka’aba and declares it a holy structure of Allah and the Black stone claimed to be the foundation placed by Abraham in establishing Judaism.

5. THE ISLAMIC WORLD – Dar al-Islam
Islamic Beliefs and Practices
The Five Pillars
Most important source of religious authority the Qur’an – the actual words of Allah
The Sunna – Muhammad’s life, the best model for proper living
Shar’ia – body of law based on Qur’an and Sunna, regulated family life, moral conduct, business and community life.
All people equal before god

6. THE ISLAMIC WORLD – Dar al-Islam
The Spread of Islam
632 Muhammad dies – Islam spread over most of Arabian Peninsula
Caliphate – government set up to rule Muslims after Muhammad – theocratic empire
Caliph – successor, leader of caliphate and all Muslims – chosen by the leaders of the umma
Abu-Bakr-first caliph. Close friend of Muhammad. Followed by 3 other caliphs who also knew Muhammad. These four were known as the “rightly guided” caliphs.

7. THE ISLAMIC WORLD – Dar al-Islam
The Spread of Islam
Rapid expansion – within 300 years the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia fell to armies of Islam
Spread helped by
weakness of Empires of the time – the Persian and Byzantine Empires
Well-disciplined, well-organized armies
Exclusion of Muslims from taxation – conversion of conquered people in order to avoid taxation

8. THE ISLAMIC WORLD – Dar al-Islam
Empire grows as religion splits
Sunni-Shi’a split – who should succeed Muhammad
Shi’a-only family members of Muhammad, descendants of Ali should be caliphs
Sunni-any member of umma
Each of the 4 early caliphs was murdered by rivals. Death of Ali triggered a civil war when Umayyad family rose to power (enemies of Muhammad in Mecca)

9. THE ISLAMIC WORLD – Dar al-Islam
The Golden Age
Institutions of higher learning – Cairo, Baghdad, Cordoba
Muhammad al-Razi-encyclopedia
Preserved learning of ancient Greeks, Romans and Persians – translated writings of Plato and Aristotle into Arabic
Language-Umayyads:Arabic; Abbasids: Persian
Al-Andalus-Islamic Spain-flowering of culture in otherwise backwards Europe
Religion-respect for other religions “dimmis” people of the book; sufis-Islamic mystics

10. THE ISLAMIC WORLD – Dar al-Islam
Arts, Sciences and Technologies
Art
calligraphy, designs-arabesque
Architecture-minarets, mosques
Literature-Poetic works, A Thousand and One Nights
Science
Use of logic – from ancient Greeks
Mathematics from India
algebra
Navigation
Astronomy
Medicine
Surgery
hospitals

11. THE ISLAMIC WORLD – Dar al-Islam
Position of Women
Before Islam in some areas of the areas to become Islamic
Women viewed as property
Man kept dowry after divorce
Female infanticide
After Islam
Positive elements:
Qur’an changed negative treatment of women in pre-Islamic societies
Treated them with more dignity
Equal before Allah
Dowry returned to wife after divorce
Infanticide forbidden
Gained power within the home
In early stages they had power outside home (Khadijah- Muhammad’s boss)

12. THE ISLAMIC WORLD – Dar al-Islam
Women in Islam
Negative Elements
Up to 4 wives if a man could afford to support them
patrilineal inheritance
Testimony of woman in court half the weight of man
Veiled in Persia/Mesopotamia later in entire empire
Over time empire become even more patriarchal

13. THE ISLAMIC WORLD – Dar al-Islam
Political structures
Umayyad caliphate – Sunnis
Capital in Damascus
Theocratic rulers
Abbasid caliphate
Shi’ites rebelled, overthrew Umayyads and installed Abbasid rulers
Initially had Shi’a support but had to bring them under control eventually
Capital moved to Baghdad
Problems with succession
Empire too large to govern
High taxes made them unpopular

14. THE ISLAMIC WORLD – Dar al-Islam
Political Structures
Fall of the Abbasids
Local kingdoms gained power
Sultans – Persian leaders took control of Baghdad in 945
Seljuk Turks take Baghdad and manipulate caliphs
1258 Mongols destroy Baghdad

15. THE ISLAMIC WORLD – Dar al-Islam
Islam in Africa
The spread of Islam in Africa linked its regions to the outside world through trade, religion, and politics.
State building in Africa was influenced both by indigenous and Islamic inspiration.
Christianity and Islam sometimes influenced political and cultural development.

16. THE ISLAMIC WORLD – Dar al-Islam
Arrival of Islam in North Africa
Mid 7th century, Muslim armies pushed westward from Egypt across North Africa. (By 711 they crossed into Spain.)
Conversion in conquered areas was rapid, but initial unity soon divided North Africa into competing Muslim states.
The indigenous Berbers were an integral part of the process.
11th century, reforming Muslim Berbers, the Almoravids of the western Sahara, controlled lands extending from the southern savanna and into Spain.
12th century, the Almohadis, succeeded them.
Islam, with its principle of the equality of believers, won African followers because the unity of the political and religious worlds appealed to many rulers.

