The Rise of Christianity
12/6/2010 9:15:00 PM
Jews come under Roman Rule:
 Before 63 BC the Jews were part of an autocracy, they
ruled themselves, of the Empire of Rome. Many of the
Jewish leaders would become allies of the Romans which
the Romans made those people Romanized and they were
called Romanized Jews.
o Herod the Great was a Jewish leader who was a
Romanized Jew, and many people were angered by
him
o The treaty with Rome also was done because the
Jews who Became the allies of Rome were in favor of
Rome making Jerusalem into a Roman city
 After Herod dies the Jews began a revolt that lasted ten
years and finally when the revolt ended Jerusalem was
made into Judea, in 6 AD, AD (anno Domini) (the year of
our lord)
 After the Romans took control of Judea they gave the
control of the religious matters to the Sanhedrin
 The jews were divided into 2 groups;
o Zealots(fanatically committed person)- these people
wanted to get rid of the roman homeland
o Messianists- The other group believed that messiah
would come any minute, and according to biblical
tradition god promised the Jews that when the
messiah comes he would restore the kingdom of the
Jews
The Life and the Teachings of Jesus:
 Jesus was born in Bethlehem and was thought to be born
around 6 to 4 BC, he was a Jew and a roman subject
 He was raised in Nazareth In Northern Palestine (galil)
and was baptized by a prophet named John the Baptist
and when he grew up he was a carpenter
Jesus’ Message:
 When Jesus was 30 he began his public ministry, and for
the next three years he lectured, taught, did good things,
and supposedly did miracles
 Most of his beliefs were from Jewish tradition, like
monotheism and the ten commandments
 Like the Jews beliefs he said that God had a relationship
with each person, and that people should love god,
neighbors, enemies and themselves
 He also said that anyone who regretted their death would
be rewarded in the after life
 Jesus had 12 disciplines, we know all the stuff tha we
know about jesus because of the book called the Gospels
(john Mark Luke and Matthew) which was the first of the
four books in the new testiment which was thought to be
written by one or more of Jesus’ disciplines which were
later come to be known as Apostles
 Jesus became more and more famous as he made more
and more preaches in different towns many people
thought that he was the messiah because he didn’t care
about wealth and status and e manly preached to the
poor
Jesus’ Death:
 Jesus’ popularity concerned the Jewish and Roman
Leaders, after 29 AD when he came into Jerusalem people
greeted him as messiah or king, the Jewish leaders denied
that he was king and the Roman leaders were scared that
he was taking too much power so a leader of Rome
named, Pontius Pilate arrested Jesus and sentenced him
to be crucified
 After Jesus was killed he was put into a tomb after three
days his body was missing and we learn from the Gospels
that the Apostles said that Jesus became a living man
again and then one day he was brought up to heaven in
plain sight
 Jesus was then called Jesus Christ (Christ coming from
the word Christos meaning messiah or savior) that’s why
we called it Christianity coming from the word Christ
 After Jesus’ triumphant death the belief of Christianity
strengthen ad was spread throughout Palestine and Syria
led by the first apostle, Peter and the cross became the
symbol of Christianity’s beliefs
Christianity Spreads through the Empire12/6/2010 9:15:00 PM
AC=CE
Paul’s Mission:
 Paul, one of the apostles, was one of the biggest reasons
of the rise of Christianity.
 Paul’s Hebrew name was Saul, and that was the name
that he used
 At first Paul was an enemy to Christianity but while he
was traveling to Damascus Syria he had a vision of Christ
and started to spread Christ’s teachings
 The Pax Romana was during the time period of the rise
of Christianity, which made it easy for Paul to travel from
place to place to give sermons, it was also good because
Paul could preach in Latin or Greek and people would still
be able to understand him.
