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and the right of divorce was in practice restricted to the

husband, although some schools of legal thought per-

mitted women to stipulate that their husband could have

only one wife or to seek a separation in certain specific

circumstances. Adultery and homosexuality were strin-

gently forbidden (although such prohibitions were fre-

quently ignored in practice), and custom required that

women be cloistered in their homes and prohibited from

social contacts with males outside their own family.

A prominent example of this custom was the harem,

introduced at the Abbasid court during the reign of

Harun al-Rashid. Members of the royal harem were

drawn from non-Muslim female populations throughout

the empire. The custom of requiring women to cover

virtually all parts of their body when appearing in public

was common in urban areas and continues to be prac-

ticed in many Islamic societies today. It should be noted,

however, that these customs owed more to traditional

Arab practice than to Qur’anic law (see the box on p. 175).

The Culture of Islam

The Arabs were truly heirs to many elements of the re-

maining Greco-Roman culture of the Roman Empire,

and they assimilated Byzantine and Persian culture just as

readily. In the eighth and ninth centuries, numerous

Greek, Syrian, and Persian scientific and philosophical

works were translated into Arabic and eventually found

their way to Europe. As the chief language in the southern

Mediterranean and the Middle East, Arabic became an

international language. Later, Persian and Turkish also

came to be important in administration and culture.

The spread of Islam led to the emergence of a new

culture throughout the Arab Empire. This was true in all

fields of endeavor, from literature to art and architecture.

But pre-Islamic traditions were not extinguished and

frequently combined with Muslim motifs, resulting in

creative works of great imagination and originality.

Philosophy and Science During the centuries follow-

ing the rise of the Arab Empire, it was the Islamic world

that was most responsible for preserving and spreading

the scientific and philosophical achievements of ancient

civilizations. At a time when ancient Greek philosophy

was largely unknown in Europe, key works by Aristotle,

Plato, and other Greek philosophers were translated into

Arabic and stored in a ‘‘house of wisdom’’ in Baghdad,

where they were read and studied by Muslim scholars.

Eventually, many of these works were translated into

Latin and were brought to Europe, where they exercised a

profound influence on the later course of Christianity and

Western philosophy.

COMPARATIVE ILLUSTRATION

Early Agricultural Technology. Today much

of the Middle East, especially the arid wastes

of the Arabian peninsula, is not susceptible to

cultivation. But in Yemen, at the southwestern corner of the peninsula, farmers have been

growing crops on hillside terraces for at least five thousand years. The terraces are

constructed so that the water flows downward from the higher elevations in the most effective

manner. Shown on the right is a hillside terrace in northern China, an area where dry crops

like oats and millet have been cultivated since the sixth millennium

B.C.E. The photo on the

left shows a terraced hillside in Yemen that is still in use today.

How does terracing serve to increase the amount of water available to farms in regions

such as these?



William J. Duiker



William J. Duiker

174 CHAPTER 7 FERMENT IN THE MIDDLE EAST: THE RISE OF ISLAM

The process began in the sixth century C.E., when the

Byzantine ruler Justinian (see Chapter 13) shut down the

Platonic Academy in Athens, declaring that it promoted

heretical ideas. Many of the scholars at the Academy fled

to Baghdad, where their ideas and the Classical texts they

brought with them soon aroused local interest and were

translated into Persian or Arabic. Later such works were

supplemented by acquisitions in Constantinople and

possibly also from the famous library at Alexandria.

The academies where the translations were carried

out---often by families specializing in the task---were not

true universities like those that would later appear in

Europe but private operations under the sponsorship of a

great patron, many of whom were highly cultivated Per-

sians living in Baghdad or other major cities. Dissemi-

nation of the translated works was stimulated by the

arrival of paper in the Middle East, brought by Buddhist

pilgrims from China passing along the Silk Road. Paper

was much cheaper to manufacture than papyrus, and by

the end of the eighth century, the first paper factories

were up and running in Baghdad. Libraries and book-

sellers soon appeared.

What motives inspired this ambitious literary pres-

ervation project? At the outset, it may have simply been

an effort to provide philosophical confirmation for ex-

isting religious beliefs as derived from the Qur’an.

