Islam & Primary Traditions: Centralization, Religion, & Creative Minorities - Prof. Paul F, Study notes of World History

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Primary Traditions  Bureaucratic Centralization- Political  Islam- Religion
Islam Contributions  Theocratic Government (No division between church and state)  Shari’a Law  Establish unified cultural identity  Better cooperation between tribes and overrides different ethnic interests
Creative Minorities  Moses o Mosaic Law  Monotheistic Law  All encompassing  Sets the stage for theocratic government  Hammurabi o Hammurabi’s Code  Set up for Mosaic Law o Elevated his local deity to chief deity  Move towards monotheism  Muhammad o Islam  Zoroaster o Zoroastrianism  Emphasis on Good and Evil  Linear concept of time  Graduated After life  God is interested in your everyday life and wants to be with you in the after life  Cyrus the Great and Darius o Centralized bureaucratic state  Satraps who govern satrapies  Satraps answer to the emperor  Peaceful rule as long as you pay taxes  Soft power  Sargon the Great o Hereditary Monarchy  Saul and David o Unify the Hebrew people  Solomon o Increase Judaism o Builds large temple
Military Patronage States  Spread Islam  Helps to organize government  Centralizes government by using a standing army to end rebellions before they get out of hand  Janissaries are baby Christians taken at birth, castrated, converted to Muslim and have no other ties than to the Sultan and therefor are better at war  Sultan is the state and therefore can not be more centralized  When they move into new territory the Sultans take taxes and take credit for building new areas of worship and schools (Madrasas)  Keep peace by paying to rebuild a city they’ve conquered  Nobles- Kings, War lords, Entourage, Compete for the throne  Clients- Depend on the Nobles for the lifestyle, live well, likely to go to school and eventually be bureaucrats  Commoners- Free people who just are, merchants, artisans, regular people, not educated  Slaves- Captured in battle, borrowed too much money and wind up in debt, can buy their freedom
Not a civilization cause there’s no smooth transition in power

Akkadian  Sargon the Great leads the Akkadian people to expand power and territory o Institutes hereditary monarchy and dynasties which creates a civilization o Also creates a regional empire and sends his own men to help govern each region o Centralized bureaucratic government o Founder of Babylon
Babylon  First empire doesn’t last very long  Hammurabi creates a law system (Hammurabi’s Code) that dictates law, punishment, and everyday lifestyle in a harsh manner o State seeks retribution and justice o Although the law is harsh, the system allows for control o All encompassing legal code that has a major influence in West Asia o Basis for Mosaic law and some religious traditions  Hammurabi also established public works o Built citadels and city walls for protection o Built canals o Built religious centers of worship called temples  Elevates his God over all the other Gods  Still polytheistic but makes a move toward monotheism  Sends his own people to help govern his empire and continues the move to a bureaucratic government
Hittites  Share traits of people with north Africans o Indo-European language  Iron-Smelting o Gives them stronger weapons and chariots o Use this to give themselves a stronger advantage to conquer people  Hattusillis 1 is the founder who puts them in a strategic position to conquer others and is succeeded by his son, Mursili 1 o Strong king that lives a long time, things are going good o Weak king that lives a short time, things are going bad  They fight with the Egyptians for a long time and eventually decide to sign a Non-Aggression Pact which creates a regional alliance o Big development in democracy
Canaanites  Northern Israel, Southern Lebanon  Not an empire, and no interest in an empire  All about making money  Set up trading posts around northern Africa  Carthage is their permanent settlement  Left a ton of artifacts because they were the craftsmen of their time  Created the first mono-slavic alphabet World History 1 08/23/2011 0 Assyrians  Darius o Development of the tendency to Persian Centralized bureaucracy o Creates a new capital with many legal diversions  Seat of religion for the whole empire o Creates a large road from Turkey to Persepolis  More than 1600 miles  Enables the entire empire to be connected to the capital  Helps facilitate cultural exchange o Beginning of a regional administrations  Appointment of governors  Sent soldiers and smart people o Satrapies are like a smaller government of people made up of different ethnic groups that rule each group of locals o Allow people to return people to their own homelands in order to restore them  Zoroastrianism o Religion created by Zoroaster in 6th Century BCE o Creates dualism which is good and evil always existing  Life is a struggle between good and evil o An uncreated god, Ahura-Mazda, that is good and wants the best for humans and Ahriman who is like the devil and embodies all that is evil o Morality play of a cosmic struggle between good and evil o Somewhat monotheistic o An idea that your behavior in this world determines your afterlife  Heaven and hell o Creates a linear concept of time  Beginning and an end  Creation by God and end by God where you have to make an account for your life o Ideas were spread rather easily and rapidly o Becomes the state religion and then comes the creation of a priestly order called Magi o The Avesta is like a bible, a collection of sayings, tales, and guidelines o Demise comes with the rise of Islam World History 1 08/23/2011
