Keith Carson, Adjunct
Professor, History & Humanities
Heritage of the
Western World
Islamic History &
Literature (610-950)
Islamic History Islamic
Literature
Mohammed ibn Abdallah (610) Mohammed’s revelations
would
rcvd. vision
from God (Allah) later
form basis of Qur’an
ummah moves from
Jews of Medina refuse to accept Mohammed as sunnah (practice of the Prophet)
Prophet
caravan
Mohammed commands Muslims to pray towards Sources
of Authority in Islam
1.
Qur’an: direct word of Allah as
revealed
Jewish
tribe of Qaynuqah
unsuccessfully revolt to
Mohammed
Against
Mohammed (625)
2.
sunnah:
example of the Prophet (includes
Battle of Uhud (625) Meccans (Quraysh) defeat hadith, or sayings of Mohammed
Muslims
3.
shariah:
body of Islamic law as interpreted
Battle of the Trench (627) Muslims defeat Meccans by theologians over the centuries
(development
of Islamic jurisprudence ceased about 10th c.)
Mohammed
and followers makes hajj to
(March, 628) 4.
ijma:
consensus of Islamic scholars and
theologians on a particular issue
Mohammed
marches on
Treaty
(630)
Mohammed
dies (632)
Rashidun (632-661) Sahih
Bukhari , or Abu Abdullah Muhammad bin Ismail bin
Ibrahim bin al-Mughira al-Ja’fai, The Book of
Abu Bakr (632-34) Knowledge; collection of
sayings (ahadith) of the Prophet
Umar
ibn al-Khattab (634-44)
Muhammad; also known as the sunnah
Uthman
ibn Affan (644-56)
wars of riddah (apostasy);
various tribes
attempt to split from ummah
Battle
of Qadisiyyah (637) Arabs defeat
Persian
armies
Islamic History Islamic
Literature
Battle
of Yarmuk (636) in northern
Muslims
defeat Byzantines
Muslims
conquer
Muslims
occupy
Umar assassinated (November, 644) Abu Amr
al-Dani (d.1053); wrote
down Qur’an which had been
Uthman assassinated (656) assembled
during Uthman
caliphate
fitnah (time
of temptation); five year
civil war (656-661)
Ali
ibn Abi Talid (656-661) Mohammed’s cousin,
son-in-law, and closest male relative, fourth caliph
Ali
assassinated by a Kharajite extremist (661)
Muawiyyah
(661-80) moved capital of his caliphate
from
Umayyad
Dynasty (661-750)
Umayyad
troops occupy
Kharajite rebels establish independent state in Abu Hanifah (699-767)
pioneer of
central
and application of sacred Muslim law
Abd
al-Malik (685-705) reasserts Umayyad rule
Dome
of the Rock completed in
Hasan
al-Basri (d. 728) begins Muslim tradition of
disciplined interior life with opposition to government
Wasan
ibn Ata (d. 748) student of Hasan establishes moderate
Mutazilites
school with emphasis on justice of Allah
(rationalistic theology, or kalam)
Abu Hanifah (699-767) adherent of Murjites
Muslim
convert who championed the new discipline of great Arab poet
jurisprudence (fiqh)
Islamic History Islamic
Literature
Mohammed ibn Ishaq (d.767) ibn Ishaq “Biography
of the
Muslim
historian; started to collect ahadith Messenger of
God”
Ibn
Ishaq wrote biography of the Prophet, Mohammed
al-Walid I (705-17) caliph who ruled at the height of Umayyad Poets
Umayyad
power and success (661-750)
1.
al-Farazdaq
Charles
Martel defeats Muslims at
2.
al-Akhtal
Umar
II (717-20)
3.
Jarir
Yazid
II (720-24)
Hisham
I (724-43)
Mansur
II ( ) last Umayyad caliph
Abbasid
Dynasty (750-935) Abbasid revolution
The
“New Poets”
Abu
al-Abbas al-Saffah (750-54) first Abbasid (750-935)
caliph
1.
Abu Nuwas
Abbasids
muster support in Iranian provinces
(743) 2. Abu al-Atahiyah (d.828)
Abbasids
occupy Kufah (749) 3.