 Paul said that no matter who or what you were you are
welcomed to Christianity
o He said “there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is
neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor
female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus”
o This quote helped Christianity grow a lot
Jewish Rebellion:
 In AD 66 the Zealots (a group of Jews in Rome) revolted
against Rome but was not successful, but in AD 70 the
Romans attacked Jerusalem and destroyed their temple
leaving only the western wall. Half a million Jews died in
this revolt
 Again in AD 132 the Jews tried to revolt to break out of
Roman rule but lost another half a million in the war, after
the revolt the Jewish state stopped existing and the Jews
didn’t have a political state until 1948 (more 1800 years
after this incident)
 The Jews were then sent into exile, the Diaspora
Persecution of the Christians:
 Christians also made problems for the Romans, because
they wouldn’t worship the roman gods, so the Romans
used the Christians as scapegoats of economic and social
problems, and then put the Christians to death.
 Peter and Paul (apostles) were both put to death
sometime after 60 AD because of this problem
(scapegoat….)
 The emperors that succeeded Nero (an emperor who
made scapegoats on the Christians) did not persecute the
Christians, but when the pax Romana died down the
Christians and even some none Christians were killed
imprisoned tortured, exiled, and crucified because they
didn’t worship the roman gods
 These people were called Martyrs
 Even though the Christians were being persecuted by the
3rd century AD there were millions of Christians in the
roman empire
A World Religion:
 Christianity’s widespread appeal around the world was
because
o They embrace all people
o They gave hoe to the powerless
o Talked to the people who repelled by the
extravagances of imperial Rome
o They offered a personal relationship to god
o The promised eternal life after death
Early Christian Church:
 The Christians gave a structure to their religion, they had
a priest that led each group of Christians, they had a
Bishop who was a priest that supervised some local
churches.
 Peter was said to be the first bishop ever in Rome after he
traveled from Jerusalem. Jesus said that Peter was like
the “rock” that the Christian Church would be built on
 All the bishops traced their authority to Peter
 Other people who were bishops in Rome said that Peter
was the first Pope the head of the Christian church, and
that Rome was the center of their religion and the leaders
all came from Rome
Constantine Accepts Christianity:
 In 312 AD a Roman emperor named Constantine fought
against 3 rivals for his title, he prayed to god to win the
war and after saw a cross sign of light in the heavens and
ordered his artisans to make crosses on the soldiers
shields, he won the war and in 313 AD he said stopped
the persecution of the Christians
 Constantine was a very religious man
 He declared Christianity the Capital religion of the Empire
and let anyone practice the religion that they chose
Discord and Harmony:
 As Christianity grew there were many arguments between
the followers of Christ and anyone who disagreed with the
basic teaching of Christianity was a Heresy
 So Church leaders made a New Testament, which were
the 4 gospels, one of which were the Epistle of Paul
 In 325 AD Constantine, to end the arguments, brought
together church leaders to Anatolia and they wrote the
Nicene Creed which defined the basic beliefs of the
church
The Fathers of the Church:
 One of the Fathers of the Church, the founding people of
Christianity, was a man named Augustine, who was the
Bishop of Hippo in North Africa in 396 AD. He said that
even though the grace of god was to be saved god gave
out his grace freely
 After the Roman Empire was gone in the fifth century
Augustine wrote a book called The City of God, which said
that the city that we live in now isn’t important, what is
important was the city in heaven which could never be
destroyed,
 Christianity grew bigger and richer even though of its
problems
The fall of the Roman Empire
12/6/2010 9:15:00 PM
A Century of Crisis:
 Many historians think that the fall of the roman empire
began during the last of the five good emperors, Marcus
Aurelius (A.D 161-180).
Rome’s Economy Declines:
 Rome was so powerful because during the pax romana
the roman legions and shipped patrolled the seas where
trade happened, they had riches of gold and silver from
conquered places, and the roman empire grew enough
grain to feed the people in their cities, but during the 3rd
century AD these things disappeared.
 Since the rich would buy expensive things from foreign
countries it made the Roman Empire poor leaving them
with little gold and silver and since the empire wasn’t
growing they didn’t have a new source of metals, which
meant that they could get anymore money.
 Also the Romans had attacks against them which coasted
a lot of money to put down.
