Islamic World: Notable Concepts (inc. Religious, Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Scientific, etc.) and Notable Groups

Both Religious and Non-Religious

Quraysh (All Facts)

• One of the many Bedouin tribes in the vast Arabian Peninsula during the 500s

Islam (All Facts)

• In Arabic, it means “submission” for it was based on the principle Mohammed preached of submitting to Allah’s will

Muslims (All Facts)

• Followers of Islam, their name in Arabic means “they who submit”

Hijrah (All Facts)

• Term used to refer to the flight of Mohammed from Mecca to Medina in 622

• The calendar of the Islamic World starts on this year, which is effectively its year zero

Kaaba (All Facts)

• Meteoric black stone initially used by the pagan and polytheist Arabs in Mecca, it was transformed into a holy site by Mohammed who promised to make it a site of pilgrimage for Muslims if and when the Meccans recognized him as Prophet of God

Caliph (All Facts)

• Term used to refer to a person considered a political–religious successor to the Islamic prophet Muhammad and a leader of the entire Muslim world

• Comes from the Arabic word for “successor”

Ummah (All Facts)

• Term used to refer to the entire Muslim world or Muslim “body of believers” (Muslim equivalent of the “body of Christ” or the “Church”)

Quran (All Facts)

• The set of sacred revelations believed to have been given directly to Mohammed by Allah

  • The sacred book of the Muslim faith

  • Revered by Muslims as the actual word of God, which was passed on to their Great Prophet Mohammed

• Was written down and collected for the first time in 651, almost 20 years after the Prophet’s death, during the reign of Uthman of the Rashidun Caliphate

  • The revelations were haphazardly recorded and/or memorized by Mohammed’s secretaries as he uttered them

• Was known for its striking calligraphy

  • Although Muslims were prohibited from showing human or animal forms in their art, this did not stop them producing beautiful images in and of their writing

Kharijites (All Facts)

• Early sect of Muslims that splintered from the Muslim community

• They believed that Ali’s refusal to continue the Battle of Siffin against Muawiya and accept its outcome was an outrage against divine justice and un-Quranic

• They decided that assassination would be the best way to avenge themselves against Caliph Ali after he had attacked them at Nahrawan after they rebelled against him for deciding to negotiate with Muawiya instead of continue the fight against him in the Battle of Siffin

• Their plan to kill the other signatory of the negotiations in the Battle, Ali’s opponent, Muawiya, had failed

• They espoused egalitarian and regional doctrines which inspired Abu-Yazid to revolt against the Fatimid Caliphate of Ifriqiyah (Tunisia)

Shia Islam (All Facts)

• Minor sect of Islam that believes that

  • Islamic Leadership should go to Mohammed’s descendants

    • The Caliph Ali was the true successor to Mohammed, rather than Abu Bakr, because the Caliph Ali was Mohammed’s son

      • The Caliph Ali was immune from sin and error and had been divinely chosen as “Iman” to transmit his office to his descendants

    • Husayn ibn-Ali was the true successor to the Caliph Ali, rather than Muawiya, because Husayn ibn-Ali was Mohammed’s grandson

  • Quranic interpretation was reserved only for Mohammed’s descendants

    • They were truer to Islamic law than their opposing factional counterparts

• Sect of Islam which rejected the Umayyad Caliphate’s rule as being justified

Sunni Islam (All Facts)

• Major sect of Islam that believes that

  • Islamic Leadership should go to the most capable

  • Abu Bakr and Muawiya were the true successors to Mohammed because they were the most capable

  • Doctrinal authority changes hands with each caliphate

• Sect of Islam which emerged during the Umayyad Caliphate, it saw their rule as justified and supported them

Imam (All Facts)

• Term used to refer to any position of Islamic leadership, often political and/or religious in nature

Dinar (All Facts)

• Currency used in the Islamic Empire by the Umayyad Caliphate and Abbasid Caliphates

Mu’tazilism (All Facts)

• School of Islamic theology founded by Wasil ibn-Ata which emphasized rationality / rationalism

• School of Islamic theology which held that God’s actions are dictated by justice and reason and that free will exists

• School of Islamic theology which held that the Quran is not eternal with God, but was created by God at a certain time and revealed to the Great Prophet Mohammed

  • This particular belief implied that if God created the Quran at one time, then it could be interpreted differently at another time or supplemented by further revelation and that this further revelation could extend into the time of the caliphs

Arab Muslims (Economy)

• By 750, they began crossing the Sahara from North Africa in large numbers to trade in gold

Paper (All Facts)

• Technology which the Arab Muslims learned how to make after two Tang Chinese POWs from the Battle of Talas were compelled to reveal the secret to manufacturing it

• This led to the establishment of the first namesake mill under the Abbasid Caliphate some years later after the battle

Alids (All Facts)

• Descendants of Fatima, the Great Prophet Mohammed’s daughter and her husband Ali for which they are named

• They tried and failed to topple the Umayyads during the Third Fitna

Abbasids (All Facts)

