(Learning Curve) Chapter 9: The Worlds of Islam: Afro-Eurasian Connection
What event marks the beginning of the Islamic calendar?
Emigration of Muhammad and his followers to Medina (The 622 C.E. flight of Muhammad and his followers to Medina, called the hijra, transformed the small Muslim community and marks the beginning of the Islamic calendar.)
What Muslim concept clashed with India's caste system?
Equality of believers (The concept that all believers were equal before God contrasted sharply with the hierarchal assumptions of the caste system.)
Who were Hafiz and Rumi in the Islamic tradition?
Famous Poets
What was true of religious life in Arab society at the time of Muhammad's birth in 570 C.E.?
Arabs were aware of Christianity and Judaism, but continued to practice their own faith. (They were also aware of Zoroastrianism.)
Which of the following was true of early Sunni Muslims?
They believed that political leaders should be selected by the Islamic community. (Sunni Muslims accepted the rule of the caliphs as political leaders chosen by the Islamic community, unlike their Shia adversaries.)
Which of the following statements best represents the experience of elite women during the Abbasid dynasty?
They experienced greater restrictions than in the past. (Like Athens and China during their golden ages, elite women in the Abbasid caliphate experienced greater restrictions.)
Which of the following is true of Bedouin society on the Arabian Peninsula before Muhammad?
They lived in fiercely independent clans that frequently engaged in bitter blood feuds with one another. (These blood feuds were common among nomads in history.)
What was the early attitude of Islam toward Jews and Christians?
They recognized both as "people of the book" and treated them honorably in return for a special tax. (Most early Muslims simply referred to themselves as "believers" and did not distinguish between themselves, Jews, and Christians, but the state required payment of a special tax since Jews and Christians did not perform military service.)
Which of the following statements best describes the long-term history of Islam in India?
About a quarter of India's population ultimately became Muslim. (Between 20 and 25 percent of the population became Muslims.)
What is "social conversion"?
Acceptance of another religion as a move to another social group (Social conversion is conversion to another religion not because of deeply held conviction but because it is socially expedient to do so; many subjects of the early Muslim Empire originally converted in this way.)
Which of the following statements best describes the impact of foreign religions on Arab society before the emergence of Islam?
Arabs were aware of Christianity, Judaism, and Zoroastrianism, but continued to practice their own faith. (Arabs were aware of Christianity, Judaism, and Zoroastrianism, and a few were starting to explore the possibility that their preeminent god Allah was part of the monotheistic tradition that these faiths adhered to.)
This battle of the year 751 C.E. had lasting consequences since it stopped China's westward expansion.
Battle of Talas River (In 751 C.E. the Muslims crushingly defeated a Chinese army at Talus River, stopping China's westward expansion and making the conversion of Central Asia's Turkic-speaking peoples possible.)
Why did the Turkic intrusion into Anatolia generate a much more thorough Islamization than in India?
Byzantine civilization was focused on centralized institutions of state and church. (These centralized institutions were rendered leaderless and dispirited by the invasion, whereas India's decentralized civilization, lacking a unified political or religious establishment, was better able to absorb the shock of external invasion while retaining its core values an identity.)
How did the ulama help to bind together the immense and diverse Islamic world?
Common texts were shared and studied across the Islamic world. (From Indonesia to West Africa, educated Muslims inhabited a "shared world of debate and reference.")
What is the meaning of the word "umma"?
Community (The Muslim community, or umma, was first formed when Muhammad and his early followers migrated to Medina.)
Which of the following encouraged many subjects of the early Muslim Empire to convert to Islam?
Conversion aided social mobility. (Many people converted to Islam because they wanted to hold government positions and conversion aided their social mobility.)
Bedouins
Group of ethnic Arabs who herded sheep and camels in seasonal migrations (Inhabited much of the desert and semi-desert regions of the Arabian Peninsula at the time of Muhammad.)
When were the Jews expelled from al-Andalus?
In the fifteenth century C.E. following the final conquest of al-Andalus by the Christian rulers Ferdinand and Isabella. (Some 200,000 Jews were expelled from the region along with many Muslims.)
Who were the Mutazalites in Islamic society?
Islamic thinkers who argued that reason rather than revelation provided the surest way to truth (The Mutazalites were criticized by others who argued that the Quran, the sayings of Muhammad, or mystical experience represented the true path to God.)
Which of the following statements best describes the hajj in the Islamic faith?
It is a core element of the Islamic faith. (It is one of the five Pillars of Islam, and required of all believers who have the means to undertake it.)
In which of the following ways is Islam different from Christianity?
It never developed a professional clergy. (In strong contrast to Christianity, Islam never developed a professional clergy with the role of mediating between God and humankind.)
Which of the following was a reason why African rulers converted to Islam?
It offered a source of literate government officials. (These literate Muslim officials were critical for the running of their states.)
In what way was Islam a reaction against the growing wealth and commercialism of Meccan society?
It sought a return to the older values associated with Arab tribal life. (The revelations made to Muhammad emphasized solidarity, equality, and concern for the poor, all of which were associated with traditional Arab tribal values.)
Which of the following statements best describes Mecca in the sixth century C.E.?
It was a pilgrimage and trading center. (Mecca was home to the Kaaba, Arabia's most important religious shrine; it attracted many pilgrims and the trade that came with pilgrims.)
Which of the following statements best describes the spread of Islam in West Africa?
It was a voluntary process, spread by merchants. (Muslim merchants carried Islam with them to West Africa, where it spread voluntarily.)
How was Muhammad's message initially received in Mecca?
