WHI.4

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=Describe the central political, economic, and religious developments in major periods of Islamic history. =




 * Topics on this page:**
 * A. the sources of disagreement between Sunnis and Shi’ites **
 * ** See Special Topic Page on ** **Sunni and Shi'a Islam**


 * B. the growing influence of Turkish Islam after 1000 **


 * C. the importance of the trade routes connecting the Far East and Europe and the role of the Mongols in increasing trade along these routes, including the silk routes to China **
 * ** Historical Biography page on ** **Ibn Battuta, 14th Century Muslim Traveler**
 * **The Silk Road**
 * **The Maritime Silk Road**


 * D. the relationship of trade to the growth of Central Asian and Middle Eastern cities **


 * E. the sources and uses of slaves in Islamic societies as well as the extent of the Islamic slave trade across Africa from 700 CE on **
 * ** Women History resources **

//Focus Question: What were the main political, economic and religious developments in Islamic history?//

 * Background:**
 * Quick history about Islam from PBS
 * Overview of Islamic History
 * Animated video on Muhammad's life and the origins of Islam
 * [|Timeline] of Islamic History
 * This [|video] provides the explanation to the significance of the Islamic Pilgrimage to Mecca

=A. The sources of disagreement between Sunnis and Shi’ites=



After the death of Muhammad, the problem of who should replace him and care for the //umma,// or community.

Three caliphs, or chief Muslim rulers, followed.

However when the fourth caliph, Ali, took control, problems arose because he was Muhammad’s cousin and brother-in-law.

This caused the split when the Shi’ites claimed that the first three caliphs were illegitimate because they were not along the line of divine succession, meaning they were not related to Muhammad.

The Sunni branch, approximately 85% of all Muslims, argued that the Caliph should belong to Muhammad’s tribe, the Qurayah, and that the community should choose him by the process of consensus (//ijma//).
 * The Sunni**
 * Since Muhammad was the “Seal of the Prophets,” the Sunnis considered the responsibilities of the Caliph merely to guard—not continue—the prophetic legacy, and to provide “for the administration of community affairs in obedience to the [|Qur’an] and prophetic precedent” (Kerr, 1982, p. 330).

The other major branch of Islam, Shi’a, claims approximately 15% of the Muslim population and are primarily located in Iraq and Iran.
 * The Shi’a**
 * This branch is generally considered the more militant wing of the Islamic faith. The Shi’ites, as those comprising the Shi’a sect are called, splintered from the Sunnis primarily over the question of the Caliphate. Regarding this matter, there are specifically two points of disagreement between Shi’ites and Sunnis.

 For a NPR broadcast explaining the origins of Sunni-Shi’a conflict, see NPR series **The Partisans of Ali Overview** **Part 1. **

The late Ayatollah Khomeini, perhaps the most widely remembered Shi’ite leader among contemporary Westerners. For a brief 5 minutes video about the 1979 Iranian Revolution where Ayatollah Khomeini came to power in Iran, click here.


 * For more information Sunni and Shi'a Islam differences, see Sunni and Shi'a Islam
 * New York Times article outlining major characteristics and differences between Sunni and Shi'a Muslims
 * NowThis World video on Sunni and Shi'a differences in the modern era
 * See World History II.47 for more on the Iranian Revolution.

For more information on a third sect of Islam, the mystical [|Sufism], click here.

Click this link for an understanding of women in [|Shi'ism]

=B. The growing influence of Turkish Islam after 1000=

For almost 400 years, a succession of Turkic peoples entered eastern Islamdom from Central Asia. These nearly continuous migrations can be divided into three phases: Seljuqs (1055-92), Mongols (1256-1411), and neo-Mongols (1369-1405). The modern nation of Turkey is named after its Turkish inhabitants, but the Turks were not originally from Turkey. Turkish Islam overtook Christianity in the region and eventually became a significant part of the Ottoman empire.

During the Middle Ages, Islamic Turks played a prominent role in scientific and technological developments, as well as the organization and promotion of education (known as //madrasa// education) as a duty to the state and to one's religion. This began under the Seljuqs and continued under the Ottoman Empire. Read more here

Due to a number of interrelated factors (such as climatic changes, the strain of growing populations, and pressure from stronger neighbors), the Seljuqs began moving into the Anatolian peninsula (modern-day Turkey). Click here for a brief history of the Seljuqs from the MET Museum and to view some of the art from that period.

Click here for a great website that includes the history of the Ottoman Empire, maps, military information, arts and culture, and more.