Dibil (d. 872)
Abu
Jafar al-Mansur (754-75) murdered Shii
rulers considered enemies al-Jahiz
(d.869) notable for
Arab
prose; founder of adab
al-Mahdi (775-85) moved capital from literature;
rationalist school
Harun al-Rashid (786-809) patron of arts &
scholarship Abbasid
Renaissance (literary
who inspired a cultural
renaissance criticism,
poetry, philosophy,
medicine, mathematics, astronomy)
Ali
Zayn al-Abidin (d. 714)
Abu
Musa al-Ashari (875-935) The Elucidation
Mohammed
al-Baqir (d. 735) of
Islam
Islamic History Islamic
Literature
Zayd
ibn Ali (d. 740) political activist killed
in
uprising against Umayyads
Jafar
al-Sadiq (d. 765) reaffirmed and developed
the
doctrine of nass (imam was a spiritual leader)
Malik ibn Anas (d. 795) inspired Malik
ibn Anas (d.795) founder
founding of Maliki school (madhhab) preserved of Maliki
school of Islamic
original sunnah of Prophet’s ummah; became jurisprudence
prevalent in
Mohammed Idris ibn al-Shafii (d.820) all
jurisprudence Mohamed
Idris ibn al-Shaffi (d.820)
should be based on the ahadith revolutionized
study of fiqh by
establishing usul
(principles)
civil war (809-13) between
al-Rashid’s sons of
Islamic law; founder of
Shafii
school of Islamic law
al-Mamun (813-33)
Abu
al-Atahiyah (d. 828) Abbasid
poet
Shii
rebellion in Kufah and Basrah (814-15)
Ahmad
ibn Hanbal (780-833)
Ahmad ibn Hanbal (d. 833) became folk hero after hadith collector, legist, and
being imprisoned as a member of
the populist group leading
figure of ahl al-hadith;
ahl al-hadith Hanbali school of Islamic
jurisprudence
al-Mutasim (833-42) strengthened army by making
them his personal corps Al-Husayn
ibn Mansur al-Hallaj (d.922):
The
Crucifixion of a Mystic; taught
path of mystical union with Allah;
embraced fana, or
the extinction of
personal consciousness; executed in
Abu al-Hasan al-Ashari (d. 935) attempted to
reconcile Dibil (d.
872) Abbasid poet
Mutazilites
and Hadith People
Yaqub
ibn Ishaq al-Kindi (d. 870)
Al-Mutawakkil (847-61) Faylasuf, or philosopher
Abbasid decline (900-950) al-Mutannabbi
(915-55) court poet
to governor of
Abu
Nasr al-Farabi (d.950) philosopher
The
Attainment of Happiness
Source: Karen Armstrong
(2002/2000). A Short History of Islam.
Chapters 1 and 2; and, M.A.R. Habib, ed. (2003). Islamic History and Literature.
Islamic History &
Literature (950-1500)
Islamic History Islamic
Literature
inability to maintain a unified Faylasuf Abu Ali ibn Sina (980-1037),
Arabic Islamdom (935-1258) known as Avicenna in the West; disciple
of al-Farabi; believed that “…a prophet
by 10th c. (900s) it was clear that Islam was the ideal philosopher, not merely a
could no longer effectively function as purveyor of abstract rational truth for
a single political unit the masses;” prophet had insights not
dependent on discursive thought; ibn
caliph remained nominal head of the ummah Sina was interested in Sufism and saw
and retained symbolic, religious function; in mysticism as an experience of the divine;
reality the various regions of the empire were mysticism was a form of knowledge that
governed independently by amirs, war lords, could not be attained through logic
shahs, sultans, and other rulers
Abu Jafar al-Tabari (d.923): Muslim
Ismaili Fatimids: break-away caliphate based in historian; made no attempt to synchronize
Arabia and
giving them equal value
The Spanish Renaissance
ibn Hazam (994-1064) developed
Turkish army officers (amirs) ruled
in what were actually independent states, but paid physical philosophy; poet; Spanish
homage to the Abbasid caliph as the ultimate renaissance poetry resembled the French
ruler of the ummah troubadour courtlt tradition
Seljuk Turks seize power in
(1126-1198): rationalist; influenced
become major centers of Islamic scholarship and (e.g. Thos. Aquinas, Maimonides, Albert
culture the Great); ibn Rushd was also a qadi (judge
of Shariah law) and a devout Muslim;
despite the collapse of the Umayyad caliphate in diction between religion and philosophy,
number of rival, independent courts philosophy should be reserved for the few
Abu Bakr al-Kalabadhi (d.990): native of
Hallaj’s
friends; wrote The Doctrine of the
Sufis
Islamic History Islamic
Literature
Seljuk Turks in
Persian vizier Nizamulmulk (r.1063-1092); wanted family had converted from Christianity to
to use Turks to reunite and rebuild old Abbasid Islam; fled Cordova when Berbers invaded
empire;
too late to revive
was in
irreversible decline; new Seljuk empire that later
became vizier to the caliph in
emerged was decentralized and power distributed and served in the same capacity in Cordova;
