Chapter 6-8
CHAPTER 6: THE FIRST GLOBAL
CIVILIZATION: THE RISE AND SPREAD OF
ISLAM
CHAPTER 7: ABBASID DECLINE AND THE
SPREAD OF ISLAMIC CIVILIZATION TO
SOUTH AND SOUTHEAST ASIA
CHAPTER 8: AFRICAN CIVILIZATIONS AND
THE SPREAD OF ISLAM
Part I & II Test.
(70 QUESTIONS – 55 MINUTES)
COMPLETE LEADER ANALYSIS OF
MUHAMMAD AS THEY FINISH.
Leader Analysis
MUHAMMAD
Arabia and Surrounding Area Before and During the Time of
Muhammad
The Life of Muhammad and the Genesis of Islam.
 In the 6th century C.E., camel nomads dominated
Arabia.
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Cities were dependent upon alliances with surrounding tribes.
Pressures for change came from the Byzantine and Sassanid
empires (last pre-Islamic Persian Empire) and from the
presence of Judaism and Christianity.
The Life of Muhammad and the Genesis of Islam.
 Muhammad, a member
of the Banu Hasim clan
of the Quraysh, was born
about 570.
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Left an orphan, he was
raised by his father’s
family and became a
merchant.
Muhammad resided in
Mecca, where he married
a wealthy widow,
Khadijah.
The Life of Muhammad and the Genesis of Islam.
 Merchant travels allowed Muhammad to observe the
forces undermining clan unity and to encounter the
spread of monotheistic ideas.
 Muhammad became dissatisfied with a life focused
on material gain and went to meditate in the hills.
The Life of Muhammad and the Genesis of Islam.
 In 610, he began
receiving revelations
transmitted from God via
the angel Gabriel.
 Later, written in Arabic
and collected in the
Qur’an, they formed the
basis for Islam.
As Muhammad’s
initially very small
following grew, he
was seen as a threat
by Mecca’s rulers.
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The new faith
endangered the
gods of the Ka’ba.
With his life in
danger,
Muhammad was
invited to come to
Medina to mediate
its clan quarrels.
Persecution, Flight, and Victory.
Persecution, Flight, and Victory.
 In 622, Muhammad left Mecca for Medina where his
skilled leadership brought new followers.
 The Quraysh attacked Medina, but Muhammad’s
forces ultimately triumphed.
 A treaty in 628 allowed his followers permission to
visit the Ka’ba.
 He returned to Mecca in 629 and converted most of
its inhabitants to Islam.
Islam as an agent of change
The study of Chapters 6, 7, and 8 should give students
an understanding of Islamic civilization as the first
global civilization. They should be able to evaluate
the importance of Islam in Asia and in Africa and be
able to trace trade and migration routes of Islamic
culture.
Diversity within Islam
Although Islam was a unifying force, there was much
diversity within the Islamic empires. Students should
be aware of the ethnic differences, political rivalries,
and sectarian divisions within Islamic civilization.
Lecture
EVALUATE HOW A NOMADIC PASTORAL
SOCIETY PRODUCED A RELIGION CAPABLE
OF ACHIEVING GLOBAL DOMINANCE.
The Expansion of the Islamic Empire During the 7th and 8th
Centuries
Arabia before Islam was the home of a typical pastoral
nomadic society; the region lacked true urbanization,
occupational specialization, and the degree of social
stratification usually found in civilizations that
allowed the maintenance of specialized
bureaucracies.
Also missing were industries associated with
civilization, a rich material culture, and a writing
system.
Islam allowed the bedouins to overcome the problems
of tribalism and to unify into a theocratic system that
transcended clan and tribal limits.
Islamic warriors then were able to overcome their
civilized, but weak, neighbors. After conquest, the
Muslims incorporated influences from civilizations:
bureaucracies, urbanization, social stratification,
occupational specialization.
Unity came from religious beliefs, a single law code,
and an evolving distinctive Islamic culture.
Change Analysis
ARABIAN SOCIETY BEFORE AND AFTER
MUHAMMAD
Desert and Town: The Pre-Islamic Arabian World.
