Abbasid coalition over threw Umayyad dynasty 749 AD

Captured Cordoba Lit streetsRunning waterWorld’s finest universities (400,00 volumes)

The Mosque at Cordoba

Under Muslim rule the Iberian peninsula became key locus for transmission of ideas, technology and material culture between the Mid East, N. Africa and Europe

1. Islam created a new civilization zone2. Develop the Complexities of Islam3. Show the Spread of Islam4. Why was the Islamic Zone so successful?5. Demonstrate Islamic diversity6. The role of the state in Islam7. Social implication

Arabs from southern Arabia move to the middle east to create a new civilization zone

An Islamic religious Zone was created from Spain to Indonesia and south through Africa

Even non-converts were affectedChina and Islam Russian expansion Western Europe-Spain, Sicily

 Muhammad, 622–632

Expansion during the Rashidun Caliphate, 632–661

Expansion during the Umayyad Caliphate, 661–750

Three problems:1. Modern biases toward Islam—minority

engaging in terrorism2. Historical Christian conflict with Islam has

led to exaggerated and outdated perceptions

1. Crusades

3. Islam covers vast territories and varies culturally and spiritually far beyond Shiite-Sunni split

1. Rome Falls-creates a power vacuum, filled by Islam—led to far reaching conversion to Islam

2. Was the spread of Islam from conquest? No! It was an Arab interest in new opportunity

3. Islam spread wide and far1. Islam in India was headed by missionaries and

merchants, with occasional military intervention2. In central Asia Islam often replaced Buddhism

(Turkish people embraced a strict form of Islam)3. In East Africa Arab-African communities

developed Islam; In West Africa upper classes created Islam as a significant minority religion

4. Islam gradually spread to SE Asia (substantial hold)

1. Outlined clear codes of conduct—reward in the after life

2. Arab and Muslim commercial, political and military success

3. Combination of tolerance and inducement1. Though Jews and Christians were “people of the

book”, they offered some fiscal and political reasons to convert from taxation policies

2. Few were forced to convert to Islam, but inequalities between Muslims and non-Muslims helped

4. Certain social groups were motivated to convert1. Merchants2. Poor people-spiritual equality and charity

What about spiritual conversion?

How to choose the caliph? Shiite=lineal ascension: Sunni=selection

1. Religious interpretation began early and continues to define the Muslim world

2. Sufism also created another tension between emotional and rational Islam

3. Rich artistic and Intellectual heritage and faith1. No representations of animal and human figures

(idolatry), Persians maintained artistic tradition2. Attitudes towards music, complicated: Middle

East developed vigorous culture of music3. Faith and reason—philosophic efforts

1. Clear model of an ideal leader, the caliphate, however, was rarely inspired primarily by religion

2. Koran urges Muslims to avoid political disputes3. Islam emerged inside the state, Christianity did

not1. Christian’s and the state—3 centuries of Christian

persecution from the Roman state2. Muhammad was a political and religious leader, the

caliphate also developed as a state tool—Islam was always a state tool

3. Islamic law and scholarship formed a coherent relationship with religion and the state

1. Slavery and Islam1. Tolerated slavery, with specific rules about

Muslim slaves2. Belief and reality clashed and caused not real

definitive answer

2. Muhammad and the freedom of Women1. Highly reduced Infanticide2. Women had clear legal rights-property rights,

divorce rights, access to worship and travel3. Not equality—veiling?

1. Islam is not Gender biased, Western Male interpretation of Islamic law and Koran created inequality

2. Men and Women are equal it the eyes of God, governed by a hierarchical gender relationship of women and men

3. As Islam spread other societies and cultures created a patriarchal Islamic society