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ISLAM H101 Brackett
ISLAM: EMPIRE OF FAITH • For Muslims, God is unique and without equal. They attempt to think and talk about God without either making Him into a thing or a projection of the human self. The Koran avoids this by constantly shifting pronouns to discourage believers from inadvertently reifying God and creating any physical image of Him. • God is known in Arabic as Allah to distinguish Him from ilah, which could refer to any of the gods once worshiped in Arabia
The Five Pillars of Faith • In contrast to many other religions, the basic practice of Islam is simplicity itself. The believer worships God directly without the intercession of priests or clergy or saints. The believer's duties are summed up in five simple rules, the so-called Five Pillars of Islam: • Belief-"There is no god but God and that Muhammad is His messenger." This phrase, known as the shahada, (sha-HEH-da) or Profession of Faith, is central to Islam, for it affirms both God's oneness and the central role of the Prophet. • Worship- worship God five times a day — at dawn, noon, mid-afternoon, sunset, and nightfall. All male believers are enjoined to gather together on Friday for the noon prayer and listen to a sermon, called a khutba in Arabic, by the leader of the community. • Fasting- abstain from food, drink, smoking, and sex, between sunrise and sunset during the month of Ramadan, the ninth month in the Muslim calendar. • Almsgiving- Muslims are supposed to donate a fixed amount of their property to charity every year • Pilgrimage-to Mecca at least once in one's lifetime, if one is able, during the first days of Dhu'l-Hijja, the twelfth month of the Muslim calendar.
The Koran • The two foundations of Muslim faith are God's revelations to Muhammad, known as the Koran, from the Arabic word Qur'an, or "recitation"; and the reports about Muhammad's life and deeds, which are known as the hadith, from the Arabic word for "report." The central miracle of Islam is God's revelation to Muhammad, whose human fallibilities as a mere mortal are repeatedly mentioned in the Koran. • The Koran as a book is comparable in length to the Gospels. It contains 114 chapters (each called in Arabic a sura) of varying length. It opens with the Fatiha, a beautiful short prayer that serves as an invocation in many situations • The other chapters of the Koran follow in descending order of length, from the 286 verses of the second chapter, known as "The Cow," to the final two chapters, which are short prayers of a few lines. The chapters are thus arranged neither in the order in which the verses were revealed nor in a narrative sequence.
Traditions • The second basis of Muslim faith is the example of the Prophet. As the perfect Muslim, Muhammad served and still serves as the model for all believers. His sayings and deeds were remembered by his associates and preserved in the Traditions, known in Arabic as hadith. These Traditions normally take the form of a chain ("So-and-so heard from so-and-so, who heard from so-and-so, that the Prophet said [or did]"), followed by a report of what the Prophet said or did. • The Traditions came to be considered second in authority to the Koran and also help explain and elaborate the circumstances under which obscure passages in the Koran were revealed.
People of the Book • Muslims believe that God had previously revealed Himself to the earlier prophets of the Jews and Christians, such as Abraham, Moses, and Jesus. Muslims therefore accept the teachings of both the Jewish Torah and the Christian Gospels. • They believe that Islam is the perfection of the religion revealed first to Abraham (who is considered the first Muslim) and later to other prophets. • They call Jews and Christians the "People of the Book" and allow them to practice their own religions.
The Founding of Islamic Faith • INTERACTIVE TIMELINE http://www.pbs.org/empires/islam/timeline.html • Muhammad, the prophet of Islam, was born in Mecca around the year 570. Orphaned before he had reached the age of six, he was raised under the protection of his uncle. Muhammad began working as a merchant and became known for his trustworthiness. • At age 25 he married Khadija, a wealthy widow whose status elevated Muhammad's position in Meccan society. Muhammad and Khadija had four daughters and two sons, both of whom died in infancy. • About fifteen or twenty years after his marriage, he began to have visions and hear mysterious voices. He sought solitude in a cave on Mount Hira on the outskirts of Mecca.
One night during Ramadan, the traditional month of spiritual retreat, when Muhammad was about forty years old, an angel appeared to him in the form of a man and ordered him to Recite in the name of thy lord who created,Created man from a clot;Recite in the name of thy lord,Who taught by the pen,Taught man what he knew not. • In 622 the local rulers of Mecca forced Muhammad and his small band of followers to leave the city. Muhammad accepted an invitation to settle in the oasis of Yathrib, located some eleven days (280 miles) north by camel, for the oasis had been nearly torn apart by wars between the clans, of which many were Jewish.
Muhammad's hegira from Mecca marks the beginning of a new polity. For the first time in Arabia members of a community were bound together not by the traditional ties of clan and tribe but by their shared belief in the one true God. • Later believers, looking back on this event, recognized its seminal importance by designating it as the first year of their new era. • In further recognition of this great event, the oasis of Yathrib came to be called Medina, "the city [of the Prophet]."