 They minted coins hoping that they would create more
money with the same amount of gold and silver, but this
didn’t work and the Romans suffered an inflation, the
decrease of their money value and that the prices go up
 Agriculture went down also because the soil was over
worked, the soil was destroyed in warfare, the higher
taxes cause the poor farmers to leave their lands, and the
cheap slave labor had discouraged improvements in
technology, a disease spread and the population lessened
 The Romans has so much land that they couldn’t handle it
anymore
Rome Faces Military Upheaval:
 The roman military started to weaken because of the
Persians, they threatened Syria and Anatolia (to take it)
 In AD 260 the Persians captured Valerian, a roman
emperor
 The loyalty and discipline in the army collapsed so the
empire brought mercenaries, foreign soldiers who the
empire payed less than the roman soldiers, to fight, but
they were loyal to the empire.
Roman Politics Decay:
 Loyalty was very important to the empire because before
they could give their lives for their country but now they
didn’t have any patriotism
 The people who worked in the government used to be
wealthy and upper class but in the 200s they had to pay
for the public affairs out of their own pockets, so people
didn’t want to be in the government anymore
Diocletian Reforms the Empire:
 In AD 284 an army leader named Diocletian became
emperor and restored order in the empire and increased
its strength, he did this by limiting personal freedoms
 Diocletian doubled the army by drafting prisoners of war
and hiring German mercenaries, he claimed to be a
descanted of the roman gods and said that Christians
should be persecuted
 He thought that the huge empire was to big for one
emperor so he appointed General Maximum as his coruler
 He split the Empire into 2 parts, East (Greece, Anatolia,
Syria, and Egypt, and the West (Italy, Gaul, Britannia,
and Spain)
 The east was far richer than the west and Diocletian ruled
the East and had most of the power in the Empire
 Everything went well for the beginning and the borders
were safe again, but when Diocletian stepped down from
his power in 305 AC because of his sickness, a civil war
broke out, and by 311 4 people competed for power. One
of the four was a young man named Constantine (who
persecuted the Christians later on)
Constantine Moves the Capital:
 In 312 AC Constantine became the ruler of the west and
continuing the ways of Diocletian and in 324 AC he ruled
over the east also and restored the concept of a single
ruler.
 In 330 AC Constantine moved the capital of Rome into a
Greek city called Byzantium, modern day Turkey, which
was strategically located because of trade and protection.
 The new capital was protected by walls and building that
were copied from the ones in Rome, and the city was
named Constantinople, city of Constantine, after his
death the empire split and only the east survived (the
west didn’t)
The Huns Move West:
 The reason of why the Germans invaded was because the
Huns (a nomadic group of people from Central Asia)
moved into Europe.
 Everyone feared the huns
Germanic Invasions:
 The Germanic People went across the Rhine River with
their families when it was ice in 406 AC, and went through
gaul and on their way to Rome they didn’t have too much
resistance and the Romans couldn’t stop them because
they were so disorganized.
 The Romans became vonerable to attak and for 600 years
before that no forgaign country treated Rome,
 In 408 Visgoths led by their leader, Alaric, attacked
Rome by besieging them and then attacked them in 410
for 3 days the Germans ransacked them.
Attila the Hun:
 The Huns became a threat to the empire, in 444 Attila
united Hun for the first time and led 100,000 soldiers to
destroy both parts of the empire but was not able to
destroy the wall of Constantinople
 After Attila’s death in 453 the Germanic Envasion still
continued, the Vandals under Gaiseric sacked Rome and
famine struck Rome, Rome’s population dropped from 1
million to 20,000 people.
Rome’s Last Emperor:
 The west became very week and the emperor of the west
had almost no power.
 Visigoths had Spain, Vandals had North Africa, Franks,
Burgundians, and Visigoths split Gaul, Angles and Saxons
split Britannia, and the Ostrogoths had Italy.
 The last roman emperor was a 14 year old boy name
Romulus Augustulus, but in 476 he was deposed by the
German general Odoacer, and was sent into exile. After
this no one was the Emperor of Rome and the western
part of the Roman empire had disappeared
 The eastern part of the Roman Empire came to be known
as the Byzantine Empire which flourished (they thought
of themselves as the heirs of the Power of Augustus
Caesar) and preserved the great heritage of the Greeks
and the Romans for another 1000 years until 1453 when
the Ottoman Turks took them over.