Eventually, however, more adventurous minds began to

use the Classical texts not only to seek greater knowledge

of the divine will but also to seek a better understanding

of the laws of nature.

Such was the case with the physician and intellectual

Ibn Sina (980--1037), known in the West as Av icenna,

who in his own philosophical writings cited Aristotle to

the effect that the world operated not only at the will of

Allah but also by its own natural laws, laws that could be

ascertained by human reason. Such ideas eventually

aroused the ire of traditional Muslim scholars, and al-

though works by such ancient writers as Euclid, Ptolemy,

‘‘DRAW THEIR VEILS OVER THEIR BOSOMS’’

Prior to the Islamic era, many upper-class women

greeted men on the street, entertained their hus-

bands’ friends at home, went on pilgrimages to

Mecca, and even accompanied their husbands to

battle. Such women were neither veiled nor secluded. Muham-

mad, however, specified that his own wives, who (according to

the Qur’an) were ‘‘not like any other women,’’ should be mod-

estly attired and should be addressed by men from behind a

curtain. Over the centuries, Muslim theologians, fearful that fe-

male sexuality could threaten the established order, interpreted

Muhammad’s ‘‘modest attire’’ and his reference to curtains to

mean segregated seclusion and body concealment for all

Muslim women. In fact, one strict scholar in fourteenth-century

Cairo went so far as to prescribe that ideally a woman should

be allowed to leave her home only three times in her life: when

entering her husband’s home after marriage, after the death of

parents, and after her own death.

In traditional Islamic societies, veiling and seclusion were

more prevalent among urban women than among their rural

counterparts. The latter, who worked in the fields and rarely

saw people outside their extended family, were less restricted.

In this excerpt from the Qur’an, women are instructed to ‘‘guard

their modesty’’ and ‘‘draw veils over their bosoms.’’ Nowhere in

the Qur’an, however, does it stipulate that women should be

sequestered or covered from head to toe.

How does the role of women in Islam compare with what we

have seen in other traditional societies, such as India, China,

and the Americas?

ISLAMIC CIVILIZ ATION 175

Text not available

due to copyright

restrictions

and Archimedes continued to be translated, the influence

of Greek philosophy began to wane in Baghdad by the

end of the eleventh century and did not recover.

By then, however, interest in Classical Greek ideas

had spread to Spain, where philosophers such as Averro

€

(Arabic name Ibn Rushd) and Maimonides (Musa Ibn

Maymun, a Jew who often wrote in Arabic) undertook

their own translations and wrote in support of Avicenna’s

defense of the role of human reason. Both were born in



ordoba in the early twelfth century but were persecuted

for their ideas by the Almohads, a Berber dynasty that

had supplanted Almoravid authority in Andalusia, and

both men ended their days in exile in North Africa.

By the thirteenth century, Christian rulers such as

Alfonso X in Castile and Frederick II in Sicily were be-

ginning to sponsor their own translations of Classical

Greek works from Arabic into Latin. These translations

soon made their way to the many new universities

sprouting up all over Western Europe.

Although Islamic scholars are justly praised for pre-

serving much of Classical Greek knowledge for the West,

they also made considerable advances of their own . No-

where is this more evident than in mathematics and the

natural sciences. Islamic scholars adopted and passed on the

numerical system of India, including the use of zero, and a

ninth-century Persian mathematician founded the mathe-

matical discipline of algebra (al-jabr, ‘‘the reduction ’’).

Simplified ‘‘Arabic’’ numerals had begun to replace cum-

bersome Roman numerals in Italy by the thirteenth century.

In astronom y, Muslims set up an observatory at

Baghdad to study the position of the stars. They were

awar e that the earth was round and in the ninth century

produc ed a world map based on the tradition of the

Greco-R oman astronomer Ptolemy. Aid ed by the astrolabe,

an instrument designed to enable sailors to track their

position by means of the stars, M uslim fleets and caravans

opened up new trade routes connecting the Islamic world

with other civilizations, and Muslim travelers such as al-

Mas’udi and Ibn Battuta wr ote accurate descriptions of

political and social conditions throughout the Middle East.

