Cordoba also had some 900 public baths, Europe's first street lights and, five miles outside the city, the caliphal residence, Madinat al-Zahra. For the West, however, the Crusaders' greatest achievement was the opening of the eastern Mediterranean to European shipping. Although the Muslims used force when they met resistance they did not compel their enemies to accept Islam. It was in Ottoman Turkey, however, that calligraphy attained the highest development once the early creative flowering had faded elsewhere in the Middle East. This tumultuous period also saw an increase in the influence of the United States and the Soviet Union in the Middle East. Of those people who embraced Islam but did not adopt Arabic as their everyday language, many millions have taken the Arabic alphabet for their own, so that today one sees the Arabic script used to write languages that have no basic etymological connection with Arabic. Byzantine and Sasanian Empires. This led to such memorable works as Sirat Rasul Allah, the "Life of the Messenger of God," by Ibn Ishaq, later revised by Ibn Hisham; one of the earliest Arabic historical works, it was a key source of information about the Prophet's life and also a model for other important works of history such as al-Tabari's Annals of the Apostles and the Kings and his massive commentary on the Quran. Psychologists warn that addressing the mental scars caused by the earthquakes should be an urgent priority and that the most severe mental health consequences might not be fully apparent so soon . The Arabic alphabet has twenty-eight letters (additional letters have been added to serve the needs of non-Arabic languages that use the Arabic script, such as those of Iran and Pakistan), and each of the letters may have up to four different forms. Ordained in the Quran, the fast is an exacting act of deeply personal worship in which Muslims seek a richer perception of God and in which, as one writer puts it, Muslims assert that "man has larger needs than bread.". Under the 'Abbasids too a whole literature was created for the use and training of the clerical classes that had come into being. This work proposed that the ideal city be founded on moral and religious principles from which would flow the physical infrastructure. On the contrary, the Muslims permitted Christians and Jews to practice their own faith and numerous conversions to Islam were the result of exposure to a faith that was simple and inspiring. The fifth pillar of Islam is the pilgrimage to Mecca - the hajj. Islam numbers many millions of adherents outside the Middle Eastern countries: Photo: Sunset silhouettes a minaret in Sarajevo, a city of some eighty mosques that bear witness to the long Islamic heritage of Bosnia and Herzegovina. In this manner the Indians would render Roman CCC XX 111 as: 3 2 3. Abu Bakr, who ruled from 632 to 634, secured the entirety of the Peninsula and extended into present-day southern Iraq, Kuwait, Syria, Jordan, and . While the world's population is projected to grow 32% in the coming decades, the number of Muslims is expected to increase by 70% - from 1.8 billion in 2015 to nearly 3 billion in 2060. In addition to the Quran the shari'ah has three sources: the sunnah, the practice of the Prophet; ijma', the consensus of opinion; and qiyas, reasoning by analogy. Expansion in the East to 750 CE (with arrows, years . But if you see, a red iconlike this (), it means you are NOT logged in. Keep it up. Muslims believe that their sacred text, the Quran, is the absolute word of God as it was revealed to the prophet Muhammad. Politically and economically, the Mongol invasions were disastrous. Islam is based on the belief in one God (Allah) and the teachings of Muhammad as recorded in the Quran, the holy book of Islam. Simply put, Islam may have sped the conquests, but it also showed much greater staying power. As Islam spread across the Arabian Peninsula and later across North Africa and the Middle East, it had an aggregating effect. One of its most famous scholars was Hunayn ibn Ishaq, Ishaq's father - known to the West as Joanitius - who eventually translated the entire canon of Greek medical works into Arabic, including the Hippocratic oath. The scholars at Bayt al-Hikmah also contributed to geometry, a study recommended by Ibn Khaldun, the great North African historian, because "it enlightens the intelligence of the man who cultivates it and gives him the habit of thinking exactly." In the years following 861, the Turks made and unmade rulers at will, a trend that accelerated the decline of the central authority. A year later the Meccans struck back. After Muhammad had preached publicly for more than a decade, the opposition to him reached such a high pitch that, fearful for their safety, he sent some of his adherents to Ethiopia, where the Christian ruler extended protection to them, the memory of which has been cherished by Muslims ever since. The Quran is divided into 114 surahs, or chapters, and the surahs are conventionally assigned to two broad categories: those revealed at Mecca and those revealed at Medina. Throughout its history, Islam has been in constant . It impeded private capital . Also referred to as the Tatars and barbarians, they conquered Persia before moving on to Europe with the Khan of Khans, Genghis Khan as their most important leader. The Ottoman Empire reached its peak in size