 The inhospitable Arabian Peninsula was inhabited by
bedouin societies.
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Some desert-dwellers herded camels and goats.
Others practiced agriculture in oasis towns.
 Important agricultural and commercial centers
flourished in southern coastal regions.

The towns were extensions of bedouin society, sharing its
culture and ruled by its clans.
Clan Identity, Clan Rivalries, and the Cycle of Vengeance.
 Mobile kin-related clans were the basis of social
organization.
 The clans clustered into larger tribal units that
functioned only during crises.
 In the harsh environment, individual survival
depended upon clan loyalty.

Wealth and status varied within clans.
Clan Identity, Clan Rivalries, and the Cycle of Vengeance.
 Leaders, or shaykhs, although elected by councils, usually
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were wealthy men.
Free warriors enforced their decisions.
Slave families served the leaders or the clan as a whole.
Clan cohesion was reinforced by interclan rivalry and by
conflicts over water and pasturage.
The resulting enmity might inaugurate feuds enduring
for centuries.
The strife weakened bedouin society against its rivals.
Towns and Long-Distance Trade.
 Cities had developed as entrep ts in the trading
system linking the Mediterranean to east Asia.
 The most important, Mecca, in western Arabia, had
been founded by the Umayyad clan of the Quraysh
tribe.
 The city was the site of the Ka’ba, an important
religious shrine that, during an obligatory annual
truce in interclan feuds, attracted pilgrims and
visitors.
The Ka’aba
Towns and Long-Distance Trade.
 A second important town, Medina, an agricultural
oasis and commercial center, lay to the northeast.
 Quarrels among Medina’s two bedouin and three
Jewish clans hampered its development and later
opened a place for Muhammad.
Marriage and the Family in Pre-Islamic Arabia.
 Women might have enjoyed more freedom than in
the Byzantine and Sassanid empires.
 They had key economic roles in clan life.
 Descent was traced through the female line, and men
paid a bride-price to the wife’s family.
 Women did not wear veils and were not secluded.
Both sexes had multiple marriage partners.
Marriage and the Family in Pre-Islamic Arabia.
 Still, men, who carried on the honored warrior
tradition, remained superior.
 Traditional practices of property control,
inheritance, and divorce favored men.
 Women did drudge labor.

Female status was even more restricted in urban centers.
Poets and Neglected Gods.
 Arab material culture, because of isolation and the
environment, was not highly developed.

The main focus of creativity was in orally transmitted poetry.
 Bedouin religion was a blend of animism and polytheism.
 Some tribes recognized a supreme deity, Allah, but paid
him little attention.
 They instead focused on spirits associated with nature.
 Religion and ethics were not connected.
 In all, the bedouin did not take their religion seriously.
End of Day 1
Lecture
ASSESS HOW THE DISPUTES OVER
AUTHORITY AFTER THE DEATH OF
MUHAMMAD SERVED TO HINDER FUTURE
MUSLIM UNITY.
 Muhammad did not leave a principle for succession
within Islam; he was the final Prophet.
 Successors to lead the Muslim community first were
elected by the umma.
 Ali contested the system by advocating descent from
Muhammad; this became the focal point of Shi’ism.
 Ali’s opposition caused civil war, and Umayyad
success led to their founding of a dynasty.
 The Shi’a never accepted defeat; descendants of
Muhammad were always present to contest rule over
Muslims.
 A fundamental division remained between the Sunni
and Shi’a divisions of Islam.
Inner/Outer Circle Discussion
IN DEPTH: CIVILIZATION AND GENDER
RELATIONSHIPS
 The strong position gained by women through
Muhammad’s teachings did not endure.
 Long-established Middle Eastern and Mediterranean
male-dominated traditions of the conquered
societies eventually prevailed.
 The historical record in China, India, Greece, and the
Middle East appears to make a connection among
political centralization, urbanization, and decline in
the position of women.
 But in the Islamic world, religion and law left women
of all classes in better conditions than in other
civilized cultures.
 In cultural areas with decentralized authority and
unstratified social organization, women retained a
stronger position.