M uslim scholars also made many new disco v eries in

optics and chemistry and, with the assistanc e of texts on

anatomy by the ancient Greek physician Galen (c. 180--200

C.E.), developed medicine as a distinctive field of scientific

inquiry. Avic enna compiled a medical enc y clopedia that,

among other things, emphasized the contagious natur e of

certain diseases and sho wed ho w they could be spread b y

contaminated water supplies. After its translation into

Latin, Avicenna’s work became a basic medical textbook

for medieval Eur opean university students.

Islamic Literature Islam brought major changes to the

literature of the Middle East. Muslims regarded the Qur’an

as their greatest literary work, but pre-I slamic traditions

continued to influence writers throughout the region.

The tradition of Arabic poetry was well established b y

the time of Muhammad. It extolled Bedouin tribal life,

courage in battle, hunting, sports, and respect for the animals

of the desert, especially the camel. Because the Arabic lan-

guage did not possess a written script until the fourth century

C.E., poetry was originally passed on by memory . Later , in the

eighth and ninth ce nturies, it was compiled in anthologies.



Topkapi Palace Museum/The Bridgeman Art Library

Preserving th e Wisdo m of the

Greeks. After the fall of the Roman Empire,

the philosophical works of ancient Greece were

virtually forgotten in Europe or were banned

as heretical by the Byzantine Empire. It was

thanks to Muslim scholars, who located copies

at the magnificent library in Alexandria, Egypt,

that many Classical Greek writings survived.

Here young Muslim scholars are being trained

in the Greek language so that they can

translate Classical Greek writings into Arabic.

Later the texts were translated back into

Western languages and served as the catalyst

for an intellectual revival in medieval and

renaissance Europe.

176 CHAPTER 7 FERMENT IN THE MIDDLE EAST: THE RISE OF ISLAM

Pre-Muslim Persia also boasted a long literary tradi-

tion, most of it oral and written down in later centuries in

the Arabic alphabet. The Persian poetic tradition re-

mained strong under Islam. Rabe’a of Qozdar, Persia’s first

known woman poet, lived in the sec ond half of the tenth

century. Describing the suffering love brings, she wrote:

‘‘Beset with impatience I did not know / That the more

one seeks to pull away, the tighter becomes the rope.’’

In the West, the most famous works of Middle

Eastern literature are undoubtedly the Rubaiyat of Omar

Khayyam and Tales from 1001 Nights (also called The

Arabian Nights). Paradoxically, these two works are not as

popular with Middle Eastern readers. Both, in fact, were

freely translated into Western languages for nineteenth-

century European readers, who developed a taste for

stories set in exotic foreign places---a classic example of

the tendency of Western observers to regard the customs

and cultures of non-Western societies as strange or exotic.

U nfortunately, very little is known of the life or the

poetry of the twelfth-century poet Omar Khayyam. Sk ep-

tical, reserved, and slightly contemptuous of his peers, he

combined poetry wi th scientific works on mathematics and

astronomy and a revision of the calendar that was mor e

accurate than the Gr egorian version devi sed in Europe

hundreds of years later. Omar Khayyam did not write

down his poems but composed them orally over wine with

friends at a neighborhood tavern . They were recorded later

by friends or scribes. Many poems attributed to him wer e

actually written long after his death. Among them is the

well-known couplet translated into English in the nine-

teenth century: ‘‘Here with a loaf of bread beneath the

bough, / A flask of wine, a book of verse, and thou.’’

Omar Khayyam’s poetry is simple and down to earth.

Key themes are the impermanence of life, the impossi-

bility of knowing God, and disbelief in an afterlife.

Ironically, recent translations of his work appeal to

modern attitudes of skepticism and minimalist simplicity

that may make him even more popular in the West:

In youth I studied for a little while;

Later I boasted of my mastery.

Yet this was all the lesson that I learned:

We come from dust, and with the wind are gone.

Of all the travelers on this endless road

No one returns to tell us where it leads,

There’s little in this world but greed and need;

Leave nothing here, for you will not return. ...