Muhammad, surrounded by his followers, lived in Medina for ten years, slowly winning over converts. • Muhammad made repeated attempts to attract the Jews to his cause, for example, he directed that believers worship like the Jews in the direction of Jerusalem. Ultimately these attempts failed, and henceforth Muslims prayed in the direction of the Kaaba in Mecca. • Muhammad's native town, which had long been a center of paganism, thereby became the center of the true religion, the focal point of the believers' daily prayer, and eventually the object of their annual pilgrimage.
In 628, Muhammad finally negotiated a truce with the Meccans and in the following year returned as a pilgrim to the city's holy sites. • The murder of one of his followers provoked him to attack the city, which soon surrendered. Muhammad acted generously to the Meccans, demanding only that the pagan idols around the Kaaba be destroyed. • Muhammad's prestige grew after the surrender of the Meccans. Embassies from all over Arabia came to Medina to submit to him. • Muhammad's extraordinary life and career were cut short by his sudden death on June 8, 632, aged about sixty, less than a decade since he had set off from Mecca with his small band of followers.
The Life of the Prophet: c. 570 to 632 c. 570: Birth of Muhammad 622: The Hegira: Muhammad flees to Medina 630: Muhammad captures Mecca 632: Muhammad dies. Orthodox Caliphate (Mecca and Medina): 632-661 Omayyad Caliphate (Damascus): 661-750 680: Death of Mu'awiya, who is succeeded by his son, Yazid. 685-687: Shi'ite revolt in Iraq. 711: Conquest of Spain. 717-718: Attempt to conquer Constantinople. 732: Battle of Tours. Abbasid Caliphate (Baghdad): 750-1258 751: Battle of Talas: Arabs learn papermaking from Chinese prisoners of war 765: A school of medicine is established in Baghdad. 750-850: The Four orthodox schools of law are established. 850-875: The Tradition is formalized. 1010: Firdawsi completes his Epic of Kings, the great epic poem of Persia. 1055-1250: Expansion of Islam under the Seljuks and Christian responses. 1258: Mongols sack Baghdad. Abbasid Caliphate ends. 756-1031: Omayyad emirate in Spain (Cordova) 910-1171: Fatimid Caliphate in Egypt (Cairo) 1379-1401: Tamerlane establishes an empire in Persia, Iraq and Syria BACK IN TIME
1501-1723: Safavid Empire in Persia 1501: Ismail becomes shah of Persia, founding the Safavid Empire 1508: Ismail conquers Baghdad and defeats the Uzbeks 1555: Ottoman-Safavid peace 1587-1629: Reign of Shah Abbas I 1638: Truce between Safavids and Ottomans 1723: Safavid Empire collapses The Ottoman Empire: 1350-1918. ca. 1243: Turkish nomads settle in Asia Minor 1299-1326: Osman I 1402: Tamerlane defeats Ottomans at Ankara 1453: Constantinople is conquered. 1520-1566: Suleiman II the Magnificent 1571: The Battle of Lepanto 1703-1730: Cultural revival under Ahmed III 1774: Treaty of Kucuk Kaynarca 1822-1830: Greek War of Independences 1853-1856: The Crimean War 1876: The Ottoman Constitution is promulgated 1914: The Ottoman Empire enters World War I
SUNNI & SHIITE • After the death of the Prophet Muhammad two major positions developed about the nature of authority over the Muslim community. One group, which came to be called Sunni, from the Arabic word for "tradition," accepted the succession of Muhammad's elected successors, who were known as caliphs. • SUNNIS were opposed by those who believed that any head of the community had to be a direct descendant of Muhammad through his daughter Fatima and her husband Ali. They are called Shiite, from the Arabic word shia meaning "party." • The vast majority of Muslims today are Sunnis; Shiites form the majority only in Iran and are sizeable minorities in Iraq, Syria and elsewhere.
ISLAM TODAY • Islam, followed by more than a billion people today, is the world's fastest growing religion and will soon be the world's largest. The 1.2 billion Muslims make up approximately one quarter of the world's population, and the Muslim population of the United States now outnumbers that of Episcopalians. • The most populous Muslim countries are Indonesia, Bangladesh, Pakistan, and India. The number of Muslims in Indonesia alone (175 million) exceeds the combined total in Egypt, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Iran, the traditional heartlands of Islam.