 Even though West was destroyed their ideas, customs,
and their institutions continued in the Western
Civilization.
Rome and the Roots of Western Civilization12/6/2010 9:15:00 PM
The Legacy of Greco Roman Civilization:
 During the second century BC the Romans conquered
Greece and that period of time whike the Greek and
Roman cultures combine was called the Greco-Roman
culture or the classical civilization
Roman Fine Arts:
 Romans learned how to sculpt from the Greeks, but the
Greeks were known for beauty and idealization when the
Romans were known for their portraits in stone that was
intended to be for public education.
 During the time of augustus the Romans developed a type
of structure called bas-relief this was when the images
wer shown on a flat background, where the Romans made
it to tell stories of people, battles, and landscapes.
 The artists were very good in mosaics as well, and in
almost all rich houses they had at least one mosaic piece.
 Romans also were very good at paintings, and many rich
families has pictures drawn straight onto their walls, but
many of them didn’t survive, but in Pompeii, a roman
city, there was an earthquake in AD 79, which covered
the city in ashes which preserved many amazing artifacts
and some paintings of the time period
Learning and Literature:
 The Romans learned many of their things from the
Greeks, especially the stoicism which was the Philosophy
of a Greek teacher named Zeno and was very influential
to Rome.
o This encouraged virtue, duty, moderation, and
endurance
 One of the most noted stoics was Marcus Aurelius
 A man named Virgil spent ten years writing the most
famous work of Latin literature called, Aeneid which
means the epic legendary Auneas.
o Here he praises Roman and Roman virtues, and says
how important the government is to Rome
Latin, the languages of Rome:
 Latin stayed the language in the west long after the fall of
Rome and was also the language of the catholic church
until the 20th century
 French, Spanish, Portugues, Italians, and Romanian
languages adopted Latin and developed their own
languages and they were called the Romantic
Languages because of their common heritage. Also
many English words come from the Latin language.
Architecture, engineering, and Technology
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The Geonim:
 This until takes place between 600-1000 which is called
the geonic period
 During the geonic period the work on liturgical works, a
bible translation works in halacha, historical works, and
major work of Jewish philosophy.
 There were two unique institutions, one was the semiautonomous secular administration of Babylonian Jewish
community, which was lead by the rosh golah who was
the representative of the Jews in Babylon to the Muslim
government
 The second institution was the two great yeshivot, Sura
and Pumpedita who were lead by scholars called
geonim.
 In 622 a new religion began, Muslim, the Muslim prophet
Mohammad was from paganism (a different religion) and
with contact of many Jews he liked the idea of
monotheism, so he prayed on this hill at night outside the
city of Mecca and was said to have seen the angel Gabriel,
so he wrote down his writings and became the Muslim
holy book, the Qur’an
Politics and Community:
 Babylonia had the biggest population of Jews around the
world, and the two great yeshivot, Sura and Pumpedita
were located near the Muslim capital state of Baghdad.
The leaders were the Rosh golah and the Geonim, they
had many challenges which were made by the Karaites
The Rosh Golah (Exilarch)
 The Rosh golah was the representative of the Jews in the
whole Muslim empire (Iran, Iraq), this is what the
Persians did in their empire, this system was called the
Exilarchate
 The Rosh golah had his own court, he had to collect poll
taxes for the Muslim empire, and he also had to watch
over the Jewish people and supervise the implementation
of the Pact of ‘Umar which was a series of rules which
governed relations between Muslims and non-Muslims
 The rosh golah had a territory that he ruled by himself
and directly ruled it, which was called a reshut, where he
collected taxes for himself and appointed judges for his
court, the rosh golah was thought to be like the prince or
nasi of Babylon.
The Geonim:
 The geonim were the head of the yeshivot Sura and
Pumpedita, and when the Muslims took over many Jews
came to them for religious guidance
 The Geonim had Reshuyot which were much like the
reshut of rosh golah they also taxed the people to pay for
the yeshivot of the town and had courts where they would
appoint judges, and if they were unsatisfactory they
would be deposed.
