Bellwork
• Read Islamic Civilization: The Five Pillars,
and answer the following question: what are
the five pillars of Islam?
World History
Section 4, Unit 1
Rise of Islam
Objectives
• Identify important characteristics of
Muslim society including: religious ideas,
scientific contributions, and the spread of
Islam
• Examine the geography of where the Islamic
peoples come from
• Evaluate the culture of Islamic peoples
• Identify important religious figures or areas
including Muhammad and Mecca
Where are we in history?
• Because were are now is Section 4, we are
officially entered an new era of human
history:
Post Classical Era
• In this era, we are going to be discussing the
following subject areas:
– The Muslim World
– African Kingdoms
– The Mongol Empire
– Japan
– Byzantium
– The Middle Ages
What we have already discussed
• We have already discussed a few areas of the
Post Classical Era, however, including:
– China’s empires
– India’s empires
– Silk Road
Any questions so far?
• Any questions so far?
• If not, lets move on to discussing the rise of
Islam
The Arabian Peninsula
• The Arabian Peninsula is a
crossroads of three
continents– Europe, Asia,
and Africa.
• At it’s longest point, the
Peninsula is only about
1,200 miles from north to
south and 1,300 miles east
to west.
• Only a tiny strip of fertile
land in south Arabia and
Oman and a few oases can
support agriculture.
– The remainder of the land–
all desert– was inhabited by
nomadic Arab herders.
Desert life
• In the desert, nomads
called Bedouins (bedoo-inz) were
organized into clans.
• These clans provided
security and support
for a life made difficult
by extreme conditions
of the desert.
Desert Life
• The tribesmen took great pride in their
ability to adapt to the desert conditions and
their ability to defend against other clans
who tried to steal their water, grazing
territory, livestock, or food supplies.
• The Bedouin’s ideals of courage and loyalty
to family would become a huge part of the
Islamic way of life.
Communities
• The areas with
more fertile soil
and larger oases
became farming
communities and
towns.
Petra, in Jordan, was an early Arab
trading city.
Communities
• By the 600s, many Arabs began to settle in
the oases rather than continue being
nomads.
• These places would become hotspots for
local, regional, and foreign trade goods.
Trade
• By the early 600s, trade routes connected
Arabia to the major ocean and land trade
routes.
• Trade routes ran through Arabia from the
extreme south of the Peninsula to the
Byzantine and Sassanid empire to the north.
• Merchants moved along the caravan routes,
trading for goods from the Silk Roads of the
east.
Spread of Ideas
• As trade increased, information and ideas from
the world outside Arabia soon began to spread.
As trade left the
Peninsula (pink and
green lines), information
came in to the Peninsula.
Trade routes brought
ideas that would not only
revolutionize the
Arabian Peninsula, but
also make it a holy
center.
Mecca
• Located in the western
half of the Peninsula,
Mecca became an
important stop along
trade routes.
• During certain holy
periods, religious
pilgrims would stop in
Mecca to worship at a
simple house of worship
called the Ka’aba.
Ka’aba
• To the Arabic peoples,
they associated the
Ka’aba with Abraham,
who they believed
built the Ka’aba.
Ka’aba
• Over the years, they had introduced the
place of worship to many gods and spirits to
the place.
• Many people traveled to the Ka’aba as a site
of pilgrimage.
Allah
• The concept of a single God– Allah in Arabic–
was not a strange belief in the Arabian
peninsula.
• A tradition of belief in one god had long been
followed by a few people in the region, called
hanifs.
• As well, many Christians and Jews lived in the
Arab lands and practiced monotheism. In this
mixed religious environment of Mecca, around
570 A.D., Muhammad was born.
Muhammad
• Muhammad was born
to a powerful Meccan
family.
• Orphaned at the age of
six, he was raised by
his grandfather and
uncle.
Muhammad
• He received little schooling and began
working in the caravan trade at a young age.
Muhammad became a trader and business
manager of Khadijah, a wealthy
businesswoman.
