Postclassical Era Flashcards
Eurasia gave rise to one of the world’s most extensive & sustained networks of exchange:
Silk Roads
The Silk Roads linked _____ and _____ peoples
agricultural, pastoral
Relay trade
in Silk Roads, where goods were passed down the line, changing hands many times
Eurasia is often geographically divided into _____ and _____ zones
inner, outer
What countries compose the outer region of Eurasia?
China, India, Middle East, Mediterranean
What is the climate of Outer Eurasia?
warm, well-watered, suitable for agriculture
What countries compose the inner region of Eurasia?
Russia, Central Asia, pastoral people of Inner Eurasia
What is the climate of Inner Eurasia?
harsher, drier climate, not conducive to agriculture, north
Steppes
Northern grasslands
Pastoral peoples traded _____ for ______
products of the forest and steppes (furs, livestock), agricultural products & manufactured goods
Movement of pastoral peoples diffused _________, _______, and _____ across Eurasia
metallurgy, Indo-European languages, technologies
By the early centuries CE, indirect trading connections brokered by pastoral peoples linked ________
second wave Eurasian civilizations
The Silk Road trading network prospered when __________
powerful states provided security
_______ and ______ anchored long-distance commerce at the ends of Eurasia on the Silk Roads
China, Rome
______ products rather than __________ were transported on the Silk Roads
Luxiry products, staple goods
Why were luxury goods traded on the Silk Roads?
Only commodities of great value were worth the high costs of transportation
During the Tang dynasty (think: early postclassical), what was the role of women in rural areas?
They were the primary producers ot textiles/silk
Around 500s, the technology for creating raw silk __________
spread to Koreans, Japanese, Indians, and Persians
In Central Asia, silk was used as ______
currency
Name some contributions from China to the Silk Roads
silk, bamboo, mirrors, gunpowder, paper
Name some contributions from the pastoral peoples/steppes to the Silk Roads
furs, walrus tusks, amber, livestock
Name some contributions from India to the Silk Roads
cotton textiles, spices, herbal medicine
Name some contributions from the Middle East to the Silk Roads
dates, nuts, almonds, dried fruits (FRUITS & VEGETABLES), dyes, swords, lapis lazuli
Name some contributions from the Mediterranean basin to the Silk Roads
gold coins, glassware, grapevines, olive oil, artworks
Silk Roads served also as a conduit of culture, spreading ________ widely throughout East and Central Asia
Buddhism
Buddhism appealed to ________
merchants
Why did Buddhism appeal to merchants?
It had a universal message, as opposed to one dominated by a priestly class
Why was Buddhism blocked from fully penetrating the west?
Zoroastrianism
Merchant communities introduced ________ to northern China
Buddhism
Most importantly, conversion to Buddhism was a _______ process
voluntary
Buddhist merchants were able to earn religious merit by ______________
monasteries
For merchants, Buddhist monasteries became ________
familiar places of rest and resupply
Among pastoral peoples, conversion to Buddhism progressed ________ due to __________
slowly, an absence of written language/nomadic ways that made monasteries difficult
Buddhism became popular in China itself _______
only slowly
As Buddhism spread, it underwent _______
change
While the original Buddhism shunned materialism, Buddhist monasteries in oasis towns were ___________
very involved in secular affairs
Which variant of Buddhism flourished on the Silk Roads?
The Mahayana variant
Characteristic disease patterns were developed by ________
each major population center of the Afro-Eurasian world
Why was disease an issue, especially after the Silk Roads?
Contact among human communities exposed people to diseases for which they had little immunity or ability to cope
In addition to the Silk Roads, ________ trade routes likewise connected distant peoples all across the Eastern Hemisphere
sea-based
What represented the world’s largest sea-based communication & exchange system from southern China to eastern Africa?
Indian Ocean (Sea Roads)
Why were transportation costs lower on the Sea Roads than the Silk Roads?
Ships accommodated larger, heavier cargoes than camels
The Sea Roads were more suitable for ____________
bulk goods destined for mass market
What climactic feature enabled the Sea Roads?
Monsoons that blew in predictable patterns (Westward Winter, eastward summer)
The process of the building of an understand of monsoons and improvements in shipbuilding technology was built from _________
an archipelago of towns of different merchant peoples who had more in common with each other than the people of their hinterlands
What were two major processes during the postclassical era that contributed to the Indian Ocean World?
Tang and Song dynasties in which China reestablished a unified state encouraging maritime trade, Islam’s spread across Afro-Eurasia
Srivijaya
A Malay kingdom which dominated the Straits of Malacca from 670 to 1025
Borobudur
A massive Buddhist monument built in the Sailendra kingdom in Central Java that mounted a building program from 700 - 900, indicating Indian culture in Southeast Asia
Angkor Wat
The largest religious structure in the premodern world for Hinduism first and then Buddhism
No ___________ accompanied INdian cultural influence
imperial control
Sea trade also gave rise to ________ in East Africa
Swahili
Many Arab, Indian, and Persian merchants settled _____ in Swahili civilization
permanently
Swahili civilization became rapidly _____
Islamic
The earliest long-distance trade within the huge West Africa was not across the ______, but among the _______, or “land of the black people”
Sahara, Sudan
How did peoples of Sudanic West Africa engage in trade?
Used boats along Niger and donkeys for overland travel
What single thing made the trek across the Sahara possible by 300-400 CE?
Introduction of the camel
What did people seek above all else in Africa?
gold
Name some things that were not present in the Americas that made it more difficult for direct connections among civilizations and cultures
horses, donkeys, camels, wheeled vehicles, large oceangoing vessels
Why was the north/south orientation of the Americas more inhibitory than the east/west axis of Eurasia?