Class Discussion
DESCRIBE THE NATURE OF BEDOUIN
SOCIETY BEFORE MUHAMMAD RECEIVED HIS
REVELATIONS.
Describe the nature of bedouin society before Muhammad
received his revelations.
 Bedouins were nomadic pastoralists.
 Their culture was based on camel and goat herding.
 Before Islam, the religion was polytheistic and
animistic, with little trade.
Class Discussion
IDENTIFY HOW ISLAM ADDRESSED THE
FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEMS IN ARABIAN
SOCIETY.
Identify how Islam addressed the fundamental problems in
Arabian society.
 Islam gave them a form of monotheism that
belonged to no single tribe and transcended clan and
class distinctions.
 It provided a religion that was distinctly Arab in
origin and yet equal to the monotheistic faiths held
by the Christians and Jews who lived among them.
 So it stopped the feuding between the tribes and
undermined their attempts to overthrow the
neighboring empires.
Class Discussion
TRACE THE SUCCESSION DISPUTE OVER THE
OFFICE OF CALIPH.
Trace the succession dispute over the office of caliph.
 After the execution of the third caliph, Ali tried to
become the caliph, but the Umayyad rejected his claims
because he failed to punish the assassin.
 They went to war and would have won but he accepted
pleas for mediation, which caused some of his most loyal
supporters to renounce him.
 The Umayyad appointed someone else as caliph and Ali
was assassinated.
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
His son was pressured by the Umayyad to reject his claim to
caliphate.
After Ali’s second son was killed the wars continued.
 This decision still remains the biggest difference in Islam
today.
Class Discussion
COMPARE WOMEN IN THE ISLAMIC WORLD
WITH WOMEN IN OTHER CONTEMPORARY
SOCIETIES.
Compare women in the Islamic world with women in other
contemporary societies.
 Women’s position in the Islamic world declined after
Muhammad’s death.
 Even though they were forced to be covered in
public, the women remained educated.
 They had less freedom than other women in
contemporary societies.
Conflict Analysis
SUNNI-SHI’A SPLIT
The Problem of Succession and the Sunni-Shi’a Split.
 Arab victories for a time covered old tribal internal
divisions.


The murder of Uthman, the third caliph, caused a succession
struggle.
Muhammad’s earliest followers supported Ali, but he was
rejected by the Umayyads.
 In the ensuing hostilities, Ali won the advantage
until he accepted a plea for mediation at Siffin in
657.
The Problem of Succession and the Sunni-Shi’a Split.
 The dispute left a permanent division within Islam.
 The Shi’a, eventually dividing into many sects,
continued to uphold the rights of Ali’s descendants
to be caliphs.
Document Analysis
THE THOUSAND AND ONE NIGHTS
End of Day 2
The Coastal Trading Ports.
 Bantu-speaking migrants had reached and mixed
with indigenous Africans early in the first
millennium C.E.
 Immigrants from southeast Asia had migrated to
Madagascar from the second century B.C.E.
 With the rise of Islam, individuals from Oman and
the Persian Gulf settled in coastal villages.
 By the 13th century, a mixed Bantu and Islamic
culture, speaking the Bantu Swahili language,
emerged in a string of urbanized trading ports.
Describe the “common elements” in African societies.
 They shared a Bantu linguistic base, animistic
religion, and belief in a creator deity.
Part I & II Exam Quiz
Lecture
DESCRIBE THE POLITICAL, CULTURAL, AND
ECONOMIC CHARACTERISTICS OF THE
ABBASID EMPIRE.
 In political organization, the Abbasids suffered from
a loss of central authority and a growth of regional
dynasties.
 There were many revolts by Shi’a, mercenary armies,
and peasants.
 The dynasty crumbled from the invasions of Buyids,
Seljuk Turks, and Mongols.
 The Abbasid economy depended on agriculture and
trade.
 Agriculture required irrigation and this failed under
the later dynasty.
 Cities grew and prospered; long-distance trade
reached into India and southeast Asia.
 In culture, the Abbasids were the zenith of Islamic
civilization, with advances in science, literature,
mathematics, and philosophy.