17. THE ISLAMIC WORLD – Dar al-Islam
Arrival of Islam in sub-Saharan Africa
Islam spread peacefully into sub-Saharan Africa.
Merchants followed caravan routes across the Sahara to the regions where Sudanic states, such as Ghana, had flourished by the eighth century. By the thirteenth century, new states, Mali, Songhay, and the Hausa, were becoming important.
Even though most of their population did not convert, the arrival of Islam after the tenth century reinforced ruling power. Two of the most important states were Mali and Songhay.

18. THE ISLAMIC WORLD – Dar al-Islam
Arrival of Islam in sub-Saharan Africa - Mali
Mali, along the Senegal and Niger Rivers, was formed among the Malinke peoples, who broke away from Ghana in the thirteenth century.
Ruler authority was strengthened by Islam.
Agriculture, combined with the gold trade, was the economic base of the state.
The ruler (mansa) Sundiata receives credit for Malinke expansion and for a governing system based on clan structure.
Mansa Kankan Musa’s pilgrimage to Mecca during the fourteenth century became legendary because of the wealth distributed along the way. He returned with an architect, Ishak al-Sahili, who created a distinctive Sudanic architecture using beaten clay.

19. THE ISLAMIC WORLD – Dar al-Islam
Arrival of Islam in sub-Saharan Africa - Songhay
The Songhay people dominated the middle reaches of the Niger valley.
Songhay became an independent state in the seventh century.
By 1010, the rulers were Muslims and had a capital at Gao.
An empire was formed under Sunni Ali ( ), a great military leader, who extended rule over the entire middle Niger valley. He developed a system of provincial administration to secure the conquests.
Sunni Ali’s successors were Muslim rulers with the title of askia.
Daily life followed patterns common in savanna states; Islamic and indigenous traditions combined.
Men and women mixed freely; women went unveiled and young girls at Jenne were naked.
Songhay remained dominant until defeated by Moroccans in 1591.

20. THE ISLAMIC WORLD – Dar al-Islam
Arrival of Islam in sub-Saharan Africa
Other states that combined Muslim and pagan ways rose among the Hausa of northern Nigeria.
14th century, the first Muslim ruler of Kano made the Hausa city a center of Muslim learning. Along with other Hausa cities, Kano followed the Islamic-indigenous amalgam present in the earlier grasslands empires.
Traders and other Muslims widely spread influences, even in regions without Islamic states.

21. THE ISLAMIC WORLD – Dar al-Islam
Effects of Islam in sub-Saharan Africa
SOCIAL
Islam provided a universal faith
existing traditions continued to be vital, since many of their subjects were not Muslims.
The fusion of traditions shows in the status of women.
Many Sudanic societies were matrilineal and did not seclude women. Slavery and a slave trade to the Islamic world lasting more than 700 years had a major effect on women and children. All individuals might become slaves, but the demand for concubines and eunuchs increased demand for women and children.
POLITICAL
provided a fixed law that served common interests.
Rulers reinforced authority through Muslim officials and ideology

22. THE ISLAMIC WORLD – Dar al-Islam
Arrival of Islam in East Africa
The Swahili Coast of East Africa - A series of trading ports, part of the Indian Ocean network, developed along the coast and islands between the Horn of Africa and Mozambique.
Town residents were influenced by Islam, but most of the general population remained tied to traditional ways.
With the rise of Islam, individuals from Oman and the Persian Gulf settled in coastal villages.
By the 13th century, a mixed Bantu and Islamic culture, speaking the Bantu Swahili language, emerged in a string of urbanized trading ports.
They exported raw materials in return for Indian, Islamic, and Chinese luxuries. As many as 30 towns flourished, their number including Mogadishu, Mombasa, Malindi, Kilwa, Pate, and Zanzibar. From the 13th to the 15th century, Kilwa was the most important. All were tied together by coastal commerce and by an inland caravan trade.

23. THE ISLAMIC WORLD – Dar al-Islam
Effects of Islam in East Africa
expansion of Islamic influence in the Indian Ocean facilitated commerce.
It built a common bond between rulers and trading families and allowed them to operate under the cover of a common culture.
Most of the population, even in the towns, retained African beliefs.
A dynamic culture developed, using Swahili as its language, and incorporating African and Islamic practices.
Lineage passed through both maternal and paternal lines.
There was not a significant penetration of Islam into the interior.

24. THE ISLAMIC WORLD – Dar al-Islam
The spread of Islam brought large areas of Africa into the global community.
The most pronounced contacts south of the Sahara were in the Sudanic states and East Africa where a fusion of Islamic and African cultures created an important synthesis.
Most of Africa evolved in regions free of Islamic contact.