Section 14

Question 1

The few who have ever managed to survive there, a people known collectively as ___________, eke out a life on the edge. These nomads herd camels and travel from place to place, subsisting on milk, meat and the date palms which grow by the springs at oases

Answer 1

Bedouins

Question 2

Cities also began to grow up at important intersections in trade networks crossing the desert. Particularly at ___________—both were communities situated on the western side of Arabia—commercial municipalities of a sort not seen before in this part of the world began to rise from the sand

Answer 2

Mecca and Yathrib

Question 3

Mecca, especially, had long been a religious center since it housed the sacred ___________ (“the cube”), a structure built over the holiest of holies, the ________________.

Answer 3

Ka’aba, Black Stone

Question 4

fortune favored some more than others which produced a nouveaux-riches aristocracy called the _____________

Answer 4

Kuraish

Question 4

the founder of Islam, was born and grew up in Mecca at the end of the sixth century

Answer 4

Muhammad

Question 5

little is known about Muhammad’s life until he reached his forties and started experiencing a series of intense visions which he said had been sent to him from __________

Answer 5

Allah

Question 6

Muhammad’s famous emigration from Mecca—the _______ is often but wrongly termed a “flight”—this marks the turning point in the prophet’s fortunes and as such is remembered as the “year one” in the calendar system used by Muslims today.

Answer 6

Hegira (Hijrah)

Question 7

Muhammad converted the inhabitants of Yathrib en masse to his new religion and became both the political and religious leader of the city, now renamed in his honor __________

Answer 7

Medina

Question 8

Muhammad’s policies became more openly militarized, resulting in what he called a ____________ (“a holy war”) against the “__________” who included the people of Mecca as well as some of the Jews living in Medina

Answer 8

Jihad, infidels

Question 9

At the same time as well, a period of peace and high culture was beginning to dawn, the _____________

Answer 9

Pax Arabica

Question 10

In Arabic, the word __________ means “surrender,” that is, submission to Allah and his will

Answer 10

Islam

Question 11

the Islamic “bible,”

Answer 11

Koran

Question 12

Muhammad forbade translation of the Koran. This later popularized _________ as a language, turning it from an obscure desert dialect of Semitic into an international language capable of great finesse and nuance, though that can hardly be Muhammad’s primary motivation for such a stern injunction.

Answer 12

Arabic

Question 13

the Koran ordains a comparatively simple and straightforward regimen of ritual, involving the so-called “_____________”: faith, prayer, charity, fasting, and pilgrimage

Answer 13

“Five Pillars of Islam”

Question 14

Calling the faithful at least once in life to make a pilgrimage to Mecca, in Arabic a _________

Answer 14

Hajj (Haji)

Question 15

these evolved into Islamic “temples,” today known as __________ (“places for prostration”)

Answer 15

Mosques

Question 16

The result was a system of ornate but non-realistic designs which Westerners eventually came to call “____________” (from the French word for “Arabic”), which to this day characterize Arabic art throughout the world

Answer 16

Arabesque(s)

Question 17

_____________—Greek for “image-breaking”—was a movement that swept across the Byzantine world during and after the seventh century and which saw much of its best artwork destroyed in the name of a purer religion

Answer 17

Iconoclasm

Question 18

Muhammad’s only daughter

Answer 18

Fatima

Question 19

An old man already, __________ruled only two years, most of which he spent reconsolidating Arabia under Muhammad’s religion

Answer 19

Abu Bekr

Question 20

a title meaning “(Muhammad’s) successor.

Answer 20

Caliph

Question 21

the next caliph was ________ a zealous and younger convert to Islam, who pushed north into Persian and Byzantine territory

Answer 21

Omar

Question 22

Next in line was a weak “successor” named _________ from a Kuraish family, the _____________, infamous within Arabia for having resisted Muhammad in the early stages of his prophetic career.

Answer 22

Othman, Umayyads

Question 23

Muhammad’s cousin and Fatima’s husband.

Answer 23

Ali

Question 24

His followers created a separatist Islamic sect called ___________—that is, “factionalists

Answer 24

Shi’ites (Shiat Ali)

Question 25

Using ____________ in Syria as their base, the Umayyads moved the center of Muslim society out of Arabia which was never again to serve as a political hub in the medieval Islamic world

Answer 25

Damascus

Question 26

The Umayyad regime inaugurated an age of prosperity and growth, well-evidenced by the construction of the famous mosque in Jerusalem, _________________, the oldest surviving Islamic monument

Answer 26

The Dome of the Rock

Question 27

another powerful Muslim family, the ___________ of Persia took advantage of this opening and defeated the Umayyads in a brief civil war

Answer 27

Abbasids (Abbasid Dynasty)

Question 28

In Mesopotamia along the Tigris river near the ancient site of Babylon, they established their capital city ____________, still a major urban site in modern Iraq

Answer 28

Baghdad

Question 29

This world known to ours as the age of ____________- brought with it tales of flying carpets and genies but bestowed more on the world than mythical brilliance

Answer 29

The Arabian Nights

Question 30

To all this the Muslims gave new life, direction and sense of unity, especially under the greatest of the Abbasid caliphs, ____________

Answer 30

Harun al-Rashid

Question 31

This _______________ continued until after the close of World War I at the beginning of the twentieth century, its demise ending the final chapter in the long and luminous history of Medieval Islam

Answer 31

Ottoman Empire

Question 32

Arab-speaking philosophers called ___________, a term clearly borrowed from the Greek word philosophos (“philosopher”), investigated and enriched several areas of thought and science

Answer 32

Faylasufs (Philosophos)

Question 33

A similar movement called ____________- in the West later imitated this notion of uniting theological and philosophical thought

Answer 33

Scholasticism

Question 34

last but not least, ______________ who died in 1123 CE is arguably one of the best known poets who ever lived

Answer 34

Omar Khayyam, Rubaiyat

Question 35

Evidenced nowhere better than at the ____________, a palace-fortress in Granada (southern Spain), the lush intricacy of the architecture seen in this Muslim fortress features vine-like trails and the horseshoe arch, the latter originally a Visigothic device borrowed and perfected during the Muslim period.

Answer 35

Alhambra