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PART

III
CHAPTER 8 The Rise of Islam, 600–1200
CHAPTER 9 Christian Societies Emerge in Europe, 600–1200
CHAPTER 10 Inner and East Asia, 600–1200
CHAPTER 11 Peoples and Civilizations of the Americas, 600–1500

Courtesy, Suleymaniye Library, Istanbul

Islamic World Map The oldest surviving world maps come from medieval Islamic culture.
This example, a fourteenth-century copy of a presumed tenth-century original, is unusual in
being oblong instead of round. South is at the top. The Mediterranean Sea is in blue in the lower
right quadrant, with the Nile River extending upward until it ends in two sets of smaller streams
at the Mountains of the Moon. Other bodies of water are green, except for the Encircling Sea that
surrounds the entire map. The yellow square is Mecca.

Visit the website and ebook for additional study materials and interactive
tools: www.cengage.com/history/bullietearthpeople5e
224

I
n 300 b.c.e., societies had only limited contacts beyond their frontiers.
By 1200 c.e., this situation had changed. Traders, migrating peoples, and
missionaries brought peoples together. Products and technologies moved
along long-distance trade networks: the Silk Road across Asia, Saharan cara-
van routes, and sea-lanes connecting the Indian Ocean coastlands.
Migrating Bantu peoples from West Africa spread iron and new farming
techniques through much of sub-Saharan Africa and helped foster a distinc-
tive African culture. Conquering Arabs from the Arabian peninsula, inspired
by the Prophet Muhammad, established Muslim rule from Spain to India,
laying the foundation of a new culture.
In Asia, missionaries and pilgrims helped Buddhism spread from India
to Sri Lanka, Tibet, Southeast Asia, and East Asia. The new faith interacted
with older philosophies and religions to produce distinctive cultural patterns.
Simultaneously, the Tang Empire in China disseminated Chinese culture and
technologies throughout Inner and East Asia.
In Europe, monks and missionaries spread Christian beliefs that became
enmeshed with new political and social structures: a struggle between royal
and church authority in western Europe; a union of religious and imperial
authority in the Byzantine east; and a similar but distinctive society in Kievan
Russia. The Crusades reconnected western Europe with the lands of the east.
In the Western Hemisphere, the development of urban, agricultural civi-
lizations in the Andes, the Yucatán lowlands, and the central plateau of Mex-
ico climaxed in the Maya, Aztec, and Inca cultures. The cultural exchanges
and interactions that mark this era in Eurasia and Africa have counterparts in
the Western Hemisphere.

8 CHAP TER OUTLINE

● The Origins of Islam
● The Rise and Fall of the Caliphate, 632–1258
● Islamic Civilization
● Conclusion
DIVERSITY + DOMINANCE Secretaries, Turks, and Beggars
ENVIRONMENT + TECHNOLOGY Chemistry
MATERIAL CULTURE Head Coverings

Bibliotheque nationale de France

Baghdad Bookstore With the advent of papermaking, manufacturing books became increas-
ingly common and inexpensive. As a result, bookstores also became more common. Notice how
books are shelved on their sides in wall cubicles.

Visit the website and ebook for additional study materials and interactive
tools: www.cengage.com/history/bullietearthpeople5e
226

K
nowledge of papermaking, which spread from ■ How did the traditions and religious views of
China to the Middle East after Arab conquests in pre-Islamic peoples become integrated into the
the seventh century c.e. established an Islamic culture shaped by Islam?
caliphate stretching from Spain to Central Asia, provided ■ How did the Muslim community of the time of
a medium that was superior to papyrus and parchment Muhammad differ from the society that devel-
and well suited to a variety of purposes. Maps, minia- oped after the Arab conquests?
■ Was the Baghdad caliphate really the high point
ture paintings, and, of course, books became increas-
of Muslim civilization?
ingly common and inexpensive. With cheaper books
■ How did regional diversity affect the develop-
came bookstores, and one of the most informative ment of Islamic civilization?
manuscripts of the period of the Islamic caliphate is a
Fihrist, or descriptive catalog, of the books sold at one
bookstore in Baghdad.
Abu al-Faraj Muhammad al-Nadim, a man with good connections at the caliph’s
court, compiled the catalog, though his father probably founded the bookstore. Its
latest entry dates to ca. 990, al-Nadim’s death date. Superbly educated, al-Nadim
wrote such well-informed comments on books and authors that his catalog pre-
sents a detailed survey of the intellectual world of Baghdad.
The first of the Fihrist’s ten books deals with Arabic language and sacred scrip-
tures: the Quran, the Torah, and the Gospel. The second covers Arabic grammar,
and the third writings from people connected with the caliph’s court: historians,
government officials, singers, jesters, and the ruler’s boon companions. Al-Nadim
means “book companion,” so it is assumed that he knew this milieu well. After
dealing with Arabic poetry, Muslim sects, and Islamic law in Books 3 through 6, he
comes to Greek philosophy, science, and medicine in Book 7.
Most things we would find today in a bookstore are relegated to the final three
chapters. Book 8 divides into three sections, the first being “Story Tellers and Sto-
ries.” Here he lists a Persian book called A Thousand Stories, which in translation
became The Arabian Nights. Al-Nadim’s version no longer survives. The collection
we have today comes from a manuscript written five hundred years later.
Then come sections about “Exorcists, Jugglers, and Magicians,” followed by
“Miscellaneous Subjects and Fables.” These include sections on “Freckles, Twitch-
ing, Moles, and Shoulders,” “Horsemanship, Bearing of Arms, the Implements of
War,” “Veterinary Surgery,” “Birds of Prey, Sport with Them and Medical Care of
Them,” “Interpretation of Dreams,” “Perfume,” “Cooked Food,” “Poisons,” and
“Amulets and Charms.” Non-Muslim sects and foreign lands—India, Indochina,
and China—fill Book 9, leaving Book 10 for a few final notes on philosophers not
mentioned previously.

All together, the thousands of titles and authors commented on by al-Nadim pro-
vide both a panorama of what interested book buyers in tenth-century Baghdad and
a saddening picture of how profound the loss of knowledge has been since that glori-
ous era.

THE ORIGINS OF ISLAM

The Arabian Peninsula Before Muhammad
The Arabs of 600 c.e. lived exclusively in the Arabian peninsula and on the desert fringes of
AP* Exam Tip The ori- Syria, Jordan, and Iraq. Along their Euphrates frontier, the Sasanids (see Chapter 7) subsidized
gin of Islam is an important nomadic Arab chieftains to protect their empire from invasion. The Byzantines did the same
topic on both the multiple with Arabs on their Jordanian frontier. Arab pastoralists farther to the south remained isolated
choice and the essay sec- and independent, seldom engaging the attention of the shahs and emperors. It was in these inte-
tion of the AP exam. rior Arabian lands that the religion of Islam took form.
Throughout history more people living on the Arabian peninsula have subsisted as farm-
ers than as pastoral nomads. Farming villages support the comparatively dense population of
Yemen, where abundant rainfall waters the highlands during the spring monsoon. Small inlets
along the southern coast favored fishing and trading communities. The enormous sea of sand
known as the “Empty Quarter” isolated many southern regions from the Arabian interior. In the
seventh century, most people in southern Arabia knew more about Africa, India, and the Persian
Gulf than about the forbidding interior and the scattered camel- and sheep-herding nomads
who lived there.
Caravan Trade Caravan trading provided a rare link among peoples. Nomads derived income from provid-
ing camels, guides, and safe passage to merchants bringing the primary product of the south,
the aromatic resins frankincense and myrrh, to northern customers. Return caravans brought
manufactured products from Mesopotamia and Syria.
Nomad dominance of the caravan trade received a boost from the invention of militarily
efficient camel saddles. This contributed to the rise of Arab-dominated caravan cities and to
Arab pastoralists becoming the primary suppliers of animal power throughout the region. By
600 c.e., wheeled vehicles—mostly ox carts and horse-drawn chariots—had all but disappeared
from the Middle East, replaced by pack camels and donkeys.
As explained in Chapter 7, Arabs who accompanied the caravans became familiar with the
cultures and lifestyles of the Sasanid and Byzantine Empires, and many of those who pastured
Mecca City in western Ara- their herds on the imperial frontiers adopted one form or another of Christianity. Even in the
bia; birthplace of the Prophet interior deserts, Semitic polytheism, with its worship of natural forces and celestial bodies,
Muhammad and ritual center began to encounter more sophisticated religions.
of the Islamic religion. Mecca, a late-blooming caravan city, occupies a barren mountain valley halfway between
Yemen and Syria and somewhat inland from the Red Sea coast (see Map 8.1). A nomadic kin
Mecca, a Caravan City group known as the Quraysh (koo-RYYSH) settled in Mecca in the fifth century and assumed
control of trade. Mecca rapidly achieved a measure of prosperity, partly because it was too far
from Byzantine Syria, Sasanid Iraq, and Ethiopian-controlled Yemen for them to attack it.
Pilgrimage Center A cubical shrine with idols inside called the Ka’ba (KAH-buh), a holy well called Zamzam,
and a sacred precinct surrounding the two wherein killing was prohibited contributed to the
emergence of Mecca as a pilgrimage site. Some Meccans associated the shrine with stories
known to Jews and Christians. They regarded Abraham (Ibrahim in Arabic) as the builder of
the Ka’ba, and they identified a site outside Mecca as the location where God asked Abraham to
sacrifice his son. The son was not Isaac (Ishaq in Arabic), the son of Sarah, but Ishmael (Isma’il
in Arabic), the son of Hagar, cited in the Bible as the forefather of the Arabs.