Peoples Analysis
ABBASID EMPIRE
Change Analysis
POSITION OF WOMEN IN ABBASID SOCIETY
Change Analysis
INDIA BEFORE AND AFTER ISLAMIC SPREAD
Class Discussion
EVALUATE THE WEAKNESSES OF THE LATER
ABBASID EMPIRE.
Evaluate the weaknesses of the later Abbasid Empire.
 Rebellious governors and new dynasties wanted to
challenge the Abbasid rulers.
 The empire couldn’t be held together.
 It was very diverse.
Class Discussion
DESCRIBE THE POSITION OF WOMEN IN THE
ABBASID EMPIRE.
Describe the position of women in the Abbasid Empire.
 Women were separated from the men.
 Their social status was declining.
 They were married at age nine and remained
housewives pretty much their whole lives.
Class Discussion
TRACE THE STAGES OF ISLAMIC INCURSION
INTO INDIA.
Trace the stages of Islamic incursion into India.
 An attack by pirates on Arab trade ships led to the
first Muslim invasion into India.
 Mohamed of Ghazni led a series of expeditions in
northern India that became campaigns aimed at
seizing political control in north India.
 Over the centuries, sizeable Muslim communities
began to develop on the subcontinent.
Class Discussion
TO WHAT EXTENT WERE MUSLIMS
SUCCESSFUL IN CONVERTING INDIANS TO
ISLAM?
To what extent were Muslims successful in converting Indians
to Islam?
 The majority of their converts were Buddhist, but
they were also successful at converting people from
low-caste groups.
 They used peaceable means of conversion.
 This was primarily aided by the Muslim trade routes
and Muslim ruled areas of India.
End of Day 3
Lecture
COMPARE THE ISLAMIC EFFECT ON INDIA
AND SOUTHEAST ASIA WITH THAT ON SUB SAHARAN AFRICA.
CREATE A VENN DIAGRAM SHOWING THE
COMPARISON.
 There were great similarities.
 Muslims arrived as traders and began a peaceful
conversion process.
 Political systems remained under the control of
indigenous rulers.
 The process made possible an accommodation
between Islam and indigenous religions that made
long-term conversion to Islam easier.
 Islam spread from cities to the countryside.
 The arrival of Muslims brought Africa into the
Islamic world network; southeast Asia and India
expanded earlier contacts.
Inner/Outer Circle Discussion
IN DEPTH: TWO TRANSITIONS IN THE
HISTORY OF WORLD POPULATION
 Even though determining the size and structure of
historical populations is very difficult, their study has
become a valued tool for better understanding the past.
 Demographic research presents an opportunity for
uncovering aspects of the politics and economy of past
societies.
 Regular census taking became common only in some
societies during the 18th century.
 Until then, the human population grew slowly, increasing
as agriculture and other discoveries opened new
resources.
 By 1750 C.E., the Earth had about 500 million
inhabitants.
 Premodern economies maintained a rough equality
between births and deaths, with most individuals not
reaching the age of 35.
 Since 1750, with the onset of the Industrial
Revolution and other developments, a demographic
transition, occurring first in Europe, sent world
population to more than 5 billion at the end of the
20th century.
Change Analysis
ARRIVAL OF ISLAM TO AFRICA
The Arrival of Islam in North Africa.
 North Africa was an integral part of the classical
Mediterranean civilization.
 From the mid-7th century, Muslim armies pushed
westward from Egypt across the regions called
Ifriqiya by the Romans and the Maghrib (the West)
by the Arabs.
 By 711 they crossed into Spain.
The Arrival of Islam in North Africa.
 Conversion was rapid, but initial unity soon divided
north Africa into competing Muslim states.
 The indigenous Berbers were an integral part of the
process.
 In the 11th century, reforming Muslim Berbers, the
Almoravids of the western Sahara, controlled lands
extending from the southern savanna and into Spain.
The Arrival of Islam in North Africa.
 In the 12th century another group, the Almohadis,
succeeded them.
 Islam, with its principle of the equality of believers,
won African followers.
