Islam=name of the religion
Muslim=someone who practices Islam


 Very harsh desert environment. Very little water
 The people there become very fierce as they compete for scarce resources like water


 Villages grow up around an oasis- places where water naturally comes up out of the ground
 Villages along trade routes between Africa,
Asia, and Europe grow and prosper


 Most people there are nomadic shepherds called Bedouins
 Bedouins are polytheistic
 Bedouin people are often called Arabs, especially after they cease being nomadic


 According to legend, the ancestor of the Arabs is Ismael,
Abraham’s illegitimate son by his wife’s slave
 Arabs therefore claim the same origins as the Hebrews


 Muhammad is born into this harsh Arab/Bedouin culture around 570 AD.
 He is born in Mecca and becomes a wealthy merchant
 He is famous for being a wise man and very spiritual

 One day Muhammad is visited by the angel
Gabriel who tells him that Muhammad is to be God’s prophet
 Gabriel recites the
Qur’an (Koran) to
Muhammad to memorize since
Muhammad is illiterate


 Muslims believe that Muhammad is the last prophet, but not the only one.
 Previous prophets include all the Jewish and
Christian prophets – like Moses and even Jesus (they do not believe he is God’s son)


 The Qur’an is Islam’s holy book. It is word-for-word, the words Gabriel told Muhammad to learn
 Also is a book of the prophet
Muhammad’s sayings called the
Hadith and a book detailing his actions called the Sunnah.
 Together, these books are the guiding documents for Muslims
 BTW, the Qur’an is written in
Arabic, and many Muslims believe to truly understand it, you must read it in Arabic


 Means “submission” (to God)
 People who practice Islam are called Muslims, which means “one who submits” (to God)


 Muslims believe in five core duties as written in the
Qur’an

Shahada
• Accepting
God
• Say: “There is no god but Allah, and
Muhammad is his
Prophet”
Salah
• Prayer
• Muslims must face
Mecca five times daily and pray
Zakat
• Alms
• Means giving to the poor
Sawm
• Fasting
• Muslims must fast during
Ramadan to atone for sins
Hajj
• Pilgramage
• Ablebodied
Muslims who can afford it must travel to Mecca


 Christianity and Judaism are viewed as a pre-cursor to Islam
 They are allowed to practice their faith because of this, though they are encouraged to convert to Islam
 If they do not convert, they must pay a tax (jizyah
“tribute”)


 The small Muslim movement is persecuted from
Mecca and forced to flee 200 miles to the village of
Medina (hijira)
 In the year 630, Muhammad returned to Mecca and took the city.
 He spared the people there, establishing a pattern of treating conquered people with tolerance


 Islam quickly spread throughout the Arabian
Peninsula
 Get out your maps
 Label the colored section “Islam during
Muhammad’s life”


 Muhammad died in 632 AD
 In his farewell speech, he warned the Muslim community against returning to pre-Islamic practices
 However, he did not give instructions for who should succeed him as leader
Masjid-Al-Nabawi – Tomb of the Prophet


 Among the lands the Muslims conquer are parts of the Byzantine Empire- like Jersualem
 Jerusalem is the holiest city in Judaism and
Christianity
 The oldest and possibly best know mosque in the world is the Dome of the Rock.
They built it on the same hill as the King Solomon’s Templethe holiest Jewish site.




 732 AD a Muslim army comprised of Moors from
North Africa invaded France
 They were stopped at the Battle of Tours by a
Frankish general named Charles (later Charles
Martel)
 The battle is seen as preserving Christianity in
Europe


 Muhammad’s successors, called caliphs, were elected
 They worked to expand
Islam through conquering new territories

 Under Muhammad’s successors, Islam continued to spread, eventually including all the land from Spain to the Indus River, and even further east to China and Indonesia
 On your map, label this section “Extent of Islam”




 Ali, was Muhammad’s cousin and son-in-law. He became caliph, but was assassinated.


 After the first 4 caliphs, the Umayyad Caliphate became the dominant force in Islam
 The Umayyad's moved the capital to Damascus
(modern Syria) and began to act more like European
(Byzantine) rulers
Umayyad Mosque (Great Mosque of Damascus)


 There were some Muslims who believed the Umayyad’s were corrupting Islam
 One of those was Ali’s son
(Muhammad’s grandson),
Hussein
 He refused to pay allegiance to the
Umayyad.
 At the Battle of Karbala, Hussein was beheaded
 He is a martyr to Shi’a Muslims


 The people who were loyal to
Hussein believed that the caliph should be a descendent of Muhammad
 They are called Shi’a (Shiite) – means “Party of Ali”
 Almost all of them live in
South-east Iraq and Iran
 Karbala is a holy site to which they pilgrimage today


 Those who remained loyal to the Umayyad are called Sunni (means Majority)
 Sunni make up over 85% of Muslims today

 The Sufi branch also broke away during the
Umayyads

 Sufis are generally seen as practicing a mystical type of Islam in which they seek to know only Allah in all things
 This is a very small, but highly dedicated sect of
Islam


 Baghdad became the capital
 The city would eventually have a population of 1 million at a time when Paris and
London counted less than 50,000
 Baghdad was the center of learning


 One of the earliest universities was founded in
Baghdad. These centers for learning contributed to learning and many new Islamic inventions.


 Arab scholars made advances in math and astronomy
 They invented Algebra
 And, modern numerals like 1, 2, 3, 4… are Arabic inventions


 Muslim physicians contributed to modern medicine by discovering the causes of certain diseases like
Smallpox
 Al Razi, the most famous Muslim physician, even realized that patients recover better in clean environments


 Muslim scholars preserved and translated many of the
Greek and Roman classic texts
 Eventually, as contact with the
Christians in Western Europe increased, that knowledge would pass back to Europe


 Get out your book to page 283, use the pie charts to answer the following questions with your group.
Turn in your answers.
 How many Muslims are there in the world?
 In which regions are Muslims a majority (more than
50%) or plurality (more than any other group)?
 If India’s population is 1.1 billion, how many Muslims live there?
 If the United States’ population is 3 million, how many
Muslims live there?