Muhammad in Mecca
Muhammad Arab prophet; Born in Mecca in 570, Muhammad grew up an orphan in the house of his uncle. He engaged
founder of religion of Islam. in trade and married a Quraysh widow named Khadija (kah-DEE-juh), whose caravan inter-

The Arab Lands Iran and Central Asia

200

570–632 Life of the Prophet Muhammad

600
634 Conquests of Iraq and Syria commence
639–42 Conquest of Egypt by Arabs
656–61 Ali caliph; first civil war
661–750 Umayyad Caliphate rules from Damascus
700
711 Berbers and Arabs invade Spain from North Africa 711 Arabs capture Sind in India
747 Abbasid revolt begins in Khurasan
750 Beginning of Abbasid Caliphate
755 Umayyad state established in Spain
776–809 Caliphate of Harun al-Rashid
800
835–92 Abbasid capital moved from Baghdad to Samarra
875 Independent Samanid state founded in Bukhara
900
909 Fatimids seize North Africa, found Shi’ite Caliphate
929 Abd al-Rahman III declares himself caliph in Cordoba
945 Shi’ite Buyids take control in Baghdad 945 Buyids from northern Iran take control of Abbasid
969 Fatimids conquer Egypt Caliphate
1000
1036 Beginning of Turkish Seljuk rule in Khurasan
1055 Seljuk Turks take control in Baghdad
1099 First Crusade captures Jerusalem
1171 Fall of Fatimid Egypt
1187 Saladin recaptures Jerusalem
1250 Mamluks control Egypt
1258 Mongols sack Baghdad and end Abbasid Caliphate
1260 Mamluks defeat Mongols at Ain Jalut

ests he superintended. Their son died in childhood, but several daughters survived. Around
610 Muhammad began meditating at night in the mountainous terrain around Mecca. During
one night vigil, known to later tradition as the “Night of Power and Excellence,” a being whom
Muhammad later understood to be the angel Gabriel (Jibra’il in Arabic) spoke to him:
Proclaim! In the name of your Lord who created. Created man from a clot of congealed
blood. Proclaim! And your Lord is the Most Bountiful. He who has taught by the pen. Taught
man that which he knew not.1
“Messenger of God” For three years Muhammad shared this and subsequent revelations only with close friends
and family members. This period culminated in his conviction that he was hearing the words of
God (Allah [AH-luh] in Arabic). Khadija, his uncle’s son Ali, his friend Abu Bakr (ah-boo BAK-
uhr), and others close to him shared this conviction. The revelations continued until Muham-
mad’s death in 632.

Like most people of the time, including Christians and Jews, the Arabs believed in unseen
spirits: gods, demonic shaitans, and desert spirits called jinns who were thought to possess seers
and poets. Therefore, when Muhammad recited his rhymed revelations in public, many people
believed he was inspired by an unseen spirit, even if it was not, as Muhammad asserted, the one
true god.
Muhammad’s earliest revelations called on people to witness that one god had created the
universe and everything in it, including themselves. At the end of time, their souls would be
judged, their sins balanced against their good deeds. The blameless would go to paradise; the
sinful would taste hellfire:
By the night as it conceals the light;
By the day as it appears in glory;
By the mystery of the creation of male and female;
Verily, the ends ye strive for are diverse.
Muslim An adherent of the So he who gives in charity and fears God,
Islamic religion; a person And in all sincerity testifies to the best,
who “submits” (in Arabic, We will indeed make smooth for him the path to Bliss.
Islam means “submission”) But he who is a greedy miser and thinks himself self-sufficient,
to the will of God. And gives the lie to the best,
We will indeed make smooth for him the path to misery. 2
Islam Religion expounded
The revelation called all people to submit to God and accept Muhammad as the last of his mes-
by the Prophet Muhammad
sengers. Doing so made one a Muslim, meaning one who makes “submission,” Islam, to the will
on the basis of his recep-
of God.
tion of divine revelations,
Because earlier messengers mentioned in the revelations included Noah, Moses, and Jesus,
which were collected after
his death into the Quran. Muhammad’s hearers connected his message with Judaism and Christianity, religions they were
In the tradition of Juda- already familiar with. Yet his revelations charged the Jews and Christians with being negligent
ism and Christianity, and in preserving God’s revealed word. Thus, even though they identified Abraham/Ibrahim, whom
sharing much of their lore, Muslims consider the first Muslim, as the builder of the Ka’ba, which superseded Jerusalem as
Islam calls on all people the focus of Muslim prayer in 624, Muhammad’s followers considered his revelation more per-
to recognize one creator fect than the Bible because it had not gone through an editing process.
god—Allah—who rewards Some scholars maintain that Muhammad appealed especially to people distressed over
or punishes believers after wealth replacing kinship as the most important aspect of social relations and over neglect of
death according to how they orphans and other powerless people. Most Muslims, however, put less emphasis on a social
led their lives. message than on the power and beauty of Muhammad’s recitations.

Formation of the Umma

The Hijra Mecca’s leaders, fearing that accepting Muhammad as the sole agent of the one true God would
threaten their power and prosperity, pressured his kin to disavow him and persecuted the weak-
Medina City in western est of his followers. Stymied by this hostility, Muhammad and his followers fled Mecca in 622
Arabia to which the Prophet to take up residence in the agricultural community of Medina 215 miles (346 kilometers) to the
Muhammad and his fol- north. This hijra (HIJ-ruh) marks the beginning of the Muslim calendar.
lowers emigrated in 622 Prior to the hijra, Medinan representatives had met with Muhammad and agreed to accept
to escape persecution in and protect him and his followers because they saw him as an inspired leader who could calm
Mecca. their perpetual feuding. Together, the Meccan migrants and major groups in Medina bound
umma The community of all themselves into a single umma (UM-muh), a community defined by acceptance of Islam and
Muslims. A major innova- of Muhammad as the “Messenger of God,” his most common title. Partly because three Jewish
tion against the background kin groups chose to retain their own faith, the direction of prayer was changed from Jerusalem
of seventh-century Arabia, toward the Ka’ba in Mecca, now thought of as the “House of God.”
where traditionally kin- Having left their Meccan kin groups, the immigrants in Medina felt vulnerable. During
ship rather than faith had the last decade of his life, Muhammad took active responsibility for his umma. Fresh revela-
determined membership in a tions provided a framework for regulating social and legal affairs and stirred the Muslims to
community. fight against the still-unbelieving city of Mecca. At various points during the war, Muhammad
charged the Jewish kin groups, whom he had initially hoped would recognize him as God’s mes-
The Surrender of Mecca senger, with disloyalty, and he finally expelled or eliminated them. The sporadic war, largely
conducted by raiding and negotiating with desert nomads, sapped Mecca’s strength and con-
vinced many Meccans that God favored Muhammad. In 630 Mecca surrendered, and Muham-
mad and his followers made the pilgrimage to the Ka’ba unhindered.

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MAP 8.1 Early Expansion of Muslim Rule Arab conquests of the first Islamic century brought vast territory under Muslim
rule, but conversion to Islam proceeded slowly. In most areas outside the Arabian peninsula, the only region where Arabic was
then spoken, conversion did not accelerate until the third century after the conquest.
Interactive Map

PRIMARY SOURCE: The

Constitution of Medina: Muhammad stayed in Medina, which had grown into a bustling city-state. Delegations came
Muslims and Jews at the to him from all over Arabia and returned home with believers who could teach them about Islam
Dawn of Islam Learn how and collect their alms. Muhammad’s mission to bring God’s message to humanity had brought
Muhammad, whose teaching him unchallenged control of a state that was coming to dominate the Arabian peninsula.
was at first rejected in Mecca, In 632, after a brief illness, Muhammad died. Within twenty-four hours a group of Medi-
met with success in Medina, in nan leaders, along with three of Muhammad’s close friends, determined that Abu Bakr, one of
part by allying himself with the the earliest believers and the father of Muhammad’s favorite wife A’isha (AH-ee-shah), should
local Jewish community. succeed him. They called him the khalifa (kah-LEE-fuh), or “successor,” the English version
of which is caliph. But calling Abu Bakr a successor did not clarify his powers. Everyone knew
that neither Abu Bakr nor anyone else could receive revelations, and they likewise knew that
Muhammad’s revelations made no provision for succession or for any government purpose
beyond maintaining the umma.
Abu Bakr continued and confirmed Muhammad’s religious practices, notably the so-called
Five Pillars of Islam: (1) avowal that there is only one god and Muhammad is his messenger,
(2) prayer five times a day, (3) fasting during the lunar month of Ramadan, (4) paying alms, and
caliphate Office estab-
(5) making the pilgrimage to Mecca at least once during one’s lifetime. He also reestablished
lished in succession to the
and expanded Muslim authority over Arabia’s communities, some of which had abandoned
Prophet Muhammad, to rule
their allegiance to Medina or followed various would-be prophets. Muslim armies fought hard
the Islamic empire; also the
to confirm the authority of the newborn caliphate. In the process, some fighting spilled over into
name of that empire.
non-Arab areas in Iraq.
Quran Book composed of Reportedly, Abu Bakr ordered the men who had written down Muhammad’s revelations to
divine revelations made to collect them in a book. Hitherto written haphazardly on pieces of leather or bone, these now
the Prophet Muhammad became a single document gathered into chapters. Muslims believe the Quran (kuh-RAHN),
between ca. 610 and his
or the Recitation, acquired its final form around the year 650. They see it not as the words of
death in 632; the sacred text
Muhammad but as the unalterable word of God. Theologically, it compares not so much to the
of the religion of Islam.
Bible, a book written by many hands over many centuries, as to the person of Jesus Christ, whom
Formation of the Quran Christians consider an earthly manifestation of God.

