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- The First Global Civilization:
- The Rise and Spread of Islam
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- The post-classical period extends between the 5th and 15th centuries.
- A new international framework would emerge to produce genuine changes in
the world.
- International trade became a standard part of world history.
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- 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.
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- 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 converts from peoples once
following local belief structures.
- [4] the creation of a world network linking many of the individual
civilizations.
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- 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.
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- 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:
- Middle East and North Africa, India, China and East Asia, eastern and
western Europe, sub-Saharan Africa, India and southeast Asia and the
Americas.
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- In the postclassical era major religions spread into much of Asia,
Africa, and Europe.
- Islam, Christianity, and Buddhism brought a new 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.
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- 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 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.
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- 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
individuals to influence society.
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- Three characteristics highlighted the importance of imitating
established centers.
- Expanding commercial contacts and missionary activity connected once
excluded regions to established civilizations.
- The best established civilizations were in roughly the same areas once
occupied by the classical civilizations.
- They were surrounded by areas where there were less organized
civilizations, who participated in the world exchange at a disadvantage
and attempted to imitate features of the major centers.
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- In the 7th century the Arab followers of Muhammad surged from the
Arabian peninsula to create the first global civilization.
- They quickly conquered an empire incorporating elements of the classical
civilizations of Greece, Egypt, and Persia.
- Islamic merchants, mystics, and warriors continued its expansion in
Europe, Asia, and Africa.
- The process provided links for exchange among civilized centers.
- Although united in belief of Muhammad’s message, the Islamic world was
divided by cultural and political rivalries.
- The disputes did not undermine the strength of Muslim civilization until
the 14th century.
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- The inhospitable Arabian peninsula was inhabited by Bedouin societies.
- Some desert-dwellers herded camels and goats.
- Others practiced agriculture in oasis towns.
- Important agricultural and commercial centers flourished in southern
coastal regions.
- The towns were extensions of Bedouin society, sharing its culture, and
ruled by its clans.
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- Mobile kin-related clans were the basis of social organization.
- The clans clustered into larger tribal units that functioned only during
crises.
- In the harsh environment individual survival depended upon clan loyalty.
- Wealth and status varied within clans.
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- Leaders, or Shaykhs, although elected by councils, usually were wealthy
men.
- Free warriors enforced their decisions.
- Slave families served the leaders or the clan as a whole.
- Clan cohesion was reinforced by inter-clan rivalry and by conflicts over
water and land, which sometimes resulted in feuds that lasted for
centuries.
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- Cities had developed in the trading system linking the Mediterranean to
East Asia.
- The most important, Mecca, in western Arabia, had been founded by the
Umayyad clan of the Quraysh tribe.
- This city was the site of the Ka'ba, an important religious shrine,
that, during an obligatory annual truce in inter-clan feuds, attracted
pilgrims and visitors.
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- A second important town, Medina, an agricultural oasis and commercial
center, lay to the northeast.
- Quarrels among Medina's two Bedouin and three Jewish clans hampered its
development, until the onset of Islam.
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- Women might have enjoyed more freedom than in the Byzantine and
Sassanian empires.
- They had key economic roles in clan life.
- Descent was traced through the female line, and males paid a bride-price
to the wife’s family.
- Women did not wear veils and were not secluded.
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- Arab material culture, because of isolation and the environment, was not
highly developed.
- The main focus of creativity was in orally transmitted poetry.
- Bedouin religion was a blend of animism and polytheism.
- Some tribes recognized a supreme deity, Allah, but paid him little
attention.
- They instead focused on spirits associated with nature.
- Religion and ethics were not connected.
- In all, the Bedouin did not take their religion seriously.
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- In the 6th century camel nomads dominated Arabia.
- Cities were dependent upon alliances with surrounding tribes.
- Pressures for change came from the Byzantine and Sassanid empires, and
from the presence of Judaisim and Christianity.
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- Muhammad, a member of the Banu Hasim clan of the Quraysh, was born about
570.
- Left an orphan, he was raised by his father's family and became a
merchant.
- Muhammad resided in Mecca where he married a wealthy widow, Khadijah.
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- Merchant travels allowed Muhammad to observe the forces undermining clan
unity and to encounter the spread of monotheistic ideas.
- Muhammad became dissatisfied with a life focused on material gain and
went to meditate in the hills.
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- As Muhammad's initially small following grew, he was seen as a threat by
Mecca's rulers.
- The new faith endangered the gods of the Ka'ba.
- With his life in danger, Muhammad was invited to come to Medina to
mediate its clan quarrels.
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- In 622 Muhammad left Mecca for Medina where his skilled leadership
brought new followers.
- The Quraysh attacked Medina, but Muhammad's forces ultimately triumphed.
- A treaty of 628 allowed his followers the permission to visit the Ka'ba.
- He returned to Mecca in 629 and converted most of its inhabitants to
Islam.
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- The new religion initially was adopted by town dwellers and Bedouins in
the region where Muhammad lived.
- But Islam offered opportunities for uniting Arabs by providing a
distinct indigenous monotheism supplanting clan divisions and allowing
an end to clan feuding.
- The umma, the community of the faithful, transcended old tribal
boundaries.
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- Islam also offered an ethical system capable of healing social rifts
within Arab society.