 * [[image:Screen Shot 2018-01-06 at 11.48.22 AM.png]]The Hagia Sophia **

Link to Hagia Sophia (532-37)

One of the main influences of the conquest of the Turks was the conversion from Christianity to Islam.

===<span style="color: black; font-family: &#39;Arial&#39;,&#39;sans-serif&#39;; font-size: 13.5pt;">**C. The importance of the trade routes connecting the Far East and Europe and the role of the Mongols in increasing trade along these routes, including the silk routes to China** ===

For more on the Silk Road, link to **AP World History Key Concept 3.1 and AP World History Key Concept 2.3.**

See Historical Biography page for Ibn Battuta, 14th Century Muslim Explorer <span class="wiki_link_new">

<span style="color: black; font-family: &#39;Arial&#39;,&#39;sans-serif&#39;; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">The historical significance of various trade routes are often noted by the exchange of tangible resources from relatively isolated regions and inherently lead to the transmission of cultures from one region to another.

<span style="color: black; font-family: &#39;Arial&#39;,&#39;sans-serif&#39;; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">The **Silk Road** and the **Maritime Silk Routes** were actually not just one single pathway, but a branching of several land and water passages of varying topography coming from the west through Central Asia.
 * <span style="color: black; font-family: &#39;Arial&#39;,&#39;sans-serif&#39;; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">Many precious commodities were traded throughout the route, from gold and ivory to animals and plants.
 * <span style="color: black; font-family: &#39;Arial&#39;,&#39;sans-serif&#39;; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">Additionally, this route didn't just exist for the sole purpose of trading goods as valuable as silk, but also acted as a persuasive route to share religion--the silk route was instrumental in proliferating Buddhism from India to China.
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">When the Mongols (led by Genghis Khan) began to siege territorial power through the enhanced communication that the route enabled, a significant interaction of cultural foundations of different regions took place.
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">The Mongol Empire was known as the largest contiguous empire in world history.
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">Compounding with the reality that Mongols were relatively tolerant of various religions, many nationalities and creeds were able to live in close proximity and enhance the ability to trade within the empire.

<span style="color: black; font-family: &#39;Arial&#39;,&#39;sans-serif&#39;; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">

====**<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">See [|Quanzhou: A Crucial Port along the Eastern Maritime Silk Roads]from UNESCO **====

<span style="color: black; font-family: &#39;Arial&#39;,&#39;sans-serif&#39;; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">As a means to examine the importance of culture within these regions, the non-profit education site, **The Silk Road Project** supplies videos, music, and maps to help provide multicultural resources for educators. <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">Crash Course video about the Silk Road.


 * [[image:http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/76/Red_apple.jpg width="80"]]<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; line-height: 14px;">For teaching material, see the educator section of the International Dunhuang Project: The Silk Road Online**.

Explore maps, timelines, music, and historic cultural sites and try your hand at trading on the Silk Road here

This link offers information about the Silk Road from The United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization.

<span style="color: black; font-family: &#39;Arial&#39;,&#39;sans-serif&#39;; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">**From Silk to Oil: Cross-Cultural Connection Along the Silk Roads** offers curriculum materials for teachers and students.

This **site** explains the role of women in the Silk Road.
 * Secrets of the Silk Road** from the Penn Museum presents a short overview of gallery images.

In 1453 CE, the Ottoman Turks sacked the city of Constantinople, bringing an [|end] to the Byzantine Empire. With the newly positioned Ottomans interfering with the trade routes along the Silk Road, European leaders had to find new ways to trade for Asian commodities. The fall of Constantinople, therefore, was the fall of the Silk Road.

<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">**D. The relationship of trade to the growth of Central Asian and Middle Eastern cities**
<span style="color: black; font-family: &#39;Arial&#39;,&#39;sans-serif&#39;; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">The Expansion of trade enabled Central Asian and Middle Eastern cities - such as Baghdad, Cairo, Damascus, and Marrakech - to grow and flourish.

<span style="color: black; font-family: &#39;Arial&#39;,&#39;sans-serif&#39;; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">The Islamic Empire established trade relationships with the Byzantine Empire, Southeast Asia, China and East and West Africa. Goods such as gold, silk, wheat, ivory, and sugar were brought into the Middle East by ships and camel caravans. Check out this page about trade and commercial activity in the Byzantine and Islamic Empire.