Muhammad’s Cousin Ali Though united in accepting God’s will, the umma soon disagreed over the succession to the
caliphate. When rebels assassinated the third caliph, Uthman (ooth-MAHN), in 656 and nomi-
PRIMARY SOURCE: The nated Ali, Muhammad’s first cousin and the husband of his daughter Fatima, to succeed him,
Quran: Muslim Devotion civil war broke out. Ali had been passed over three times previously, even though many people
to God These selections con- considered him to be the Prophet’s natural heir. Those who believed Ali was the Prophet’s heir
tain a number of the tenets of came to be known as Shi’ites, after the Arabic term Shi’at Ali (“Party of Ali”).
Islam and shed light on the con- When Ali accepted the nomination to be caliph, two of Muhammad’s close companions and
nections between Islam, Juda- his favorite wife A’isha challenged him. Ali defeated them in the Battle of the Camel (656), so
ism, and Christianity. called because the fighting raged around the camel on which A’isha was seated in an enclosed
woman’s saddle.
Shi’ites Muslims belonging
After the battle, the governor of Syria, Mu’awiya (moo-AH-we-yuh), a kinsman of the slain
to the branch of Islam believ-
ing that God vests leader- Uthman from the Umayya clan of the Quraysh, renewed the challenge. Inconclusive battle gave
ship of the community in a way to arbitration. The arbitrators decided that Uthman, whom his assassins considered cor-
descendant of Muhammad’s rupt, had not deserved death and that Ali had erred in accepting the caliphate. Ali rejected these
son-in-law Ali. Shi’ism is the findings, but before fighting could resume, one of his own supporters killed him for agreeing to
state religion of Iran. the arbitration. Mu’awiya offered Ali’s son Hasan a dignified retirement and thus emerged as
caliph in 661.
Shi’ites and Sunnis Mu’awiya chose his own son, Yazid, to succeed him, thereby instituting the Umayyad (oo-
MY-ad) Caliphate. When Hasan’s brother Husayn revolted in 680 to reestablish the right of Ali’s
Umayyad Caliphate First family to rule, Yazid ordered Husayn and his family killed. Sympathy for Husayn’s martyrdom
hereditary dynasty of Mus- helped transform Shi’ism from a political movement into a religious sect.
lim caliphs (661 to 750). From Several variations in Shi’ite belief developed, but Shi’ites all agree that Ali was the rightful
their capital at Damascus, successor to Muhammad and that God’s choice as Imam, leader of the Muslim community, has
the Umayyads ruled an always been one or another of Ali’s descendants. They see the caliphal office as more secular
empire that extended from
than religious. Because the Shi’ites seldom held power, their religious feelings came to focus on
Spain to India. Overthrown
outpourings of sympathy for Husayn and other martyrs and on messianic dreams that one of
by the Abbasid Caliphate.
their Imams would someday triumph.
Sunnis Muslims belonging Those Muslims who supported the first three caliphs gradually came to be called “People
to branch of Islam believing of Tradition and Community”—in Arabic, Ahl al-Sunna wa’l-Jama’a, Sunnis for short. Sunnis
that the community should consider the caliphs to be Imams. As for Ali’s followers who had abhorred his acceptance of arbi-
select its own leadership. tration, they evolved into small and rebellious Kharijite sects (from kharaja, meaning “to secede
The majority religion in most or rebel”) claiming righteousness for themselves alone. These three divisions of Islam, the last
Islamic countries. now quite minor, still survive.

SECTION REVIEW
● Islam emerged among the nomadic pastoralists and caravan traders of the
Arabian peninsula.
● Mecca grew as a caravan city and pilgrimage site identified with Jewish and
Christian stories.
● Muhammad experienced revelations that called people to submit to God’s will.
● Facing hostility in Mecca, Muhammad and his followers fled to Medina, where
they formed the umma.
● As caliph succeeding Muhammad, Abu Bakr confirmed the Five Pillars of Islam
and reportedly ordered the composition of the Quran.
● Civil war within the umma resulted in the Sunni/Shi’ite division and the foun-
dation of the Umayyad Caliphate.

THE RISE AND FALL OF THE CALIPHATE, 632–1258

The Islamic caliphate built on the conquests the Arabs carried out after Muhammad’s death
gave birth to a dynamic and creative religious society. By the late 800s, however, one piece after

another of this huge realm broke away. Yet the idea of a caliphate, however unrealistic, remains
today a touchstone of Sunni belief in the unity of the umma.
Sunni Islam never gave a single person the power to define true belief, expel heretics, and
discipline clergy. Thus, unlike Christian popes and patriarchs, the caliphs had little basis for
reestablishing their universal authority once they lost political and military power.

The Islamic Conquests, 634–711

From Spain to Pakistan Arab conquests outside Arabia began under the second caliph, Umar (r. 634–644). Arab armies
wrenched Syria (636) and Egypt (639–642) away from the Byzantine Empire and defeated the last
Sasanid shah, Yazdigird III (r. 632–651). After a decade-long lull, expansion began again. Tunisia
fell and became the governing center from which was organized, in 711, the conquest of Spain
by an Arab-led army mostly composed of Berbers from North Africa. In the same year, Sind—
the southern Indus Valley in today’s Pakistan—succumbed to invaders from Iraq. The Muslim
dominion remained roughly stable in size for three centuries until conquest began anew in the
eleventh century. India and Anatolia experienced invasions, and sub-Saharan Africa and other
regions saw Islam expand peacefully by trade and conversion.
Muhammad’s close companions, men of political and economic sophistication inspired
AP* Exam Tip The by his charisma, guided the conquests. The social structure and hardy nature of Arab society
expansion of Islam to many lent itself to flexible military operations; and the authority of Medina, reconfirmed during the
parts of Afro-Eurasia is an caliphate of Abu Bakr, ensured obedience.
important point on the AP The decision made during Umar’s caliphate to prohibit Arabs from assuming ownership of
exam. conquered territory proved important. Umar tied army service, with its regular pay and wind-
falls of booty, to residence in military camps—two in Iraq (Kufa and Basra), one in Egypt (Fus-
tat), and one in Tunisia (Qairawan). East of Iraq, Arabs settled around small garrison towns at
strategic locations and in one large garrison at Marv in present-day Turkmenistan. This policy
kept the armies together and ready for action and preserved normal life in the countryside,
where some three-fourths of the population lived. Only a tiny proportion of the Syrian, Egyp-
tian, Iranian, and Iraqi populations understood the Arabic language.
The million or so Arabs who participated in the conquests over several generations consti-
tuted a small, self-isolated ruling minority living on the taxes paid by a vastly larger non-Arab,
non-Muslim subject population. The Arabs had little material incentive to encourage conver-
sion, and there is no evidence of coherent missionary efforts to spread Islam during the con-
quest period.

The Umayyad and Early Abbasid Caliphates, 661–850

The Umayyad caliphs presided over an Arab realm rather than a religious empire. Ruling from
Damascus, their armies consisted almost entirely of Muslim Arabs. Sasanid and Byzantine
administrative practices continued in force. Only gradually did the caliphs replace non-Muslim
secretaries and tax officials with Muslims and introduce Arabic as the language of government.
Distinctively Muslim silver and gold coins introduced early in the eighth century symbolized
the new order. Henceforward, silver dirhams and gold dinars bearing Arabic religious phrases
circulated in monetary exchanges from Morocco to the frontiers of China.
Non-Arab Converts The Umayyad dynasty fell in 750 after a decade of growing unrest. Converts to Islam num-
to Islam bered no more than 10 percent of the indigenous population, but they were still important
because of the comparatively small number of Arab warriors. These converts resented Arab
Abbasid Caliphate Descen- social domination. In addition, non-Syrian Arabs envied the Syrian domination of caliphal
dants of the Prophet affairs, and pious Muslims looked askance at the secular and even irreligious behavior of the
Muhammad’s uncle, al- caliphs. Finally, Shi’ites and Kharijites attacked the Umayyad family’s legitimacy as rulers,
Abbas, the Abbasids over- launching a number of rebellions.
threw the Umayyad Caliph- In 750 one rebellion, in the region of Khurasan (kor-uh-SAHN) in what is today northeast-
ate and ruled an Islamic ern Iran, overthrew the last Umayyad caliph, though one family member escaped to Spain to
empire from their capital in found an Umayyad principality there in 755. Many Shi’ites supported the rebellion, thinking
Baghdad (founded 762) from they were fighting for the family of Ali. As it turned out, the family of Abbas, one of Muhammad’s
750 to 1258.
uncles, controlled the secret organization that coordinated the revolt. Upon victory they estab-
lished the Abbasid (ah-BASS-id) Caliphate. Some of the Abbasid caliphs who ruled after 750
The Abbasid Revolution befriended their relatives in Ali’s family, and one even flirted with transferring the caliphate to

them. The Abbasid family, however, held on to the caliphate until 1258, when Mongol invaders
killed the last of them in Baghdad (see Chapter 12).
Initially, the Abbasid dynasty made a fine show of leadership and piety. Theology and reli-
gious law became preoccupations at court and among a growing community of scholars devoted
to interpreting the Quran, collecting the sayings of the Prophet, and compiling Arabic gram-
mar. (In recent years, some Western scholars have maintained that the Quran, the sayings of
the Prophet, and the biography of the Prophet were all composed around this time to provide
a legendary base for the regime. This reinterpretation of Islamic origins has not been generally
accepted either in the scholarly community or among Muslims.) Some caliphs sponsored ambi-
tious projects to translate great works of Greek, Persian, and Indian thought into Arabic.
Persianization With its roots among the semi-Persianized Arabs of Khurasan, the new dynasty gradually
of the Caliphate adopted the ceremonies and customs of the Sasanid shahs. Government grew increasingly com-
plex in Baghdad, the newly built capital city on the Tigris River. As more non-Arabs converted to
Islam, the ruling elite became more cosmopolitan. Greek, Iranian, Central Asian, and African
cultural currents met in the capital and gave rise to an abundance of literary works, a process
facilitated by the introduction of papermaking from China. Arab poets neglected the traditional
odes extolling life in the desert and wrote instead wine songs (despite Islam’s prohibition of
alcohol) or poems in praise of their patrons.
The translation of Aristotle into Arabic, the founding of the main currents of theology and
law, and the splendor of the Abbasid court—reflected in stories of The Arabian Nights set in the
time of the caliph Harun al-Rashid (hah-ROON al–rah-SHEED) (r. 776–809)—in some respects
warrant calling the early Abbasid period a “golden age.” Yet the refinement of Baghdad culture
only slowly made its way into the provinces. Egypt remained predominantly Christian and
Coptic-speaking in the early Abbasid period, and Iran never adopted Arabic as a spoken tongue.
Most of Berber-speaking North Africa rebelled and freed itself of direct caliphal rule after 740.
Gradual conversion to Islam among the conquered population accelerated in the second
quarter of the ninth century. Social discrimination against non-Arab converts gradually faded,
and the Arabs themselves—at least those living in cosmopolitan urban settings—lost their pre-
viously strong attachment to kinship and ethnic identity.