- All believers were equal before Allah; the strong and wealthy were
responsible for the care of the weak and poor.
- The prophet's teachings and the Quran became the basis for laws
regulating the Muslim faithful.
- All faced a last judgment by a stern but compassionate god.
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- Islam contains beliefs appealing to individuals in many differing world
cultures.
- They included monotheism, legal codes, social justice, and a strong
sense of community.
- Islam, while regarding Muhammad's message as the culmination of divine
revelation, accepted the validity of Judaism and Christianity.
- Islam's five pillars provide a basis for underlying 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.
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- Muhammad's defeat of Mecca had won the allegiance of many Bedouin
tribes, but unity was threatened when he died in 632.
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- 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.
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- Muhammad, the last of the prophets, could not have a successor
possessing his attributes.
- He had not established a procedure for selecting a new leader.
- After a troubled process Abu Bakr was chosen as caliph, the leader of
the Islamic community.
- Breakaway tribes and rival prophets were defeated during the Ridda wars
to restore Islamic unity.
- Arab armies invaded the weak Byzantine and Sassanid empire where they
were joined by Bedouins who had migrated earlier.
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- Islam provided the Arabs with a sense of common cause and a way of
fighting neighboring opponents.
- The rich booty and tribute gained often was more of a motivation than
spreading Islam since converts were exempted from taxes and shared the
spoils of victory.
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- The weak Sassanian empire was ruled by an emperor manipulated by a
landed, aristocratic class that exploited the agricultural masses.
- The Arabs defeated the poorly prepared Sassanid military and ended the
dynasty in 651.
- The Byzantines were more resilient adversaries.
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- 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 640’s Arabs had gained naval supremacy in the eastern
Mediterranean and extended conquests westward into North Africa and
southern Europe.
- The weakened Byzantines held off attacks in their core Asia Minor and
Balkan territories.
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- Arab victories for a time covered old tribal internal divisions. The
murder of Uthman, the 3rd caliph, caused a succession struggle.
- Muhammad’s earliest followers supported Ali , but he was rejected by the
Umayyads.
- In the ensuing hostilities Ali won the advantage until at Siffin in 657
he accepted a plea for mediation.
- Ali lost the support of his most radical adherents, and the Umayyads won
the renewed hostilities.
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- The Umayyad leader, Mu'awiya, was proclaimed caliph in 660.
- Ali was assassinated in 661; his son, Husayn, was killed at Karbala in
680.
- The dispute left permanent division within Islam.
- The Shi’i, eventually dividing into many sects, continued to uphold the
rights of Ali's descendants to be caliphs.
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- With internal disputes resolved, the Muslims during the 7th and 8th
centuries pushed forward into central Asia, northwest India, and
southwestern Europe.
- The Franks checked the advance at Poitiers in 732, but Muslims ruled
much of Iberia for centuries.
- By the 9h century they dominated the Mediterranean.
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- The Umayyad political capital was at Damascus.
- The caliphs built an imperial administration with both bureaucracy and
military dominated by a Muslim Arab elite.
- The warriors remained concentrated in garrison towns to prevent
assimilation by the conquered.
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- Umayyad policy did not prevent interaction - intermarriage and
conversion - between Arabs and their subjects.
- Muslim converts, malawi, still paid taxes and did not receive a share
of booty.
- They were blocked from important positions in the army or bureaucracy.
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- 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.
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- Gender relationships altered as the Muslim community expanded.
- Initially the more favorable status of women among the Arabs prevailed
over the seclusion and male domination common in the Middle East.
- Muhammad and the Quran stressed the moral and ethical dimensions of
marriage.
- The adultery of both partners was denounced
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- Female infanticide was forbidden.
- Although women could have only one husband, men were allowed four wives,
but all had to be treated equally.
- Muhammad strengthened women's legal rights in inheritance and divorce.
- Both sexes were equal before Allah.
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- The strong position gained by women through Muhammad’s teachings 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.
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- The spoils of victory brought luxurious living styles and the decline of
military talents among the Umayyads.
- Many Muslims considered such conduct a retreat from Islamic virtues, and
revolts occurred throughout the empire.
- The most important occurred among frontier warriors settled near the
Iranian borderland town of Merv.
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- Many men had married locally and developed regional loyalties.
- Angry at not receiving adequate shares 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, later assassinating most of their clan leaders.
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- The triumph of a new dynasty reflected a series of fundamental changes
within the Islamic world.
- The increased size of Muslim civilization brought growing regional
identities and made it difficult to hold the empire together.
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- Once in power the Abbasids turned against the Shi'i 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.
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- Under the Abbasids new converts, both Arabs and others, were fully
integrated into the Muslim community.
- The old distinction between Mawali and older believers disappeared.
- Most conversions occurred peacefully.
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- 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.
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- 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 moved goods from the western Mediterranean to the South
China Sea.
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- 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.
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- Some slaves held powerful positions and gained freedom.
- Most unskilled slaves, many of them Africans, worked under terrible
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.
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- 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.
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- Islamic learning flourished in religious, legal, an 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.
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- 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.
- However, the 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 sciences, later fashioning their
own innovative thinking which influenced other societies in Europe,
Africa, and Asia.
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