among local amirs and ulama imprisoned several times for political reasons;
devoted last years of his life exclusively to
during the 10th century ulama established the first scholarship and writing; The Dove’s Necklace
madrasahs (schools for the study of the and A Philosophy of Character and Conduct
Islamic sciences) throughout the Seljuk empire
Al-Husayn ibn Mansur al-Hallaj (d.922):
Nizamulmulk creates Nizamiyyah madrasah controversial figure in early Sufism;
in
Muslim lifestyle; and, consciousness, and other attempts to bridge
to some he appeared blasphemous because
after the demise of the Abbasid caliphate the empire of his emphasis of the mystical union with
became more Islamic; Muslims began to view them- Allah; spent many years traveling and
selves as part of an international Islamic community, teaching before being arrested, imprisoned,
represented
by the ulama, and coextensive with
the and executed in
whole of Dar al-Islam (lands controlled by Muslims) beliefs
at first, the ulama adapted the shariah to changing Al-Kalabadhi: disciple of one of Al-Hallaj’s
temporal
circumstances; religion is always conditioned friends;
native of
by the culture in which it appears; as issues arose they considered an important and popular collection
were reconciled with: of Sufi theory and lore
Spanish theologian and mystic;
Islamic law was closed by the 10th century; closing The Bezels of Wisdom
of the door of ijtihad
al-Maarri (973-1057): poet and
man of letters; al-Maarri is often viewed
as skeptical, negative, pessimistic, even
unholy; perhaps he is better interpreted as
world-weary, longing for union with Allah
Islamic History Islamic
Literature
Shariah, or Islamic law, from sharii literally meaning during Muhammad’s life he acted as
“the path” or “the way”; decided matters related to: supreme judge and interpreter of legal
interests of the community and practice of
by the
early 10th century all four schools of Islamic ummah in
law were consolidated 2. Hanifah (699-767): rationalist school;
relies on ijtihad, or individual reasoning
Two Branches of Islam 3. al-Shafii (d.820): first jurist to systematize
philosophical tradition; more lenient (e.g. Sufism) 4. Hanbal (d.833): most orthodox, Sunni
as embodied in the shariah, or legal tradition finding Qur’anic analogies; reason by
extension; qiyas (analogies)
Umayyad caliphs claimed sole authority to interpret
law
which put them at odds with the ulama
Kalam, or discussion, based on Islamic assumptions,
of theological questions; often used to describe the
tradition of Muslim scholastic theology; basic Islamic
usul (principles) were settled by the 9th century
did not exist externally
freewill
an unbeliever
the wicked
Islamic History Islamic
Literature
Islamic Sects
1.Sunni: Muslim majority who revere the four rashidun and ibn Tufayl (b.1110) Alone on a
validate
the existing political order; based on the sunnah,
or
practice of the prophet
2. Shii: belong to the Shiah i-Ali, or Partisans of Ali; they believe
that Ali ibn Abi Talib, the Prophet’s closest male relative, should
have ruled in place of the rashidun; revere a number of imams
who are the direct male descendants of Ali and his wife, Fatimah,
the Prophet’s daughter; their difference from the Sunni majority is
purely political
3.Sufi: mystical tradition of Sunni Islam; ultimate goal of Sufism is
unification with Allah; annihilation of self to achieve unification with
the divine; can only be achieved through direct experience and not
through language
Decline of Abbasid Empire Abu Hamid Muhammad al-Ghazzali (d.1111)
Samanids (819-1005) protégé of vizier Nizamamulmulk, lecturer at
Hamanids (905-1004) Nizamiyyah
madrasah in
Fatimid Caliphate (907-1171) Islamic law (shariah) suffers nervous break-
Buyids (932-1062) down in 1095; diagnosed by physician with
Shaddadis (950-1174) deep-seated emotional conflicts; Ghazzali
was profoundly distressed because although
radical Ismailis, dissatisfied with the Fatimid Empire, he knew a great deal about Allah, he did not
begin guerilla raids (jihad) in 1090, seizing Seljuk Turk know Allah himself; al-Ghazzali retreats to
strongholds
to
radical
Ismailis (hashishin, or “assassins”)
in full-scale Iyah alum al-Din (The Revival of the
Religious
revolt by 1092; establish state around Alamut (c.1092- Sciences)in which he states that only ritual
1242) and prayer could give humans direct knowledge of Allah; theology (kalam) and Sufism becomes popular movement; no longer Falsafah could not give us certainty about confined to the elite; pirs (group leaders) led the divine; Iyah recast shariah rules (re: eat-Muslims in dhikr(chanting of Divine Names); ing, sleeping, washing, hygiene, and prayer)