and splendor under the sultan called Suleiman the Magnificent, who ruled from 1520 to 1566 and was known to the Turks as Suleiman the Law-Giver. Another factor was that the Janissaries became too strong for the sultans to control The sultans were further weakened when it became customary to bring them up and educate them in isolation and without the skills necessary to rule effectively. Jews, for example, were part of the community; they were dhimmis, that is, protected people, as long as they conformed to its laws. When, for example, al-Mansur died in 775 after a reign of twenty years, his son, al-Mahdi, inherited a full treasury and an empire that was more devoted to trade than war. Just a short time before, Muhammad had to leave the city of his birth in fear of his life. He also destroyed the idols in the Ka'bah, to put an end forever to pagan practices there. Mathematics during the Golden Age of Islam, especially during the 9th and 10th centuries, was built on Greek mathematics (Euclid, Archimedes, Apollonius) and Indian mathematics (Aryabhata, Brahmagupta).Important progress was made, such as full development of the decimal place-value system to include decimal fractions, the first systematised study of algebra, and advances in geometry and . The Merciful, the Compassionate; The demands on trade also generated development of crafts. By mid-century they had taken Russia, Central Europe, northern Iran, and the Caucuses, and in 1258, under Hulagu Khan, they invaded Baghdad and put an end to the remnants of the once-glorious 'Abbasid Empire. In an immediate sense, the Crusades had a terrible effect on some of the Muslim and Jewish inhabitants of the Middle East. To Arab historians, the Crusaders were a minor irritant, their invasion one more barbarian incursion, not nearly as serious a threat as the Mongols were to prove in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. And if it was a new and upstart faith, its administration by simple and honest men was preferable to the corruption and persecution that were the norm in more civilized empires George F. Nafziger, Mark W. Walton, Islam at War: A History, 2003. Perhaps, this is the most notable impact of Islam at the coast of East Africa. Marwan ibn Muhammad, the last Umayyad caliph, was defeated and the Syrians, still loyal to the Umayyads, were put to rout. Following the decisive Battle of Yarmouk in 636, the former Byzantine states of Syria, Palestine, and Lebanon were conquered by the Muslim armies. For a time the Fatimids aspired to be rulers of the whole Islamic world, and their achievements were impressive. To avoid contention among various groups, 'Umar suddenly grasped Abu Bakr's hand, the traditional sign of recognition of a new leader. Soon everyone concurred and before dusk Abu Bakr had been recognized as the khalifah of Muhammad. Photo: A fourteenth-century manuscript of a pharmaceutical text. And even if there be one hair binding me to my fellowmen, I do not let it break: when they pull I loosen, and if they loosen I pull. In effect, however, it expired with the Mongols and the capture of Baghdad. Like the Umayyads who preceded him, 'Abd al-Malik was forced to devote a substantial part of his reign to political problems. This custom, followed until recently by noble families of Mecca, Medina, Tayif, and other towns of the Hijaz, had important implications for Muhammad. By the time 'Abd al-Rahman reached Spain, the Arabs from North Africa were already entrenched on the Iberian Peninsula and had begun to write one of the most glorious chapters in Islamic history. He was noted for his justice, social ideals, administration, and statesmanship. If you hold fast to this you will never go astray.". Islam in Middle Eastern Societies The Muslim populations of the Middle East make up only 44% of the total world Muslim population of the world (see "Muslim-Majority Countries of the Middle East" chart).. A basis for understanding the role of Islam in Middle Eastern societies, is the distinction between its doctrine and the cultural practices which are done in the name of Islam or which . After its development in Turkey, it spread to the Arab countries and is in use today for formal documents and also as architectural decoration. It's all color coded. Photo: The graceful Persian ta'liq script is used in a sentence which starts "Beauty is a spell which casts its splendor upon the universe". 'Uthman was accused of favoritism to members of his family - the clan of Umayyah. Muslims regard the Quran as untranslatable; the language in which it was revealed - Arabic - is inseparable from its message and Muslims everywhere, no matter what their native tongue, must learn Arabic to read the Sacred Book and to perform their worship. Another was the development of Arabic, by the ninth century, into the language of international scholarship as well as the language of the Divine Truth. The Umayyads, however, did manage to achieve a degree of stability, particularly after 'Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan succeeded to the caliphate in 685. I was born in Iran but we moved to Europe when I was a baby or toddler and I never had anything to do with religion. The Crusader castle at Sidon in Lebanon (below) was abandoned after the final defeat of the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem. The pilgrims may also, at this point, remove the ihram dress and bathe. Although the religious authority of the 'Abbasid caliphate remained unchallenged, the next four centuries saw political power dispersed among a large number of independent states: Tahirids, Saffarids, Samanids, Buwayhids, Ziyarids, and Ghaznavids in the east; Hamdanids in Syria and northern Mesopotamia; and Tulunids, Ikhshidids, and Fatimids in Egypt. 