Islamic Empires, Crusades, and Southeast Asian Trade: Key Concepts and Figures

Sufi

Muslims who devote their lives to Allah.

Buyids

A regional dynasty who invaded and captured Baghdad and ruled the Abbasids.

Seljuk Turks

Nomadic migrants and invaders who came from Central Asia/Perica and ruled in the name of the Abbasid caliphs.

Crusades

A series of military campaigns launched by Christians to free the holy land of Jerusalem from Muslims.

Saladin

A muslim leader in the last decades of the 12th century who reconquered most of the crusader outposts for Islam.

Ibn Khaldun

A muslim historian who developed the concept of the qualities of each of the 3 generations of nomadic conquerors.

Hulegu

Ruler of the Ilkhan khanate who was responsible for the capture and destruction of Baghdad in 1257.

Mamluks

Muslim slave warriors who established a dynasty in Egypt who defeated the Mongols at Ain Jalut.

Shah-Nama

An epic poem written by Firdawasi in the late 10th and 11th centuries and it relates the history of Persia to the Islamic conquests.

ulama

Orthodox religious scholars within islam who pressed for a more conservative and restrictive theology who were very opposed to non-Islamic ideas.

al-Ghazali

A brilliant Islamic theologian who struggled to fuse Greek and traditions from the Quran.

Muhammad ibn Qasim

Arab general who conquered Sind in India.

Mahmud of Ghazni

He gave Muslims a reputation for intolerance and aggression and was the 3rd ruler of the Turkish slave dynasty in Afghanistan.

Muhammad of Ghur

Military commander of Persian extraction who ruled a small kingdom in Afghanistan and began to establish Muslim political control in Northern India.

Qutb-ud-din Aibak

A lieutenant of Muhhammad of Ghur who proclaimed himself as Sultan of India.

Bhaktic cults

Hindu groups who were dedicated to gods and goddesses and they stressed the importance of emotional connections between devotees and the supernatural they believe in.

Mira Bai

Celebrated Hindu writer of religious poetry who reflected the openness of bhakti cults on women.

Kabir

A Muslim mystic who played down the importance of ritual differences between Hinduism and Islam.

Shrivijaya

A trading empire centered on Malacca and its fall opened up Southeast Asia to Muslim conversion.

Malacca

A port city located on the tip of the Malayan peninsula which was traditionally a center of trade in the Southeast Asian Islands.

Demak

The most powerful of the trading states on the north coast of Java which converted to Islam and served as a point of dissemination to other ports.