pirs lived in khanqah(convents)and instructed as devotional exercises and ethical
the people in the town mosque or in a madrasah imperatives that enabled Muslims to achieve
interior islam and cultivate a perpetual
Seljuk Turks capture large regions of Near East consciousness of the divine as advocated in
including
century bringing Islam with them
Islamic History Islamic
Literature
new Sufi orders (tariqahs) formed that Yahya Suhrawardi (d.1191) establishes a
transcended particular regions with branches School of illumination (al-ishraq) at
throughout
Dar al-Islam
of Falsafah (philosophy) and interior
tariqahs were a source of Islamic unity in transformation through Sufism; reason
a decentralized empire; tariqahs served as and mysticism must go hand-in-hand;
a model for brotherhoods and artisan guilds developed doctrine of alam al-mithal,
(futuwwahs) both of which were influenced or “the world of pure images;” a trance or
by Sufi ideology dream-like hypnogogic state
death of Turkish sultan (1092) and subsequent Spanish theosopher, Muid ad-Din ibn
collapse of Seljuk empire reduces pressure on al-Arabi (d.1240) also urged Muslims
to western Christians to assist in re-capturing taught that the way to Allah was through
could be a Sufi; all Muslims should look
from mid-11th century to mid-12th century western for the hidden, symbolic meaning of
Christians systematically suppress and forcibly exile Qur’anic scripture
Muslims from
Seljuk Turks conquer and
captrure
Fatamids (1070) maqamah form, a fusion of folk literature
and more sophisticated adab form;
Seljuk Turks devastate
Byzantines at the
Manzikurt (
The Crusades
Council of
exaggerates
Muslim threat against eastern Christianity; on
pilgrimage to
calls crusade, or “just or holy war,” against Seljuk Turks for drunkenness; wrote a journal called:
whom he accuses of defiling and destroying Christian A Pilgrimage to Mecca
churches; several weeks later Urban II expands objective
of crusade to include the conquest and capture of
Firdausi
(c.941-1020) Persian epic poet;
First Crusade (1096-1099) Christian forces capture The Epic of the Kings
Imad ad-Din Zangi, amir of
out of
Islamic History Islamic
Literature
Second Crusade (1147-1149)
troops of Louis VII of
and
Conrad II of
of
Muslims in Syrian
crushed by Seljuk Turks and only a fraction of the original force
even reaches its objective
Kurdish general, Yusuf ibn Ayyub Salah ad-Din Farid ud-Din Attar (1119-1229):
retakes
Third Crusade (1189-1192) some
of
(e.g.
Richard the Lion Hearted; Philippe Augustus of
Frederick Barbarossa) embark on
a mission to reconquer
after
its capture by the Muslims; Christians conquer Acre and
but
Children’s Crusade (1212) Jalan al-Din Rumi (1207-1273):
Sufi mystic; although victimized by
Impact of Crusades on West: the Mongols, he expressed the
because of large number of European monarchs and warriors; Rumi’s spirituality was
other nobles who were killed in battle or who squandered suffused by a cosmic sense of
large sums of money on thecrusades homelessness and separation from
west, although trade revival would have occurred anyway humans to the search for Allah;
intolerance that is all that remains; Rumi was
aggressive policies by the West towards the East poetry, and song; Rumi founded
the Sufi order of Mawlanah, also
Zangid Principality (1127-1185) called the Whirling Dervishes;
Rumi summoned Muslims to
Impact of Crusades on East: live beyond themselves, and to
Incidents
and the Seljuk Turks
Mongol chieftain Genghis Khan building a world empire (1220-1500)
Islamic History Islamic
Literature
Mongol general, Hulegu, pursues Muhammad,
Shah of the Kwarazmian Turks (1200-1220), by the 14th century observance
and his son, Jalal al-Din, from 1219 to 1229 of the shariah was the only form
across
Shii, Sunni, and Sufi
in 1231, Mongols begin a series of raids on Muslim
cities:
of Rum witnessed Mongol invasion
in 1250, Mamluk (Turkish slave corps) amirs lead in the 14th century the ulama began
successful coup d’etat against the Ayyubid state, to represent the shariah as having been in
establishing an empire in the Near East place from the very beginning of Islamic
history; hence, they were content that the
Mamluk Empire (1250-1517) “gates of ijtihad” were closed; the ulama
of the 14th century transformed the
Baibars, sultan of Egyptian state, defeats Mongols pluralism of the Qur’an into a hardline
at Ain Jalut in 1260 communalism