 The unity of the political and religious worlds
appealed to many rulers.
 Social disparities continued, between ethnicities and
men and women, the former stimulating later reform
movements.
Kingdoms of the Grasslands.
 Islam spread peacefully into sub-Saharan Africa.
 Merchants followed caravan routes across the Sahara
to the regions where Sudanic states, such as Ghana,
had flourished by the 8th century.
 By the 13th century, new states, Mali, Songhay, and
the Hausa, were becoming important.
Sudanic States.
 The states often were led by a patriarch or council of
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elders from a family or lineage.
They were based on an ethnic core and conquered
neighboring peoples.
The rulers were sacred individuals separated from
their subjects by rituals.
Even though most of their population did not
convert, the arrival of Islam after the 10th century
reinforced ruling power.
Two of the most important states were Mali and
Songhay.
The Empire of Mali and Sundiata, the “Lion Prince.”
 Mali, along the Senegal and Niger rivers, was formed
among the Malinke peoples, who broke away from
Ghana in the 13th century.
 Ruler authority was strengthened by Islam.
 Agriculture, combined with the gold trade, was the
economic base of the state.
 The ruler (mansa) Sundiata (d. 1260) receives credit
for Malinke expansion and for a governing system
based on clan structure.
The Empire of Mali and Sundiata, the “Lion Prince.”
 Sundiata’s successors in this wealthy state extended
Mali’s control through most of the Niger valley to
near the Atlantic coast.
 Mansa Kankan Musa’s pilgrimage to Mecca during
the 14th century became legendary because of the
wealth distributed along the way.
 He returned with an architect, Ishak al-Sahili, who
created a distinctive Sudanic architecture using
beaten clay.
Mansa Musa
The Songhay Kingdom.
 The Songhay people dominated the middle reaches of the
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Niger valley.
Songhay became an independent state in the 7th century.
By 1010, the rulers were Muslims and had a capital at
Gao.
Songhay won freedom from Mali by the 1370s and
prospered as a trading state.
An empire was formed under Sunni Ali (1464-1492), a
great military leader, who extended rule over the entire
middle Niger valley.
He developed a system of provincial administration to
secure the conquests.
The Songhay Kingdom.
 Sunni Ali’s successors were Muslim rulers with the
title of askia; by the mid-16th century, their state
dominated central Sudan.
 Daily life followed patterns common in savanna
states; Islamic and indigenous traditions combined.
 Men and women mixed freely; women went unveiled
and young girls at Jenne were naked.
 Songhay remained dominant until defeated by
Moroccans in 1591.
The Songhay Kingdom.
 Other states that combined Muslim and pagan ways
rose among the Hausa of northern Nigeria.
 In the 14th century, the first Muslim ruler of Kano
made the Hausa city a center of Muslim learning.
 Along with other Hausa cities, Kano followed the
Islamic-indigenous amalgam present in the earlier
grasslands empires.
 Traders and other Muslims widely spread influences,
even in regions without Islamic states.
Political and Social Life in the Sudanic States.
 Larger states were ruled by a dominant group.
 Islam provided a universal faith and a fixed law that
served common interests.
 Indigenous political and social patterns persisted in
the unified states.
 Rulers reinforced authority through Muslim officials
and ideology, but existing traditions continued to be
vital, since many of their subjects were not Muslims.
Political and Social Life in the Sudanic States.
 The fusion of traditions shows in the status of
women.
 Many Sudanic societies were matrilineal and did not
seclude women.
 Slavery and a slave trade to the Islamic world lasting
more than 700 years had a major effect on women
and children.
 All individuals might become slaves, but the demand
for concubines and eunuchs increased demand for
women and children.
The Swahili Coast of East Africa.
 A series of trading ports, part of the Indian Ocean
network, developed along the coast and islands
between the Horn of Africa and Mozambique.
 Town residents were influenced by Islam, but most
of the general population remained tied to
traditional ways.
The Coastal Trading Ports.
 They exported raw materials in return for Indian,
Islamic, and Chinese luxuries.
 As many as 30 towns flourished, their number
including Mogadishu, Mombasa, Malindi, Kilwa,
Pate, and Zanzibar.