'Uthman achieved much during his reign. Confined to the coast, they ruled small areas until their final defeat at the hands of the Egyptian Mamluks at the end of the thirteenth century. Forty-five years later, they are expected to make up more than three-in-ten of the world's people . The result was to wipe out much of the priceless cultural, scientific, and technological legacy that Muslim scholars had been preserving and enlarging for some five hundred years. Throughout this period the Ottomans contest control of the Arabian Gulf and the Red Sea with the Portuguese, who establish themselves in Bahrain, Muscat, and Hormuz and assist Ethiopia in repulsing the Turks from the coast of East Africa. Once again, however, the Muslims survived their invaders. One of the main distinctions between the hajj and the 'umrah is that the 'umrah can be done at any time of the year, while the hajj must be performed on specified dates. The latter impact manifests today because there is a lot of animosity between Christians and Muslims (especially in the Middle East). On January 8, the Center for Middle East Policy at Brookings hosted the launch of a report titled "Islam as Statecraft: How governments use religion in foreign policy," authored by two senior . When they saw that the web was unbroken, the Meccans passed by and Muhammad and Abu Bakr went on to Medina, where they were joyously welcomed by a throng of Medinans as well as the Meccans who had gone ahead to prepare the way. By the end of the 13th century it had begun to pull even, and by the end of the 15th century it had surpassed both. The declaration was interpreted by key Zionist leaders as support for a sovereign Jewish state, but this interpretation has been disputed. By the early years of the twentieth century the Ottoman Empire was clearly in decline and was referred to as the "Sick Man of Europe." Many, too, have adopted Western legal codes, have accepted international and regional organizations and international courts as means of dealing with other nations, and have organized and equipped their armed forces along Western lines. Many also make the sa'y or running, a reenactment of a frantic search for water by Hagar when she and Abraham's son Ishmael were stranded in the valley of Mecca until the Angel Gabriel led them to water in the Well of Zamzam. The mandates, however, were granted, thus extending Western control of the Middle East and also setting the stage for one of the most tragic and intractable conflicts of modern times: the conflict over Palestine which has, since 1948, ignited four wars, sent masses of Palestinian Arabs into exile, contributed to the energy crisis of 1973, and, from 1975 on, fueled the civil war in Lebanon. In the first place, the Muslim forces, outnumbered three to one, routed the Meccans. It was under the 'Abbasids, however, that calligraphy first began to be systematized. They also improved trade and agriculture, patronized the arts, made valuable contributions to science, and established Cordoba as the most sophisticated city in Europe. The Black Death (1347 - 1351 CE) was the first and greatest of the many plague outbreaks of the second plague pandemic in the Middle East (1347 CE to 1877 CE). Of the three great civilizations of western Eurasia and North Africa, that of Christian Europe began as the least developed in virtually all aspects of material and intellectual culture, well behind the Islamic states and Byzantium. As the script in which the Quran was first written down indicated only the consonantal skeleton of the words, oral recitation was an essential element in the transmission of the text. Naskhi, the rounded script, remained in use and from it most of the many later styles of Arabic calligraphy have been developed. Thereunto we give them the pact of Allah and the protection of His Prophet, the caliphs and the believers. It enshrines the duty of social responsibility by which well-to-do Muslims must concern themselves about those less fortunate. Islam has given us education with knowledge which has no limits. Tensions between Sunnis and Shias, exploited by regional rivals . Extending from Central Asia to the Byzantine marches in Asia Minor, the Seljuk state under its first three sultans- Tughril Beg, Alp-Arslan, and Malikshah- established a highly cohesive, well-administered Sunni state under the nominal authority of the 'Abbasid caliphs at Baghdad. Even 'Uthman, whose policies had such a divisive effect, was essentially dedicated more to the concerns of the next world than of this. Within four years after the death of the Prophet the Muslim state had extended its sway over all of Syria and had, at a famous battle fought during a sandstorm near the River Yarmuk, blunted the power of the Byzantines - whose ruler Heraclius had shortly before disdainfully rejected the letter from the unknown Prophet of Arabia. The standing is not the end of the hajj, but is the culmination of a Muslim's devotional life. In 610 CE at Mecca there wasn't any religion to