• Descendants of al-Abbas, the Great Prophet Mohammed’s uncle

• They tried and succeeded in toppling the Umayyads during the Third Fitna and their namesake revolution, succeeding the Umayyads as a new caliphate

Pharmacy (All Facts)

• Public Institution that first appeared in history in Baghdad during the Islamic Golden Age of the Abbasid Caliphate in 770

Awraba (All Facts)

Sufi Islam / Sufism (All Facts)

• Islamic sect that emphasized ascetic mysticism

• Islamic form of contemplate life which was heavily influenced by Christian monasticism

  • This influence is seen in their practices of

    • Solitary meditation

    • long vigils

    • celibacy

    • wearing of woolen habits (clothes)

  • They sought a life

    • Inspired only by God

    • Unhindered by materialism

• Their name comes from the habits made of coarse wool which they wore

House of Wisdom (All Facts)

• Founded by Caliph Al-Amun of the Abbasid Caliphate during the Islamic Golden Age

• It was made to support efforts to translate ancient Greek wisdom into Arabic

  • The texts were not translated from the original Greek but from versions in Syriac

  • Greek authors translated included Galen, Ptolemy, Aristotle, and Dioscorides

  • Texts on history, poetry, and drama were considerably neglected

  • The translators themselves were mostly Christians

Syriac (All Facts)

• Language spoken by early Christians that was related to Arabic

• Language which Abbasid scholars used to translate Greek texts into Arabic in the “House of Wisdom” during the Islamic Golden Age

Khorram-Dinan (All Facts)

• Revolutionary religious and social freedom movement based in Iran led by Babak that opposed to the Abbasid Caliphate

Sifr (All Facts)

• Arabic term which meant “nothing” or “empty” or “it is not” or “it cannot be” which referred to the number zero

• The Islamic World had used Greek numerals before devising their own in 770

• They wrote the number zero with a dot or point (unlike Hindy mathematicians, which expressed zero with a circle)

• The introduction of the number zero marks a fundamental advance for mathematicians, enabling a decimal system to be used

• This system had not carried over to the Church, which continued to use the complex Roman numeral system instead for quite some time after the introduction of the number zero to the Islamic World in the 700s and 800s

Diwan (All Facts)

• Term used to refer to a collection of poems by a single author

Ketama Berbers (All Facts)

• They were the basis of the military of the Fatimid Caliphate

• They helped Abd Allah al-Mahdi Billah and Abu Abdallah al-Shi'i to overthrow the Aghlabid Dynasty and establish the Fatimid Dynasty

  • They were longtime enemies of the Aghlabid Dynasty

Qarmatians (All Facts)

• Breakaway group of revolutionary Muslims led and founded by Hamdan Qarmat

• They shocked the Islamic world after they

  • Sacked Mecca for a week

  • Stole the Kaaba from Mecca (the Black stone which was the focus of the Hajj pilgrimage, the holiest site in Islam), which they did either

    • For religious reasons, believing that revering a stone was idolatrous

    • For political reasons, hoping that doing so would divert Mecca’s lucrative pilgrimage traffic to the region they controlled (where they could enslave them)

• They (totally) rejected the Abbasid Caliphate

  • They were (possibly) allied with the Fatimid Caliphate in Ifriqiyah (Tunisia)

• They established their own state (in modern-day Bahrain) in eastern Arabia (in modern-day Saudi Arabia)

• They developed a unique society in which they

  • Were an oligarchical republic, in that their ruler was seen only as the “first among equals”

  • Constructed a “society of equals” despite relying heavily on slaves

  • Were like a proto-Islamic-Communist society

• They attacked Mecca-bound pilgrims

• They sacked the Port of Basra

• They represented a decline in the power of the Abbasid Caliphate, which did not do anything to prevent or stop the Kaaba from being robbed by them

Saracens / Arab Pirates (All Facts)

• They dominated the Western Mediterranean from the 870s onward

• They captured much of Spain and Italy

• Ports on the south coast of Frankia have been dominated by them

• Not content with piracy at sea from their base at Fraxinetum, they extended their activities inland, terrorizing travelers as far north as the Alps

Mozarabs / Musta’ribs (All Facts)

• Term(s) used to refer to the Christian communities living in Al-Andalus (or Islamic Iberia / Spain, including the Umayyad Emirate / Caliphate of Cordoba) which adopted Arab culture but kept their Christianity (Christian religion)

  • Their name in Arabic means “would-be Arabs”

• They were prominent in their enclaves within Toledo and Cordoba and had their own churches, bishops, and monks

• Their churches were built in the namesake architectural style, which combined Muslim horseshoe arches and ribbed domes with Roman columns

• Their chant, a synthesis of Islamic and Christian modes, was used for their Latin liturgy

• Group of Christians which would eventually move to the Kingdom of Leon and parts of Northern Spain, which brought with them the remarkable techniques of Islamic decoration they learned and used while in Al-Andalus and applied them to Christian subject-matter

• St. Beatus of Liebana was a popular monk of the namesake group