 From the 13th to the 15th century, Kilwa was the
most important.
 All were tied together by coastal commerce and by an
inland caravan trade.
The Mixture of Cultures on the Swahili Coast.
 The expansion of Islamic influence in the Indian
Ocean facilitated commerce.
 It built a common bond between rulers and trading
families and allowed them to operate under the cover
of a common culture.
 Apart from rulers and merchants, most of the
population, even in the towns, retained African
beliefs.
The Mixture of Cultures on the Swahili Coast.
 A dynamic culture developed, using Swahili as its
language, and incorporating African and Islamic
practices.
 Lineage passed through both maternal and paternal
lines.
 There was not a significant penetration of Islam into
the interior.
Global Connections: Internal Development and External
Contacts.
 The spread of Islam had brought large areas of Africa
into the global community.
 The most pronounced contacts south of the Sahara
were in the Sudanic states and east Africa, where a
fusion of Islamic and African cultures created an
important synthesis.
 Most of Africa evolved in regions free of Islamic
contact.
Document Analysis
THE GREAT ORAL TRADITION AND THE EPIC
OF SUNDIATA
Class Discussion
DESCRIBE THE “COMMON ELEMENTS” IN
AFRICAN SOCIETIES.
Bantu Migrations, 2000 BCE-1000 CE
Describe the “common elements” in African societies.
 They shared a Bantu linguistic base, animistic
religion, and belief in a creator deity.
Class Discussion
TRACE HOW ISLAM ENTERED AFRICA.
Trace how Islam entered Africa.
 Islam originally entered Africa by expansion.
 This led to wandering mystics, Muslim warriors,
traders carrying the faith into Africa.
 This took place between the 10th and 14th centuries,
as a result of political fragmentation, political
conquest, and more enduring peaceful conversion.
Class Discussion
HOW DID ISLAM AND THE BELIEFS OF
INDIGENOUS SOCIETIES FUSE AMONG
AFRICAN PEOPLES?
How did Islam and the beliefs of indigenous societies fuse
among African peoples?
 Much of the populations failed to convert and
Islamic ruling families also drew on traditional
powers to fortify their rule.
 Simply, Islam allows for non-Muslims to live within
their regions.
 However, as was the case in Africa, Muslims had very
limited contacts with non-Muslims.
Class Discussion
WHERE DID CULTURES IN AFRICA DEVELOP
THAT WERE NOT AFFECTED BY ISLAM?
DESCRIBE THE NATURE OF THEIR
ORGANIZATION.
Where did cultures in Africa develop that were NOT affected
by Islam? Describe the nature of their organization.
 In Ethiopia, the people were not affected by Islam,
but instead Christianity.
 There were attempts to convert to Islam in this
region, but they did manage to stay independent.
 The southern half of the African continent remained
virtually unaffected by Islam as well.
 This region was considered insignificant by most of
the non-indigenous peoples.
Muslims at Prayer
The Problem of Succession and the Sunni-Shi’a Split.
 Ali lost the support of his most radical adherents,
and the Umayyads won the renewed hostilities.
 The Umayyad leader, Mu’awiya, was proclaimed
caliph in 660.
 Ali was assassinated in 661; his son, Husayn, was
killed at Karbala in 680.
Shi’ite Pilgrims at Karbala
The expansion of Islam, 632-733 C.E.
The trading world of the Indian Ocean basin, 600-1600 C.E.
Obelisk at Axum
Kingdoms and empires of sub-Saharan Africa, 800-1500 C.E.
Nok Sculpture (Swahili)
Arabian Swahili Slave Trade
Slavery
 Practiced since ancient times
 Most slaves captives of war
 Debtors
 Suspected witches
 Criminals
 Used principally in agricultural labor
 Slave possession a status symbol
Slave Trading
 Increased trans-Saharan and Indian Ocean trade
stimulates slave trade, 9th c. CE
 Africa replaces eastern Europe as principal source of
slaves
 Creates internal African slave trade
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More powerful states attack smaller kinship-based groups
10,000-20,000 slaves per year