There are also substantial Muslim populations in Europe and North America, whether converts or immigrants who began arriving in large numbers in the 1950s and 1960s. • Beginning in the 1970s and 1980s Islam remerged as a potent political force, associated with both reform and revolution. Given the large number of adherents, it is no surprise that Muslims incorporate a broad and diverse spectrum of positions in regard to liberalism and democracy. • Some are secularists who want to disengage religion from politics. Others are reformers, who reinterpret Islamic traditions in support of elective forms of government. Still there are others who reject democracy entirely.
ISLAMIC CULTURE • Muslims believe that God is unique and without associate, He cannot of course be represented. As He is worshipped directly without intercessors, images of saints, as in Christian or Buddhist art, have no place in Islam. As the Koran is not a narrative like the Torah or the Gospels, there is little reason for Muslims to tell religious stories through pictures. • Islamic religious art has focused on the glorification of God's word, specifically by writing it beautifully, and accompanying the Arabic script with geometric and floral designs known as arabesques, in which plants grow according to the laws of geometry rather than nature.
The art of building was popular in virtually all times and places in the Islamic lands, providing places of communal worship, social service, and stately residence. The most important type of religious building was the congregational mosque, which had to provide sufficient space for the Muslim community to gather for weekly worship on Friday at noon. Like rulers everywhere, Muslims also commissioned great palaces, such as the Alhambra in Granada or the Topkapi Palace in Istanbul. These universal types of buildings were erected using local materials and forms that suited the climate and geography. Architecture
Literature is one of the arts most valued by Muslims. Medieval Muslims fostered the art known as adab, which came to imply the sum of intellectual knowledge that makes a man courteous and urbane. Based on pre-Islamic poetry, the art of oratory, and the historical and tribal tradition of the ancient Arabs, as well as the corresponding sciences of rhetoric, grammar, lexicography, and metrics, adab literature included long compilations of poetry, works for instruction, and manuals for princes meant to entertain sophisticated audiences. Muslims also fostered a thousand-year tradition of classical Persian poetry, ranging from short quatrains to long epics. With the spread of Islam to other regions, there has been a corresponding growth in literature in other languages, ranging from Swahili to Malay. LITERATURE
INNOVATION • Medieval Muslims made invaluable contributions to the study of mathematics, and their key role is clear from the many terms derived from Arabic. • By the 14th century, Italian merchants used the more modern numbering system of the Muslim world, which impact the way we do math today, especially algebra. • Medieval Muslim scientists often focused on practical matters, particularly hydraulic engineering, as water was always a precious resource in the arid lands where Islam traditionally flourished. Engineers designed various kinds of water-raising machines, some powered by animals, others powered by rivers and streams.
Bridges and dams were needed to channel water. In addition to the standard beam, cantilever and arch bridges, engineers also designed bridges of boats to span rivers. Dams were widely used to divert rivers into irrigation canals. Perhaps the most ingenious hydraulic technologies were the distribution networks of canals and qanats, subterranean aqueducts that sometimes carried water for hundreds of miles. Cisterns and underground ice-houses were used for storage. Various instruments were used to measure water flow, and the Nilometer built in 861-62 still stands on Rawda Island in Cairo. Muslim engineers also designed several types of siege engines, notably the traction and the counterweight trebuchet. Their ingenuity is clear from the many kinds of fine machines they also perfected, ranging from clocks and automata to fountains. Some were meant for practical purposes but others were designed for amusement or aesthetic enjoyment, and their components and techniques were of great importance for the development of machine technology.
As in the other sciences, astronomers in the Muslim lands built upon and greatly expanded earlier traditions. Observatories Translation of ancient texts Muslim astronomers worked out planetary models that depended solely on combinations of uniform circular motions. Completed astronomical tables Medieval Muslims revolutionized the science and practice of medicine, as physicians began to question the medical traditions inherited from both East and West and distinguish one disease from another. discovered the minor, or pulmonary, circulation of the blood. Completed the Canon of Medicine Muslims also expanded the practice of medical schools and hospitals
Paper & Publishing • Muslims were responsible for the transfer of papermaking from China, where it had been invented in the centuries before Christ, to Europe, where it fueled the print revolution in the late fifteenth century. Muslims encountered paper when they conquered Central Asia in the eighth century. • The use of paper soon spread from government offices to all segments of society. By the middle of the ninth century the Papersellers' Street in Baghdad had more than one hundred shops in which paper and books were sold.
Medieval Islamic society had a paper economy, where both wholesale and retail merchants conducted commerce on credit. • Orders of payment, the equivalent of modern checks were drawn in amounts upwards from one dinar (a gold coin roughly equivalent to half a month's salary). • By the ninth century paper was used for copying scientific and other types of utilitarian texts, although it took longer for Muslims to accept the use of paper as a fitting support for God's word. • Medieval Islamic libraries had hundreds of thousands of volumes far outstripping the relatively small monastic and university libraries in the West.
