PART III

The Post-Classical Era

Summary. The post-classical period extends between the 5th and 15th centuries C.E. A new international framework emerged to produce a genuine world historical dynamic. Explicit exchange became a standard part of world history.

The Chronology of the Postclassical Period. The world civilization map was altered greatly by the decline or collapse of the classical civilizations and by nomadic invasions. The postclassical era closed as new central Asian invasions once again changed patterns. Another phase of world development opened as new empires formed and Europeans explored the wider world.

The Postclassical Millennium and the World Network. Four developments define postclassical centuries: [1] Islamic civilization spread politically and culturally into Asia, Europe, and Africa; [2] civilization expanded into new world regions; [3] the great world religions gained adherents from peoples once following local belief structures; and [4] the creation of a world network linking many of the individual civilizations.

The Rise of Islam. Islam created a new empire encompassing Asian, African, and European territories. In the classical period the three civilizations were roughly in balance; with Islam there was a world leader. Islam's decline marked the end of this phase of world history.

The Expansion of Civilization. Civilization spread into many new regions in Africa and Europe; it became more established in Japan. Both American and Polynesian societies expanded their reach. Seven diverse areas were important in the postclassical era: the Middle East and North Africa, India, China and East Asia, eastern and western Europe, sub-Saharan Africa, southeast Asia and the Americas.

The World Religions. In the postclassical era major religions spread into much of Asia, Africa, and Europe. Islam, Christianity, and Buddhism brought a new

1

focus on issues of spirituality and an afterlife. They were able to extend beyond local cultures and draw together diverse peoples, many of whom were living in very confused political times. Growth in international commerce also assisted change.

The World Network. The most important characteristic of the postclassical world was the development of a world network. International trade and military contacts allowed all types of intellectual and material exchanges. Diseases also spread. Once established the network steadily intensified and expanded. Individual civilizations still maintained their essential values, but many were operating in a genuinely international framework. The major limitation was that the Americas, Polynesia, Australia, and a few other places were not yet included.

World History Themes. Although agriculture expanded during the postclassical period, there was not, except in central America, a period of massive environmental problems. Since few new fundamental technological innovations occurred, environmental change mainly reflected population growth. Basic structures of social and gender inequality persisted. The nomadic impact on history peaked with the achievements of the Mongols. Expanding civilizations and new religions provided opportunities for indivduals to influence societal developments.

Exchange and Imitation in the Postclassical World. Three characteristics highlighted the importance of imitating established centers. Expanding commercial contacts and missionary activity connected peripheral regions to established civilizations. The expansion of civilization built on the possibility of explicit imitation. The best established civilizations were in roughly the same centers where key classical developments occurred. They were surrounded by areas where there were newer and less strongly organized civilizations. They participated in the world exchange at a disadvantage and attempted to imitate features of the major centers.

2

Chapter 6

The First Global Civilization: The Rise and Spread of Islam

CHAPTER SUMMARY

In the 7th century C.E. the Arab followers of Muhammad created the first global civilization. They the classical civilizations of Greece, Egypt, and Persia. Islamic merchants, mystics, and warriors expanded to Europe, Asia, and Africa. This process linked the world as never before. While Muhammad’s message united the Islamic world, it was soon culturally and politically divided. Deep disputes undermined the strength of Muslim civilization but not until the 14th century.

PRE--ISLAM

The Arabian World and the Birth of Islam. The arid Arabian peninsula was populated Bedouin societies. These desert-dwellers herded camels and goats. Some practiced agriculture in oasis towns. Important agricultural and commercial centers flourished in southern coastal regions (Yemen). The towns were ruled by Bedouin clans.

Clan Identity and the Cycle of Vengeance. Society was organized through kin-related clans. Clans clustered into larger tribal units that functioned during crises. Survival depended upon clan loyalty. Wealth varied within clans. Leaders ( shaykhs), although elected by councils, were often wealthy men. Free warriors enforced their Shaykh decisions. Slave families served the clans. Clan unity was reinforced by interclan rivalry over water and pasture. Feuds were a way of life lasting centuries. This strife weakened bedouin society against outside rivals.

Towns and Long-Distance Trade. Arab cities linked the Mediterranean to East Asia. The city Mecca, in western Arabia, had been founded by the Umayyad clan of the Quraysh tribe. The city held the Ka'ba, a holy bedouin religious shrine that attracted pilgrims during clan truces. The city Medina, an agricultural and commercial center was to the northeast. CAUSE > Quarrels among Medina's two Arab bedouin and three Jewish clans hampered its development which later opened a place for Muhammad’s message.

