Section 14 Flashcards
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
Bedouins
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
Mecca and Yathrib
Mecca, especially, had long been a religious center since it housed the sacred ___________ (“the cube”), a structure built over the holiest of holies, the ________________.
Ka’aba, Black Stone
fortune favored some more than others which produced a nouveaux-riches aristocracy called the _____________
Kuraish
the founder of Islam, was born and grew up in Mecca at the end of the sixth century
Muhammad
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 __________
Allah
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.
Hegira (Hijrah)
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 __________
Medina
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
Jihad, infidels
At the same time as well, a period of peace and high culture was beginning to dawn, the _____________
Pax Arabica
In Arabic, the word __________ means “surrender,” that is, submission to Allah and his will
Islam
the Islamic “bible,”
Koran
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.
Arabic
the Koran ordains a comparatively simple and straightforward regimen of ritual, involving the so-called “_____________”: faith, prayer, charity, fasting, and pilgrimage
“Five Pillars of Islam”
Calling the faithful at least once in life to make a pilgrimage to Mecca, in Arabic a _________
Hajj (Haji)
these evolved into Islamic “temples,” today known as __________ (“places for prostration”)
Mosques
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
Arabesque(s)
_____________—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
Iconoclasm
Muhammad’s only daughter
Fatima
An old man already, __________ruled only two years, most of which he spent reconsolidating Arabia under Muhammad’s religion
Abu Bekr
a title meaning “(Muhammad’s) successor.
Caliph
the next caliph was ________ a zealous and younger convert to Islam, who pushed north into Persian and Byzantine territory
Omar
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.
Othman, Umayyads
Muhammad’s cousin and Fatima’s husband.
Ali
His followers created a separatist Islamic sect called ___________—that is, “factionalists
Shi’ites (Shiat Ali)
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
Damascus
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
The Dome of the Rock
another powerful Muslim family, the ___________ of Persia took advantage of this opening and defeated the Umayyads in a brief civil war
Abbasids (Abbasid Dynasty)
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
Baghdad
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
The Arabian Nights
To all this the Muslims gave new life, direction and sense of unity, especially under the greatest of the Abbasid caliphs, ____________
Harun al-Rashid
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
Ottoman Empire
Arab-speaking philosophers called ___________, a term clearly borrowed from the Greek word philosophos (“philosopher”), investigated and enriched several areas of thought and science
Faylasufs (Philosophos)
A similar movement called ____________- in the West later imitated this notion of uniting theological and philosophical thought
Scholasticism
last but not least, ______________ who died in 1123 CE is arguably one of the best known poets who ever lived
Omar Khayyam, Rubaiyat
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.
Alhambra
