Final exam Flashcards
Allah
Arabic title of the one God
Ka’ba
the original shrine of pagan Arabic religion in Mecca containing the Black Stone; now one of the holiest places of Islam
Hijra
literally, flight. Muhammad’s forced flight from Mecca in 622 C.E.; it marks the first year of the Muslim calendar
Hajj
a pilgrimage to the sacred places of Islam
Jihad
Holy war on behalf of the Muslim faith
Qur’an
the holy scripture of Islam, thought to be literally the word of God
Five Pillars of Islam
Popular term for the basic tenets of the Muslim faith. Includes the profession of faith prayer, fasting, pilgrimage, and giving alms
Umma
The entire Muslim community, meaning something like the Christian concept of the “Church”
Caliph
Arabic for deputy to the Prophet Muhammad; leader of the Islamic community
Shi’ites
a minority sect of Islam; adherents believe that kinship with Muhammad is necessary to qualify for the caliphate
Umayyed Dynasty
The caliphs resident in Damascus from 661
Kharijites
like Shi’ites, they are one of the two religious minorities in Islam. they rejected the caliphate and believe that leadership of the Umma rightfully belongs tp the most pious and that authority comes from the community itself
Sunni
the majority group in Islam; adherents believe that the caliphate should go to the most qualified individual and should not necessarily pass to the kin of Muhammad
Damascus
ancient city located in present-day Syria. It served as the capital of the Islamic Empire during the Umayyad caliphate (661-750)
Baghdad
capital of the Islamic Empire under the Abbasid Dynasty
Abbasid Dynasty
the dynasty of caliphs who governed the Islamic Empire from 750-1258
Dhimmis
“people of the Book”
Ulama
Muslim religious scholars, usually specialist in Holy Law; AKA mullahs
Sunna
the “way” its the oral tradition that Muslim legal scholars rely upon to supplement the Qur’an as another source of the Shari’a
Shari’a
the sacred law of Islam; based on the Qur’an and the oral traditions of the Prophet Muhammad
qadis
islamic judges, learned in islamic theology and law
vizier
and official of Muslim government, especially a high Turkish official, equivalent to prime minister
Sufis
arabic term for a popular form of islam that emphasizes emotional union with God and mystical powers
tariqas
muslim sufi brotherhoods, generally comprising all men
The Arabian Nights
Medieval collection of tales from the Islamic Middle East that greatly reflect life at the time of the Abbasid caliphs of Baghdad
purdah
the segregation of females in Hindu and Muslim society
Seljuks
turkish converts to Islam who seized the Baghdad government from the Abbasids in the 11th century
Mongols
name for a collection of nomadic, savage warriors of central Asia who conquered most of Eurasia in the 13th century
lineage
a technical term for family or clan association
patrilineal descent
attribution of name and inheritance to children via the paternal line
matrilineal descent
attribution of name and inheritance to children via the maternal line
secret societies
associations or honorary groups whose membership and procedures are unknown to their wider communities
sudanic kingship
a form of ritual kingship that evolved in the Saharan- Sudanic region of precolonial africa
axum
the center of the ancient Ethiopian Kingdom
trans- saharan trade
ancient trade between the Mediterranean and Red Sea regions and the sub- Saharan regions of Africa; primarily linked the Maghrid with western and central Sudan
Ghana
the earliest of the extensive empires in the western Sudan; also a modern West African country formed from the colony of Gold Coast when it won independence from Great Britain in 1975
mali
the West African empire that succeeded Ghana in the 1300s and 1400s
Ife
West African forest kingdom of the Yoruba people; its date origin is uncertain
Oyo
west african kingdom of the Yoruba. considered to be one of the “daughter” states of Ife
Benin
Ancient West African forest kingdom located in present-day Nigeria.
ôbas
King of the African state of Benin.
Ewuare
Ȯba of the West African kingdom of Benin, c. 1440-1473 c.e.
Swahili
A hybrid language based on Bantu and Arabic; used extensively in East Africa. Often used to refer to the people and civilization of the East African coast.
Kilwa
A Swahili city-state that dominated the gold and ivory trade from East Africa, c. 1300–1450 c.e.
Great Zimbabwe
The leading civilization of early southern Africa and exporter of gold to the East African coast.
Benin bronzes
Bronze castings associated with court ritual and political power in the Benin kingdom. Most date from the fifteenth century and afterward.
Song (sung) Dynasty
The dynasty that ruled China from c. 1127 until 1279, when the last ruler was overthrown by the Mongol invaders.
