Sharia, Sufis, and Cultural Encounters in the Islamic World
WHAP/Napp
Objective: To identify and explain social, cultural,
and political changes in the Islamic world
Do Now: How did Islam change the status of
women?
Cues:
Notes:
I. The Abbasid Dynasty (750-1258)
A. Splendid new capital in BaghdadA flourishing and prosperous Islamic
civilizationnon-Arab Persians played a prominent role
1. Persian cultural influence was reflected in a new title for the caliph, “the
shadow of God on earth”
B. But the political unity of the Abbasid Empire did not last long
1. Formal allegiance to the caliph in Baghdad but fractured politically into
“sultanates,” many ruled by Persian or Turkish military dynasties
II. Yet Development of Sharia
A. Extensive body of Islamic law
B. Work of the ulama or religious scholars in primarily 8th and 9th centuries
C. Based on the Quran, the life and teachings of Muhammad, deductive
reasoning, and the consensus of scholars
D. To the ulama, living as a Muslim meant following the sharia
III. A Second Understanding of the Faith – Sufism
A. Saw the worldly success of Islamic civilization as a distraction and deviation
from the purer spirituality of Muhammad’s time
B. Sufis  represented Islam’s mystical dimension, sought a direct and
personal experience of the divine
1. Renunciation of material world, meditation on words of the Quran, use
of music and dance, veneration of Muhammad and various “saints
C. Became widely popular by the ninth and tenth centuries and was sharply
critical of the more scholarly and legalistic practitioners of the sharia
D. But for orthodox religious scholars, Sufism verged on heresy Sufis
claimed to be one with God, to receive new revelations, or to incorporate
religious practices from outside the Islamic world
E. Al-Ghazali (1058-1111)
1. Major Islamic thinkerboth a legal scholar and a Sufi
2. Rational philosophy alone could never enable believers to know Allah
IV. Gender and Islam
A. On a spiritual level, the Quran was clear, men and women were equal
B. But in social terms, women were inferior and subordinate
C. Female infanticide was forbidden…Women were given control over their
own property…Women were granted rights of inheritance, although half
the rate of male counterparts
D. Women could sue for divorce if they had not had sexual relations for more
than four monthsBut the practice of a woman taking several husbands
was prohibited while polygyny, multiple wives for a man, was allowed (a
man was limited to four wives as long as treated equally)
Summaries:
Cues:
E. But veiling and seclusion of women became standard practice among the
upper and ruling classes, removing women from public life
F. Also “honor killing” of women by male relatives for violating sexual taboos
V. But like Buddhism and Christianity, Islam also offered new outlets
1. Some Sufi orders had parallel groups for women
2. Even within world of Shia Islam, women teachers were termed mullahs
3. The home or in Quranic schools, allowed some women to become literate
VI. Islam and Cultural Encounters
A. The Turks became third major carrier of Islam, after Arabs and Persians
B. Turkic and Muslims regimes governed much of India until the British
takeover in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries
C. Disillusioned Buddhists as well as low-caste Hindus and untouchables found
the more egalitarian Islam attractive
1. But in India, never more than 20 to 25 percent of the total population
affiliated with Islam
a) Islam was radically monotheistic while Hinduism was surely polytheistic
b) Islam’s equality of all believers contrasted with the Hindu caste system
c) But in the early sixteenth century, a new and distinct religious tradition
emerged in India, known as Sikhism
1) blended elements of Islam, such as devotion to one universal God,
with Hindu concepts, such as Karma and rebirth
D. But in Anatolia, the population by 1500 was 90% Muslim and largely
Turkic-speakingAnatolia was the heartland of the powerful Turkish
Ottoman Empire that had overrun Christian Byzantium
E. But Islamization did not completely eliminate the influence of Turkish
cultureTradition of a freer, more gender-equal life for women, common
among pastoral people, persisted after the conversion to Islam
F. In West Africa, Islam accompanied Muslim traders across the Sahara
1. For African merchant communities, Islam provided an important link to
Muslim trading partners
2. By the sixteenth century, a number of West African cities had become
major centers of Islamic religious and intellectual life (like Timbuktu)
3. Ibn Battuta, a fourteenth-century Arab traveler, was appalled that
practicing Muslims in Mali permitted their women to appear in public
almost naked and to mingle freely with unrelated men
G. The chief site of Islamic encounter with Catholic Europe occurred in Spain
(called al-Andalus by Muslims)
H. Beginning in eleventh century, formal colleges called madrassas offered
advanced instruction in the Quran and sayings of Muhammad and law
I. The ulama were an “international elite” but also Sufi shayks, or teachers,
began to attract groups of disciples and of course, pilgrimage to Mecca
J. Islamic civilization was a network of faith but also a network of trade
K. The blending of Islamic civilization and other civilizations led to new
contributions to learningIn eleventh and twelfth centuries, this enormous
body of Arab medical scholarship entered Europe via Spain
Summaries:
Questions:
 How did the rise of Islam change the lives of women?