1. non-Muslims forbidden from entering
Mongols create four large states
in Islamdom owing
allegiance
to Kublai Khan in
upheaval
in the
7th century crime
river
valley and highlands in
(1255-1353) Islamic orthodoxy
Khanate of Chaghatay (1227-1370)
Mongols become chief Muslim power in central Islamdom; emergence of mujdadids (reformers)
two main political objectives: conservative reformers who attempted
Mongol political ideology was militaristic and imperial; similar
to old
absolutist polities of the
contrast
with the egalitarianism of Islam, by the end of the 13th
and beginning of the 14th centuries all four Mongol empires had
been converted to Islam
Islamic History Islamic
Literature
militarization of Islamic society affected the Ahmad ibn Taymiyyah (1263-1328):
perception and practice of the shariah; great reformer of the post-Mongol
Mongol rulers forbade ulama from ijtihad , or “indepen- world; hailed from an old family of
dent
reasoning,” closing the gates of ijtihad;
shariah ulama who belonged to Hanbali
becomes in principle a closed system of established madhhab and wanted to reinforce
rules so as not to jeopardize the dynastic law of the the shariah; he declared that the
ruling house; Muslims were obliged, therefore, to Mongol converts to Islam were infidels
conform to the rulings of past authorities with no and apostates because they did not
immediate hope of a more liberal, organic interpretation promulgate the shariah; he attacked
of the shariah; this led to an orthodoxy and conservative Islamic developments and history
fundamentalism with respect to the shariah after the death of the Prophet Muhammad
and the rashidun as inauthentic (Shii, Sunni,
Muslims were exposed to Mongol political ideals that Sufi); he wanted to revise the shariah to fit
were often recast in Islamic terms: current times even if that meant discarding
rich spirituality and philosophy of Islam;
lack of educational dialectic under Mongol rule; Taymiyyah was imprisoned for his views
rote learning in madrasahs and died in jail
“Muslim fundamentalists” today correspond to Abd al-Rahman ibn Khaldun (1332-1406):
the old pattern set by the mujdadids saw successive dynasties fail in Maghrib
(western Islamdom); witnessed sickness
Timur (1336-1405): Turk from
grew up
in the Chaghaytay Mongol state in from
Lame) because of a pronounced limp, and traditional Berber society and culture;
as Timburlaine in the West, he seized power Christian reconquista of Muslim Spain;
in the declining Chaghaytay empire and in the probably last great Spanish Faylasufs;
late 14th
century conquered lands from
to
was the restoration of order and his rule that under the flux of historical contigencies
produced a brand of Islam that was bigoted, lay universal laws that governed the course
cruel, and violent of civilizations; asibiyyah (group solidarity)
enabled people to survive during times of
Christians conquer Muslim
in 1236 developed a cyclical historiography based
in socio-economic class and temporal flux;
Christians drive Muslims from
in 1248 Maqaddimah: An Introduction to
History
Islamic History Islamic
Literature
Sultanate of Dehli established
during 13th Urdu Poetry
century and by the early 14th century Islam Early Period of Urdu Poetry
was
firmly rooted in the
as
supremacy in
Deccan area of south
was used alongside Persian (official
Osmanlis, or Ottomans, conquer
form of Urdu poetry known as Dakhini;
Ottomans seize Iznik in 1329 last great poet to make substantial use
of Dakhini was Vali (c.1668-1707)
Ottomans conquered the greater part of the whose verse marks origin of Urdu poetry
capital
at
the Byzantine emperor to a dependent ally
Murad I (1360-1389): Ottoman sultan attacks
yeni-cheri, or Janissary (“new troop,” slave corps)
Timur subjugates all the Iranian mountainous
regions and the Mesopotamian plains by 1387
Ottomans defeat Serbian army at Kosovo Field in
1389; although Murad I is killed during the battle,
the Serbian Prince Hrebeljanovic Lazar is captured
and executed (Lazar is considered a martyr by Serbians
even today; his execution instilled a deep hatred of Muslims
among the Serbians)
Timur conquers the old Golden
Horde in
in 1395
Timur invades
thousands of Hindu prisoners and devastated
Dehli
Muslims construct the
Timur defeats Ottomans at
Islamic History Islamic
Literature
Mehmed II (1451-1481): Ottoman Kritovoulus the Greek; History of
ruler
conquers
Christians defeat Muslims in city-state of
Sources: Karen Armstrong (2002). A Short
History of Islam.
M.A.R. Habib, ed. (2003). Islamic
History & Literature.