From the mid-600s, the Islamic Empire spread throughout the Middle East, west across North Africa and Spain . Islam, major world religion promulgated by the Prophet Muhammad in Arabia in the 7th century ce. Henceforth, the organizational principle of the community was not to be mere blood kinship, but the greater brotherhood of all Muslims. For countless millions, consequently, it has been the single most important force in guiding their religious, social, and cultural lives. Photo: Devout Muslims from all over the world gather for the pilgrimage to Mecca, for nearly fourteen centuries one of the most impressive religious gatherings in the world. Despite the great mass of words, the full explanation for Muslim victory still eludes us. In recent times its enormous deposits of oil have made the Middle East more important than ever. The first important step in the establishment of this empire was taken in 1326 when the Ottoman leader Orhan captured the town of Bursa, south of the Sea of Marmara, and made it his capital. For one thing, it was a tacit recognition of the end of an era. The process of European penetration was gradual and complex; but there were, nevertheless, clearly identifiable turning points. If you need a Login or Registeration, this is your starting point. In the Arabic language Muslim means, "one who submits to God (or faith)". The hajj proper must be made between the eighth and thirteenth days of the 12th month - Dhu al-Hijjah - of the Muslim year, but in one sense it begins when a Muslim approaches Mecca, bathes, trims his nails and hair, discards jewelry and headgear, and puts on the ihram dress. The preserving of them wearies Him not; Thee only do we worship, and Thee alone we ask for help. Photo: Facing al-Gharbiyah, the western minaret, a muezzin at the Umayyad Mosque calls believers to prayer. We'd love it if your icon is always green. Orhan's successor, Murad I, who launched naval attacks upon the Aegean coasts of Europe, established himself on the European shores of the Bosporus, and crushed a Balkan coalition. But as more revelations enjoined him to proclaim the oneness of God universally, his following grew, at first among the poor and the slaves, but later also among the most prominent men of Mecca. Today, therefore, one can hear Arabic spoken - at least for religious purposes - from Mauritania on the Atlantic, across Africa and most of Asia, and as far east as Indonesia and the Philippines. It was from these six, and from kufic, that later calligraphers, not only in the Arab world but in Iran, Turkey, and elsewhere as well, developed and elaborated other scripts. Both Winston Churchill and Lord Balfour himself later said publicly that "a national home" meant a cultural or religious center, a view that America's King-Crane Commission independently presented. From Iraq the Mongols pressed forward into Syria and then toward Egypt where, for the first time, they faced adversaries who refused to quail before their vaunted power. As a result, several traditional means of chanting, or intoning, the Quran were found side by side. After Muhammad had preached publicly for more than a decade, the opposition to him reached such a high pitch that, fearful for their safety, he sent some of his adherents to Ethiopia, where the Christian ruler extended protection to them, the memory of which has been cherished by Muslims ever since. Civilization both in the East and the West was visited by a destructive plague which devastated nations and caused populations to vanish. the Everlasting; In the Arabian Peninsula the Ottomans penetrate to al-Hasa on the Arabian Gulf and to Mocha on the Red Sea. The Middle East is a large and diverse geographical area located in southwest Asia and northeast Africa. After its development in Turkey, it spread to the Arab countries and is in use today for formal documents and also as architectural decoration. His caliphate was a high point in early Islamic history. Even more imaginative is what may be called pictorial calligraphy, in which the text (usually the profession of faith, a verse from the Quran, or some other e phrase with religious significance) is written in the shape of a bird, animal, tree, boat, or other object. As scientific research and translation of medical texts from India and possibly even China expanded the earlier pharmacopoeia, ingredients for medicines were brought from all over the known world and also reexported. All of the letters are strictly speaking consonants, and unlike the Roman alphabet used for English and most European languages Arabic writing goes from right to left. Called "a forest of olive trees," Tunisia exported so much olive oil that its port of Sfax was called "the port of oil.". Margari Hill, Stanford University January 2009 available in PDF format ( 1.14 MB ). The languages of Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan are all written in the Arabic alphabet, as was the language of Turkey until some fifty years ago. In a short paragraph, give three examples of the ways this religion has impacted North African culture. President Carter of the United States brought the leaders of Egypt and Israel together in the United States and himself traveled to the Middle East in an attempt to persuade at least these two countries to conclude a peace treaty, and in March 1979 Egypt and Israel signed a treaty to which the United States was also a signatory. Photo: Preeminent among artists of the Muslim world is the calligrapher, as it is his privilege to adorn the word of God. The Black Death (1347 - 1351 CE) was the first and greatest of the many plague outbreaks of the second plague pandemic in the Middle East (1347 CE to 1877 CE). By diverting Turkish strength and blocking the Turkish-German route to the Red Sea and India, the Arab Revolt contributed substantially to the Allied victory, but it did not result in full independence for the Arab lands. Please consider upgrading your browser software or enabling style sheets (CSS) if you are able to do so. It impeded private capital . Of the three great civilizations of western Eurasia and North Africa, that of Christian Europe began as the least developed in virtually all aspects of material and intellectual culture, well behind the Islamic states and Byzantium. Short-Term Effects. But . Because of this growth in commerce the 'Abbasids also developed a system by which a muhtasib, an inspector made sure that proper weights and measures were given and that dishonest practices of all sorts were avoided. Sometime later Muhammad married Khadijah, by whom he had two sons - who did not survive - and four daughters. Algeria, ten years later, won its independence from France after six years of bitter warfare. In 610 CE at Mecca there wasn't any religion to follow. In addition to having administrative abilities, he was an accomplished stylist whose book on statecraft, Siyasat-Namah, is a valuable source for the political thought of the time. This tolerance was typical of Islam. Another was the development of Arabic, by the ninth century, into the language of international scholarship as well as the language of the Divine Truth. The Middle East would be a tremendous place to begin this process, but the fact is there are many situations across the globe . Marwan ibn Muhammad, the last Umayyad caliph, was defeated and the Syrians, still loyal to the Umayyads, were put to rout. In relentless succession they had retaken Toledo, Cordoba, and Seville. Slumber seizes Him not, neither sleep; Originally the site of the Ka'bah, a shrine of ancient origins, Mecca had with the decline of southern Arabia (see Chapter l ) become an important center of sixth-century trade with such powers as the Sassanians, Byzantines, and Ethiopians. Thereafter Medina was entirely in the hands of the Muslims. Have a blessed Ramadan! Among his works were such titles as An Introduction to the Art of Music, The Reason Why Rain Rarely Falls in Certain Places, The Cause of Vertigo, and Crossbreeding the Dove. This is not to say that the Roman alphabet (and others such as the Chinese and Japanese, for instance) are not just as decorative and have not been used just as imaginatively. Even where Arabic did not become the national language, it became the language of religion wherever Islam became established, since the Quran is written in Arabic, the Profession of Faith is to be spoken in Arabic, and five times daily the practicing Muslim must say his prayers in Arabic. The early state began in Medina and gradually gained Mecca, Hunayn, Tabouk, and a large majority of the populated regions of the Arabian Peninsula. By the thirteenth century their once extensive domains were reduced to a few scattered kingdoms deep in the mountains of Andalusia - where, for some two hundred years longer, they would not only survive but flourish. This rift widened almost as soon as 'Ali, cousin and son-in-law of the Prophet, was chosen to be the fourth caliph. In addition to education, contact with the West led to improvements in medical care and the introduction of Western techniques in agriculture, commerce, and industry. [2] While the Black Death's mortality and impact in Europe has received a great deal of attention, the same cannot be said for the case of the Black Death in the Middle East. All Rights Reserved, IslamiCity is a registered trademark of HADI, a nonprofit 501 (c)(3) organization. The Zionist claim to Palestine was mainly based on the fact that there had been periods of Hebrew rule in Canaan and the land west of the Jordan River between 1300 B.C. Its restoration, begun in the early years of this century, is still under way. The list of everyday uses is almost endless: coins and paper money bear the work of expert calligraphers, wall posters and advertising signs in every town show the calligrapher's art, as do the cover and title page of every book, and the major headlines in every newspaper and magazine have been written by hand. Photo: Muslim scientists developed the astrolabe, an instrument used long before the invention of the sextant to observe the position of celestial bodies. For a time the Fatimids aspired to be rulers of the whole Islamic world, and their achievements were impressive. Thereunto we give them the pact of Allah and the protection of His Prophet, the caliphs and the believers. In a very real sense the Quran is the mentor of millions of Muslims, Arab and non-Arab alike; it shapes their everyday life, anchors them to a unique system of law, and inspires them by its guiding principles. After the battle of Siffin, 'Ali - whose chief strength was in Iraq, with his capital at Kufa - began to lose the support of many of his more uncompromising followers and in 661 he was murdered by a former supporter. Later, he consolidated the support of the tribes within the Arabian Peninsula and subsequently funnelled their energies against the powerful empires of the East: the Sassanians in Persia and the Byzantines in Syria, Palestine, and Egypt. Islam did much more than geographically define Europe, however. This tax is often levied and disbursed by the