 If there was a problems of, marriage and divorce,
business dealings of all kinds, civil law, kashrut, liturgy,
interpretations of biblical texts that the courts in the
reshut of rosh golah couldn’t figure out they went sent a
letter to the reshuyot of the Geonim which would be
answered which is known as teshuvah, or responsum
o This was called the responsa
 the responsa also helped to unify the Jews of the Muslim
empire
 there was a monthly kallah called the yarhei kallah which
helped the Jews unite where the people would review and
discuss their topics that they were assigned the kallah
before
The Karaites
 This group arose in the 8th century lead by a man named
Anan ben David, at the beginning his followers were
called the Ananites but later on they were called the
Karaites because they studied the written law instead of
the Talmud and rabbinic writings.
 We don’t know a lot about Anan because the sources
disagree on his characteristics and his motives for
establishing a new sect.
Culture:
 The geonim engaged in grammar, liturgy, blical study,
history, and in philosophy.
Grammatical Study:
 Saadiah had many contributions to Hebrew grammar, he
had two grammatical works, Sefer ha-Egron, which was
a Hebrew dictionary, and a list of rhyming words which
was good for poets. His other book was the Sefer
Tzakhut ha-Lashon ha-Ivrit, which is divided into 12
section, each had a different topic of grammar
Liturgy:
 From 846-861 R. Amram ben Sheshna compiled a
siddur tefilla (or of the prayers)(siddur) because he had
received many questions from R Isaac bar Shimon from
Spain
 Saadiah the Gaon of Sura also compiled a siddur which
improved the book of R. Amram and he added some
psolmes, and this book was so honored that it is still used
by yeminite Jews today
Bible Study:
 Saadiah made a translation of the whole tanach in Arabic
that Arabic speakers still use this translation
Halakhah:
 The She’iltot written by R. Ahai of Shabha, consists of
man sermons given every shbbat in synagogues by
different rabbis, each She’ilta is divided into four sections
 In the 8th and 9th centuries a work called the Halakhot
Pesukot was written by a or many unknown authors
which had inside of it, laws of prayer, sabath and
festivals, family and commercial laws.
 In the later half of the 9th century the Halakhot Gedolot
were produced by R. Simeon Kayyara, who was born in
Basra
 In the halakhot gedolot it sumerized the Talmudic law
which is based on proof from the Talmudic books, mostly
the Babylonian Talmud but some Aramaic (Jerusalem)
Talmud.
 The Halakhot gedolot had more than the law code it also
had non-legal material and halakhic material without
practical importancein the geonic period
 Saadiah wrote many short treatises which talked about
inheritance law, with buying and selling, and with laws
governing legal documents, saadiah also wrote responsa,
but it was in Arabic, and he was the first to do so.
History:
 The geonim also made books on history, the most famous
one Iggeret Rav Sherira Gaon, which was written in
986-987 by Shrira Gaon, who was the head of the
yeshiva at pupedita from 986-1106
 R. Jacob b. Nissim ibn Shahin asked many question to
R. Sherira about the evolution of the mishna and the
corpus Talmudic literature
 Because of these questions R. Sherira wrote a 15,000
word essay that became the central source of the history
of the Geonim
 R Natan made another hisotorical work called the Akhbar
Baghdad, which was divided into 2 sections, 1 conflicts
within Babylonian leadership, and 2 is divided into 2, 1
the institution of the exilarch and 2 with the geonim and
their academies
Philosophy:
 Saadiah Gaon wrote the first Jewish Philosophical work in
the 10th century called Sefer Emnot ve-Deot (the book
of Beliefs and Opinions) which confronted 2 major
challenges Karaism, which saadiah battled it in speech
and in writing and the second was Greek philosophy
 During the time period people thought that you could
either learn Judaism or you could learn the Greek
philosophy but saadiah in his book tried to show that you
could do both at the same time.
