1. Unit 3: Muslim Civilizations
Mr. Webster’s Class

2. Vocabulary mosque – a Muslim house of worship
Quran – the holy book of Islam
hajj – the pilgrimage to Mecca that all Muslims are expected to take
Sharia – body of Islamic law that includes interpretations of the Quran
caliph – successor to Muhammed as political and religious leader of Muslims
minaret – a slender tower of a mosque, which calls Muslims to prayer
sultan – Muslim ruler
shah – Persian king

3. The Rise of Islam
The religion of Islam, whose followers are called Muslims, emerged in the Arabian peninsula.
In the 500s, this desert region was occupied by nomadic herders called Bedouins.
Bedouins moved through the desert to reach seasonal pasturelands for their camels, goats, and sheep.
Bedouins also traded in oasis towns and protected caravan trading routes.

4. Muhammed and Mecca
Muhammed was born in the oasis town of Mecca around 570.
Mecca was a bustling market town at the crossroads of several caravan routes.
It was also a thriving pilgrimage center.
Many Arabs came to pray at the Kaaba in Mecca, an ancient temple that housed statues of pagan gods and goddesses.

5. Muhammed Becomes God’s Messenger
As a young adult, Muhammed led caravans across the desert and became a successful merchant.
At the age of 40, Muhammed heard the voice of the angel Gabriel calling him to be the messenger of God.
Muhammed accepted the call and devoted his life to spreading Islam, which means “to submit to God” in Arabic.

6. The Hijra
Muhammed urged Arabs to give up their worship of pagan gods and submit to the one true God.
In Arabic, the word for God is Allah.
At first few people listened to Muhammed’s teachings.
In 622, Muhammed and his followers left Mecca for Yathrib, a journey known as the hijra.

7. Medina
Later, Yathrib was renamed Medina, or “city of the prophet,” and 622 became the first year of the Muslim calendar.
In Medina, Muslim converts welcomed Muhammed and agreed to follow his teachings.
Muhammed created rules that governed and united Muslims, and as his reputation grew, thousands of Arabs adopted Islam.

8. Muhammed Conquers Mecca
In 630, Muhammed seized control of Mecca.
He destroyed the idols in the Kaaba, the temple he believed Abraham had built to worship the one true God.
He dedicated the Kaaba to Allah, and it became the most holy place in Islam.
After Muhammed’s death in 632, Islam continued to spread.

9. The Five Pillars of Islam
Like Judaism and Christianity, Islam is monotheistic.
To Muslims, the Quran contains the sacred word of God as revealed to Muhammed.
The Five Pillars of Islam make up the foundation of Muslim life.
They include a declaration of faith, prayer, charity, fasting during Ramadan, and making the hajj, which is a pilgrimage to Mecca.

10. The Sharia
Over time, Muslim scholars developed the Sharia, a body of law for followers of Islam.
The Sharia does not separate religion from criminal or civil law.
As Islam spread, Muslims adopted practices of conquered peoples.
One such example was the practice of veiling women and secluding them in a separate part of the home, which was a Persian custom.

11. Sunnis and Shiites
When Muhammed died, Muslims disagreed over who should be their next leader.
The majority of Muslims, known as Sunnis, believed that any pious male Muslim could be Muhammad’s successor.
Muslims who felt that Muhammed’s son-in-law, Ali, and his descendants should to be the successors became known as Shiites.

12. Abu Bakr
Eventually, a majority of Muslims agreed that Abu Bakr, Muhammed’s father-in-law, should be the first caliph, or successor to Muhammed.
Abu Bakr converted the remaining Arab tribes to Islam, and united all Arabs under his leadership.
Under the first four caliphs, Arab Muslims conquered Persia and large portions of the Byzantine Empire.

13. The Umayyad Caliphate
After the death of Ali in 661, a powerful Meccan clan set up the Umayyad Caliphate.
The Umayyad Caliphate was a dynasty of Sunni caliphs that ruled the Muslim Empire until 750.
Their capital was Damascus.
The Umayyads extended Arab Muslim rule from Spain and Morocco in the west to the Indus River in the east.

14. The Abbasid Caliphate
By the mid-700s, many Muslims who were discontent with the Umayyads found a leader in Abu al-Abbas.
Abu al-Abbas captured Damascus from the Umayyads in 750, and started the Abbasid dynasty, which lasted until 1258.
Under the Abbasids, Baghdad became the new capital, exceeding Constantinople in both size and wealth.

