World Civilizations, AP chapter 6

Rise and fall of Islam
Intro
Arab followers of Muhammad surged from the Arabian Peninsula to create the first global civilization
Quickly conquered all of the middle east, Greece, Egypt, and Persia.
This conquering spread ideas and trade, facilitating global diffusion
Birth of Islam
The Arabian peninsula was filled with bedoin societies and people. The bedoin were a hunter- gather tribe
Although some groups did herd camels and others participated in agriculture, showing how diverse this society already was.
Sedentary agricultural communities were limited to the far south of the peninsula, and trading towns developed along the coasts.
Clans
The basic social unit of the beduoin was a kin based clan, which were also linked together in tribes
A patriarchl society in which the head male is called the shaykhs
But these clans also created constant fights which weakend Bedouin society and made it harder to unity to do anything as a group

Towns and long distance trade
Mecca, founded by the Umayyad clan of the Quraysh tribe, was the most important of these Arabian cities.
Mecca would later become a religious site because the ka’ba is housed there
When Mecca became a religious site, many Bedouins gathered and had peace which would help bond them and hold them together.
Life of muhhamed the prophet
Muhhamed came in contact with other monotheisms early in life and would later influence him in his teachings.
He started as a trader but eventually decided to meditate more often and came to the conclusions which would be written in the ka’ba that would be kept in mecca and unite the beduions
Persectution
After he learned about a plot to murder him, Muhammed and some of his followers fled to the nearby town of medina
They fought back and eventualy won so he could return to Mecca. Many people converated over to Islam shortly after.
Arabs and Islam
Islam gave the arabs a reason and a purpose to untie under and gave them a culture of their own that was unlike any other
It also helped even out the gaps in social status between the rich and the poor
All Muslims were required to confess their belief in Allah and Muhammad as his Prophet, to pray facing Mecca five times a day, to fast during the holy month of Ramadan, to pay a tithe to be used as charity for the poor, and to make a pilgrimage to Mecca to worship Allah at the Ka'ba. All Muslims, regardless of their nationality or ethnic origins, shared the same responsibilities.
The Arab Empire of the Ummyads
The religious rulers of Islam were referred to as the caliphs
The first of them was Ab Bukar who while having limited power was able to unify all of Arab following the prophets death
Muslim warriors viewed campaigns as a means of taking booty
Early Islamic caliphs saw conquest as a useful means of deflecting martial energies outward from Arabia.
The idea of economic opportunities was more important to the people then the idea of new converts was.
Other civilzations were easy to attack because of week governments and other internal problems making it easy for the arabs to conquer them.
Some civiliztions went to them openly because they offered more freedoms then other empires that controlled them did.

Dihmmi was a term used to describe Christians and Jews who saw the bible as a holy text
. In the first generations after Muhammad, Islamic women strengthened their positions within their households Islam declared the spiritual equality of men and women before Allah, and women participated in the early wars of expansion
Women of the early Islamic umma entered many occupations, including commerce and law.
Arab to the Islamic Empire
The Abbasids built a new capital in Iraq at Baghdad
Under the Abbasids, mass conversion were encouraged, and new converts were admitted to full equality within the umma.