This material became the basis for what is called the sunnah, or "practice" of the Prophet - the deeds, utterances, and taqrir (unspoken approval) of Muhammad. 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 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. Faithful Muslims, therefore, submit unreservedly to God's will and obey His precepts as set forth in the Quran and transmitted to mankind by Muhammad, His Messenger. Islamic architecture encompasses a wide range of both secular and religious styles from the early history of Islam to the present day. 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. 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. Non-Muslims are often struck by the range of styles found in the Quran. Among his works were such titles as An Introduction to the Art of Music, The Reason Why Rain Rarely Falls in Certain Places, The Cause of Vertigo, and Crossbreeding the Dove. Requiring a high degree of engineering skill, qanats were built some fifty feet underground with a very slight inclination over long distances to tap underground water and were provided with manholes so that they could be cleaned and repaired. Although the Crusades achieved no lasting results in terms of military conquest, they were important in the development of trade, and their long-range effects on Western society - on everything from feudalism to fashion - are inestimable. Islam has helped to shape the culture from the language, to customs, to business, to institution building, to the construction of political arrangements. 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. Islamic Expansion in the Time of Muhammad and the First Four Caliphs. Who would be its leader? True to his pledge, Ibn al-Ahmar complied and Seville fell to the Christians. } else {
Following the decisive Battle of Yarmouk in 636, the former Byzantine states of Syria, Palestine, and Lebanon were conquered by the Muslim armies. Even in China (which has a Muslim population of some forty million) and the Central Asian republics of the CIS (ex-USSR), Arabic can be heard in the shahadah, in prayer, and in the chanting of the Quran. It extends over 2,000 miles from the Black Sea in the north to the Arabian Sea in the south, and about 1,000 miles from the Mediterranean Sea in the west to the mountains of Iran. From ta'liq, in turn, another script called nasta'liq was derived which combines the Arabic naskhi and the Persian tailiq into a beautifully light and legible script. By promising aid - and ultimate independence from the Ottomans - Great Britain encouraged the Arabs to launch a daring guerrilla campaign against Turkish forces, a campaign widely publicized in press coverage of T. E. Lawrence ("Lawrence of Arabia") and in Lawrence's own writings. The early rise of Islam (632-700) The Muslim community spread through the Middle East through conquest, and the resulting growth of the Muslim state provided the ground in which the recently . Although unable to fend off the Crusaders at first - even offering the Crusaders access to Jerusalem if they would come as pilgrims rather than invaders - the Muslims eventually began to mount effective counterattacks. conquered the Middle East, then dispatched scholars and diplomats to study Islamic civilization, classifying it as something . The 'Abbasids preserved and improved the ancient network of wells, underground canals, and waterwheels, introduced new breeds of livestock, hastened the spread of cotton, and, from the Chinese, learned the art of making paper, a key to the revival of learning in Europe in the Middle Ages. Photo: A Moorish-built tower soars above Guadalquivir River in Seville. As the pilgrims have now completed much of the hajj, Muslim men now clip their hair or shave their heads and women clip a symbolic lock to mark partial deconsecration. As the early scholars in the Islamic world agreed with Aristotle that mathematics was the basis of all science, the scholars of the House of Wisdom first focused on mathematics. The struggle with the Sassanid realm had opened in 687 at al-Qadisiyah, near Ctesiphon in Iraq, where Muslim cavalry had successfully coped with elephants used by the Persians as a kind of primitive tank. Photo: The sun rises over Jabal al-Rahmah, the Mount of Mercy, where Muhammad in his farewell sermon told the assembled Muslims, "I have delivered God's message to you and left you with a clear command: the Book of God and the practice of His Prophet. By diverting Turkish strength and blocking the Turkish-German route to the Red Sea and India, the Arab Revolt contributed substantially to the Allied victory, but it did not result in full independence for the Arab lands. In Muslim regions, in modern times, the faithful - at the sound of the sunset cannon or the call of the muezzin - break their fast, perform voluntary nocturnal worship (tarawih), and throng the streets in moods that are at once festive and, in the spirit of Ramadan, communal. One of the Umayyad caliphs who attained greatness was 'Umar ibn 'Abd al-'Aziz, a man very different from his predecessors. Photo: The mosque of Bibi Khanum named for Tamerlane's favorite wife, was once the most imposing building of Samarkand. Photo: Medieval Muslims regarded the Great Mosque built by the Umayyads in Damascus as one of the wonders of the world. These territorial acquisitions brought the Arabs into contact with previously unknown ethnic groups who embraced Islam and would later influence the course of Islamic history. Photo: The mosque at Kyustendi in Bulgaria was founded during Ottoman rule. Photo: In the ceremony of sa'y they reenact the search for water by Hagar, wife of the patriarch Abraham. My grandpa was a Kurdish communist activist in Iran and is an atheist. The Spread of Islam and its Relationship to Medieval EuropeGrowth of Islam.When Islam first emerged in Arabia during the mid-seventh century, there was little indication that within 150 years the movement would come to dominate the entire Middle East, as well as northern Africa and Spain. Because of administrative paralysis, local governors became increasingly independent and, eventually, revolts broke out. Like prayer, zakah is considered a form of worship. Thee only do we worship, and Thee alone we ask for help. 1. Muhammad help to spread the religion of Islam. They were polytheistic and reaped all the political problems associated with polytheism. 