Political Fragmentation, 850–1050

Abbasid decline became evident in the second half of the ninth century as conversion to Islam
accelerated (see Map 8.2). No government ruling so vast an empire could hold power easily. Car-
avans traveled only 20 miles (32 kilometers) a day, and the couriers of the caliphal post system
usually did not exceed 100 miles (160 kilometers) a day. News of frontier revolts took weeks to
reach Baghdad. Military responses might take months.
During the first two Islamic centuries, revolts against Muslim rule had been a concern. The
Muslim umma had therefore clung together, despite the long distances. But with the growing
conversion of the population to Islam, fears that Islamic dominion might be overthrown faded.
Once they became the overwhelming majority, Muslims realized that a highly centralized
empire did not necessarily serve the interests of all the people.
By the middle of the ninth century, revolts targeting Arab or Muslim domination gave way to
movements within the Islamic community concentrating on seizure of territory and formation
of principalities. None of the states carved out of the Abbasid Caliphate after that time repu-
diated or even threatened Islam. They did, however, cut the flow of tax revenues to Baghdad,
thereby increasing local prosperity.
Slave Soldiers Increasingly starved for funds by breakaway provinces and by an unexplained fall in rev-
mamluks Under the Islamic enues from Iraq itself, the caliphate experienced a crisis in the late ninth century. Distrusting
system of military slavery, generals and troops from outlying areas, the caliphs purchased Turkic slaves, mamluks (MAM-
Turkic military slaves who luke), from Central Asia and established them as a standing army. Well trained and hardy, the
formed an important part Turks proved an effective but expensive military force. When the government could not pay
of the armed forces of the them, the mamluks took it on themselves to seat and unseat caliphs, a process made easier by
Abbasid Caliphate of the the construction of a new capital at Samarra, north of Baghdad on the Tigris River.
ninth and tenth centuries. The Turks dominated Samarra without interference from an unruly Baghdad populace that
Mamluks eventually founded regarded them as rude and highhanded. However, the money and effort that went into the huge
their own state, ruling Egypt city, which was occupied only from 835 to 892, further sapped the caliphs’ financial strength
and Syria (1250–1517). and deflected labor from more productive pursuits.

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MAP 8.2 Rise and Fall of the Abbasid Caliphate Though Abbasid rulers occupied the caliphal seat in Iraq from 750 to 1258,
when Mongol armies destroyed Baghdad, real political power waned sharply and steadily after 850. The rival caliphates of the
Fatimids (909–1171) and Spanish Umayyads (929–976) were comparatively short-lived.
Interactive Map

The Buyids In 945, after several attempts to find a strongman to save it, the Abbasid Caliphate fell under
the control of rude mountain warriors from Daylam in northern Iran. Led by the Shi’ite Buyid
(BOO-yid) family, they conquered western Iran as well as Iraq. Each Buyid commander ruled
his own principality. After two centuries of glory, the sun began to set on Baghdad. The Abbasid
caliph remained, but the Buyid princes controlled him. Being Shi’ites, the Buyids had no special
reverence for the Sunni caliph. The Shi’ite teachings they followed held that the twelfth and last
Imam had disappeared around 873 and would return as a messiah only at the end of time. Thus
they had no Shi’ite Imam to defer to and retained the caliph only to help control their predomi-
nantly Sunni subjects.
Iranian States Dynamic growth in outlying provinces paralleled the caliphate’s gradual loss of temporal
power. In the east in 875, the dynasty of the Samanids (sah-MAN-id), one of several Iranian
families to achieve independence, established a glittering court in Bukhara, a major city on the
Silk Road (see Map 8.2). Samanid princes patronized literature and learning, but the language
they favored was Persian written in Arabic letters. For the first time, a non-Arabic literature rose
to challenge the eminence of Arabic within the Islamic world.
African States In the west, the Berber revolts against Arab rule led to the appearance after 740 of the
city-states of Sijilmasa (sih-jil-MAS-suh) and Tahert (TAH-hert) on the northern fringe of the
Sahara. The Kharijite beliefs of these states’ rulers interfered with their east-west overland trade
and led them to develop the first regular trade across the Sahara desert. Once traders looked to
the desert, they discovered that Berber speakers in the southern Sahara were already carrying
Ghana First known kingdom salt from the desert into the Sahel region. The northern traders discovered that they could trade
in sub-Saharan West Africa salt for gold by providing the southern nomads, who controlled the salt sources but had little
between the sixth and thir- use for gold, with more useful products, such as copper and manufactured goods. Sijilmasa and
teenth centuries C .E . Also Tahert became wealthy cities, the former minting gold coins that circulated as far away as Egypt
the modern West African and Syria.
country once known as the The earliest known sub-Saharan beneficiary of the new exchange system was the kingdom
Gold Coast. of Ghana (GAH-nuh), which first appears in an Arabic text of the late eighth century as the

Mosque of Ibn Tulun in

Fustat Completed in
877, this mosque symbol-
ized Egypt becoming for
the first time a quasi-
independent province
under its governor. The
kiosk in the center of the
courtyard contains foun-
tains for washing before
prayer. Before its resto-
ration in the thirteenth
century, the mosque had a

Ellen Rooney/Robert Harding World Imagery

spiral minaret and a door
to an adjoining governor’s
palace.

“land of gold.” Few details survive about the early years of this realm, which was established by
the Soninke (soh-NIN-kay) people and covered parts of Mali, Mauritania, and Senegal, but it
prospered until 1076, when it was conquered by nomads from the desert. Ghana was one of the
first lands outside the orbit of the caliphate to experience a gradual and peaceful conversion to
Islam.
The Fatimid Caliphate The North African city-states lost their independence after the Fatimid (FAT-uh-mid)
dynasty, whose members claimed (perhaps falsely) to be Shi’ite Imams descended from Ali,
established itself in Tunisia in 909. After consolidating their hold on northwest Africa, the Fatim-
ids culminated their rise to power by conquering Egypt in 969. Claiming the title of caliph in a
direct challenge to the Abbasids, the Fatimid rulers governed from a palace complex outside the
old conquest-era garrison city of Fustat (fuss-THAT). They named the complex Cairo. For the
first time Egypt became a major cultural, intellectual, and political center of Islam. The abun-
dance of Fatimid gold coinage, now channeled to Egypt from West Africa, made the Fatimids an
economic power in the Mediterranean.
Islamic Spain Cut off from the rest of the Islamic world by the Strait of Gibraltar and, from 740 onward, by
independent city-states in Morocco and Algeria, Umayyad Spain developed a distinctive Islamic
culture blending Roman, Germanic, and Jewish traditions with those of the Arabs and Berbers.
Historians disagree on how rapidly and completely the Spanish population converted to Islam.
If we assume a process similar to that in the eastern regions, it seems likely that the most rapid
surge in Islamization occurred in the middle of the tenth century.
AP* Exam Tip The
As in the east, governing cities symbolized the Islamic presence in al-Andalus, as the Mus-
Islamic political system in
lims called their Iberian territories. Cordoba, Seville, Toledo, and other cities grew substantially,
Spain is an important point
for the AP exam. becoming much larger and richer than contemporary cities in neighboring France. Converts to
Islam and their descendants, unconverted Arabic-speaking Christians, and Jews joined with the
comparatively few descendants of Arab settlers to create new architectural and literary styles.
In the countryside, where the Berbers preferred to settle, a fusion of preexisting agricultural
technologies with new crops, notably citrus fruits, and irrigation techniques from the east gave
Spain the most diverse and sophisticated agricultural economy in Europe.
Religions Flourishing The rulers of al-Andalus took the title caliph only in 929, when Abd al-Rahman (AHB-d al–
Together ruh-MAHN) III (r. 912–961) did so in response to a similar declaration by the newly established
(909) Fatimid ruler in Tunisia. By the century’s end, however, this caliphate encountered chal-
lenges from breakaway movements that eventually splintered al-Andalus into a number of small
states. Political decay did not impede cultural growth. Some of the greatest writers and think-

Tomb of the Samanids in Bukhara

This early-tenth-century structure
has the basic layout of a Zoroastrian
fire temple: a dome on top of a cube.
However, geometric ornamentation
in baked brick marks it as an early
masterpiece of Islamic architecture.
The Samanid family achieved inde-
pendence as rulers of northeastern
Iran and western Central Asia in the
tenth century.

Bridgeman-Giraudon/Art Resource, NY
ers in Jewish history worked in Muslim Spain in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, sometimes
writing in Arabic, sometimes in Hebrew. Judah Halevi (1075–1141) composed exquisite poetry
and explored questions of religious philosophy. Maimonides (1135–1204) made a major compila-
tion of Judaic law and expounded on Aristotelian philosophy. At the same time, Islamic thought
in Spain attained its loftiest peaks in Ibn Hazm’s (994–1064) treatises on love and other subjects,
the Aristotelian philosophical writings of Ibn Rushd (IB-uhn RUSHED) (1126–1198, known in
Latin as Averroës [uh-VERR-oh-eez]) and Ibn Tufayl (IB-uhn too-FILE) (d. 1185), and the mystic
speculations of Ibn al-Arabi (IB-uhn ahl–AH-rah-bee) (1165–1240). Christians, too, shared in
the intellectual and cultural dynamism of al-Andalus. Translations from Arabic to Latin made
during this period had a profound effect on the later intellectual development of western Europe
(see Chapter 9).
The Samanids, Fatimids, and Spanish Umayyads, three of many regional principalities,
represent the political diversity and awakening of local awareness that coincided with Abbasid
ulama Muslim religious decline. Yet drawing and redrawing political boundaries did not result in the rigid division of the
scholars. From the ninth Islamic world into kingdoms. Religious and cultural developments, particularly the rise in cities
century onward, the primary of a social group of religious scholars known as the ulama (oo-leh-MAH)—Arabic for “people
interpreters of Islamic law with (religious) knowledge”—worked against any permanent division of the Islamic umma.
and the social core of Mus-
lim urban societies.
Assault from Within and Without, 1050–1258
Turks in the Middle East The role played by Turkish mamluks in the decline of Abbasid power established an endur-
ing stereotype of the Turk as a ferocious, unsophisticated warrior. This image gained strength
in the 1030s when the Seljuk (sel-JOOK) family established a Turkish Muslim state based on
nomadic power. Taking the Arabic title Sultan, meaning “power,” and the revived Persian title
Shahan-shah, or King of Kings, the Seljuk ruler Tughril (TUUG-ruhl) Beg created a kingdom
that stretched from northern Afghanistan to Baghdad, which he occupied in 1055. After a cen-
tury under the thumb of the Shi’ite Buyids, the Abbasid caliph breathed easier under the slightly

