WW Chapter 9: The Worlds of Islam

Bismillah

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Chapter 9: The Worlds of Islam

Afro-Eurasian Connections

600-1500

Strayer spends this chapter discussing the influence of Islam on the growing Arabic Empire.  Indeed, the Islamic religion was the engine that drove the unification of the cultures that comprised the followers of the faith.  None of this was particularly new to me since I've taken three separate classes on Islam, but l'd never spent much thought examining it from the point of nation building and how it was able to unify an entire empire.  Another piece of new information for me was the importance of the Turkic interpretation, and the formation of the Ottoman empire -- the reason for the fall of the last vesitiges of what was left of the Roman Empire, leaving Western Europe as the new hotbed of Christianity, and ultimately,  the crusades.

The power of Islam to unite was largely due to the reason that it was a monotheistic religion, and thus compatible with the Christian, Jewish and Zoarastrian religions that dominated the region.  The biggest and perhaps most important part of its doctrine was that the true, uncorrupted version of the Islamic texts, as handed down to Muhammed, were in Arabic so any translation of the text was seen as imperfect and off target with respect to its message.  This led to the growing number of muslims to adopt the Arabic language and in turn, many Arabic customs despite their cultural identities.  The religion demanded its followers follow God's laws - not those of man - hence Sharia law became the common law of the community.  This bound the political, religious and cultural aspects of the empire together, creating a strong decentralized seat of power that was managed by clerics.  While other religions were tolerated, those not of the Muslim faith were second class citizens and required to pay a jizya, a tax to support the military since they were not allowed to serve.  Because of this, many converted out of opportunity rather than strict belief.

The only countries within the empire that absorbed Islam while maintaining their own identity, were few, namely Indonesia, West Africa, Turkey, Iran and Pakistan.  Some of the cultural elements of these countries ended up as part of Islamic doctrine.

The Arab empire eventually encompassed everything between the Indian Ocean and the Atlantic - from the Arabian penninsula to Spain.  I believe that its important to understand the historical significance of the Arab empire because it was so vast and it spread so rapidly.  It was responsible for many technological innovations and schools of reason and higher learning, although there where factions that remained steadfast beleivers of the doctrine and protested against knowing Allah through reason instead of through the way of the Quaran.