Since no one can be certain of tomorrow,

It’s better not to fill the heart with care.

Drink wine by moonlight, darling, for the moon

Will shine long after this, and find us not.

Like Omar Khayyam’s verse, The Arabian Nights was

loosely translated into European languages and adapted

to Western tastes. A composite of folktales, fables, and

romances of Indian and indigenous origin, the stories

interweave the natural with the supernatural. The earliest

stories were told orally and were later transcribed, with

many later additions, in Arabic and Persian versions. The

famous story of Aladdin and the Magic Lamp, for ex-

ample, was an eighteenth-century addition. Nevertheless,

The Arabian Nights has entertained readers for centuries,

allowing them to enter a land of wish fulfillment through

extraordinary plots, sensuality, comic and tragic situations,

and a cast of unforgettable characters.

Sadi (1210--1292), considered the Persian Shake-

speare, remains to this day the favorite author in Iran. His

Rose Garden is a collection of entertaining stories written

in prose sprinkled with verse. He is also renowned for his

sonnetlike love poems, which set a model for generations

to come. Sadi was a master of the pithy maxim:

A cat is a lion in catching mice

But a mouse in combat with a tiger.

He has found eternal happiness who lived a good life,

Because, after his end, good repute will keep his name alive.

When thou fightest with anyone, consider

Whether thou wilt have to flee from him or he from thee.

Some Arabic and Persian literature reflected the deep

spiritual and ethical concerns of the Qur’an. Many writ-

ers, however, carried Islamic thought in novel directions.

The thirteenth-century poet Rumi, for example, em-

braced Sufism, a form of religious belief that called for a

mystical relationship between Allah and human beings

(the term Sufism stems from the Arabic word for ‘‘wool,’’

referring to the rough wool garments that its adherents

wore). Converted to Sufism by a wandering dervish

(dervishes, from the word for ‘‘poor’’ in Persian, sought to

achieve a mystical union with Allah through dancing and

chanting in an ecstatic trance), Rumi abandoned ortho-

dox Islam to embrace God directly through ecstatic love.

Realizing that love transcends intellect, he sought to reach

God through a trance attained by the whirling dance of

the dervish, set to mesmerizing music. As he twirled, the

poet extemporized some of the most passionate lyrical

verse ever conceived. His faith and art remain an im-

portant force in Islamic society today.

The Islamic world also made a major contribution to

historical writing, another discipline that was stimulated

by the introduction of paper manufacturing. The first

great Islamic historian was al-Mas’udi. Born in Baghdad in

896, he wrote about both the Muslim and the non-Muslim

world, traveling widely in the process. His Meadows of

ISLAMIC CIVILIZ ATION 177

Gold is the sour c e of much of our knowledge about the

golden age of the Abbasid caliphate. Translations of his

work reveal a wide-ranging mind and a keen intellect,

combined with a human touch that practitioners of the art

in our century might find reason to emulate. Equaling

al-Mas’udi in talent and reputation was the fourteenth-

century historian Ibn Khaldun. Combining scholarship

with government service, Ibn Khaldun was one of the first

historians to attempt a philosophy of history.

Islamic Art and Architecture The art of Islam is a

blend of Arab, Turkish, and Persian traditions. Although

local influences can be discerned in Egypt, Anatolia,

Spain, and other areas and the Mongols introduced an

East Asian accent in the thirteenth century, for a long

time Islamic art remained remarkably coherent over a

wide area. First and foremost, the Arabs, with their new

religion and their writing system, served as a unifying

force. Fascinated by the mathematics and astronomy they

inherited from the Romans or the Babylonians, they de-

veloped a sense of rhythm and abstraction that found

expression in their use of repetitive geometric ornamen-

tation. The Turks brought abstraction in figurative and

nonfigurative designs, and the Persians added their lyrical

poetical mysticism. Much Islamic painting, for example,

consists of illustrations of Persian texts.