Spanish Muslim Textile of the Twelfth Century This fragment

of woven silk, featuring peacocks and Arabic writing, is one of
the finest examples of Islamic weaving. The cotton industry
flourished in the early Islamic centuries, but silk remained a
highly valued product. Some fabrics were treasured in Chris-
tian Europe.

lighter thumb of the Sunni Turks. The Seljuks pressed on into

Syria and Anatolia, administering a lethal blow to Byzantine
power at the Battle of Manzikert (MANZ-ih-kuhrt) in 1071.
The Byzantine army fell back on Constantinople, leaving Ana-
tolia open to Turkish occupation.
V&A Images/Victoria & Albert Museum
Under Turkish rule, cities shrank as pastoralists over-
ran their agricultural hinterlands. Irrigation works suffered
from lack of maintenance in the unsettled countryside. Tax
revenues fell. Quarreling twelfth-century princes fought over
cities, but few Turks participated in urban cultural and reli-
gious life. The gulf between a religiously based urban society
and the culture and personnel of the government deepened.
When factional riots broke out between Sunnis and Shi’ites, or
between rival schools of Sunni law, rulers generally remained aloof, even as destruction and loss
Economic Decline of life mounted.
By the early twelfth century, unrepaired damage from floods, fires, and civil disorder had
reduced old Baghdad on the west side of the Tigris to ruins. The withering of Baghdad reflected
a broader environmental problem: the collapse of the canal system on which agriculture in the
Tigris and Euphrates Valley depended. For millennia a center of world civilization, Mesopotamia
underwent substantial population loss and never again regained its geographical importance.
The Turks alone cannot be blamed for the demographic and economic misfortunes of
Iran and Iraq. Too-robust urbanization and an apparent chilling of the climate after 1000 had
strained food resources. The growing practice of paying soldiers and courtiers with land grants
led to absentee landlords using agents to collect taxes. These agents gouged villagers and took
little interest in improving production, thus intensifying the agricultural crisis.
The Crusader Challenge Internecine feuding was preoccupying the Seljuk family when the first Christian crusaders
reached the Holy Land and captured Jerusalem in 1099 (see Chapter 9). Though charged with the
stuff of romance, the Crusades had little lasting impact on the Islamic lands. The four crusader
principalities of Edessa, Antioch, Tripoli, and Jerusalem simply became pawns in the shifting
pattern of politics already in place. Newly arrived knights eagerly attacked the Muslim enemy,
whom they called “Saracens (SAR-uh-suhn)”; but veteran crusaders recognized that practicing
diplomacy and seeking partners of convenience among rival Muslim princes offered a sounder
strategy.
The Muslims finally unified to face the European enemy in the mid-twelfth century. Nur al-
Din ibn Zangi (NOOR al–DEEN ib-uhn ZAN-gee) established a strong state based in Damas-
cus and sent an army to terminate the Fatimid Caliphate in Egypt. A nephew of the Kurdish
commander of that expedition, Salah-al-Din, known in the West as Saladin, took advantage of
Nur al-Din’s timely death to seize power and unify Egypt and Syria. The Fatimid dynasty fell in
1171. In 1187 Saladin recaptured Jerusalem from the Europeans.
Saladin’s descendants fought off subsequent Crusades. After one such battle, however,
in 1250, Turkish mamluk troops seized control of the government in Cairo, ending Saladin’s
dynasty. In 1260 these mamluks rode east to confront a new invading force. At the Battle of Ain
Jalut (ine jah-LOOT) (Spring of Goliath) in Syria, they met and defeated an army of Mongols
from Central Asia (see Chapter 12), thus stemming an invasion that had begun several decades
before and legitimizing their claim to dominion over Egypt and Syria.

Mamluk Sultans During the ensuing Mamluk period a succession of slave-soldier sultans ruled Egypt and
Syria until 1517. Fear of new Mongol attacks receded after 1300, but by then the new ruling sys-
tem had become fixed. Young Turkish or Circassian slaves, the latter from the eastern end of the
Black Sea, were imported from non-Muslim lands, raised in training barracks, and converted to
Islam. Owing loyalty to the Mamluk officers who purchased them, they formed a military class
that was socially disconnected from the Arabic-speaking native population.
The Mongol invasions, especially
SECTION REVIEW their destruction of the Abbasid Caliph-
ate in Baghdad in 1258, shocked the world
● By 711, Arab armies had conquered an empire stretching from Sind in
of Islam. The Mamluk sultan enthroned a
the east to Spain in the west. relative of the last Baghdad caliph in Cairo,
● The Umayyad caliphs ruled an ethnic empire; they governed from but the Egyptian Abbasids were mere pup-
Damascus using Sasanid and Byzantine administrative methods. pets serving Mamluk interests. From Iraq
eastward, non-Muslim rule lasted for much
● The Umayyads fell to rebels who established the Abbasid Caliphate at
of the thirteenth century. Although the
Baghdad, while surviving Umayyads fled to Spain. Mongols left few ethnic or linguistic traces
● Influenced by Persian culture, the Abbasids presided over significant in these lands, their initial destruction of
spiritual, intellectual, and artistic activity. cities and slaughter of civilian populations,
their diversion of Silk Road trade from
● Abbasid decline led to fragmentation of the caliphate into independent
Baghdad to more northerly routes ending at
states, but the Islamic umma remained intact. Black Sea ports, and their casual disregard,
● Political divisions continued as successor states to the former caliph- even after conversion to Islam, for Muslim
ate fell, replaced by Seljuk Turk, Crusader, Mamluk, and Mongol states. religious life and urban culture hastened
currents of change already under way.

ISLAMIC CIVILIZATION
Though increasingly unsettled in its political dimension and subject to economic disruptions
caused by war, the ever-expanding Islamic world underwent a fruitful evolution in law, social
structure, and religious expression. Religious conversion and urbanization reinforced each
other to create a distinct Islamic civilization. The immense geographical and human diversity
of the Muslim lands allowed many “small traditions” to coexist with the developing “great tradi-
tion” of Islam.

Law and Dogma

The Shari’a, the law of Islam, provides the foundation of Islamic civilization. Yet aside from cer-
tain Quranic verses conveying specific divine ordinances—most pertaining to personal and
family matters—Islam had no legal system in the time of Muhammad. Arab custom and the
Prophet’s own authority offered the only guidance. After Muhammad died, the umma tried to
follow his example. This became harder and harder to do, however, as those who knew Muham-
mad best passed away and many Arabs found themselves living in far-off lands. Non-Arab con-
verts to Islam, who at first tried to follow Arab customs they had little familiarity with, had an
even harder time.
Sunna and Hadith Islam slowly developed laws to govern social and religious life. The full sense of Islamic civi-
lization, however, goes well beyond the basic Five Pillars mentioned earlier. Some Muslim think-
ers felt that the reasoned consideration of a mature man offered the best resolution of issues
not covered by Quranic revelation. Others argued for the sunna, or tradition, of the Prophet
as the best guide. To understand that sunna they collected and studied thousands of reports,
hadith A tradition relating called hadith (hah-DEETH), purporting to convey the precise words or deeds of Muhammad.
the words or deeds of the It became customary to precede each hadith with a chain of oral authorities leading back to the
Prophet Muhammad; next to person who had direct acquaintance with the Prophet.
the Quran, the most impor- Many hadith dealt with ritual matters, such as how to wash before prayer. Others pro-
tant basis for Islamic law. vided answers to legal questions not covered by Quranic revelation or suggested principles for
deciding such matters. By the eleventh century most legal thinkers had accepted the idea that

Muhammad’s personal behavior provided the best role model and that the hadith constituted
the most authoritative basis for law after the Quran itself.
Yet the hadith posed a problem because the tens of thousands of anecdotes included both
genuine and invented reports, the latter sometimes politically motivated, as well as stories
derived from non-Muslim religious traditions. Only a specialist could hope to separate a sound
from a weak tradition. As the hadith grew in importance, so did the branch of learning devoted
to their analysis. Scholars discarded thousands for having faulty chains of authority. The most
reliable they collected into books that gradually achieved authoritative status. Sunnis placed six
books in this category; Shi’ites, four.
As it gradually evolved, the Shari’a embodied a vision of an umma in which all subscribed
to the same moral values and political and ethnic distinctions lost importance. Every Muslim
ruler was expected to abide by and enforce the religious law. In practice, this expectation often
lost out in the hurly-burly of political life. But the Shari’a proved an important basis for an urban
lifestyle that varied surprisingly little from Morocco to India.

