World History Key Terms and Concepts

Vocabulary flashcards covering key historical terms, empires, religious movements, and social systems from the provided lecture notes.

Champa Rice

A fast-ripening, drought-resistant strain of rice from Vietnam. It allowed for two harvests per year, triggering a massive population boom and agricultural revolution in Song China.

Filial Piety

The Confucian core virtue of utmost respect, obedience, and duty toward one's parents and ancestors. It served as a cultural model to reinforce absolute political loyalty to the Chinese emperor.

Foot Binding

The patriarchal practice of tightly wrapping young girls' feet to break and reshape them. During the Song Dynasty, it came to symbolize elite status and restricted women's physical mobility.

Grand Canal

A massive, 1,100-mile artificial waterway system built to link the Yellow and Yangtze rivers. It allowed China to transport agricultural surpluses from the south to feed northern political centers.

Heian Period in Japan

A historical era (794–1185 CE) celebrated for its peak in classical Japanese court culture, art, and literature. During this time, local political power began shifting toward decentralized military clans.

Neo-Confucianism

A philosophical syncretism that emerged during the Tang and Song dynasties. It fused the rational, ethical core of Confucianism with the spiritual and metaphysical elements of Buddhism and Daoism.

Song Dynasty

The Chinese dynasty (960–1279 CE) that presided over a golden age of commercialization, urbanization, and technological innovation, relying heavily on an imperial bureaucracy and civil service exams.

Dar al-Islam

A comprehensive Arabic term meaning "the house of Islam," referring to all global regions where Islamic law and rule are dominant and where Muslims can practice their faith freely.

House of Wisdom

A renowned academic center and grand library established in Baghdad during the Abbasid Caliphate, where scholars preserved, translated, and expanded upon Greek, Persian, and Indian scientific texts.

Jihad

An Arabic term meaning "struggle" or "striving". Individually, it refers to the spiritual struggle against sin; historically, it also referred to the physical defense or expansion of the Islamic community.

Jizya

A special per-capita tax levied by Islamic states on non-Muslim subjects (dhimmis, such as Jews and Christians) in exchange for religious freedom, protection, and military exemption.

Muslim Iberia / Al-Andalus

The medieval Islamic state located in modern-day Spain and Portugal. It served as a vital cultural and intellectual bridge where scholarly exchange occurred between Muslims, Jews, and Christians.

Sharia

The divine legal and ethical code of Islam derived directly from the Quran and the Hadith (sayings and actions of Muhammad), regulating both public law and private behavior.

Bhakti Movement

A popular medieval Hindu reform movement emphasizing an intense, emotional, and personal devotion to a single deity, opening spiritual paths to women and lower castes by bypassing rigid rituals.

Buddhism

A major world religion founded in ancient India by Siddhartha Gautama, teaching that life is suffering caused by desire, which can be overcome via the Eightfold Path to reach Nirvana.

Delhi Sultanate

A series of five successive Turkic-Islamic dynasties that ruled northern India (1206–1526), introducing Islamic political authority to a predominantly Hindu landscape and defending the region from Mongols.

Mamluk Sultanate

An Islamic state established in Egypt and Syria (1250–1517) by enslaved Turkic military soldiers (Mamluks) who overthrew their masters, defeated the Mongols, and resisted the Crusades.

Seljuk Empire

A powerful medieval Turko-Persian Sunni Muslim empire (11th–14th centuries) that conquered large swaths of the Middle East, reducing the Abbasid Caliph's power to a spiritual figurehead.

Srivijaya Empire

A maritime, Buddhist empire based on the island of Sumatra (Indonesia) that flourished by controlling vital bottlenecks of international ocean commerce like the Strait of Malacca.

Sufism

A mystical and ascetic branch of Islam focused on a direct, personal connection with God, playing a massive role in converting people across Asia and Africa due to its adaptable nature.

Turkic Peoples

A diverse collection of nomadic ethno-linguistic groups originating in Central Asia who migrated southward and westward, adopting Islam and founding dominant military empires (like the Seljuks and Mamluks).

Aztecs (Mexica)

A powerful Mesoamerican empire based in Tenochtitlan (modern Mexico City) that ruled through a highly organized tribute system, advanced chinampas agriculture, and aggressive military conquest.

Inca Empire

The largest pre-Columbian empire in the Americas, stretching along the Andes. It was managed by a centralized bureaucracy and economically organized via the Mit'a system of mandatory public labor.

Great Zimbabwe

A powerful East-Central African kingdom (11th–15th centuries) renowned for its massive, mortarless stone architecture (The Great Enclosure) and its economic dominance over regional gold trade networks.

Feudalism

A highly decentralized political and military system of medieval Europe based on mutual land-grant obligations and personal loyalties sworn between lords and upper-class vassals.

Manorialism

The self-sufficient economic system of medieval Europe where landowning lords controlled large agricultural estates (manors) worked by dependent peasants in exchange for physical protection.

Serfdom

The legal and economic status of unfree peasants (serfs) bound to the land of a feudal lord's manor, unable to marry, travel, or change occupations without explicit permission.