Old Testament  They left out some negative parts of Israeli society  Get to tell about people you didn’t like from own perspective
Abraham  2000 BCE moves west  City States have reached max by this time  Patriarch of people  Isaac is patriarch of Israel  Ishmael is the patriarch of the western Semitic people  Jacob and his 12 sons become the patriarch of the Hebrews  12 sons become the tribes  Hebrews and Hittites move into Egypt around the Nile
Moses  1300 BCE  Hebrew, descendant of Jacob, Isaac, and Abraham  His time away to Palestine is the Exodus  On the way back to Palestine is a moralistic step towards monotheism
Law/ Ethical Monotheism  God wants to live in covenant with his people  God calls Abraham out of Egypt and into Ir  God wants sovereignty from his people and acknowledgment that he’s the only God o Aggressively Hellenistic Jews o Believed that their religion is perfect o Resentment grew and came to a head when one leader decided that enough was enough o The Jews in the region rebel and were lead by Judas Maccabeus against the Greek government  Creates his own army  Makes the decision to find someone who hates the Greeks as much as he does  The Romans o The Romans hate the Greeks and eventually agree to aid the Revolt o The Romans drive the Greeks out of the region and by 160 Palestine is Greek free o The Romans then took over Palestine for 100s of years
Jewish Theology  Old Testament  New Kingdom of Israel o Messiah  There will be a deliverer that will right the wrongs  Restore the kingdom o Apocalyptic  There will be a game over moment where God stops the world  Humanity will be punished and rewarded for what they’ve done  Eternal life (rewards and punishments)  Anticipation of a day where God will deliver them from their misfortunes  The different ideas of that day split up the religions
Jewish Community  Pharisees o Looking forward to God restoring the kingdom to themselves o Prepare for the afterlife by being more Jewish than Moses  Trying to Appease God o Don’t want to fight anyone  Sadducees o Anti Pharisees o Only the here and now o Being Hebrew and Jewish is a custom o Life’s too short to get caught up in negativity o Like the culture of the Greeks and Romans o About having a good time  Herodians o Herod the Great o Killed a lot of babies o Was supposed to be the guy that God was going to use to run off the Romans o Has Bravado and is loved by the Romans  Zealots o They’re trying to push the Romans out themselves o Engage in terrorism o Suicide killings o Don’t succeed  Essenes o Dead Sea Scrolls (1947) o Valley Jewish Group o Look at the spirit of the law o Instead of putting up rules around the rules, they try and form a relationship with God o More of what Jesus and John the Baptist taught and believed
Summary  A monotheistic sectarian religion that lasts longer than Zoroastrianism with a stronger following with a single God who cares about his people  Missionary Zeal  Nationalistic  Gives us Christianity and Islam in the long run 
Islam  People who convert to Islam are called Muslims  The five pillars of Islam are what they believe o There is no God but Allah and Muhammad is his prophet o Daily Prayer 5 times a day that’s very rigid o Alms Giving takes care of the poor and fatherless o Fasting during Ramadan from sun up to sun down o The one-time trip to Mecca  Sharia is the appendix of the Quran that gives the rules  Salvation is faith in God and following the Sharia and it gives you the hope for a good after-life  Sufis are Muslim monastics who are more spiritual o Interior piety that works its way out o Mysticism
Converting  Muhammad eventually runs out of people to talk to  He’s up against a very strong polytheistic cults  He’s eventually run out of town and the wandering is called Hijra o Goes to Medina o The Hajj is a reenactment of the Hijra  He has to breakdown family ties to show that the community of believers becomes your new family  Jihad is the struggle in the path of God and its an external struggle against society o Drinking is forbidden and therefore one must wage a war on society against drinking  In 630 Muhammad returns to Mecca with his soldiers to fix the polytheistic situation  Muhammad becomes the leader of Mecca for only a few years o Theocracy becomes an identifiable trait o No separation of Church and State o States job is to enforce God’s will  Abu Bakr takes over Muhammad’s place and is known as a Calip o He governs the people spiritually and gives a Call of Faith o Secular government is powered by the church  Ali is the tax collector and Abu Bakr’s number one o Enforcement o People start to rebel  Ali becomes Caliph after Abu but is assassinated  A schism occurs because people believe that the next ruler must be a descendant of Muhammad o Sunnis believe one must imitate Muhammad and a ruler is not needed o Shi’ites support the new government  Jews somewhat believe in what Muslims believe  Christians abandon their form of Christianity for Islam because its easier to explain  Polytheists eventually convert due to self-interest  World History 1 08/23/2011