The ultimate expression of Islamic art is to be found

in magnificent architectural monuments beginning in

the late seventh century. The first great example is the

Dome of the Rock, which was built in 691 to proclaim

the spiritual and political legitimacy of the new religion to

the ancient world. Set in the sacred heart of Jerusalem on

Muhammad’s holy rock and touching both the Western

Wall of the Jews and the oldest Christian church, the

Dome of the Rock remains one of the most revered Is-

lamic monuments. Constructed on Byzantine lines with

an octagonal shape and marble columns and ornamen-

tation, the interior reflects Persian motifs with mosaics of

precious stones. Although rebuilt several times and in-

corporating influences from both East and West, this first

monument to Islam represents the birth of a new art.

At first, desert Arabs, whether nomads or conquering

armies, prayed in an open court, shaded along the qibla

(the wall facing the holy city of Mecca) by a thatched roof

supported by rows of palm trunks. There was also a ditch

where the faithful could wash off the dust of the desert

prior to prayer. As Islam became better established,

enormous mosques were constructed, but they were still

modeled on the open court, which would be surrounded

on all four sides with pillars supporting a wooden roof

over the prayer area facing the qibla wall. At one time the

largest mosque in the world, the Great Mosque of

Samarra (constructed between 848 and 852), covered

10 acres and contained 464 pillars in aisles surrounding

the court. Set in the qibla wall was a niche, or mihrab,

containing a decorated panel pointing to Mecca and

representing Allah. Remains of the massive 30-foot-high

outer wall still stand, but the most famous section of the

Samarra mosque was its 90-foot-tall minaret, the tower

accompanying a mosque from which the muezzin (crier)

calls the faithful to prayer five times a day.

No discussion of mosques would be complete with-

out mentioning the famous ninth-century mosque at



ordoba in southern Spain, which is still in remarkable

condition. Its 514 columns supporting double horseshoe

arches transform this architectural wonder into a unique

forest of trees pointing upward, contributing to a light

and airy effect. The unparalleled sumptuousness and el-

egance make the C



ordoba mosque one of the wonders of

world art, let alone Islamic art.

Since the Muslim religion combines spiritual and

political power in one, palaces also reflected the glory of

Islam. Beginning in the eighth century with the spectac-

ular castles of Syria, the rulers constructed large brick

domiciles reminiscent of Roman design, with protective

walls, gates, and baths. With a central courtyard sur-

rounded by two-story arcades and massive gate-towers,

they resembled fortresses as much as palaces. Character-

istic of such ‘‘desert palaces’’ was the gallery over the

entrance gate, with holes through which boiling oil could

be poured down on the heads of attacking forces. Un-

fortunately, none of these structures has survived.

The ultimate remaining Islamic palace is the

fourteenth-century Alhambra in Spain. The extensive

succession of courtyards, rooms, gardens, and fountains

created a fairy-tale castle perched high above the city of

Granada. Every inch of surface is decorated in intricate

floral and semiabstract patterns; much of the decoration

is done in carved plasterwork so fine that it resembles

lace. The Lion Court in the center of the harem is world

renowned for its lion fountain and surrounding arcade

with elegant columns and carvings.

Since antiquity, one of the primary occupations of

women has been the spinning and weaving of cloth to

make clothing and other useful items for their families. In

the Middle East, this skill reached an apogee in the art of

the knotted woolen rug. Originating in the pre-Muslim

era, rugs were initially used to insulate stone palaces

against the cold as well as to warm shepherds’ tents.

Eventually, they were applied to religious purposes, since

every practicing Muslim is required to pray five times a

day on clean ground. Small rugs served as prayer mats for

individual use, while larger and more elaborate ones were

given by rulers as rewards for political favors. Bedouins in

the Arabian desert covered their sandy floors with rugs to

create a cozy environment in their tents.