follow. Secondly, the discipline displayed by the Muslims brought home to the Meccans, perhaps for the first time, the abilities of the man they had driven from their city. As Thabit's knowledge of Greek and Syriac was unrivaled, he contributed enormously to the translation of Greek scientific writing and also produced some seventy original works - in mathematics, astronomy, astrology, ethics, mechanics, music, medicine, physics, philosophy, and the construction of scientific instruments. Save by His leave? Scholars, for example, in collecting and reexamining the hadith, or "traditions" - the sayings and actions of the Prophet - compiled immense biographical detail about the Prophet and other information, historic and linguistic, about the Prophet's era. Abu Bakr's caliphate was short but important. That, to a large extent, explains the drive of Muslims over the centuries to meet their economic needs through commerce, industry, agriculture and various forms of free enterprise. As British efforts to control it generated widespread disapproval in the West and stimulated underground warfare by militant Zionist units against British forces, Britain eventually placed the problem in the hands of the United Nations, which in 1947 voted to partition Palestine into Jewish and Arab States. With the shift to Damascus much was changed. The preserving of them wearies Him not; The Ottoman Turks have conquered and maintain effective control over diverse peoples in a vast empire stretching from Persia almost to the gates of Vienna and along the north coast of Africa to Algiers. In . The hajj proper must be made between the eighth and thirteenth days of the 12th month - Dhu al-Hijjah - of the Muslim year, but in one sense it begins when a Muslim approaches Mecca, bathes, trims his nails and hair, discards jewelry and headgear, and puts on the ihram dress. But the Arab military adventures do not seem to have been intended as a religious war of conversion. Elsewhere in the Arab world, meanwhile, the last vestiges of European political dominance were being eliminated. Tamerlane died on his way to conquer China, and his empire melted away. As Abu Bakr put it: "Whoever worshipped Muhammad, let him know that Muhammad is dead, but whoever worshipped God, let him know that God lives and dies not.". The first known medical work to include anatomical drawings, the book was translated into Latin and for centuries was the authoritative treatment of the subject in both Western and Eastern universities. In their sweep through the Islamic world the Mongols killed or deported numerous scholars and scientists and destroyed libraries with their irreplaceable works. In innumerable, almost indescribable ways, it is also the central fact of Muslim life. At the dawn of the fourteenth century, Ghazan Khan Mahmud officially adopted Islam as the religion of the state, and for a time peace descended on the eastern portion of the Mongol empire. After the fall of Constantinople, and during the sixteenth century, the Ottoman system evolved the centralized administrative framework by which the sultans maintained effective control over the extraordinarily diverse peoples in the vast empire. President Carter of the United States brought the leaders of Egypt and Israel together in the United States and himself traveled to the Middle East in an attempt to persuade at least these two countries to conclude a peace treaty, and in March 1979 Egypt and Israel signed a treaty to which the United States was also a signatory. The Impact of Islam . As the Arab chronicles put it, Harun al-Rashid ruled when the world was young, a felicitous description of what in later times has come to be called the Golden Age of Islam. Although rigorous, however, the fast, by Quranic injunction, also admits of a warm compassion. Tahir asserted his independence of the central government by omitting mention of the caliph's name in the mosque on Friday and by striking his own coins - acts which became the standard ways of expressing political independence. The earliest inscription that has been found that is identifiably Arabic is one in Sinai that dates from about A.D. 300. Photo: At Hama in Syria, antique wooden wheels still lift the waters of the Orontes to gardens, baths, and cooling fountains. Another distinctive Turkish contribution is the tughra, an elaborate and highly stylized rendering of the names of the Ottoman sultan, originally used to authenticate imperial decrees. The Christians permitted Muslims to work, serve in the army, own land, and even practice their religion - all concessions to the importance of Muslims in Spain's still prosperous economy. The First Crusade began in 1095 after the Byzantines - threatened by Seljuk power- appealed to Pope Urban II for military aid. It is generally accepted that the Arabic alphabet developed from the script used for Nabataean, a dialect of Aramaic used in northern Arabia and what is now Jordan during roughly the thousand years before the start of the Islamic era. Finally, Muhammad recited the words of what are now the first five verses of the 96th surah or chapter of the Quran - words which proclaim God the Creator of man and the Source of all knowledge. It was the beginning of the period the Christians called the Reconquest, and it underlined a serious problem that marred this refined, graceful, and charming era: the inability of the numerous