Islam is a governing religion
Umayyad Caliphate  Takes over after the assassination of Ali  Sunis group  Up to this point the Caliphate was elected by Muhammad’s inner circle  Up to Ali the caliph had been a blood relative of Muhammad  They were dissatisfied by the way Ali ran the government  They get rid of the elected Caliph and move toward dynastic succession o Purely organizational matter o Long-term effect  Move north into Mesopotamia and move capital to Damascus  Promised Jews protection but as second class citizens  Didn’t have a problem with Christians  Beginning of an evolution in government o Caliph control with a spectacle called an ajib
Abbasid Dynasty  Abu-al-Abbas becomes the leader that brings many people together  Baghdad becomes the new capital  In order to maintain power they use a Persian control o Soft power o Respect local traditions yet still try to convert people to Muslims  Mamlucks and the Mongols break things up east  The Turks finish off the Abbasids and establish their own Empire
Major Traditions  The Reveal is what Muhammad got from the angel o The Quran, what the angel said o The Hadith, sayings of Muhammad o Sharia, the legal codification  Do this, don’t do that  Heavy emphasis on rational knowledge o On the verge of medicine and science o Focused on math and engineering o Gives us our number system  Mystical knowledge come from Sufism  Sunni and Shiite Traditions o Today most Muslims are Sunnis
Transmitting knowledge  The Ulama teach what we know today o Scholars trained in Shari’a law o Secular teachers teach math, Aristotle, Plato  Madrasa are universities to show they have money  Mystical knowledge are taught by the Sufis o Union of God taught by Word of Mouth o World History 1 08/23/2011 0 Military Patronage State  Fundamentally military institutions that govern everything  Bi-product of conquest  Everything’s the property of the guy at the top o Able to dispose of things as they wish  Bureaucracy structured as a military organization with ranks  Buy good favor by investing in public works  Giving away favors helps to limit revolt  Ottoman Empire lasts the longest
Establishment of the Empire  Selijuk Turks set up in Turkey  Osman Gazzi rallies Turks in order to get rid of the Abbasids and the Seljuks  Capturing the city of Bursa signifies the end of Abbasid control  Ottoman comes from the people of Osman  He also gets Orthodox Christians to fight with him
Anatomy of the Empire  Everything focuses around the Sultan o Projecting an image of total control o Must not be other people to take control o Law of fratricide, killing your brothers after you become Sultan  The palace also shows authority o Capitulations are where Ottomans give up power to Europe in order to maintain business and trade with the New World o Systematically European powers take down the Ottoman Empire using capitulations
Shahs  The second Islamic power out of Persia  Shah Ismail o Secular ruler of the Shahs o Pulls together the tribes of Persia o Qizilbash is his army that are fierce fighters that use force to get peace o From the line of Muhammad and uses this to gain supporters and converts the Sunnis into Shiites  Not peacefully  Replace Sunni schools with Shiites o The have fantastic relations with Europe which help them to survive past World War 2
Shah Abbas  Manages to rebuild Persia into an economic powerhouse o Manufacturing instead of trade  Establishes a monopoly of foreign trade which keeps domestic problems to a minimum  Repair roads and bridges to speed up trade  Merchants sell goods in the Bazaars  Istanbul on steroids
Decline of the Gupta Empire  Smaller Islamic powers that don’t last very long  Delhi Sultanate come in, convert locals, rebuild some cities, but don’t last long  Mongols take the city over and are outsiders o Don’t blend in well  India has a longstanding tradition of decentralization
Babur “the Tiger”  From the Fergana tribe in Afghanistan  Brings the tribes together  Declares himself emperor or sultan  Once he gets his power set up, his predecessor can move south
Akbar  Babur’s son who expands the capital  Control over entire sub continent  Changes the language from Sanskrit to Persian o Language of the Muslims  Sets uniform taxation across the sub continent  Creates four new government departments o Department of the Army o Department of Taxes and Finance o Department of the Judiciary o Department of Religion  Centralized Bureaucracy focused on Islam  Allow other religions to pay a tax and let people do their own thing  Patronage State Early India and Indian Religion 08/23/2011 0 Harappan Society