Converts and Cities

Conversion to Islam, more the outcome of people’s learning about the new rulers’ religion than
an escape from the tax on non-Muslims, as some scholars have suggested, helped spur urban-
ization. Conversion did not require extensive knowledge of the faith. To become a Muslim, a
person simply stated, in the presence of a Muslim: “There is no God but God, and Muhammad is
the Messenger of God.”
Impact of Conversion Few converts spoke Arabic, and fewer could read the Quran. Many converts knew no more
of the Quran than the verses they memorized for daily prayers. Muhammad had established
no priesthood to define and spread the faith. Thus new converts, whether Arab or non-Arab,
faced the problem of finding out for themselves what Islam was about and how they should act
as Muslims. This meant spending time with Muslims, learning their language, and imitating
their practices.
In many areas, conversion involved migrating to an Arab governing center. The alternative,
converting to Islam but remaining in one’s home community, was difficult because religion
had become the main component of social identity in Byzantine and Sasanid times. Converts
to Islam thus encountered discrimination if they stayed in their Christian, Jewish, or Zoroas-
trian communities. Migration both averted discrimination and took advantage of the economic
opportunities opened up by tax revenues flowing into the Arab governing centers.
Urban Growth The Arab military settlements of Kufa and Basra in Iraq blossomed into cities and became
important centers for Muslim cultural activities. As conversion rapidly spread in the mid-ninth
century, urbanization accelerated in other regions, most visibly in Iran, where most cities previ-
ously had been quite small. Nishapur in the northeast grew from fewer than 10,000 pre-Islamic
inhabitants to between 100,000 and 200,000 by the year 1000. Other Iranian cities experienced
similar growth. In Iraq, Baghdad and Mosul joined Kufa and Basra as major cities. In Syria,
Aleppo and Damascus flourished under Muslim rule. Fustat in Egypt developed into Cairo, one
of the largest and greatest Islamic cities. The primarily Christian patriarchal cities of Jerusalem,
Antioch, and Alexandria, not being Muslim governing centers, shrank and stagnated.
Conversion-related migration meant that cities became heavily Muslim before the country-
side did. This reinforced the urban orientation deriving from the fact that Muhammad and his
first followers came from the commercial city of Mecca. Mosques in large cities served both as
ritual centers and as places for learning and social activities.
Islam and Society Islam colored all aspects of urban social life (see Diversity and Dominance: Secretaries,
Turks, and Beggars). Initially the new Muslims imitated Arab dress and customs and emulated
people they regarded as particularly pious. In the absence of a central religious authority, local
variations developed in the way people practiced Islam and in the hadith they attributed to the
Prophet. This gave the rapidly growing religion the flexibility to accommodate many different
social situations.
By the tenth century, urban growth was affecting the countryside by expanding the con-
sumer market. Citrus fruits, rice, and sugar cane, introduced by the Sasanids, increased in acre-
age and spread to new areas. Cotton became a major crop in Iran and elsewhere and stimu-
lated textile production. Irrigation works expanded. Abundant coinage facilitated a flourishing

Model of a Water-Lifting Device The art-

ist’s effort to render a three-dimensional
construction in two dimensions shows a
talent for schematic drawing.

Visual Connection Archive

intercity and long-distance trade that provided regular links between isolated districts and
integrated the pastoral nomads, who provided pack animals, into the region’s economy. Trade
encouraged the manufacture of cloth, metal goods, and pottery.
Technology and Science Science and technology also flourished (see Environment and Technology: Chemistry).
Building on Hellenistic traditions and their own observations and experience, Muslim doctors
and astronomers developed skills and theories far in advance of their European counterparts.
Working in Egypt in the eleventh century, the mathematician and physicist Ibn al-Haytham (IB-
uhn al–HY-tham) wrote more than a hundred works. Among other things, he determined that
the Milky Way lies far beyond earth’s atmosphere, proved that light travels from a seen object to
the eye and not the reverse, and explained why the sun and moon appear larger on the horizon
than overhead.

Women and Slaves

Women seldom traveled. Those living in rural areas worked in the fields and tended animals.
Urban women, particularly members of the elite, lived in seclusion and did not leave their homes
without covering themselves (see Material Culture: Head Coverings). Seclusion of women and
AP* Exam Tip The veiling in public already existed in Byzantine and Sasanid times. Through interpretation of spe-
role of women in Islamic cific verses from the Quran, these practices now became fixtures of Muslim social life. Although
societies is an important women sometimes became literate and studied with relatives, they did so away from the gaze of
comparison topic on the unrelated men, and while they played influential roles within the family, public roles were gen-
essay portion of the exam. erally barred. Only slave women could perform before unrelated men as musicians and dancers.
A man could have sexual relations with as many slave concubines as he pleased, in addition to
marrying as many as four wives.
Women’s Legal Status Muslim women fared better legally under Islamic law than did Christian and Jewish women
under their respective religious codes. Because Islamic law guaranteed daughters a share in

Secretaries, Turks, and Beggars

The passages below fall into the category of Arabic literature to another if he wishes. The secretary has no way to lay claim to
known as adab, or belles-lettres. The purpose of adab was to his late back wages or to leave his patron if he acts unfairly. He
entertain and instruct through a succession of short anecdotes, is governed by the rules for slaves. His status is that of a dolt.
verses, and expository discussions. It attracted the finest writers It should be enough for you to know of this group that the
of the Abbasid era and affords one of the richest sources for look- noblest of them is at the bottom of the pay scale. The most
ing at everyday life, always keeping in mind that the intended wealthy of them are the least regarded by the ruler. The head
readers were a restricted class of educated men, including of the secretariat who acts as spokesman to the nation earns a
merchants, court and government officials, and even men of tenth of the income of the head of land tax. The scribe whose
religion. handwriting lends beauty to the communications of the caliph
One of the greatest masters of Arabic prose, Jahiz (776–869), earns a fraction of the income of the head copyist in the land
was a famously ugly man—his name means “Popeyed”—of tax bureau. The correspondence secretary is not fetched for a
Abyssinian family origin. Spending part of his life in his native disaster nor is his aid sought in a crisis. When the ministers
Basra, in southern Iraq, and part in Baghdad, the Abbasid capi- have settled on a course of action and agreed in their appraisal,
tal, he wrote voluminously on subjects ranging from theology to a note is tossed him with the gist of the order. He prepares the
zoology to miserliness. These excerpts are from two of his short text. When he has finished his editing and straightened out
essays, “Censure of the Conduct of Secretaries” and “The Virtues the words, he brings in his copyist. He sits as near as anyone
of the Turks.” to the caliph, in a restricted location away from visitors. Once
that task is completed, however, there is no difference between
those two scribes and the common people.

Censure of the Conduct of Secretaries

Furthermore, the foundation on which writing is based [is] The Virtues of the Turks
that only a subordinate should take [it] up and only one who The Turk has with him at the moment of attack everything he
is in a sense a servant [can] master it. We have never seen an needs for himself, his weapons, his mount, and equipment for
important person undertake it for its own sake or share in his it. His endurance is quite amazing for long riding, continuous
secretary’s work. Every secretary is required to be loyal and travel, lengthy night trips, and crossing a land. . . . The Turk is
requested to bear hardship patiently. The most diverse condi- more skilled than the veterinarian and better at teaching his
tions are imposed on him and he is sorely tried. The secretary mount what he wants than trainers. He bred it and raised it as
has no right to set any of those conditions. On the contrary, he a foal. It followed him if he called and galloped behind him
is thought slow at the first lapse even if exhausted and cen- when he galloped. . . . If you sum up the life of the Turk and
sured at the first error even if unintentional. A slave is entitled reckon his days you will find he sits longer on the back of his
to many complaints against his master. He can request his sale mount than on the face of the earth.

inheritance equal to half that of a son, the majority of women inherited some amount of money
or real estate. This remained their private property to keep or sell. Muslim law put the financial
burden of supporting a family exclusively on the husband, who could not legally compel his wife
to help out.
Women could also remarry if their husbands divorced them, and they received a cash pay-
ment upon divorce. Although a man could divorce his wife without stating a cause, a woman
could initiate divorce under specified conditions. Women could also practice birth control.
They could testify in court, although their testimony counted as half that of a man. They could
also go on pilgrimage. Nevertheless, a misogynistic tone sometimes appears in Islamic writings.
One saying attributed to the Prophet observed: “I was raised up to heaven and saw that most of
its denizens were poor people; I was raised into the hellfire and saw that most of its denizens
were women.”3
Muhammad’s Wife A’isha In the absence of writings by women about women from this period, the status of women
must be deduced from the writings of men. Two episodes involving the Prophet’s wife A’isha,
the daughter of Abu Bakr, provide examples of how Muslim men appraised women in society.
Only eighteen when Muhammad died, A’isha lived for another fifty years. Early reports stress
her status as Muhammad’s favorite, the only virgin he married and the only wife to see the angel

242

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Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it.
If he is unable to hunt people, he hunts wild animals. If he is And the one who practices as a manipulator and quack den-
unsuccessful in that or needs nourishment, he bleeds one of his tist, or who escapes from chains wound round his body, or
riding animals. If thirsty he milks one of his mares. If he wants the one who uses almost invisible silk thread mysteriously
to rest the one under him he mounts another without touching to draw off rings. . . .
the ground. There is no one on earth besides him whose body And of our number are those who claim to be refugees from
would not reel against eating only meat. His mount is likewise the Byzantine frontier regions, those who go round beg-
satisfied with stubble, grass, and shrubs. He does not shade it ging on pretext of having left behind captive families. . . .
from the sun or cover it against the cold. . . . And the one who feigns an internal discharge, or who showers
The Turk is a herdsman, groom, trainer, trader, veterinar- the passers-by with his urine, or who farts in the mosque
ian, and rider. A single Turk is a nation in himself. and makes a nuisance of himself, thus wheedling money
out of people. . . .
Though rulers, warriors, and religious scholars dominate the And of our number are the ones who purvey objects of ven-
traditional narratives, the society that developed over the early eration made from clay, and those who have their beards
centuries of Islam was remarkably diverse. Beggars, tricksters, smeared with red dye.
and street performers belonged to a single loose fraternity: the And the one who brings up secret writing by immersing it in
Banu Sasan, or Tvribe of Sasan. Tales of their tricks and exploits what looks like water, and the one who similarly brings up
amused staid, pious Muslims, who often encountered them in the writing by exposing it to burning embers.
cities and on their scholarly travels. The tenth-century poet Abu
Dulaf al-Khazraji, who lived in Iran, studied the jargon of the QUESTIONS FOR ANALYSIS
Banu Sasan and their way of life and composed a long poem in
which he cast himself as one of the group. However, he added a 1. Why might the ruling elite have found the descriptions of
commentary to each verse to explain the jargon words that his diverse social groups entertaining?
sophisticated court audience would have found unfamiliar. 2. What role does religion appear to play in the culture that
patronized this type of literature?
We are the beggars’ brotherhood, and no one can deny us our
lofty pride. . . . 3. How does the personality of the author show up in these
And of our number is the feigned madman and mad woman, passages?
with metal charms strung from their necks.
And the ones with ornaments drooping from their ears, and
with collars of leather or brass round their necks. . . .
And the one who simulates a festering internal wound, and
the people with false bandages round their heads and
sickly, jaundiced faces. Sources: First selection excerpts from Nine Essays of al-Jahiz, trans. William M.
And the one who slashes himself, alleging that he has been Hutchins (New York: Peter Lang, 1989), 56, 64, 196. Reprinted by permission of
Peter Lang Publishing. Second selection excerpts from Clifford Edmund Bos-
mutilated by assailants, or the one who darkens his skin worth, The Mediaeval Islamic Underworld: The Banu Sasan in Arabic Society
artificially pretending that he has been beaten up and and Literature (Leiden: E. I. Brill, 1976), 191–199. Copyright . 1976. With kind
wounded. . . . permission of . Koninklijke Brill N.V. Leiden, the Netherlands.