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. I am from the Middle East myself. Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. (EIN: 95-4348674). As he could no longer rely on the loyalty of his army, al-Mu'tasim recruited an army of Turks from Transoxania and Turkestan. 'Uthman also, through his cousin Mu'awiyah ibn Abi Sufyan, the governor of Syria, established an Arab navy which fought a series of important engagements with the Byzantines. The place had to be shown even if the sign which showed it indicated a unitary value of "nothing." As the Prophet said, "The best of prayers is the prayer of the Day of 'Arafat.". But, bit by bit, they had to retreat, first from northern Spain, then from central Spain. Who is there that can intercede with Him Some of these were no more than efforts to placate European powers - which by then had great influence on the empire's policies - but others, in education and law, were important. Great information for Muslims I really enjoyed reading your blog because I want to get knowledge about Islam. As the chief source of Islamic doctrine and practice, the Quran is the main foundation of the shari'ah, the sacred law of Islam, which covers all aspects of the public and private, social and economic, religious and political lives of all Muslims. This is not to say that religious values were ignored; on the contrary, they grew in strength for centuries. The division between the Sunnis and the Shi'is continued to develop in 680 when Ali's son Husayn along with his followers was brutally killed at Karbala in Iraq by the forces of the Umayyad ruler Yazid. The opinions expressed herein, through this post or comments, contain positions and viewpoints that are not necessarily those of IslamiCity. Some of the tribes decided that as their loyalty to Islam had been primarily to Muhammad himself, his death allowed them to end their allegiance to Mecca and to Islam. Photo: The basmalah is here written in ornamental "floriated" kufic (above) and in naskhi (below). Fighting then flared up in Palestine. Photo: Water courses and fountains make an oasis of the Alhambra palace built at Granada in the fourteenth century Here incredibly light and elegant elements of Islamic decoration find their highest realization. Islam emerged as a new powerful yet a very strong opponent of Christianity. In effect, however, it expired with the Mongols and the capture of Baghdad. Because there was considerable interest in new varieties - for nutritive and medicinal purposes - many new plants were introduced: sorghum, for example, which had recently been discovered in Africa. Enraged, the Meccans set a price on Muhammad's head and set off in pursuit. The Indian way had the advantage of using much smaller clusters of symbols and greatly simplifying written computations. Photo: Miniature from the Shah-Nameh (Book of Kings), illustrating the epic of Persian poet Firdausi. 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. Read more. Thereunto we give them the pact of Allah and the protection of His Prophet, the caliphs and the believers. Influences on Islamic medicine. So, in proportion did sporadic strife between Arabs and Jews. Under 'Abd al-Malik, the Umayyads expanded Islamic power still further. The Quran of course is available in many languages, but these versions are regarded as interpretations rather than translations - partly because the Arabic language, extraordinarily concise and allusive, is impossible to translate in a mechanical, word-for-word way. Writers of this period also studied tribal traditions and wrote the first systematic Arabic grammars. In Europe, meanwhile, the Arabs had passed into Spain, defeated the Visigoths, and by 713 had reached Narbonne in France. The three most influential monotheistic religions in world history are Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, all of which began in the Middle East. Important books were written on soil analysis, water, and what kinds of crops were suited to what soil. Islam, they say, was revealed through a long line of prophets inspired by God. The Fatimids built the Mosque of al-Azhar in Cairo - from which developed al-Azhar University, now the oldest university in the world and perhaps the most influential Islamic school of higher learning. Yet, though the evidence of the practical impotency of traditional religion in many current affairs is unmistakable, this conclusion is unwarranted--at least as a generalization. It was from these six, and from kufic, that later calligraphers, not only in the Arab world but in Iran, Turkey, and elsewhere as well, developed and elaborated other scripts. Even more astonishingly, the Muslim state administered the conquered territories with a tolerance almost unheard of in that age. They also organized a bureaucracy able to cope with the complex problems of a vast and diverse empire, and made Arabic the language of government. But at the beginning, when its institutions were responsive to the needs of the people and the state, the Ottoman Empire was a model of administrative efficiency. 