• When Muhammad was 25, he married
Khadijah and they used their marriage to
form a stronger business partnership.
Muhammad’s Revelations
• Muhammad took great
interest in religion and
often spent time alone
in prayer and
meditation.
Muhammad’s name in calligraphy
Muhammad’s Revelations
• At the about the age of 40, Muhammad
purportedly heard a voice call to him while
he meditated in a cave outside Mecca.
• According to Muslim belief, the voice was
that of the angel Gabriel, who told
Muhammad that he was a messenger of
God.
Islam
• Muhammad came to believe that the lord
who spoke to him was Allah. Muhammad
was convinced he was the last of the
prophets.
• He taught that Allah was the one and only
god and that all other gods must be
abandoned.
Islam
• People who agreed
with this basic
principle of Islam were
called Muslims.
• “Islam” means
“submission to the will
of Allah” in Arabic and
“Muslim” means “one
who has submitted”.
Muhammad Preaching
• Muhammad’s family
became his first
followers.
• Afterwards, in 613,
Muhammad had begun
to preach publicly in
Mecca.
Muhammad Preaching
• At first he had little success as most Arabs
were unwilling to give up belief in the
traditional Arabic gods.
– Some feared that Mecca would lose it’s position
as a pilgrimage center if people accepted
Muhammad’s monotheistic beliefs.
– Some of his followers, much like the Christians
before them, were beaten up or stoned in the
streets.
The Hijrah
• Due to the hostility they faced in Mecca,
Muhammad and his followers left Mecca and,
in 622 AD, resettled in the town of Yathrib (jath-reb).
• This migration became known as the Hijrah
(hih-jee-rah). Muhammad’s Hijrah to Yathrib
was a turning point for Muhammad. In
Yathrib, he attracted many devoted followers.
• Due to Yathrib’s devotion to Muhammad, the
city was renamed Medina meaning “city of the
prophet”.
Medina
• In Medina, Muhammad
displayed impressive
leadership skills. He
formed an agreement
between the Arabs and
Jews of the city and they
accepted Muhammad as
their political leader.
– As a religious leader, he
drew many more converts
to Islam.
– As a military leader
(which he became), he
managed the hostilities
between Mecca and
Medina.
Return to Mecca
• Many of the tribes in the region converted
to Islam and joined Muhammad and his
followers. During the years that Muslims
and the Meccans battled each other,
Mecca’s power as a city declined.
• In 630, Muhammad and 10,000 of his
followers marched into the outskirts of
Mecca.
Triumph
• Facing sure defeat, Mecca’s leaders
surrendered.
• Muhammad entered the city in triumph and
went to the Ka’aba. Upon arriving, he declared:
“Truth has come and falsehood has vanished.”
• He then entered the Ka’aba and destroyed the
idols inside that represented the other Arabic
gods and had a call to prayer made from the
roof of the building.
Ummah
• Most Meccan’s pledged their loyalty to
Muhammad and many converted to Islam.
• In doing so, they joined the ummah or
Muslim religious community.
Muhammad’s death
• Muhammad would die
two years afterwards,
at about the age of 62.
However, his efforts–
and later success- of
spreading Islam across
the Arabian peninsula
would unify the entire
region under Islam.
Islamic Belief System
• The main teaching of Islam is that there is only
one God, Allah.
– All other teachings and practices follow from this
main point.
• Islam teaches that there is good and evil and
that each individual is responsible for their
actions.
• Muslims believe that each person will stand
before Allah on final judgment day and enter
either heaven or hell.
The Five Pillars of Islam
The Five Pillars of Islam
1. Faith- to become a Muslim, a person has to testify
a statement of faith, “There is no God but Allah,
and Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah.”
2. Prayer- Five times a day, Muslims face towards
Mecca to pray. They may assemble at a mosque (an
Islamic house of worship) or they may pray
wherever they find themselves.