 The sefer Emunot ve-Deot deals with; reason and
revelation, divine providence, miracles, prophecy, evil,
and the existence, unity, and incorporeality of God
The Rise of Islam
12/6/2010 9:15:00 PM
In morraco 2
Desert and Town Life:
 In the desert a nomadic group of people called the
Bedouins organized themselves into tribes and clans in
the desert. They adapted to the desert and protected their
clans and tribes from incoming raids and protected their
water, food, livestock, and their territory supply.
 These people are the main people in the armies in the
later upcoming empire in the 600s and 700s
 In the 600s the Bedouins, the nomadic people, left their
homes to settle in other oases. These areas had a lot of
trade and had enough water to feed the civilization
Crossroads of Trade and Ideas:
 Trade routes connected Arabia to many major trading
places, Arabia was from Byzantine and Sassanid empires
to the north, the trading was very big during the early
600s with the caravan Routes
 In Mecca many pilgrims (a person who goes on a journey
to a sacred place for a religious reason) would come to
visit the house of worship, Ka’aba
 Many people traveled to this house of worship as a
pilgramige because it was known to be that this is where
avraham prayed to one god, but before this period of time
many tribes worshipped many gods and probably over
360 idols were brought to this place.
 The concept of a belief in one god is called Allah
 The few people who beilieved in one god were called
hanifs there were many Jews and Christians who lived in
the arab lands and practiced monotheism, during this
period of time a man named Muhammad was born in
around 570 BC in Mecca
The Prophet Muhammad:
 Muhammad was born into a wealthy Meccan family but
was orphaned at the age of six so he was raised by his
uncle, he became a business man at a young age and
became the business manager for a business women
named, Khadijah, whom he married when he became
25, they became a good couple and a good business team
Revelations:
 Muhammad became a religious person and began to
meditate. When he was 40 years old meditating in a cave
outside of Mecca a voice of the angel Gabriel came to him
and told him that he was a messenger of god.
 Muhammad thought that Gabriel was sent by Allah, god,
and convinced himself that he was the last prophet
 He said that Allah was the only god in the world and that
all other beliefs should be abandon and every who agreed
to this would agree to the basic principle of islam, and
they became called Muslims.
 Islam means “submission to the will of Allah.”
 Muslim means “one who has submitted
 Muhammad’s wife and friends were his first followers
 Muhammad began to preach in Mecca with little success
because the meccans believed that he shouldn’t change
the ways of the old Arab religion, belief in many gods, and
that if people did follow this new religion of monotheism
people wouldn’t have pilgrimages to Mecca anymore
 Also some of his followers were stoned on the streets of
Mecca
The Hijrah:
 Since he didn’t have any success in Mecca he and his few
followers took a journey and resettle in a place called
Yathrib, 200 miles north of Mecca, in 622, and the
journey was later known as the Hijrah
 Later on Yathrib was later named Medina, meaning “city
of the Prophet”
 Here he had a lot of success and his religion grew bigger
 He was a very skillful leader and many people thought of
him a political leader. He man an agreement with the
arbas and the Jews in Medina to be a single community,
later he became a military leader in the fighting between
Medina and Mecca
 Most of the Meccans converted to Islam and by doing so
they joined the Umma, the Muslim religious community.
 Muhammad died 2 years later at the age of 62, but left
much of the Arabian Peninsula under the power of Islam
Returning to Mecca:
 Many Bedouins converted to Islam and as the war was
going on between Muhammad and the Meccans the city of
Mecca’s power was declining, and in 630 Muhammad and
his 10,000 followers conquered Mecca
 When Muhammad entered the city of Mecca he went to
the Ka’aba and destroyed the idols that were there and
began the prayer of Islam lead on the roof of the Ka’aba
Beliefs and Practices of Islam
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 The main teaching of Islam is that there is only one god
and that is Allah.