Gabriel. These reports emanate from A’isha herself, who was an abundant source of hadith. As
a fourteen-year-old she had become separated from a caravan and rejoined it only after travel-
ing through the night with a man who found her alone in the desert. Gossips accused her of
being untrue to the Prophet, but a revelation from God proved her innocence. The second event
was her participation in the Battle of the Camel, fought to derail Ali’s caliphate. These two epi-
sodes came to epitomize what Muslim men feared most about women: sexual infidelity and
meddling in politics. Even though the earliest literature dealing with A’isha stresses her position
as Muhammad’s favorite, his first wife, Khadija, and his daughter, Ali’s wife Fatima, eventually
surpassed A’isha as ideal women. Both appear as model wives and mothers with no suspicion of
sexual irregularity or political manipulation.
Homosexuality As the seclusion of women became commonplace in urban Muslim society, some writers
extolled homosexual relationships, partly because a male lover could appear in public or go on
a journey. Although Islam deplored homosexuality, one ruler wrote a book advising his son to
follow moderation in all things and thus share his affections equally between men and women.
Another ruler and his slave-boy became models of perfect love in the verses of mystic poets.
Slavery Islam allowed slavery but forbade Muslims from enslaving other Muslims or so-called Peo-
ple of the Book—Jews, Christians, and Zoroastrians, who revered holy books respected by the

243

Chemistry
Muslim scientists developed sophisticated chemical processes
and used them to produce a broad range of goods, including
glazes for pottery, rosewater (the distilled essence of roses),
hard soap, gunpowder, and various types of glass. The words
chemistry and alchemy are both related to the Arabic term
for these activities, al-kimiya, and many chemical processes
passed from the Muslim world to Europe.
Distillation was used at Baku in Azerbaijan to produce a
light flammable liquid called “white naft,” roughly equiva-
lent to kerosene, from crude oil. Special military units wear-
ing fire-resistant clothing were trained to use white naft as an
incendiary weapon. Flaming liquids, whose exact composition
is still uncertain, could be put into pots and thrown, placed in
containers attached to arrows, or pumped from a tube.

The Corning Museum of Glass, 68.1.1

Islamic Glassware This glass bottle from Syria shows the
skill of Muslim chemists and artisans in producing clear,
transparent glass. The scratched decoration reflects the Mus-
lim taste for geometric design.

Muslims. Being enslaved as a prisoner of war constituted an exception. Later centuries saw a
constant flow of slaves into Islamic territory from Africa and Central Asia. A hereditary slave
society, however, did not develop. Usually slaves converted to Islam, and many masters then
freed them as an act of piety. The offspring of slave women and Muslim men were born free.

The Recentering of Islam

Early Islam centered on the caliphate, the political expression of the unity of the umma. No for-
mal organization or hierarchy, however, directed the process of conversion. Thus there emerged
a multitude of local Islamic communities so disconnected from each other that numerous com-
peting interpretations of the developing religion arose. Inevitably, the centrality of the caliphate
diminished (see Map 8.1). The appearance of rival caliphates in Tunisia and Cordoba accentu-
ated the problem of decentralization.
The Ulama The rise of the ulama as community leaders did not prevent growing fragmentation because
the ulama themselves divided into contentious factions. During the twelfth century factional-
ism began to abate, and new socioreligious institutions emerged to provide the umma with a
different sort of religious center. These new developments stemmed in part from an exodus of
religious scholars from Iran in response to economic and political disintegration during the late
eleventh and twelfth centuries. The flow of Iranians to the Arab lands and to newly conquered
territories in India and Anatolia increased after the Mongol invasion.
Madrasas Fully versed in Arabic as well as their native Persian, immigrant scholars were warmly
received. They brought with them a view of religion developed in Iran’s urban centers. A type of
religious college, the madrasa (MAH-dras-uh), gained sudden popularity outside Iran, where
madrasas had been known since the tenth century. Scores of madrasas, many founded by local
rulers, appeared throughout the Islamic world.

244

Head Coverings
Covering the head is one of the most uni-
versal of human cultural characteristics. It
is also one of the most common ways of sig-
naling social status. Examples can be drawn

Bibliotheque nationale de France, Ms Arabe 5847 (Schefer Hariri) folio 26 recto

from every part of the world, from earliest
times down to the modern era. In premod-
ern Chinese society, the color and design
of a man’s cap indicated his rank as clearly
as the insignia on military head coverings
does today. In most European societies in
the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries,
men and frequently women of the higher
social orders wore wigs, a practice that still
survives in the costume of British judges.
Head coverings were particularly impor-
tant for royalty. From ancient Egypt, where
the earliest Pharaonic crowns symbolized
the union of the northern and southern
parts of the Nile Valley, down to the twen-
tieth century and the jewel-studded crown
of the shah of Iran, each land developed its
own distinctive royal headdress. This also Muslim Headcoverings The man standing before a governor in this thirteenth
held true for Native American societies in century miniature painting wears a simple skullcap indicating his low social
pre-Columbian times and for African and status. The two attendants wear turbans, but the governor’s turban is built into
Polynesian societies. In some societies, such a high, conical shape. The folds and tails of turbans signified not only rank, but
as Sasanid Iran and the Ottoman Empire also place of origin. To this day, men from western Afghanistan wear tightly
in what is today Turkey, each ruler’s crown wound white turbans with long tails while men from eastern Afghanistan wear
or turban had a distinctive design that sig- loose colorful turbans.
naled his rule.
Head coverings have also played significant roles in reli- as much for the social rank of the woman’s husband as for her
gion. In orthodox Judaism, for example, men wear hats or own.
skullcaps, and married women wear wigs, as signs of accep- Given this long history of distinctive head coverings, the
tance of God’s laws. In Islam, head coverings for women, abandonment of both men’s and women’s hats in the second
borrowed from pre-Islamic practice in the Middle East, have half of the twentieth century marked a major turning point in
become politically controversial in recent years; but prior to the history of symbolism. Around the world, the hat-making
the twentieth century it was considered equally improper for a industry has greatly contracted. Whether one visits China,
Muslim man to go bareheaded. Egypt, India, France, or Brazil, one finds it difficult to deter-
Wearing no hat at all was usually a characteristic of slaves mine the rank or status of most people by looking at what they
or of the poorest elements in society. But it could also signify a have on their heads. Heads of government typically pose for
deliberate desire to be regarded as humble. Sumerian priests, group photographs with no hats on at all. Aside from conser-
Buddhist monks and nuns, and certain Sufis in the Muslim vative religious groups, the head coverings that remain most
world shaved their heads clean. In Europe, early Christian often indicate occupations: military, police, construction, ath-
monks and priests shaved the crown of their heads in the letics, and so on.
Roman Catholic tradition. This form of tonsure competed with The reasons for this change are unclear. The spread of
and eventually superseded an Irish Catholic practice of shav- democracy and decline of aristocracy may have contributed to
ing the front of the head. Yet head shaving did not always sig- it, but hats have become equally uncommon in dictatorships.
nify humility. Japanese samurai, or warriors, also shaved the A more likely cause is the worldwide role of news photographs,
front of their heads. movies, and other pictorial media. The media developed in
Head coverings for women, as well as wigs and hairdressing Europe and the United States tend to take Western customs as
styles, sometimes show greater diversity than those for men. normal and exoticize non-Western styles as “native costumes.”
This has been particularly true in societies where women of People everywhere have thus felt pressure to switch to Western
high status mix with men on public occasions. A magnificent styles, including bareheadedness, to fit into the image of the
wig, hat, or coiffure under these circumstances might speak modern world.

245

Women Playing Chess in Muslim Spain As shown in this thirteenth-century miniature, women in their own quarters, without
men present, wore whatever clothes and jewels they liked. Notice the henna decorating the hands of the woman in the middle.
The woman on the left, probably a slave, plays an oud.

Sufi Brotherhoods Iranians also contributed to the growth of mystic groups known as Sufi brotherhoods in the
twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The doctrines and rituals of certain Sufis spread from city to
city, giving rise to the first geographically extensive Islamic religious organizations. Sufi doc-
trines varied, but a quest for a sense of union with God through rituals and training was a com-
mon denominator. Sufism had begun in early Islamic times and had doubtless benefited from
the ideas and beliefs of people from religions with mystic traditions who converted to Islam.
The early Sufis had been saintly individuals given to ecstatic and poetic utterances and
wonder-working. They attracted disciples but did not try to organize them. The growth of broth-
erhoods, a less ecstatic form of Sufism, set a tone for society in general. It soon became common
for most Muslim men, particularly in the
cities, to belong to at least one brotherhood.
SECTION REVIEW A sense of the social climate the Sufi
● The foundation of Islamic civilization is the Shari’a, which is derived
brotherhoods fostered can be gained from
from the Quran and hadith. a twelfth-century manual:
Every limb has its own special eth-
● Urbanization and religious conversion reinforced each other and
ics. . . . The ethics of the tongue. The
prompted the expansion of agriculture, trade, science, and technology.
tongue should always be busy in
● Women in general enjoyed relatively high status under Islamic law, reciting God’s names (dhikr) and in
though urban women tended to live in seclusion. saying good things of the brethren,
praying for them, and giving them
● Islamic attitudes toward homosexuality were ambivalent, and slavery
counsel. . . . The ethics of hearing.
was an accepted and continuous practice.
One should not listen to indecencies
● Migrations of Iranian scholars centered Islam on the madrasa and con- and slander. . . . The ethics of sight.
tributed to the rise of Sufism. One should lower one’s eyes in order
not to see forbidden things.4

Quran Page Printed from a Woodblock Printing from

woodblocks or tin plates existed in Islamic lands between
approximately 800 and 1400. Most prints were narrow amulets
designed to be rolled and worn around the neck in cylindri-
cal cases. Less valued than handwritten amulets, many prints
came from Banu Sasan con men. Why block-printing had so
little effect on society in general and eventually disappeared is
unknown.