It was embraced by a minority of the population but actively opposed by many others. (So great was the opposition to his message that in 622 C.E. Muhammad and his followers left Mecca.)
Which of the following statements best characterizes the nature of education in madrassas after they emerged in the Muslim world around 1000 C.E.?
It was largely conservative, seeking to preserve established Islamic learning. (Its curriculum involved much memorization of texts.)
Who were the ulama who played an important role in the transmission of Muslim beliefs and practices?
Learned scholars (Ulama were learned scholars who served as judges, interpreters, administrators, prayer leaders, reciters of the Quran, and most importantly preservers and teachers of the sharia.)
Beginning in the eleventh century, these formal colleges offered more advanced instruction in the Quran and the sayings of Muhammad; grammar and rhetoric; and sharia.
Madrassas (Madrassas also sometimes taught philosophy, theology, mathematics, and medicine.)
What does the Quran teach about men and women at a spiritual level?
Men and women are equal. At a spiritual level, the Quran explicitly states that men and women are equal.
Which of the following is an example of the sophistication of the Islamic economic system?
Merchants regularly used partnerships, business contracts, and various forms of banking. (Despite religious prohibitions on usury, the Islamic world developed a sophisticated commercialized economy.)
Which of the following statements is true of Anatolia in the period 1000-1500 C.E.?
Most of the population converted to Islam and adopted the Turkish language. (By 1500 C.E., the population of Anatolia was 90 percent Muslim and largely Turkic-speaking.)
What was the Kaaba before the emergence of Islam in the Arab world?
Most prominent religious shrine in Arabia (The Kaaba housed some 360 deities and was the destination of many pilgrims.)
Who was the founding prophet of Islam?
Muhammad Muhammad ibn Abdullah (570-632 C.E.) was the founding prophet of Islam.
In the century following Muhammad's death who were Arabs referring to when they used the term "believers"?
Muslims, Christians, and Jews (Believers encompassed pious Jews and Christians as well as newly monotheistic Arabs.)
What distinguishes the early history of Islam from that of Christianity?
Only Christianity was a sometimes persecuted minority faith in its formative centuries. (The young Islamic community found itself constituted into a state and soon a huge empire at the very beginning of its history.)
What is The Book of Kings?
Persian epic (The Persian author Ferdowsi completed his enormous epic "The Book of Kings" in 1010 C.E.; it confirmed pre-Muslim Persian identity.)
What was Allah in Arab society?
Preeminent god in pre-Islamic Arab society (Allah was the preeminent god, which a few Arabs were starting to associate with the Jewish god Yahweh by the time of Muhammad's birth.)
In which region was Islam ultimately unsuccessful in establishing itself?
Southern Spain (Despite thriving for centuries, the Islamic states of the region were ultimately defeated by their Christian counterparts who by the seventeenth century had expelled its Muslim population.)
In what Islamic tradition did women find the greatest opportunities for active participation?
Sufi tradition (The Sufi practice of mystical union with Allah allowed a greater role for women than did mainstream Islam.)
Who was a shaykh in the Islamic world?
Teacher in the Sufi tradition (By the tenth century, shaykhs began to attract groups of disciples who were eager to learn their unique devotional practices and techniques of personal transformation.)
What facilitated the adoption in the Middle East of domesticated crops including rice, sugarcane, lemons, limes, coconut palms, spinach, and cotton from South and Southeast Asia following the emergence of Islam?
The Muslim conquest of northwestern India led to these crops being introduced to the Middle East. (This conquest proved the catalyst for a treasure trove of domesticated crops to enter into the Middle East.)
Which of the following statements is true of women in early Islam?
They were accepted as equals before God, but faced increasing social restrictions over time. (Islam has always accepted women and men as equal before God, and early Muslims gave considerable rights to women. But contact with Middle Eastern cultures led to increasingly negative views of women and social restrictions being placed on them.)
Which of the following statements best describes the treatment of conquered peoples by the Arabs in the century following Muhammad's death?
They were largely tolerant of the monotheistic faiths practiced by their subjects. (Followers of Zoroastrianism, Christianity, and Judaism were all given special protected status in the Arab Empire.)
Which of the following is one of the five requirements for Muslims known as the Pillars of Islam?
To give to the poor (Support of the poor and needy is a requirement for all Muslims and is one of the Pillars of Islam.)
What was the experience of Turkic women in Anatolia as compared to their Arab counterparts to the south?
Turkic women were freer. (Turkic women were freer than the Arab counterparts, thanks to Turkic traditions drawn from their pastoral heritage.)
Which of the following statements is true of Anatolia after the Turkish conquest?
Turkish authorities offered material rewards in return for conversion. (The Turks of Anatolia strongly encouraged conversion by welcoming converts and rewarding them.)
Which element of Indian society was most attracted to the Islamic faith?
Untouchables and low-caste Hindus (Untouchables and low-caste Hindus found the more egalitarian Muslim faith attractive.)
Which of the following statements best describes the sixth-century Arabian Peninsula where Islam emerged?
While primarily a desert inhabited by Bedouins, it also included regions that practiced sedentary agriculture. (Particularly in the highlands of Yemen and the interior mountains, communities practiced sedentary agriculture.)
Which of the following statements is true of women in the early Islamic period before the formation of the Arab Empire?
Women experienced fewer restrictions during this earlier period than once the empire was established. (Women played visible public roles, prayed in mosques, and were not generally veiled or secluded during this earlier period.)
Which of the following was a protection offered to women in the Quran?
Women were given control over their property and greater inheritance rights. (They gained control particularly over their dowries and were granted inheritance rights, albeit at half the rate of their male relatives.)