 It is taught in the Qur’an the holy book of Islam, that
there is bad and good and it is your responsibility to be
good or bad, and that on the final day of judgment Allah
will judge you and send you to hell or heaven
The Five Pillars:
 In Islam all Muslims have five duties and these duties are
called the Five Pillars of Islam:
o Faith- to become a Muslim you had to promise that
you believed in Allah as your only god, and that
Muhammad was the messenger of god (this is said
many times of the day in the prayers of Muslims.
o Prayer- Muslims pray 5 times a day in a Mosque,
where the Arabs pray, or where they are, they do
this to become closer to god.
o Alms- Muhammad said to give money to the poor so
Alms are like charity, which they do by religious
taxes.
o Fasting- the Muslims fast on the days of Ramadan
this is a series of fast days that you fast during the
day and eat only during dawn and sunset, this is to
show the Arabs that there is more to life than just
bread
o Pilgrimage- This is required by all Muslims and is
called the Hajj which is when the Muslims go to
Mecca at least once in there life, and when they go
they where the some clothes as everyone else so
that they are all equal in the eyes of god
A Way of Life:
 The Muslim’s religious life is not separate from their
personal life, because Muslims live their religions while
serving in their community.
 Muslims are not allowed to eat pork or drink wine and
intoxicated beverages
 There are no leaders in Muslim because Muslims are
expected to pray to god directly
 The Islams have a scholars class called the Ulama which
has teaching of Muhammad and puts these teaching into
use for everyday life, this class is given to anyone who is
concerned with learning and law
Sources of Authority:
 The original source of authority is god, while Muhammad
was alive, god sent a messenger to him named Gabriel
who tolled him the teaching of the Qur’an the Muslims
memorized theses teaching until Muhammad died when
they decided to put these teaching in a book, the Qur’an
 The Qur’an is written in Arabic which according to the
Muslims is the only language which is accepted by god,
when the arbas spread there power they brought their
language with them thus spreading the language of
Arabic, also the new followers of Islam was taught in
Arabic so this became the religions language
 Muhammad tried to show how incorporate the teaching of
the Qur’an with their life the best exampled to them was
Muhammad’s example or Sunna and this body of law is
called shari’a which deals with family life, moral conduct,
and business and community life of Muslims
Links to Judaism and Christianity:
 The Muslims have a slightly different thinking about
religion than the Christians and the Jews, the Muslims
believe that Jesus was a prophet not the son of god, and
they believe that Muhammad was the last prophet and
out of the gospels the old testament and the Qur’an the
Qur’an is the last book.
 The Muslims like the Jews and Christians believe that
there is a day of judgment, hell and heaven, and that
they all trace back to Avraham.
 The Jews and Christians were known as the “people of the
book” because they both had a holy book, the books of
Christians and Jews are very similar to book and
teachings of the Qur’an, and the Arabs are tought to have
religious tolerance for the Christians and the Jews
 The Arabs as their empire grows have many cultures and
religions in it
The Spread of Islam
12/6/2010 9:15:00 PM
 In 632 a man named Abu Bakr became the first caliph
(successor of deputy)
“Rightly Guided” Caliphs:
 The First 4 caliphs were Umar, Uthman, and Ali
o They all new him and been his supporters
 These three caliphs were called a Caliphate and were the
“rightly Guided” caliphs because they used the Qur'an and
Muhammad’s teachings to rule
 When these 4 caliphs died some of the people in the
religion abandoned Islam and even declared themselves
as a prophet
 Before Abu-Bakr died in 634 the Muslims conquered
Arabia and then Umar conquered Syria and lower Egypt
and by the end of the rightly guided caliphs the Muslims
controlled 6000 miles of land, from the Atlantic Ocean to
the Indus river
Reasons for Success:
 The reason for the military success was thought to be by
the Muslims because of Allah, but when historians look
back at this they see that the Muslims were well
disciplined and had been expertly commanded
 Two main reason for the Islamic military success was also
because the places that they conquered, byzantine and
Persian empire, were very tired militarily because of
fighting with each other and because of the religious
persecution in those empires, because when the Islamic
military came they destroyed the tired military and the
citizens felt that they were like liberators of the empires
Treatment of Conquered Peoples:
 Many conquered people chose to convert to Islam
because of its teachings but they were not forced to
because the Quran forbade it, but the Christians and Jews
had to pay a poll tax in exchange for not going into the
army, the Jews and Christians were in a very high social
class, they were officials, scholars, and bureaucrats in the
Muslim state
International Conflict Created a Crisis:
 Even though the Muslim military was very good the
Muslims didn’t have a well unified rule, after Uthman
died in 656 a civil war broke out for who should gain
control and be the next caliph. Ali, Muhammad’s son in
law and cousin becomes the next caliph with the protest
of Muawiya, a Syrian governor, and later was
assassinated in 661. The elective system of caliphs died
with Ali
 A family called the Umayyads came to power and
changed some of the rules, the system of succession had
to do with heredity, the Islam capital moved to
Damascus, in Syria which was far away from Mecca,
many people were unpleased because they said that it
was too far away from Mecca, their old capital. This made
controlling conquered area easier to control. And this
family also made the lives of the caliph wealth and
ceremony, unlike the old caliphs where they had boring
and simple lives
 This gave the rise to the Muslim community
Sunni Shi’a Split:
 Most of the Muslims accepted these changes by the
Umayyads, but some did still protest.