 What similarities and differences can you identify in the spread of Islam to India,
Anatolia, West Africa, and Spain?
 Why was Anatolia so much more thoroughly Islamized than India?
 What makes it possible to speak of the Islamic world as a distinct and coherent
civilization?
 In what ways was the world of Islam a "cosmopolitan civilization"?
1. The split between Sunni and Shi’a
4. Which of the following is a major
Muslims occurred as a result of
difference between the classic periods
(A) Divergent interpretations of
in Rome and the Islamic
religious texts
civilizations?
(B) Conflict over the translation of
(A) While Roman society had strict
liturgy into native languages
social class delineations and little
(C) Disagreement over leadership
mobility, Islam was egalitarian
succession issues
with few barriers to social
(D) A rift between more
mobility.
fundamentalist and more liberal
(B) The Islamic civilization was more
branches of Islam
dependent on agriculture and
therefore more susceptible to
2. Which of the following is an accurate
fluctuations in food supply.
statement about Islamic art and
(C) While the Roman Empire fell as a
architecture?
result of internal warfare over
(A) Islamic art focused on abstract
succession to the throne, Islamic
geometric patterns and ornate
dynasties faced few internal
calligraphy in Arabic.
divisions.
(B) Elaborate miniatures of historical
(D) Islamic scientific thought and art
figures and historical battles were
forms borrowed heavily from
created during the Abbasid and
Hellenistic sources, while Rome’s
Umayyad Dynasties.
scientific, philosophical, and
(C) The most important architectural
artistic advancements were
contributions were elaborate
unique to its culture.
pyramids and sculptures.
(D) Most Islamic art forms were
5. Like Christians, Muslims profess all
derived from classic Greek and
of the following beliefs EXCEPT
Roman examples.
(A) Monotheism.
(B) Resurrection.
3. Who is recognized by Muslims as the
(C) The Last Judgment.
last prophet?
(D) The teachings of Moses.
(A) Abraham
(E) The Trinity.
(B) Ishmael
(C) Abu Bakr
6. Shi’ites recognize their leader, who
(D) Muhammad
fulfills both political and religious
(E) Moses
functions as,
(A) Caliph.
(B) Imam.
Excerpt from cfr.org
Sharia, or Islamic law, influences the legal code in most Muslim countries. A movement to
allow sharia to govern personal status law, a set of regulations that pertain to marriage,
divorce, inheritance, and custody, is even expanding into the West. "There are so many
varying interpretations of what sharia actually means that in some places it can be
incorporated into political systems relatively easily," says Steven A. Cook, CFR senior
fellow for Middle Eastern studies. Sharia's influence on both personal status law and
criminal law is highly controversial, though. Some interpretations are used to justify cruel
punishments such as amputation and stoning as well as unequal treatment of women in
inheritance, dress, and independence. The debate is growing as to whether sharia can
coexist with secularism, democracy, or even modernity
What is Sharia?
Also meaning "path" in Arabic, sharia guides all aspects of Muslim life including daily
routines, familial and religious obligations, and financial dealings. It is derived primarily
from the Quran and the Sunna--the sayings, practices, and teachings of the Prophet
Mohammed. Precedents and analogy applied by Muslim scholars are used to address new
issues. The consensus of the Muslim community also plays a role in defining this theological
manual.
Sharia developed several hundred years after the Prophet Mohammed's death in 632 CE
as the Islamic empire expanded to the edge of North Africa in the West and to China in the
East. Since the Prophet Mohammed was considered the most pious of all believers, his life
and ways became a model for all other Muslims and were collected by scholars into what is
known as the hadith. As each locality tried to reconcile local customs and Islam, hadith
literature grew and developed into distinct schools of Islamic thought: the Sunni schools,
Hanbali, Maliki, Shafi'i, Hanafi; and the Shiite school, Ja'fari. Named after the scholars
that inspired them, they differ in the weight each applies to the sources from which sharia
is derived, the Quran, hadith, Islamic scholars, and consensus of the community. The
Hanbali School, known for following the most Orthodox form of Islam, is embraced in
Saudi Arabia and by the Taliban. The Hanafi school, known for being the most liberal and
the most focused on reason and analogy, is dominant among Sunnis in Central Asia, Egypt,
Pakistan, India, China, Turkey, the Balkans, and the Caucasus. The Maliki School is
dominant in North Africa and the Shafi'i school in Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei
Darussalam, and Yemen. Shia Muslims follow the Ja'fari school, most notably in Shiadominant Iran. The distinctions have more impact on the legal systems in each country,
however, than on individual Muslims, as many do not adhere to one school in their
personal lives.
Thesis Statement: Comparative: Political and Cultural Impact of Christianity and Islam
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