<span style="color: black; font-family: &#39;Arial&#39;,&#39;sans-serif&#39;; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">These trading relationships were made possible by the use of banking, currency, and credit. (Duiker and Spielvogel, "The Essential World History," Thomson Wadsworth, 2008. Pg. 156) <span style="color: black; font-family: &#39;Arial&#39;,&#39;sans-serif&#39;; font-size: 8pt;">

// ** Safavid Empire **(1501-1722) was based on modern day Iran and rose to challenge the Ottoman and Mughal Empires. //

<span style="color: black; font-family: &#39;Arial&#39;,&#39;sans-serif&#39;; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">Explore the Learning Module: Women in Islamic History including primary source documents and lesson plans from Center for History and New Media at George Mason University.

Check out this [|Link] with information about Women in Islam from the International Association for Sufism.

Author and activist Samina Ali dispels myths of Islam's oppression of women and discusses the Quranic history of the hijab and its role in modern-day Islam in this TedTalk.

For a lesson plan on two major Islamic cities, Baghdad and Cordoba, click [|here].


 * <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">D. The sources and uses of slaves in Islamic societies as well as the extent of the Islamic slave trade across ****<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">Africa from 700 AD on. **

<span style="color: black; font-family: &#39;Arial&#39;,&#39;sans-serif&#39;; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">The Islamic religion prevents Muslims from being enslaved. In an effort to circumvent these religious edicts, Islamic society had to import non-Muslim slaves from other regions.

Here is a link to Arabs and the Slave Trade, an explanation of the Islamic Slave Trade and why there is not a larger African population in the Middle East like in the Americas.

<span style="color: black; font-family: &#39;Arial&#39;,&#39;sans-serif&#39;; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">Most often, these slaves came from Africa and parts of Asia outside the empire.
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">They were made to serve in the army or as domestic servants, and in some instances, allowed to purchase their own freedom.
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Islam was heavily involved in the slave trade from 700 AD on and made incursions by both land and sea into East and West Africa to bring slaves into Middle Eastern markets. (Duiker and Spielvogel, "The Essential World History," Thomson Wadsworth, 2008. Pg. 158).
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Here is a BBC article about slavery in the Islamic world.

<span style="color: black; font-family: &#39;Arial&#39;,&#39;sans-serif&#39;; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"> Brandeis University’s “**The Feminist Sexual Ethics Project** <span style="font-family: &#39;Arial&#39;,&#39;sans-serif&#39;; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">provides a short article examining the origins of slavery in Islamic tradition and connected these beliefs to the current exploit of female labor in contemporary Islamic culture.


 * <span style="font-family: &#39;Arial&#39;,&#39;sans-serif&#39;; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">For every man, there were two women sent to the Middle East. This was opposite of the Atlantic slave trade. **

Here is New York Times article about the African Slave Trade in the Islamic World.

Click this link to learn more about the ways in which Africa was influenced by the spread of Islam.

For more information on notable Muslims of Black/African origin, click [|here]

Crash Course video about Islam and politics, connecting it to modern day event, such as the rise of ISIS. The Burqa, Chador, Veil and Hijab! Historical Perspectives on Islamic Dressfrom the Women in World History Curriculum project. Here is a PBS video analyzing the anti-Islam culture in America as a result of the attacks on 9/11. (For more information, see World History II.48) Lesson plan for women in Islamic history, and lesson plan for women's rights / status in Islamic society.
 * Additional Resources:**

[|Interactive website] containing the poetry of Abu Nuwas, an important openly gay poet of the Islamic Golden Age.

Check out Jill Claster's book //Sacred Violence// for detailed information on Crusade Era Islamic, Christian, and Jewish history and relations.

This article from the [|New York Times] talks about Turkey's Gay Pride Parade held in 2015. It also explains the the intolerance of homosexuality in many Middle East Countries

<span style="font-family: &#39;Arial&#39;,&#39;sans-serif&#39;; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">**<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif;">__Links:__ **

<span style="font-family: &#39;Arial&#39;,&#39;sans-serif&#39;; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"> [1] Cult and Sects of Islam. Retrieved February 12, 2010, Web site: @http://www.apologeticsindex.org/i07ad.html

<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"> [2]What’s the Difference: Sunni & Shi’a? Retrieved February 12, 2010, Web site: []

<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"> 3] NPR: “The Partisans of Ali.” Retrieved February 12, 2010, Web site: []

<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"> [4] The Silk Road Project. Retrieved February 12, 2010, Web site: []

<span style="font-family: &#39;Arial&#39;,&#39;sans-serif&#39;; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"> [5] The Feminist Sexual Ethics Project: Retrieved February 13, 2012, Web site: [|http://www.brandeis.edu/projects/fse/Pages/islamandslavery.html]

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