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. The scholars at the House of Wisdom, unlike their modern counterparts, did not "specialize." The Arabic term islm, literally "surrender," illuminates the fundamental religious idea of Islamthat the believer (called a Muslim, from the active particle of islm) accepts surrender to the will of Allah (in Arabic, Allh: God). The main body of the Shi'is, on the other hand, believes that the caliphate - which they call the imamate or "leadership" - is nonelective. Thirdly, one of the allied tribes which had pledged support to the Muslims in the Battle of Badr, but had then proved lukewarm when the fighting started, was expelled from Medina one month after the battle. It affected the way people lived including their government trade and education. The path of those whom Thou hast favored; not the path of those who earn Thine anger nor of those who go astray. The Ottoman state was born on the frontier between Islam and the Byzantine Empire. Despite the great body of tradition and law, however the practice of Islam is essentially personal - a direct relationship between individuals and God. It is also used in Kashmir and in some places in the Malay Peninsula and the East Indies, and in Africa it is used in Somalia and down the east coast as far south as Tanzania. Another turning point was the invasion of Egypt in 1798 by Napoleon Bonaparte. Photo: Symbol of the oneness and centrality of God, the Ka'bah stands in the courtyard of Mecca's Sacred Mosque where at the season of the hajj the faithful gather for rituals that precede and end their pilgrimage. At the Battle of the Trench, also known as the Battle of the Confederates, the Muslims scored a signal victory by introducing a new defense. 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 Arabic, and five times daily the practicing Muslim must say his prayers in Arabic. During what is known as the Golden Age of Islam, which lasted roughly between the mid-eighth century until the 13th century, the Muslim world was the center of intellectual activity, with Baghdad serving as the capital for philosophers, mathematicians and scientists. Does one religion have the monopoly on truth? Although it led to an improvement in Egyptian-Israeli relations which resulted in Israeli evacuation of some occupied Egyptian territory and the opening of the Suez Canal to Israeli ships, however, this separate peace treaty did nothing to bring about withdrawal of Israeli occupation forces from East Jerusalem, the West Bank, and the Golan Heights of Syria and left untouched the root cause of the entire problem- that is, the status of the Palestinians. Eventually the Mongols made an empire for themselves which is known as the . Among many instruments that arrived in Europe through the Middle East are the lute and the rahab, an ancestor of the violin. In fact, it's hard to . Herbert's hero, Paul Atreides, is a man whose sense of supernatural mission is shadowed . 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. The important office of wazir or vizier, chief counselor, may well have developed from Sassanid models. The Arabs gave to a large part of the world not only a religion - Islam - but also a language and an alphabet. A year later the Meccans struck back. Now with the Battle of Nihavand, called the "Conquest of Conquests," 'Umar sealed the fate of Persia; henceforth it was to be one of the most important provinces in the Muslim Empire. These campaigns, known as the apostasy or ridda wars, effectively consolidated Arabia into a single country under Muslim control within two years. If you need a Login or Registeration, this is your starting point. This was a milestone in the history of the Muslims. Except such as He wills; Those who claimed to be allies of the Muslims, but tacitly opposed them, were thus served warning: membership in the community imposed the obligation of total support. Although the Umayyads favored their own region of Syria, their rule was not without accomplishments. They collected and corrected previous astronomical data, built the world's first observatory, and developed the astrolabe, an instrument that was once called "a mathematical jewel." With some exceptions the surahs are arranged in the Quran in descending order of length, with the longest at the beginning and the shortest at the end. In a short paragraph, give three examples of the ways this religion has impacted North African culture. The first pillar, the profession of faith, is the repetition of the statement, "There is no god but God; Muhammad is the Messenger of God" - in Arabic the euphonious "La ilaha illa Allah; Muhammadun rasul Allah." This process got under way as the office of the Grand Vizier gradually assumed more power and indifferent sultans began to neglect administration. In describing the fate of Islam in Spain, Irving suggested that the Muslims were then swiftly and thoroughly wiped out. 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 . 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. A fountainhead of medical wisdom during the Islamic era, al-Razi, according to one contemporary account, was also a fine teacher and a compassionate physician, who brought rations to the poor and provided nursing for them. If you want to answer this question, then you have to think about the Crusades from the Muslim's point of view. Abu Bakr's caliphate was short but important. During this period of his life Muhammad traveled widely. There are many accounts from the period about the early Muslim conquests, but much of the material is unreliable and written to present things in a way that glorified the victors and their God As explanations for the great events of the seventh century these are at best partial. During the First Crusade, for example, adherents of the two religions joined together to defend the cities of Antioch (1097 CE) and Jerusalem (1099) from European Crusaders who laid siege to them. Despite the great mass of words, the full explanation for Muslim victory still eludes us. Members of the two sects have co-existed for centuries and share many fundamental beliefs and practices. Immigration nevertheless continued and in the 1930s - with the rise of Adolf Hitler - and after World War II, Jewish immigration increased still further. Christians and Jews, upon payment of a yearly tax, were allowed religious freedom and, while maintaining their status as non-Muslims, were associate members of the Muslim state. In the forefront was Saudi Arabia, the heartland of Islam, and the site of the momentous events which initiated Islamic history fourteen centuries ago. As Jewish forces were victorious - and as stories spread that some 250 Arab civilians had been massacred in a village called Deir Yassin - thousands of Palestinians fled, among the first of today's 3.4 million refugees and exiles.
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