3

Family in Pre-Islamic Arabia. Women likely enjoyed more freedom than in the Byzantine and Sassanian empires. They had key clan economic roles. Descent was traced through the female line (matrilineal) , and husbands paid a bride-price to the wife’s family. Women did not wear veils and were not secluded. Both sexes had multiple marriage partners. Still, warrior made most decisions. Property control, inheritance, and divorce favored men. Women did drudge labor. Female status was more restricted in urban centers.

Poets and Neglected Gods. Arab culture, due to desert isolation, was not highly developed. Orally transmitted poetry was central. Bedouin religion blended animism and polytheism. Some tribes recognized a supreme deity, Allah, but paid him little attention. They focused on nature spirits. Bedouin did not use religion as a moral guide.

Muhammad and Islam. In the 6th century C.E. camel nomads dominated Arabia. Cities depended on alliances with surrounding tribes. CAUSE >Pressures for change came from the Byzantine and Sassanid empires, and from Judaisim and Christianity in Arabia. Muhammad, a member of the Banu Hasim clan of the Quraysh tribe, was born about 570 CE?. Orphaned, he was raised by his father's family and became a merchant. Muhammad lived in Mecca where he married a wealthy widow, Khadijah. Merchant travels allowed Muhammad to observe what was undermining clan unity and to witness the unity brought by monotheistic faiths. Muhammad abandoned material gain and went to meditate in the hills. In 610 CE he experienced revelations transmitted from god by the angel Gabriel. Later, collected in Arabic in the Quran, they formed the basis for Islam.

Flight, and Victory. As Muhammad's tiny following grew, he became a threat to Mecca's rulers. Islam threatened the old gods of the Ka'ba. In danger, Muhammad went to Medina and successfully mediated clan quarrels. In 622 CE Muhammad returned from Mecca to Medina gathering thousands of new followers. The Quraysh tribe (Muhammad’s own attacked them in Medina, but Muhammad triumphed. A treaty of 628 allowed his followers to visit the Ka'ba. He returned to Mecca in 629 CE and converted most of the city to Islam.

Arabs and Islam. Initially Islam was adopted by town dwellers and bedouins where Muhammad lived. But because of the unity Islam offered through the umma, (the community of the faithful) , it replaced old beliefs and old tribal and clan rivalries. Islam also offered a moral system that healed rifts in Arab society.

4

Believers were equal under Allah; the wealthy were responsible for the poor. Muhammad’s teachings and the Quran became the basis for law. All faced a final judgment by Allah.

Universalistic Islam Islam appealed to individuals from many different world cultures. It was monotheism, based in law, egalitarianism, a world community. Islam, while beleiving Muhammad's message was a divine revelation, accepted components of Judaism and Christianity (people of the book). Islam's five pillars provide unity: (1) acceptance of Islam; (2) prayer five times daily; (3) the fast month of Ramadan; (4) payment of a tithe ( zakat ) for charity; and (5) the hajj, or pilgrimage to Mecca.

Kaaba

5

Hajj

The Umayyad Empire. Muhammad's victory in Mecca united many bedouin tribes, but the unity was threatened when he died in 632 CE. Tribes broke away, followers quarreled about the succession.. The umma (community) select new leaders who reunited Islam by 633 and began campaigns beyond Arabia. Arab religious zeal and the weaknesses of opponents resulted in victories in Mesopotamia, North Africa, and Persia. The new empire was governed by a warrior elite under the Umayyad clan that had little interest in conversion.

Division in the Islamic Community- The Sunni-Shi'i Split over Succession Muhammad, the last of the prophets, had not established a procedure for selecting a new leader. After much quarreling Abu Bakr was chosen as 1st caliph, the leader of the Islamic community. Rebellious tribes with rival prophets were defeated during the Ridda Wars which restored Islamic unity. Umar succeeded Abu Bakr as the 2nd caliph and spread the empire into Persia and the Byzantine Empire but he was assassinated. Uthman became the third caliph and gave many high positions to members of his Umayyad clan but he was accused of nepotism and murdered in Egypt. Following Uthman the Medina Muslims (original Muslim families) chose Ali as the caliph but the Umayyads did not recognize Ali. Civil war

6

broke out. Ali was winning until at the Battle of Siffin in 657 he accepted a plea for mediation. Ali lost the support of his most radical adherents. The Umayyad leader, Mu'awiya, was proclaimed caliph in 660 and Ali was assassinated in 661; his son, Husayn, was killed at Karbala (Iraq) in 680. The dispute left permanent division within Islam. The Shi’i, continued to uphold Ali's bloodline for caliphs from Iran. The Sunnis accepted Umayyad caliphs

Arab armies invaded the weak Byzantine and Sassanid empire where they were joined by bedouins who had migrated earlier.

Motives for Arab Conquest. Islam provided the Arabs with a common cause and a releasing martial energies against neighboring opponents. However, rich booty and tribute was more of a motivation than spreading Islam since converts were exempted from taxes and got a share of the spoils of victory.