Grand Canal
Chinese canal whose construction began as early as the fifth century b.c.e. Its purpose was to link southern China with northern China, enabling the transport of rice into the agriculturally less-productive North.
sternpost rudder
Ship’s rudder mounted on a post on or behind the poop deck.
Chinghis Khan
Mongol conqueror, 1167–1227 c.e.
yurts
Tentlike Mongol dwellings usually made of felt.
khans
Supreme rulers over the Turko-Mongolian tribes of Central Asia
Temujin
The birth name of Chinghis Khan.
tumen
A unit of 10,000 in the Mongol armies.
Pax Mongolica
The “Mongol Peace” in most of Eurasia between c. 1250 and c. 1350.
Yuan (YOO-an) Dynasty
Official term for the Mongol dynasty of the Great Khans in China, 1279–1368.
Kubilai Khan
Mongol Great Khan and founder of the Yuan Dynasty of China.
Khanate of the Golden Horde
Sub-khanate of the Mongol Empire located in eastern and central Russia.
Ain Jalut
A decisive battle in 1260 during which an Egyptian Mamluk army turned back the Mongols and prevented them from invading North Africa.
Il Khans
One of the four major dynasties established from the empire of Chinghis Khan; founded by Hulegu, Chinghis’s grandson, after he destroyed Abbasid rule in Baghdad.
Shinto
Native Japanese animism.
Prince Shotoku
A member of the Japanese royal family who assembled the Seventeen Point Constitution.
Seventeen Point Constitution
A list assembled by Prince Shotoku in 604 b.c.e. of the proper relationship between a government and its citizens.
Fujiwara (foo-jee-WAH-rah) clan
Daimyo noble clan controlling the shogunate in ninth- to twelfth-century Japan.
samurai
Japanese warrior-aristocrats of medieval and early modern times.
bushido
The code of honor among the samurai.
shogunate
The government of medieval Japan in which the shogun, a military and civil regent, served as the actual leader, while the emperor was the symbolic head of the state and religion.
Kamakura (kah-mah-KOO-rah) shogunate
Government by members of a noble Japanese family from the late twelfth to the mid-fourteenth century in the name of the emperor, who was their puppet.
shoen
Parcels of land in Japan with shiki (rights) attached to them; could take many forms and have various possessors.
bakufu
The military-style government of the Japanese shogun.
Tale of Genji
First known novel in Asian, if not world, history; authored by a female courtier who wrote about life in the Japanese medieval court.
Ashikaga (ah-shee-KAH-gah) clan
A noble Japanese family that controlled political power as shoguns from the 1330s to the late 1500s.
daimyo
Japanese nobles who controlled feudal domains under the shogun.
Kampuchea
Native name of Cambodia, a state of Southeast Asia bordered by Thailand and Vietnam.
Srivijaya
Great maritime and commercial empire of Southeast Asia, greatly influenced by India. Seated in Sumatra, it extended its control over much of the Malayan trade between the seventh and thirteenth centuries c.e.
Crecy
Battle in the Hundred Years’ War won by the English in 1346.
Agincourt
The great victory of the English over the French in 1415, during the Hundred Years’ War.
Babylonian Captivity
The transportation of many Jews to exile in Babylon as hostages to ensure the good behavior of the remainder; occurred in the sixth century b.c.e.
Conciliar Movement
The attempt to substitute councils of church leaders for papal authority in late medieval Christianity.
Lollards
Name of unknown origin given to the English religious rebels of the 1380s who later protested against the privileges of the clergy and were vigorously persecuted.”
Council of Constance
The fifteenth-century c.e. assembly of Christian officials called to settle the controversy over the papacy and to review and revise the basic doctrines of the church for the first time in a millennium.
Domesday Book
A complete census of landholdings in England ordained by William the Conqueror.
Investiture Controversy
A dispute between the Holy Roman Emperor and the pope in the eleventh and early twelfth centuries about which authority should appoint German bishops
Renaissance
The social, artistic, and cultural “rebirth” that arose in Europe in the fourteenth century.
secularism
The rejection of supernatural religion as the arbiter of earthly action; emphasis on worldly and humanistic affairs.
humanism
The intellectual movement that sees humans as the sole valid arbiter of their values and purpose.
Utopia
“Nowhere”; Greek term used to denote an ideal place or society. Sir Thomas More entitled his most notable book with this name.
Wars of the Roses
An English civil war between noble factions over the succession to the throne in the fifteenth century.