3. Alms- Muhammad taught that all Muslims have a
duty to the less fortunate. Muslims meet the social
responsibility by giving alms or money for the poor
through a religious tax.
The Five Pillars of Islam (cont.)
4. Fasting- During the Islamic holy month of
Ramadan, Muslims fast. They eat and drink
nothing between dawn and sunset. They usually
eat a simple meal at the beginning and end of the
day. This pillar is to remind them that they have
“greater needs than bread”.
5. Pilgrimage- all Muslims perform the hajj, or
pilgrimage, to Mecca at least once in their lifetime.
During the pilgrimage events to Mecca, pilgrims
wear identical garments so that all stand as equals
before God.
Way of Life
• Muslims generally do
not separate their
personal life from their
religious life. The Five
Pillars ensures that
Muslims live their
religion while serving in
their community.
• Along with the Five
Pillars are customs, laws,
and traditions in Islamic
society that affect
Muslim’s daily lives.
Religious Authority
• Unlike other religions, Islam does not
necessarily have any sort of religious authority.
Every Muslim is simply expected to pray to
God directly.
• However, Islam does have a scholar class called
the ulama, who are concerned with learning
law. The ulama includes religious teachers who
study the words and deeds of Muhammad and
apply them to everyday life.
Sources of Authority
• In Islam, the original source of authority is
Allah. According to the Qur’an, Allah
expressed his wishes through Gabriel, who
revealed it to Muhammad as the Qur’an.
– The Qur’an would have been written sometime
after Muhammad’s death by his followers who
memorized his prayers and teachings.
Sources of Authority
• The Qur’an is written
in Arabic and the
Muslims consider the
Arabic version the only
true word of God.
– In part due to this, the
Qur’an helped spread
Arabic through lands
controlled by Muslims.
Sunna and Shari’a
• Muslims believe that Muhammad’s mission
as a prophet was to receive the Qur’an and
to demonstrate how to apply it in their life.
• This lead to the Sunna, or Muhammad’s
example. Muslims follow the Sunna as a
model for proper living.
Sunna and Shari’a
• A body of law soon followed– the shari’awhich regulates family life, moral conduct,
business, and community life of Muslims. It
doesn’t separate religious matters from
criminal or civil matters, but brings all
aspects of life together.
– Because the shari’a applies to all who follow
Muhammad, it brings a sense of unity to all
Muslims.
Relationship to other Abrahamic
Religions
Similar
• Allah is the same God
worshipped by Christians
and Jews.
• Heaven, Hell, and Final
judgment are shared
among the three
• Monotheistic
Differences
• Jesus is a prophet, but not
the son of God.
• Qur’an is the holy book,
not the Torah or Bible
• Muhammad is the final
prophet.
• Islam is far more
integrated in the personal
lives of it’s believers.
Muslim Empire
• After Muhammad’s death, the Muslim
empire would continue to grow rapidly.
• However, issues would rise as to who should
continue his legacy and even schisms within
the religion would cause conflict.
Review Objectives
• Identify important characteristics of
Muslim society including: religious ideas,
scientific contributions, and the spread of
Islam
• Examine the geography of where the Islamic
peoples come from
• Evaluate the culture of Islamic peoples
• Identify important religious figures or areas
including Muhammad and Mecca
Questions
• If you have any questions, please ask now.
Next lesson
• In the next lesson, we are going to be
discussing the spread of Islam throughout
the Arabian Peninsula and beyond.
Review
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
What was life like in the Arabian peninsula prior to
Islam (consider the geography, the amount of trade,
and religiosity of the people)?
What was the Ka’aba? Why is it deemed important?
In what ways did Muhammad and Islam unite the
Arabian peninsula? Explain your answer.
What are the Five Pillars of Islam? Briefly explain each.
How is Islam more integrated in the personal lives
Muslims than the belief systems of Christianity or
Judaism?
What is the “sunna” and the “shari’a”? Define both.
Is there any real difference between Allah and the
Christian/Jewish God? Explain your thoughts.