178 CHAPTER 7 FERMENT IN THE MIDDLE EAST: THE RISE OF ISLAM

The Recyc led Mosqu e. The site of the Great Mosque at C



ordoba was

originally dedicated to the Roman god Janus and later boasted a Christian church

built by the Visigoths. In the eighth century, the Muslims incorporated parts of the

old church into their new mosque, aggrandizing it over the centuries. After the

Muslims were driven from Spain, the mosque reverted to Christianity, and in 1523,

a soaring cathedral sprouted from its spine (shown below). Inside, the mosque and

the cathedral seem to blend well aesthetically, a prototype for harmonious religious

coexistence. Throughout history, societies have destroyed past architectural wonders,

robbing older marble glories to erect new marvels. It is wonderful that the Great

Mosque has survived with its glittering dome soaring above the mihrab chamber

(shown in the upper photo).



Nik Wheeler/CORBIS



William J. Duiker

TheQur’anasSculpturedDesign. Muslim sculptors

and artists, reflecting the official view that any visual

representation of the Prophet Muhammad was blasphemous,

turned to geometric patterns, as well as to flowers and

animals, as a means of fulfilling their creative urge. The

predominant motif, however, was the reproduction of

Qur’anic verses in the Arabic script. Calligraphy, which was

almost as important in the Middle East as it was in

traditional China, used the Arabic script to decorate all of the

Islamic arts, from painting to pottery, tile and ironwork, and

wall decorations such as this carved plaster panel in a

courtyard of the Alhambra palace in Spain. Since a recitation

from the Qur’an was an important component of the daily

devotional activities for all practicing Muslims, elaborate

scriptural panels such as this one perfectly blended the

spiritual and the artistic realms.



William J. Duiker

ISLAMIC CIVILIZ ATION 179

In villages throughout the Middle East, the art of rug

weaving has been passed down from mother to daughter

over the centuries. Small girls as young as four years old

took part in the process by helping to spin and prepare

the wool shorn from the family sheep. By the age of six,

girls would begin their first rug, and before adolescence,

their slender fingers would be producing fine carpets.

Skilled artisanship represented an extra enticement to

prospective bridegrooms, and rugs often became an im-

portant part of a woman’s dowry to her future husband.

After the wedding, the wife would continue to make rugs

for home use, as well as for sale to augment the family

income. Eventually, rugs began to be manufactured in

workshops by professional artisans, who reproduced the

designs from detailed painted diagrams.

Most decorations on the rugs, as well as on all forms

of Islamic art, consisted of Arabic script and natural plant

and figurative motifs. Repeated continuously in natural-

istic or semiabstract geometrical patterns called ara-

besques, these decorations completely covered the surface

and left no area undecorated. This dense decor was also

evident in brick, mosaic, and stucco ornamentation and

culminated in the magnificent tile work of later centuries.

Representation of the Prophet Muhammad has tra-

ditionally been strongly discouraged in painting or in any

other art form. Although no passage of the Qur’an for-

bids representational painting, the Hadith warned against

any attempt to imitate God through artistic creation or

idolatry, and this has been interpreted as an outright ban

on such depictions.

Human beings and animals could still be represented

in secular art, but relatively little survives from the early

centuries aside from a very few wall paintings from the

royal palaces. Although the Persians used calligraphy and

art to decorate their books, the Arabs had no pictorial

tradition of their own and only began to develop the art

of book illustration in the late twelfth century to illustrate

translations of Greek scientific works.

In the thirteenth century, a Mongol dynasty estab-

lished at Tabriz, west of the Caspian Sea, offered the

Middle East its first direct contact with the art of East

Asia. Mongol painting, done in the Chinese manner with

a full brush and expressing animated movement and in-

tensity (see Chapter 10), freed Islamic painters from

traditional confines and enabled them to experiment with

new techniques.

TIMELINE

500

750 1000 1250 1500

Life of Muhammad

Muhammad’s flight

to Medina

Construction of city of Baghdad Ottoman Turks

seize Constantinople

Conquest of Anatolia by Seljuk Turks

Election of Ali to caliphate

Conquest

of Mecca

Spread of Islam to Spain and northwestern India

Founding of Abbasid caliphate Mongols destroy city of Baghdad

Reign of Harun al-Rashid

Seljuk Turks seize Baghdad

Arab defeat of Byzantines at Yarmuk River

Battle of Manzikert

The Crusades

180 CHAPTER 7 FERMENT IN THE MIDDLE EAST: THE RISE OF ISLAM

SUGGESTED READING

The Rise of Islam Standard works on the rise of Islam include

T. W. Lippman, Understanding Islam: An Introduction to the

Moslem World (New York, 1982), and J. Bloom and S. Blair, Islam:

A Thousand Years of Faith and Power (New Haven, Conn., 2002).