Habsburg Dynasty
The family that controlled the Holy Roman Empire after the thirteenth century; based in Vienna, they ruled Austria until 1918.
Principality of Kiev
The first Russian state; flourished from c. 800 to 1240, when it fell to Mongols.
Third Rome
A Russian myth that Moscow was ordained to succeed Rome and Constantinople as the center of true Christianity.
Prince Henry the Navigator
The third son of King João (John) I of Portugal, Henry played an important part in the early Portuguese exploration of the eastern Atlantic and the West African coast.
Vasco da Gama
First Portuguese man to sail directly from Portugal to India and back, 1497–1499.
Ferdinand Magellan
First man to sail completely around the world, 1519–1522.
Dutch East India Company
A commercial company founded with government backing to trade with the East and Southeast Asians. The Dutch, English, and French governments sponsored such companies starting in the early seventeenth century.
mercantilism
A theory of national economics popular in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries; aimed at establishing a favorable trade balance through government control of exports and imports as well as domestic industry.
Bartholomew de las Casas
Spanish Dominican friar who, in 1522, wrote a scathing report describing the devastation experienced by Native Americans at the hands of the Spanish.
Martin Luther
Began the Protestant Reformation with his famous Ninety-five Theses. Also noted for his translation of the Bible into German.
Ninety-five Theses
The challenge to church authority publicized by Martin Luther, October 31, 1517.
justification by faith
Doctrine held by Martin Luther whereby Christian faith alone, and not good works, could be the path to salvation.
John Calvin
French lawyer and theologian who developed the system of Christian theology called Calvinism, as delineated in his text, The Institutes of the Christian Religion.
The Institutes of the Christian Religion
John Calvin’s major work that established the theology and doctrine of the Calvinist churches; first published in 1536.
Elect
A doctrine made famous by John Calvin that posits the notion that only a small minority (i.e., the “Elect”) of the human race is predestined for salvation.
King Henry VIII
King of England, 1509 until his death in 1547, Henry was a strong ruler and an important figure of the Protestant Reformation. He defied the pope by signing the Act of Supremacy, which established the monarch as the supreme head of the Church of England.
Act of Supremacy of 1534
A law enacted by the English Parliament, making the monarch the head of the Church of England.
Anglican (English Protestant) Church
The official Protestant Church of England, with the monarch as its official head.
Anabaptists
Radical Protestant reformers who were condemned by both Lutherans and Catholics.
Counter-Reformation
Series of measures that the Catholic Church took in the 1540s to counterattack the Protestants, including a thorough examination of doctrines and practices and an emphasis on instruction of the young and of all Christians in religious precepts.
Jesuit Order
Also called the Society of Jesus, a Catholic religious order founded in 1547 by Ignatius of Loyola to combat Protestantism.
Ignatius of Loyola
Major figure of the Catholic Counter-Reformation who founded the Society of Jesus, or Jesuits.
Peace of Augsburg
Pact ending the German religious wars in 1555, dividing the country between Lutheran and Catholic hegemony.
Edict of Nantes
Edict issued in 1598 by King Henry IV of France, which guaranteed freedom of worship to his French subjects.
Treaty of Westphalia
The treaty that ended the Thirty Years’ War in 1648; the first modern peace treaty in that it established strategic and territorial gains as more important than religious or dynastic ones.
intendants
The traveling officials originally appointed by Cardinal Richelieu to monitor the honesty and efficiency of provincial French authorities.
Louis XIV
King of France 1643–1715; famous as the leading Bourbon practitioner of royal absolutism and the builder of the royal chateau at Versailles.
Treaty of Utrecht
Treaty signed in 1713 that ended the War of the Spanish Succession. A defeat for King Louis XIV of France, it gave Britain access to the valuable trade of the Spanish Caribbean Islands.
Restoration
The period of the 1660s–1680s when Charles II was called by Parliament to take his throne and was thus restored to power.
Glorious Revolution of 1688
The English revolt against the unpopular Catholic king James II and the subsequent introduction of certain civil rights restricting monarchic powers.
Bill of Rights
A law enacted by Parliament that established certain limits on royal powers and the specific rights of English citizens.
Hanoverian Dynasty
The dynasty of British monarchs after 1714; from the German duchy of Hanover.
Great Elector
Frederick William of Prussia (1640–1688); one of the princes who elected the Holy Roman Emperor. He played a key part in the unification of Prussia.
dervish
A Turkish term for a Sufi. See Sufi.
ghazis
Muslim “crusaders,” or holy warriors, who fought against unbelievers.