It required agricultural practices to move through distinct climactic/vegetation zones, slowing the spread of certain agricultural products
How did the emergence of Christianity and Islam contrast with most major religions and cultural traditions of the classical era?
While Confucianism, Daoism, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Zoroastrianism all arose from established civilizations, Christianity & Islam emerged from the margins of Mediterranean and Middle Eastern civilizations
The central region of the Arabian Peninsula was originally inhabited by the _______
Bedouins
The Bedouins were a _______ people
nomadic
In the northern and southern regions of Arabia, ____________
small kingdoms had flourished earlier
What gave rise to cosmopolitan cities in Arabia?
Its geographic proximity to increasingly important trade routes connecting the Indian Ocean to the Mediterranean Sea
What was the original Kaaba and where was it located?
It was a religious shrine housing representations of 360 deities and was the destination for many pilgrims in Mecca
Who controlled access to the Kaaba originally?
the Quraysh tribe
How did the Quraysh grow wealthy?
They taxed local trade that accompanied the annual pilgrimage season
Arabia was located on the periphery of which two established civilizations?
Byzantine Empire and Sassanid Empire
How did monotheistic ideas become introduced to Arabs?
Jews, Christians, and Zoroastrians lived among the Arabs
By Muhammad, most settled Arabs already acknowledged _____
Allah
Arabs regarded themselves as _______ along with Jews
children of Abraham
Muhammad’s occupation was as a ______
merchant
The Quran represents the ________ to most Mulsims
very words of God
Why was the Quran revolutionary in its Arabian context?
It was radically monotheistic, it represented Muhammad as the last in the line of prophets, and it was a call to the old and pure religion of Abraham from which Jews/Christians had deviated
umma
Just & moral society
In the Quran, women were ______
spiritually equal
5 pillars of Islam
No god but Allah, Ritual prayer, almsgiving, month of fasting, pilgrimage to Mecca as hajj, jihad
Why did the Quraysh vociferously oppose Islam?
it called for social reform & condemned Mecca’s business practices
hijra
The emigration fo Muhammad and his followers to Yathrib (later called Medina, the city of the Prophet)
What did Muhammad declare when he arrived at Medina?
independence from Judaism
When Muhammad reentered Mecca peacefully, what did he do?
Purge the Kaaba and declare it a shrine to the one God, Allah
Muhammad was a ______ and _____ leader as well as religious
political, military
Notably, there was no ________ mediating between God and mankind
professional clergy
sharia
one law that regulated every aspect of life
After Mohammad’s death, Arab armies engaged the ______ and _______
Byzantine, Sassanid empires
Before the Arabs, Byzantium and Persia had already been ______
weakened by decades of war
What motivated expansion?
Merchant leaders wanted to capture profitable trade routes and wealthy agricultural regions
Fragile unity of ______ threatened to disintegrate after the Prophet’s death, and ________ provided a common task
umma, external expansion
While many Muslim conquerors viewed the mission as _____, it did not mean imposing ________
jihad, religion
Why was it easy for many to accept the new political order?
They were already monotheists and familiar with core ideas of prayer, fasting, and prophets
dhimmis
How Islam recognized Jews, Christians, and Zoroastrians
dhimmis were protected but ________ as long as they paid _______
second class, jizya
Islam’s association with what called into question the power of old gods?
A powerful state
Merchants found in Islam ________
friendliness to commerce
Why was the Persian conversion unique? What stayed the same even after Arab conquest?
Persians did not Arabize; they kept their language Farsi and religious ideas of Zoroastrianism permeated into Islam
The idea of umma became ________ as the Arab Empire became gigantic
difficult to implement
The first 4 caliphs were known as
the Rightly Guided Caliphs from 632-661
The caliphs were selected by _______
Muslim elders of Medina
After caliphs were selected, ______ emerged almost instantly
division
The first two caliphs, Uthman and Ali, were both ______
assassinated
Sunni felt that ________
caliphs were rightful leaders
Shia felt that _______
leadership should derive from line of Ali and son Husayn, blood relatives of Muhammad
While the Sunni/Shia divide was originally ______, it evolved into a _____ conflict
political, religious
Sunni felt that religious authority emerged from _______
larger community, especially religious scholars known as the ulama
The caliph was Mohammad’s ________ successor
political
Shia thought that religious authority derived from _______
their leaders, imams
Shia did not accept that the caliphs had _______
religious authority
Shia thought of themselves as the
minority opposition
As the Arab Empire grew, the caliphs transformed from modest chiefs to _________
absolute monarchs with elaborate court rituals, complex bureaucracy, standing army, centralized taxation
Under the Umayyad dynasty, the capital moved from _____ to ______
Medina, Damascus
Umayyads were replaced by ________
Abbasids
The new capital under the Abbasids was _______
Baghdad
Why did political unity not last long in the Abbasid caliphate?
Many local governors asserted autonomy while giving formal allegiance to caliph in Baghdad
During the Abbasid caliphate, the Islamic world fractured into _________
series of sultanates, many ruled by Persian or Turkish military dynasties
sharia
body of Islamic law developed by the ulama from 700s-800s
sufi
Muslim mystic ascetic
How did sufis perceive worldly Islamic success?
as a deviation from the purer spirituality of Mohammad’s time
Why did sufis and ulama disagree?
Sufis were critical of scholarly practitioners of sharia, thinking that ulama were corrupted by governments. Ulama thought sufis verged on heresy
Although they disagreed, the ulama’s legalistic emphasis and Sufi spirituality were never ________
irreconciliable