Also see K. Armstrong, Islam: A Short History (New York, 2000).

Other worthwhile studies include B. Lewis, The Middle

East: A Brief History of the Last 2,000 Years (New York, 1986), and

J. L. Esposito, ed., The Oxford History of Islam (New York, 1999).

For anthropological background, see D. Bates and A. Rassam, Peoples

and Cultures of the Middle East (Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1983).

Specialized works on various historical periods are numerous.

For a view of the Crusades from an Arab perspective, see A. Maalouf,

The Crusades Through Ara b Eyes (London, 1984), and C. Hillenbrand,

The Crusades: Islamic Perspectives (New York, 2001). On the

Mamluks, see R. Irwin, The Middle East in the Middle Ages: The

Early M amluk Sultanate, 1250--1382 (Carbondale, Ill., 1986). In God

of Battles: Christianity and Islam (Princeton, N.J., 1998), P. Partner

compares the expa nsionist tendencies of the two great religions. Also see

R. Fletcher, The Cross and the Crescent: Christianity and Islam from

Muhammad to the Reform (N ew York, 2005).

Abbasid Empire On the Abbasid Empire, see H. Kennedy’s

highly readable When Baghdad Ruled the Muslim World: The Rise

and Fall of Islam’s Greatest Dynasty (Cambridge, Mass., 2004).

Christian-Muslim contacts are discussed in S. O’Shea, Sea of Faith:

Islam and Christianity in the Medieval Mediterranean World (New

York, 2006). On the situation in Spain during the Abbasid era, see

M. Menocal’s elegant study, Ornament of the World: How Muslims,

Jews, and Christians Created a Culture of Tolerance in Medieval

Spain (New York, 2002). For western tendencies to treat non-

European peoples as ‘‘the other,’’ see E. Said, Orientalism (New

York, 1978).

Economy On the economy, see E. Ashtor, A Social and

Economic History of the Near East in the Middle Ages (Berkeley,

Calif., 1976); K. N. Chaudhuri, Asia Before Europe: Economy and

Civilization of the Indian Ocean from the Rise of Islam to 1750

(Cambridge, 1990); C. Issawi, The Middle East Economy: Decline

and Recovery (Princeton, N.J., 1995); and P. Crone, Meccan Trade

and the Rise of Islam (Princeton, N.J., 1987).

Women On women, see F. Hussain, ed., Muslim Women

(New York, 1984); G. Nashat and J. E. Tucker, Women in the Middle

East and North Africa (Bloomington, Ind., 1998); S. S. Hughes and

B. Hughes, Women in World History, vol.1(London,1995);and

L. Ahmed, Women and Gender in Islam (New Haven, Conn., 1992).

Islamic Literature and Art For the best introduction to Islamic

literature, consult J. Kritzeck, ed., Anthology of Islamic Literature

(New York, 1964), with its concise commentaries and introduction.

An excellent introduction to Persian literature can be found in

E. Yarshater, ed., Persian Literature (Albany, N.Y., 1988). H. Haddawy,

trans., The Arabian Nights (New York, 1990) is the most accessible

version for students. It presents 271 ‘‘nights’’ in a clear and colorful style.

For the best introduction to Islamic art, consult the concise yet

comprehensive work by D. T. Rice, Islamic Art, rev. ed. (London,

1975). Also see J. Bloom and S. Blair, Islamic Arts (London, 1997).

For an excellent overview of world textiles, see K. Wilson, A History

of Textiles (Boulder, Colo., 1982).