Weaknesses of the Adversary The weak Sassanian empire was ruled by a weak emperor who let the landed- aristocratic classes exploited the agricultural masses. Zoroastrianism lacked popular roots and the popular creed of Mazdak had been brutally suppressed. The Arabs defeated the poorly prepared Sassanid military and ended the dynasty in 651 CE. The Byzantines were more resilient adversaries. The empire had been weakened by the defection of frontier Arabs and persecuted Christian sects, and by long wars with the Sassanids. The Arabs quickly seized western Iraq, Syria, Palestine, and Egypt from the Byzantine Empire. From the 640s Arabs had gained naval supremacy in the eastern Mediterranean and conquered westward into North Africa and southern Europe. The weakened Byzantines held off attacks in their core Asia Minor and Balkan territories.

The Umayyad Empire Grows The majority Umayyad Muslims, during the 7th and 8th, centuries pushed forward into central Asia, northwest India, and southwestern Europe. The Franks stopped their European advance at Poitiers (Battle of Tours) in 732, but Muslims ruled much of Iberia (Spain/Portugal) for centuries. By the 9h century they dominated the Mediterranean. The Umayyad political capital was at Damascus (Syria). The caliphs built an administration with both bureaucracy and military dominated by a Muslim Arab elite. The warriors remained garrisoned to prevent assimilation by the conquered.

7

Umayyad Empire (Caliphate)

People of the Book. Umayyad policy allowed intermarriage and conversion between Arabs and their subjects. Muslim converts, malawi , still paid taxes and did not receive booty; they were blocked from important positions in the army or bureaucracy. Most of the conquered peoples were dhimmis , or people of the book. The first were Jews and Christians; later the term also included Zoroastrians and Hindus. The dhimmis paid higher taxes, but were allowed to retain their own religious and social organization.

Gender Roles in the Umayyad Age. Initially the more favorable status of women among the Arabs prevailed as Muhammad and the Quran stressed the moral and ethical dimensions of marriage. Adultery of both partners was denounced; female infanticide was forbidden. But now, women could have only one husband, men were allowed four wives of equal status. Muhammad strengthened women's legal rights in inheritance and divorce. Both sexes were equal before Allah. The stronger position gained by women did not endure. Long-established Middle Eastern and Mediterranean male-dominated traditions of the conquered societies eventually prevailed. The historical record in China, India, Greece, and the Middle East appears to make a connection between political centralization, urbanization and decline in the position of women. But in the Islamic world religion and law left women of all classes in better conditions than in other civilized cultures.

8

Umayyad Decline and Fall. CAUSE >The luxurious living styles of Umayyad caliphs and their court led to a decline of military talents. Most Muslims considered such conduct against Islamic virtues. Revolts occurred throughout the empire. The most important occurred among frontier warriors settled near the Iranian borderland town of Merv. Many men had married locally and developed regional loyalties. Angry at not receiving their share of booty, they revolted when new troops were introduced. The rebels were led by the Abbasid clan. Allied with Shi'ite and mawali, Abu al-Abbas defeated the Umayyads in 750 CE, later assassinating most of their clan leaders and creating the Abbasid Empire

THE ABBASID CALIPHATE

From Arab to Islamic Empire: The Early Abbasid Era. Because of the huge size of the new empire, regional identities and made it difficult to hold the empire together. The Abbasid victory led to increased bureaucratic expansion, absolutism , and luxurious living. The Abbasids championed conversion (unlike the Arab Ummayads) and transformed the character of the previous Arab-dominated Islamic community. Once in power the Abbasids turned against the Shi'ites and other allies to support a less tolerant Sunni Islam. At their new capital, Baghdad, the rulers accepted Persian ruling concepts, elevating themselves to a different status than the earlier Muslim leaders. A growing bureaucracy worked under the direction of the wazir, or chief administrator. The great extent of the empire hindered efficiency, but the regime worked well for more than a century. The constant presence of the royal executioner symbolized the absolute power of the rulers over their subjects.

9

Abbasid Caliphate (Empire)

Islamic Conversion and Mawali Experience. Under the Abbasids new converts, both Arabs and Mawalis (newly converted), were fully integrated into the Muslim community. The old distinction between mawali and older believers disappeared. Most conversions occurred peacefully. Many individuals sincerely accepted appealing ethical Islamic beliefs. Others perhaps reacted to the advantages of avoiding special taxes, and to the opportunities for advancement open to believers in education, administration, and commerce. Persians, for example, soon became the real source of power in the imperial system.

Commercial Boom and Urban Growth. The rise of the mawali was accompanied by the growth in wealth and status of merchant and landlord classes. Urban expansion was liked to a revival of the Afro-Eurasian trading network declining with the fall of the Han and Roman empires. Muslim merchants rnoved goods from the western Mediterranean to the South China Sea.