rulers of Islamic Spain to maintain their unity. In a very real sense the Quran is the mentor of millions of Muslims, Arab and non-Arab alike; it shapes their everyday life, anchors them to a unique system of law, and inspires them by its guiding principles. And while Sunnis consider the caliph a guardian of the shari'ah, the religious law, the Shi'is see the imam as a trustee inheriting and interpreting the Prophet's spiritual knowledge. As was customary, Muhammad as a child was sent to live for a year or two with a Bedouin family. These problems were not unmanageable while Mu'awiyah was alive, but after he died in 680 the partisans of 'Ali resumed a complicated but persistent struggle that plagued the Umayyads at home for most of the next seventy years and in time spread into North Africa and Spain. Worse than that, . Adopting the title Amir al-Muminin, "Commander of the Believers," 'Umar extended Islam's temporal rule over Syria, Egypt, Iraq, and Persia in what from a purely military standpoint were astonishing victories. ", Meanwhile, outside Granada, the Christian kings waited. Muslims believe in the existence of one God, whom they refer to as Allah. After the death of Malikshah in 1092, internal conflict among the young heirs led to the fragmentation of the Seljuks' central authority into smaller Seljuk states led by various members of the family, and still smaller units led by regional chieftains, no one of whom was able to unite the Muslim world as still another force appeared in the Middle East: the Crusaders. One was a system of banking and exchange so sophisticated that a letter of credit issued in Baghdad could be honored in Samarkand in Central Asia or Kairouan in North Africa. Even where Arabic did not become the national language, it became the language of religion wherever Islam became established, since the Quran is written in Arabic, the Profession of Faith is to be spoken in . This consists of two simple white seamless garments symbolizing a state of purity; in donning it pilgrims make a declaration of pilgrimage and pronounce a devotional utterance called the talbiyah: "Here I am, O God, at Thy Service" - in Arabic the joyous cry "Labbayk!" Another significant difference is that the Arabic script has been used much more extensively for decoration and as a means of artistic expression. Photo: Medieval Muslims regarded the Great Mosque built by the Umayyads in Damascus as one of the wonders of the world. Muhammad's Mission and Campaigns. Within a century, Muslims had conquered most of the Middle East and parts of Spain, and had created a unified economic sphere. To obtain them, of course, the Muslims had to export too, often using the imports from one region as exports to another: pearls from the Gulf, livestock from the Arabian Peninsula (particularly Arabian horses and camels), and - one of the chief products - cloth. To the east they extended their influence into Transoxania, an area north of the Oxus River in today's Soviet Union, and went on to reach the borders of China. In the sixteenth century, for example, the Ottoman Empire voluntarily granted a series of concessions called the "Capitulations" to European powers - concessions which gave the Europeans decided advantages in foreign trade in the empire. They were called ghazis, warriors for the faith, and their highest ambition was to die in battle for their adopted religion. In Mecca the rites are concluded by the tawaf of the return, the Circling of the Ka'bah seven times on foot, an act implying that all human activity must have God at the center. These successes, however, were qualified by serious administrative weaknesses. The Roman numeral CCC II, for instance, presented a problem. Here ornamental kufic is used on a Quranic page that typifies the marriage of calligraphy and illumination, an art that reached its zenith in the fourteenth century. Your post is really informative and I really like your work. It showed that the political consciousness of the Muslim community had reached an important point; its members defined themselves as a community separate from all others. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. Building the railway was undertaken in 1900 by Sultan Abdul-Hamid, as a pan-Islamic project. After the battle of al-Yamamah in 633, 'Umar ibn al-Khattab, later to become the second caliph, suggested to Abu Bakr, the first caliph, that because of the grievous loss of life in that battle, there was a very real danger of losing the Quran, enshrined as it was in the memories of the faithful and in uncollated fragments. Muhammad's father, 'Abd Allah ibn'Abd al-Muttalib, died before the boy was born; his mother, Aminah, died when he was six. Photo: A colonnade of lofty arches surrounds the courtyard at the Prophet's Mosque in Medina, after Mecca the second holiest city of Islam. At 'Arafat many actually do stand - from just after noon to just before sunset - but some also visit other pilgrims or the Mount of Mercy, where Muhammad delivered his farewell sermon. As they grew in importance to the economy these craftsmen eventually organized themselves into mutual-benefit societies which in some ways were similar to later Western guilds and which offered many social services: lodging travelers, engaging in pious works such as caring for orphans, and endowing schools.

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