state, but in the absence of a government collecting system it must be disbursed by the taxable Muslims themselves. In the Middle East, during these centuries, the 'Abbasids, after their victory over the Umayyads, had transformed the Umayyads' Arab empire into a multinational Muslim empire. Photo: Golden domes and gold topped minarets highlight the mosque of al-Kazimayn in Baghdad, built in the early sixteenth century. The death of Muhammad was a profound loss. The path of those whom Thou hast favored; not the path of those who earn Thine anger nor of those who go astray. True to his pledge, Ibn al-Ahmar complied and Seville fell to the Christians. Every action of the pious Muslim, therefore, is determined by the Quran, by precedents set by the Prophet, and by the practice of the early community of Islam as enshrined in the shari'ah. Photo: The ruq'ah script is used for headlines and titles and is the everyday written script of most of the Arab world. The latter impact manifests today because there is a lot of animosity between Christians and Muslims (especially in the Middle East). Because of administrative paralysis, local governors became increasingly independent and, eventually, revolts broke out. He also destroyed the idols in the Ka'bah, to put an end forever to pagan practices there. The declaration was interpreted by key Zionist leaders as support for a sovereign Jewish state, but this interpretation has been disputed. Even 'Uthman, whose policies had such a divisive effect, was essentially dedicated more to the concerns of the next world than of this. For these necessities the 'Abbasid traders exchanged a wide variety of products: pearls, livestock, paper, sugar, and (a specialty of the Islamic world) luxurious cloth. Another major figure in the Islamic Golden Age was al-Farabi, who wrestled with many of the same philosophical problems as al-Kindi and wrote The Perfect City, which illustrates to what degree Islam had assimilated Greek ideas and then impressed them with its own indelible stamp. In sum, modernization has not been entirely synonymous with Westernization. This material became the basis for what is called the sunnah, or "practice" of the Prophet - the deeds, utterances, and taqrir (unspoken approval) of Muhammad. But the Fatimids' dreams of gaining control of the Islamic heartland came to nothing, partly because many other independent states refused to support them and partly because they, like the 'Abbasids in Baghdad, lost effective control of their own mercenaries. About the year 590, Muhammad, then in his twenties, entered the service of a widow named Khadijah as a merchant actively engaged with trading caravans to the north. The men who accompanied Muhammad on the Hijrah were called the Muhajirun - "those that made the Hijrah" or the "Emigrants" - while those in Medina who became Muslims were called the Ansar or "Helpers.". Led by Genghis Khan, a confederation of nomadic tribes which had already conquered China now attacked the Muslims. In addition, the early Muslims tended to oppose figural art (and in some cases all art) as distracting the community from the worship of God and hostile to the strictly unitarian religion preached by Muhammad, and all four of the schools of Islamic law banned the use of images and, declared that the painter of animate figures would be damned on the Day of Judgment. The basmalah in the thuluth script on the right has been written in the shape of an ostrich. What today is known as Islamic architecture was influenced by Roman, Byzantine, Persian and all other lands which the Muslims conquered in the 7th and 8th centuries. Another was the development of the Umayyad postal system into an efficient intelligence service; postmasters in outlying provinces were the eyes and ears of the government and regular reports were filed with the central government on everything from the state of the harvest to the doings of dissident sects. Unlike their predecessors, however, they were able to maintain their power, and they retained control of Egypt until the Ottoman conquest in 1517. Another turning point was the invasion of Egypt in 1798 by Napoleon Bonaparte. Islam numbers many millions of adherents outside the Middle Eastern countries: Photo: Sunset silhouettes a minaret in Sarajevo, a city of some eighty mosques that bear witness to the long Islamic heritage of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Because of the increasingly disruptive part played by the Janissaries, the empire, in a series of eighteenth-century wars, slowly lost territory. The Indian way had the advantage of using much smaller clusters of symbols and greatly simplifying written computations. The tawaf of the return is the last essential devotion of the pilgrimage; now the pilgrims have become hajjis - those who have completed the hajj. Then, in 1482, in a trivial quarrel, the Muslim kingdom split into two hostile factions and, simultaneously, two strong Christian sovereigns, Ferdinand and Isabella, married and merged their kingdoms. Closely connected with the trade in dyestuffs was the trade in medicines, an offshoot of 'Abbasid advances in medicine and the spread of hospitals in all major Islamic cities. Unlike Western legal systems, the shari'ah makes no distinction between religious and civil matters; it is the codification of God's Law, and it concerns itself with every aspect of social, political, economic, and religious life. Tensions between Sunnis and Shias, exploited by regional rivals . 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