Town and Country. Urban prosperity led to increased artisan handicraft production in both government and private workshops. The most skilled artisans formed guild-like organizations to negotiate wages and working conditions, and to provide support services. Slaves performed unskilled labor and served caliphs and high officials. Some slaves held powerful positions and gained freedom. Most unskilled slaves, many of them Africans, worked under terrible

10

conditions. A rural, landed elite, the ayan, emerged. The majority of peasants occupied land as tenants and had to give most of their harvest to the owners.

The First Flowering of Islamic Learning. The Arabs before Islam were without writing and knew little of the outside world. They were very receptive to the accomplishments of the many civilizations falling to Muslim armies. Under the Abbasids Islamic artistic contribution first lay in mosque and palace construction. Islamic learning flourished in religious, legal, and philosophical discourse, with special focus on the sciences and mathematics. Scholars recovered and preserved the works of earlier civilizations. Greek writings were saved and later passed on to the Christian world. Muslims also introduced Indian numbers into the Mediterranean world.

Conclusion: The Measure of Islamic Achievement. By the 9th century Abbasid power had waned before the rise of regional states and the incursions of non-Muslim peoples. The Turks converted to Islam and became a major component of the Muslim world. The Arabs had created a basis for the first global civilization, incorporating many linguistic and ethnic groups into one culture. They created Islam, one of the great universal religions. Religion and politics initially had been joined, but the Umayyads and Abbasids used religious legitimacy to govern their vast empires. In both religion and politics they absorbed precedents from earlier civilizations. Muslims did the same in the arts and

11

sciences, later fashioning their own innovative thinking which influenced other societies in Europe, Africa, and Asia.

AP WORLD – BROWN -KEY TERMS CHAPTER 6

bedouin: nomadic pastoralists of the Arabian peninsula with a culture based on herding camels and goats.

shaykhs: leaders of tribes and clans within bedouin society; usually possessed large herds, several wives, and many children.

Mecca: Arabian commercial center; dominated by the Quraysh; the home of Muhammad and the future center of Islam.

Medina: town northeast of Mecca; asked Muhammad to resolve its intergroup differences; Muhammad's flight to Medina, the hijra, in 622 began the Muslim calendar.

Umayyad: clan of the Quraysh that dominated Mecca; later an Islamic dynasty.

Ka’ba: revered pre-Islamic shrine in Mecca; incorporated into Muslim worship.

Quran: the word of god as revealed through Muhammad; made into the holy book of Islam.

umma: community of the faithful within Islam.

zakat: tax for charity obligatory for all Muslims.

12

five pillars: the obligatory religious duties for all Muslims: confession of faith, prayer, fasting during Ramadan, zakat, and hajj (pilgrimage to Mecca).

Caliph: the successor to Muhammad as head of the Islamic community.

Ali: cousin and son-in-law of Muhammad; one of the orthodox caliphs; focus for the development of shi'ism.

Abu Bakr: succeeded Muhammad as the first caliph.

Ridda: wars following Muhammad's death; the defeat of rival prophets and opponents restored the unity of Islam.

jihad: Islamic holy war.

Uthman: third caliph; his assassination set off a civil war within Islam between the Umayyads and Ali.

Siffin: battle fought in 657 between Ali and the Umayyads; led to negotiations thatfragmented Ali's party.

Mu'awiya: first Umayyad caliph; his capital was Damascus.

Sunnis: followers of the majority interpretation within Islam; included the Umayyads.

Shi’i: followers of Ali's interpretation of Islam.

Karbala: site of the defeat and death of Husayn, the son of Ali.

mawali: non-Arab converts to Islam.

jizya: head tax paid by all non-Muslims in Islamic lands.

dhimmis: "the people of the book", Jews, Christians;, later extended toZoroastrians and Hindus.

Abbasids: dynasty that succeeded the Umayyads in 750; their capital was at Baghdad.

wazir: chief administrative official under the Abbasids.

ayan: the wealthy landed elite that emerged under the Abbasids.

|CLASS DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

1. What was the nature of bedouin society before Muhammad received his revelations?

2. How did Islam address the fundamental problems in Arabian society?

13

3. How was the succession dispute over the office of caliph finally settled?

4. What was the nature and extent of the Umayyad Empire?

5. What events led to the fall of the Umayyads?

6. How did the Abbasid Empire differ from the Umayyad Empire?

7. What were the achievements of the Arab phase of Islamic development ending in 750?

8. Did women in the Islamic world have more or less freedom than women in other contemporary societies?

Sample Essay Questions:

1. Discuss how a nomadic pastoral society produced a religion capable of achieving global dominance.

2. Discuss why the disputes over authority after the death of Muhammad served to hinder future Muslim unity.

14