CONCLUSION

AFTER THE COLLAPSE of Roman power in the west, the

eastern Roman Empire, centered on Constantinople, continued in

the eastern Mediterranean and eventually emerged as the unique

Christian civilization known as the Byzantine Empire, which

flourished for hundreds of years. One of the greatest challenges to

the Byzantine Empire, however, came from a new force---Islam---that

blossomed in the Arabian peninsula and spread rapidly throughout

the Middle East. In the eyes of some Europeans during the Middle

Ages, the Arab Empire was a malevolent force that posed a serious

threat to the security of Christianity. Their fears were not entirely

misplaced, for within half a century after the death of Islam’s

founder, Muhammad, Arab armies overran Christian states in

North Africa and the Iberian peninsula, and Turkish Muslims

moved eastward onto the fringes of the Indian subcontinent.

But although the teachings of Muhammad brought war and

conquest to much of the known world, they also brought hope and

a sense of political and economic stability to peoples throughout the

region. Thus, for many people in the medieval Mediterranean

world, the arrival of Islam was a welcome event. Islam brought a

code of law and a written language to societies that had previously

not possessed them. Finally, by creating a revitalized trade network

stretching from West Africa to East Asia, it established a vehicle for

the exchange of technology and ideas that brought untold wealth to

thousands and a better life to millions.

Like other empires in the region, the Arab Empire did not last.

It fell victim to a combination of internal and external pressures,

and by the end of the thirteenth century, it was no more than a

memory. But it left a powerful legacy in Islam, which remains one

of the great religions of the world. In succeeding centuries, Islam

began to penetrate into new areas beyond the edge of the Sahara

and across the Indian Ocean into the islands of the Indonesian

archipelago.

Visit the website for The Essential World History to access study

aids such as Flashcards, Cr itical Thinking Exercises, and

Chapter Quizzes:

www.cengage.com/history/duikspiel/essentialworld6e

CONCLUSION 181

182

CHAPTER 8

EARLY CIVILIZATIONS IN AFRICA

CHAPTER OUTLINE

AND FOCUS QUESTIONS

The Emergence of Civilization

How did the advent of farming and pastoralism affect

the various peoples of Africa? How did the conse-

quences of the agricultural revolution in Africa differ

from those in other societies in Eurasia and America?

The Coming of Islam

What effects did the coming of Islam have on African

religion, society, political structures, trade, and culture?

States and Stateless Societies

in Central and Southern Africa

What types of states and societies emerg ed in central

and southern Africa, and what role did migrations play

in the evolution of African societies in this area?

African Society

What role did lineage groups, women, and slavery

play in African societies? Were there clear and distinct

differences between African societies in various parts

of the continent? If so, why?

African Culture

What are some of the chief characteristics of African

sculpture and carvings, music, and architecture, and

what purpose did these forms of creative expression

serve in African society?

CRITICAL THINKING

With the exception of the Nile River valley, organized

states did not emerge in the continent of Africa until

much later than was the case in many regions of the

Eurasian supercontinent. What do you think accounts

for this difference?

The Temple at Great Zimbabwe

IN 1871, THE GERMAN EXPLORER Karl Mauch began to

search southern Africa’s central plateau for the colossal stone ruins

of a legendary lost civilization. In late August, he found what he

had been looking for. According to his diary: ‘‘Presently I stood be-

fore it and beheld a wall of a height of about 20 feet of granite

bricks. Very close by there was a place where a kind of footpath led

over rubble into the interior. Following this path I stumbled over

masses of rubble and parts of walls and dense thickets. I stopped in

front of a towerlike structure. Altogether it rose to a height of about

30 feet.’’ Mauch was convinced that ‘‘a civilized nation must once

have lived here.’’ Like many other nineteenth-century Europeans,

however, Mauch was equally convinced that the Africans who had

lived there could never have built such splendid structures as the

ones he had found at Great Zimbabwe. To Mauch and other

archaeologists, Great Zimbabwe must have been the work of

‘‘a northern race closely akin to the Phoenician and Egyptian.’’ It

was not until the twentieth century that Europeans could overcome

their prejudices and finally admit that Africans south of Egypt had

also developed advanced civilizations with spectacular achievements.

The continent of Africa has played a central role in the long

evolution of humankind. It was in Africa that the first hominids

appeared more than three million years ago. It was probably in

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