Mehmed (MEH-mehd) the Conqueror
) Also known as Mehmed II. Ottoman Sultan who besieged and conquered Constantinople in 1453, thereafter renaming it Istanbul.
Suleiman (SOO-lay-man) the Magnificent
Ottoman sultan, 1520–1566 c.e. Greatest of the Ottoman sultans, his long reign was the high-water mark of the Ottoman Empire.
Sublime Porte
A term that came to be applied to the Chancery and diplomatic corps of the Ottoman bureaucracy.
Grand Vizier
Title of the Turkish prime minister during the Ottoman era.
Shaykh al-Islam
Highest religious official of the Ottoman Empire.
Janissaries
From Turkish yeni cheri, meaning “new troops”; an elite troop in the Ottoman army consisting of Christian boys from the Balkans.
devshirme
Ottoman system of recruiting young Christian boys from Balkan villages for the Janissary corps.
divan
A Turkish form of the Arabic word diwan, meaning a royal council that advises the ruler.
Treaty of Karlowitz
Treaty in which, for the first time, the Ottoman Empire had to cede territory in the Balkans to its Austrian opponent.
Safavid Empire
The dynasty of Shi’ite Muslims that ruled Persia from the 1500s to the 1700s.
Mughals
A corruption of Mongol; refers to the period of Muslim rule in India.
Akbar the Great
Best known of the shahs of the Mughal Empire of India (r. 1556–1605). He was most famous for his policy of cooperation with his Hindu subjects.
Sikhs
Members of a cult founded in the sixteenth century c.e. who seek a middle way between Islam and Hindu belief; centered on the Punjab region in northern India.
Rubaiyat
The verses attributed to the twelfth-century Persian poet Omar Khayyam.
Taj Mahal
) The beautiful tomb built by the seventeenth-century Mughal emperor Jahan for his wife.
Songhay (song-GEYE) Empire
A West African state, centered on the bend of the Niger River, which reached its fullest extent in the sixteenth century before collapsing.
Askia (ahs-KEE-yah) Muhammad the Great
Sultan of the Songhay Empire, 1493–1528. Famous for promoting Islamic scholarship and Islamic scholars at Timbuktu during his reign.
Bornu
West African Islamic kingdom found to the west of Lake Chad. Active in the international trade of the central Sudan.
Hausa
West African people found north of the confluence of the Niger and Benue Rivers in present-day Nigeria. Noted for their extensive trade networks and craft skills, they organized themselves in city-states.
Bunyoro-Kitara
Another kingdom, like Buganda and others, that appeared as a result of mixing Nilotic religio-political traditions with Bantu agricultural production and urban traditions. It was the most powerful of the Great Lakes region until the late eighteenth century.
Buganda
East African kingdom that appeared in the sixteenth century. Located west of Lake Victoria Nyanza.
factories
Fortified trading posts that Europeans established along the coast of (mostly West) Africa during the Age of Informal Empire.
Boers
The Dutch colonists who were the initial European settlers of South Africa.
Anti-Slavery Movement
Faction among mostly British evangelical Christians, which, beginning in the 1790s, was able to pressure Parliament, with increasing effectiveness, to ban slavery and the slave trade in Britain and throughout the British Empire.
marabout
) A leader of a radical Sufi brotherhood in North Africa and the Sahara Desert.
Trekboers
) South African Boer “pioneers” who trekked away from Cape Colony and British rule to settle deep inland on the South African frontier. Eventually founded the two Boer republics: the Orange Free State and the Transvaal.
Coloureds
South Africans of mixed European and African descent.
Great Trek
The march of the Boers, beginning in 1836, into the northeastern interior of South Africa where they founded the so-called Boer Republics.
Shaka
King of the Zulu people of South Africa. During the 1810s, he united the Zulu into a powerful, militaristic state in the region of Natal.
Zulu War
South African war fought in 1879 between Britain and the Zulu people. Its cause was Afrikaner expansion during the Great Trek and a British desire to defeat Africans who stood in the way of white settlement.
Omani Arabs
An imamate, and later sultanate, located in southeastern Arabia.
Sayyid Sa’id
bin Sultan al-Busaidi (1797–1856) Prince of the ruling family of Oman, eastern Arabia. Became Sultan of Oman and Muscat in 1804, founded the Zanzibar Sultanate in East Africa in 1832, and relocated his capital to Zanzibar in East Africa in 1840.