Special dispensations allowed people who merely wanted

to emulate the Sufis and enjoy their company to follow less
demanding rules:
It is allowed by way of dispensation to possess an estate or
to rely on a regular income. The Sufis’ rule in this matter
is that one should not use all of it for himself, but should
dedicate this to public charities and should take from it
only enough for one year for himself and his family. . . .
Cambridge University Library

There is a dispensation allowing one to watch all kinds

of amusement. This is, however, limited by the rule: What
you are forbidden from doing, you are also forbidden from
watching.5
Some Sufi brotherhoods spread in the countryside. Local
shrines and pilgrimages to the tombs of Muhammad’s descen-
dants and saintly Sufis became popular. The end of the Abbasid Caliphate enhanced the reli-
gious centrality of Mecca, which eventually became an important center of madrasa education,
and gave renewed importance to the annual pilgrimage.

CONCLUSION
Islam arose in a religious atmosphere created by the Sasanid Empire, which favored Zoroastri-
anism, and Byzantium, which favored Christianity. These strong state religions led to conflict
among religious sects and also raised the possibility of the founder of a new religion command-
ing both political and religious loyalty on an unprecedented scale. This possibility was realized
in the career of the prophet Muhammad in the seventh century.
Islam culminated the trend toward identity based on religion. The concept of the umma
united all Muslims in a universal community embracing enormous diversity of language,
appearance, and social custom. Though Muslim communities adapted to local “small tradi-
tions,” by the twelfth century a religious scholar could travel anywhere in the Islamic world and
blend easily into the local Muslim community.
By the ninth century, the forces of conversion and urbanization fostered social and religious
experimentation in urban settings. From the eleventh century onward, political disruption and
the spread of pastoral nomadism slowed this early economic and technological dynamism.
Muslim communities then turned to new religious institutions, such as the madrasas and Sufi
brotherhoods, to create the flexible and durable community structures that carried Islam into
new regions and protected ordinary believers from capricious political rule.

KEY TERMS
Mecca p. 228 Medina p. 230 Shi’ites p. 232 mamluks p. 234
Muhammad p. 228 umma p. 230 Umayyad Caliphate p. 232 Ghana p. 235
Muslim p. 230 caliphate p. 231 Sunnis p. 232 ulama p. 237
Islam p. 230 Quran p. 231 Abbasid Caliphate p. 233 hadith p. 239

EBOOK AND WEBSITE RESOURCES

Primary Sources Interactive Maps
The Constitution of Medina: Muslims and Jews at the Dawn Map 8.1 Early Expansion of Muslim Rule
of Islam Map 8.2 Rise and Fall of the Abbasid Caliphate
The Quran: Muslim Devotion to God
Plus flashcards, practice quizzes, and more. Go to:
www.cengage.com/history/bullietearthpeople5e

SUGGESTED READING
al-Hassan, Ahmad Y., and Donald R. Hill. Islamic Technol- Glick, Thomas F. From Muslim Fortress to Christian Castle:
ogy: An Illustrated History. 1986. Introduces a little-studied Social and Cultural Change in Medieval Spain. 1995. Ques-
field. tions standard ideas about Christians and Muslims from a
Armstrong, Karen. Muhammad: A Biography of the Prophet. geographical and technological standpoint.
1993. A sympathetic work with an ecumenical tone. Lapidus, Ira M. A History of Islamic Societies, 2nd ed. 2002.
Berkey, Jonathan. The Formation of Islam: Religion and Soci- A lengthy work that focuses on social developments and
ety in the Near East, 600–1800. 2003. A short and lively includes Islam outside the Middle East.
survey. Laroui, Abdallah. The History of the Maghrib: An Interpretive
Bloom, Jonathan. Paper Before Print. 2001. A superb study of Essay. 1977. Challenges traditional French scholarship on
paper and papermaking in medieval Islamic culture. North Africa.
Bulliet, Richard W. Islam: The View from the Edge. 1993. An Lassner, Jacob. A Mediterranean Society: An Abridgement in
approach that concentrates on the lives of converts to Islam One Volume. 1999. Summary of S. D. Goitein’s multivolume
and local religious notables. study of the Jews of medieval Egypt.
Choksy, Jamsheed K. Conflict and Cooperation: Zoroastrian Sells, Michael. Approaching the Qur’an: The Early Revelations.
Subalterns and Muslim Elites in Medieval Iranian Society. 1999. An insightful reading of parts of the Quran, which
1997. Exploits Arabic and Middle Persian sources to detail Muslims regard as untranslatable. Most “interpretations”
the interaction of religious communities. in English adhere reasonably closely to the Arabic text.
Donner, Fred. Narratives of Islamic Origins. 1998. Discusses Spellberg, Denise. Politics, Gender, and the Islamic Past: The
the new school of thought that rejects the traditional Legacy of A’isha bint Abi Bakr. 1994. A pathbreaking work
accounts of Muhammad’s life and of the origins of the on the methodology of women’s history.
Quran. Waines, David. An Introduction to Islam. 1995. A reliable
Gervers, Michael, and Ramzi Jibran Bikhazi, eds. Conver- starting point for studying the religion of Islam.
sion and Continuity: Indigenous Christian Communities in Wiesehöfer, Josef. Ancient Persia. 2001. A solid survey that
Islamic Lands, Eighth to Eighteenth Centuries. 1990. Articles includes the Sasanid period.
in this collection detail Christian responses to Islam.

NOTES
1. Quran. Sura 96, verses 1–5. 4. Abu Najib al-Suhrawardi, A Sufi Rule for Novices, trans.
2. Quran. Sura 92, verses 1–10. Menahem Milson (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
3. Richard W. Bulliet, Islam: The View from the Edge (New Press, 1975), 45–58.
York: Columbia University Press, 1994), 87. 5. Ibid., 73–82.

1. Which of the following is true of southern Arabia by 6. The schism in Islam was caused by
the 600s?
(A) the fact that Muhammad had not clarified his
(A) It was an isolated and remote region that had seen successor.
no development. (B) Iranian followers who believed that the Quran was
(B) Most people in the region had some familiarity sacred.
with Africa, India, and the Persian Gulf region. (C) the marriage of Khadija to Ishmael.
(C) It had been annexed to the Sasanid Empire. (D) Meccans who reverted to Judaism.
(D) The Byzantine Empire treated it as a tributary state.
7. Which of the following is true of the Quran?
2. As the caravan trade across Arabia developed,
(A) It was written and published by Muhammad.
Arab pastoralists
(B) It is not published even today.
(A) raided caravans for their wealth. (C) Only the priests of the faith can possess the text.
(B) became merchants and sold Arabian goods to cara- (D) Abu Bakr reportedly ordered that it be written
van leaders. down.
(C) became part-time farmers and produced food
crops to sell to the caravans.
8. The Muslims who supported the first four caliphs came
(D) became the primary providers of animal power
to be called “People of tradition and Community,” or
throughout the region.
(A) Shi’ites.
(B) Israelites.
3. Muhammad became a caravan merchant
(C) Kharijites.
(A) because his father was one. (D) Sunnis.
(B) through his marriage to Khadija.
(C) late in his life as a way to support spreading his
9. Between 636 and 639, the Muslims wrenched both Syria
message.
and Egypt from
(D) as a way to increase his political role in Arab
society. (A) the Byzantine Empire.
(B) the Greeks.
(C) the Egyptians.
4. In Arabic, Islam means
(D) the Sasanids.
(A) holy warrior for God.
(B) one who appears before God in glory.
10. By the early 700s, the Muslim empire stretched from
(C) one who makes submission to the will of God.
(D) obedient servant of God. (A) Mecca to Baghdad.
(B) Spain to India.
(C) Turkey to Iran.
5. In Medina, Muhammad and his followers formed the
(D) Arabia to Syria and Egypt.
community of believers in Islam and in Muhammad as
the “Messenger of God,” called the
(A) hijira.
(B) caliphate.
(C) fatwa.
(D) hajj.

250

14. One of the major problems the Abbasid caliphs

faced was
(A) frontier revolts that they were slow to reach.
(B) diminishing harvest due to overuse of the land.
(C) attacks from the ulama for being religiously
tolerant.
(D) a shortage of gold and silver coins.

251

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The Rise of Islam PDF

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The Rise of Islam PDF

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PART

Courtesy, Suleymaniye Library, Istanbul

8 CHAP TER OUTLINE

Bibliotheque nationale de France

THE ORIGINS OF ISLAM

The Arab Lands Iran and Central Asia

570–632 Life of the Prophet Muhammad

Formation of the Umma

Aachen Dn Don 0 250 500 Km.

PRIMARY SOURCE: The

THE RISE AND FALL OF THE CALIPHATE, 632–1258

The Islamic Conquests, 634–711

The Umayyad and Early Abbasid Caliphates, 661–850

Political Fragmentation, 850–1050

Fatimid Caliphate, 969

Mosque of Ibn Tulun in

Ellen Rooney/Robert Harding World Imagery

Tomb of the Samanids in Bukhara

Spanish Muslim Textile of the Twelfth Century This fragment

lighter thumb of the Sunni Turks. The Seljuks pressed on into

Law and Dogma

Converts and Cities

Model of a Water-Lifting Device The art-

Visual Connection Archive

Women and Slaves

Secretaries, Turks, and Beggars

Censure of the Conduct of Secretaries

The Corning Museum of Glass, 68.1.1

The Recentering of Islam

Bibliotheque nationale de France, Ms Arabe 5847 (Schefer Hariri) folio 26 recto

Institut Amatller d’Art Hispanic. © Patrimonio Nacional, Madrid

Quran Page Printed from a Woodblock Printing from

Special dispensations allowed people who merely wanted

There is a dispensation allowing one to watch all kinds

EBOOK AND WEBSITE RESOURCES

14. One of the major problems the Abbasid caliphs

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