15. Muslims Build Trade Networks
Under the Abassids, Muslim civilization flourished.
Between 750 and 1350, Muslim merchants built a vast trading network across Muslim lands and beyond.
Muslim merchants introduced Arabic numerals to the Western world, and they invented the ancestors of today’s bank checks.

16. Islamic Golden Age
Muhammed’s respect for learning inspired Muslims to make great advances in philosophy, history, mathematics, and the sciences.
Baghdad became the greatest Muslim center of learning, and its libraries attracted highly respected scholars.
Muslim scholars preserved the learning of earlier civilizations by translating ancient texts into Arabic.

17. Muslim Scholars
One of the greatest Muslim scholars was al-Khwarizmi, who pioneered the study of algebra.
Ibn Khaldun set standards for the scientific study of history.
Khaldun warned against bias, exaggeration, and overconfidence in the accuracy of sources.
Muhammed al-Razi wrote many books on medicine, and pioneered a study on measles and smallpox.

18. The Muslim Empire Declines
Starting around 850, Abbasid control of the Muslim Empire began to fragment.
In the 11th century, Seljuk Turks took control of Baghdad, but kept the Abbasid caliph as a figurehead.
The Seljuks’ push into Asia Minor led to the First Crusade in 1095.
In 1258, Mongols burned and looted Baghdad, and killed the last Abbasid caliph.

19. The Delhi Sultanate
In the late 1100s, present-day northern India was conquered by the sultan, or Muslim ruler, of Ghur.
The sultan made Delhi his capital, and his successors organized a sultanate, or land ruled by a sultan.
The Delhi Sultanate lasted from , and marked the start of Muslim rule in northern India.
The newcomers introduced Muslim civilization to India.

20. Muslims Conquer India
The Muslim conquest of northern India inflicted disaster on Hindus and Buddhists.
Many Buddhist monasteries were destroyed, which contributed to a drastic decline of Buddhism in India.
Many Hindus were also killed, and others may have converted to Islam to escape death.

21. Hinduism v. Islam
The Muslim conquest of India brought Hinduism and Islam - two utterly different religions - face to face.
In time, the Delhi sultans grew more tolerant of their Hindu subjects.
During the Delhi sultanate, a growing number of Hindus converted to Islam.
Muslim India, though, absorbed various elements of Hindu culture.

22. Nanak and Sikhism
Indian holy man Nanak sought to blend Islamic and Hindu beliefs.
He preached “the unity of God, the brotherhood of man, the rejection of caste, and the futility of idol worship.”
Nanak’s teachings led to the rise of a new religion, Sikhism, in northern India.

23. The Mughal Dynasty
In 1526, the Turco-Mongol leader Babur invaded India, defeated the Delhi sultanate, and set up the Mughal dynasty.
Mughal is the Persian word for Mongol.
The high point of Mughal culture came with the reign of Shah Jahan.
After his wife died, Shah Jahan had a stunning tomb built for her – the Taj Mahal – completed in 1653.

24. Fall of Constantinople
The Ottomans were a Turkish- speaking nomadic people who migrated from Central Asia into northwestern Asia Minor (present- day Turkey).
In 1453, the Ottomans, led by Mehmed II, successfully conquered Constantinople and the Byzantine Empire.
In time, Constantinople would be renamed Istanbul.

25. The Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman Empire enjoyed a golden age under the sultan Suleiman, who ruled from 1520 to
Suleiman extended Ottoman rule throughout both Europe and Asia.
At its height, the Ottoman Empire stretched from Hungary to the Middle East and across North Africa.

26. Ottoman Culture
The Ottoman Empire’s expansion spread Islam into Eastern Europe.
Ottoman law was based on the Sharia, supplemented by royal edicts.
Government officials worked closely with religious scholars who interpreted the law.
After Suleiman’s death in 1566, the Ottoman Empire began a slow decline.

27. Safavid Empire
By the early 1500s, the Safavid dynasty had united an empire in Persia (present-day Iran).
The Safavids were Shiite Muslims who enforced their beliefs in their empire.
The best-known Safavid king, or shah, was Shah Abbas, who revived the glory of ancient Persia.
The Safavids ruled Persia until