 And some of the resistors had group that made a different
way of being a caliph, this was that the caliph had to be
the relative of the prophet, this group of people were
called the Shi’a (“party” of Ali)
 But the people who didn’t protest were called Sunni but
some of the people in the Sunni group were concerned
that the Umayyad were to involved in public affairs and
cared less and paid less attention to their religion
 A group called the Sufis were also mad about the
luxierious life of the Umayyads, they tried to pray to the
gods through meditation and chants, they were very
religious people, and they became very active in
missionaries in newly conquered lands. They tried to bring
everyone back to focus on the Qur'an and study the
traditions of Muhammad, Arabic language, and the
development of schools to teach the Islamic conduct.
 Since many people were unhappy with the way the
Umayyads were ruling many groups of people, the
strongest of the Groups who later took control of the
empire, Abbasids, overthrew the Umayyads in 750
Muslims Control Areas of Three Continents:
 In 750 the Abbasids took control of the Muslim empire
and destroyed every remaining family member f the
Umayyads accept for one who escaped, Abd al-Rahman
where he fled to Spain and made a new dynasty of the
Umayyads there, the berbers were there and later on in
732 the Berbers resettled in southern Spain where they
made an extraordinary Muslim state called Al-andalus
Abbasids Consolidate Power:
 The Abbasid’s ruled over Iraq, Iran, and Central Asia. And
in 762 they moved the capital to bagdad in southern Iraq.
There was key trade routes there where the caliph could
trade goods, gold, and information about his empire in
Asia Africa and Europe.
 The Abbasids created a very strong bureaucracy by
making a treasury, Chancery, A Special department which
managed business of the army, and had diplomats go to
different countries to discuss business, and to support this
bureaucracy they taxed the Abbasids lands, imports, and
exports, and non-Muslim wealth
Rival Groups Divide Muslim Lands:
 From 750 to 1258 the caliphate lasted, and the Abbasids
increased their authority by consulting religious leaders,
but they weren’t able to have political control in some
areas so small groups conquered these territories and
were known to be called the Fatimid Dynasty, named
after Muhammad’s daughter Fatima. They began to
spread from North Africa to western Arabia and Syria
 Even though theses two territories were ruled seperatly
they were a unified country, because of their religion,
language, and trade.
Muslim Trade Network:
 The Muslims had the Mediterranean and the Indian ocean
to link them to sea trade, they linked the silk roads of
China and India with Europe and Africa, and were able to
trade easily with speaking Arabic and using the Abbasid
Dinar, the currency in the Muslim Empire, from Cordoba
to Bagdad on to China.
 The Muslims made banks in various cities around their
empire, and gave letters of credit, Sakks where they
could give this to another bank and receive cash in return.
The Sakks are like checks and the checks are dated back
to the Muslim Empire
 In Córdoba there were 500,00 people, mixed with Jews
Christians, and Muslims, there were 70 libraries, 700
mosques, and 27 free schools, this was a great
atmosphere for poets philosophers, scientists and doctors