how did islam impact the middle east

Systematized in the second and third centuries of the Muslim era (the eighth and ninth centuries A.D.), the shari'ah later developed into four major schools of jurisprudence: the Hanafi School, founded by Abu Hanifah; the Maliki School, founded by Malik ibn Anas; the Shafi'i School, founded by Muhammad al-Shafi'i; and the Hanbali School founded by Ahmad ibn Hanbal. These traditions not only provided the historical context for many of the surahs - thus contributing to their more exact explication - but also contained a wide variety of subsidiary information on the practice, life, and legal rulings of the Prophet and his companions. The destruction by the Mongols of many of these achievements and of much of what the Muslims had accomplished by the end of the Golden Age was a tragic loss for the world as a whole. In the same period, the Arab countries themselves, voluntarily and pragmatically, continued to adopt Western techniques, forms, and to some extent concepts. Islam, in Arabic, means "submission" - submission to the will of God. True to his pledge, Ibn al-Ahmar complied and Seville fell to the Christians. As late as 1683, for example, they besieged Vienna. Iran's attempts to spread a populist notion of political Islam regionally and globally . Islam has helped to shape the culture from the language, to customs, to business, to . ", Over the years, what started as a fortress slowly evolved under Ibn al-Ahmar's successors into a remarkable series of delicately lovely buildings, quiet courtyards, limpid pools, and hidden gardens. Ishaq ibn Hunayn and Thabit ibn Qurrah, for example, prepared a critical edition of Euclid's Elements, while other scholars translated a commentary on Euclid originally written by a mathematician and inventor from Egypt, and still others translated at least eleven major works by Archimedes, including a treatise on the construction of a water clock. But this mixture of motives combined to form a process that forged Islamic and Arab ideals and communities into a fast-growing religious and political identity. A prophet arises from the depths of a desert world to humiliate an empire and launch a holy war - a jihad. Important books were written on soil analysis, water, and what kinds of crops were suited to what soil. Photo: The Crusader castle at Sidon in Lebanon was abandoned after the final defeat of the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem. More than 60 percent of the Muslim population lives not in the Middle East, but in Asia. The Impact of Islam . For fifty years, in fact, Greek remained the chancery language of Syria, Egypt, and Palestine, while Pahlavi, the chancery language of the Sassanians, continued to be used in Mesopotamia and Persia. 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!" Expansion in the East to 750 CE (with arrows, years . The Golden Age was a period of unrivaled intellectual activity in all fields: science, technology, and (as a result of intensive study of the Islamic faith) literature - particularly biography, history, and linguistics. One was the gold mines of the Hijaz which were reopened around 750, reworked for about four hundred years, and then, in 1931, explored again by Karl Twitchell, who was searching for minerals in that area on behalf of King 'Abd al-'Aziz of Saudi Arabia. Islamic calligraphers have experimented endlessly and have been extremely imaginative. When it was founded it had 25 doctors, including oculists, surgeons, and bonesetters. In the forefront was Saudi Arabia, the heartland of Islam, and the site of the momentous events which initiated Islamic history fourteen centuries ago. Photo: A mosque in Washington, D.C., a landmark for millions of Muslims in North America. Members of the two sects have co-existed for centuries and share many fundamental beliefs and practices. 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 . To keep the Arab Muslims from quarreling, the next caliph, Omar, launched the Muslim conquests: Syria was conquered around 636, Egypt 641, Mesopotamia and the Persian Empire, 650. An exemplary leader, he lived simply, assiduously fulfilled his religious obligations, and was accessible and sympathetic to his people. The surahs revealed at Medina are longer, often deal in detail with specific legal, social, or political situations, and sometimes can only be properly understood with a full knowledge of the circumstances in which they were revealed All the surahs are divided into ayahs or verses and, for purposes of pedagogy and recitation, the Quran as a whole is divided into thirty parts, which in turn are divided into short divisions of nearly equal length, to facilitate study and memorization. The hajj is at once a worldwide migration of the faithful and a remarkable spiritual happening that, according to Islamic tradition, dates back to Abraham, was affirmed by Muhammad, and then, by Muhammad's own pilgrimage, systematized into rites which are simple in execution but rich it in meaning. He was noted for his justice, social ideals, administration, and statesmanship. The Americans started to get sucked into the complex world of Middle East politics, and with time, that interest grew and evolved: From self-determination of the Arabs to the drilling of the Arab . Among his many contributions to optics was the first correct explanation . Indeed, the Quran is the cornerstone on which the edifice of Islamic civilization has been built. Life section is all about Society, Art, Culture, History, Sports, Food, Music and much more. Fortunately the community immediately chose the Prophet's close companion and father-in-Law Abu Bakr, as his successor. In fact, it seems quite possible that the Arab scholars used their own numerals but manipulated them in the Indian way. 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. Islam has had an enormous impact on the culture of the Middle East since the time of the Prophet Muhammad. To cement social bonds further, Islam has instituted zakat al-fitr, an obligatory levy in the form of provisions or money for the poor, so that they can share in the joy of 'Id al-Fitr. After the Hijrah, Muhammad's exceptional qualities so impressed the Medinans that the rival tribes and their allies temporarily closed ranks as, on March 15, 624, Muhammad and his supporters moved against the pagans of Mecca. 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. 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. Examples of more or less standard types of script such as these do not by any means exhaust the number of styles. Another Semitic script which was in use at about the same time and which is found on inscriptions in southern Arabia is the origin of the alphabet now used for Amharic, the official language of Ethiopia. This group is known as ahl alsunnah wa-l-jama'ah, "the people of custom and community," or Sunnis, who consider the caliph to be Muhammad's successor only in his capacity as ruler of the community. They were polytheistic and reaped all the political problems associated with polytheism. The zakah prescribes payments of fixed proportions of a Muslim's possession for the welfare of the community in general and for its needy members in particular, whether Muslims or non-Muslims. Wherever artistic ornamentation and decoration were required, therefore, Muslim artists, forbidden to depict, human or animal forms, for the most part were forced to resort either to what has since come to be known as "arabesque" (designs based on strictly geometrical forms or patterns of leaves and flowers) or, very often, to calligraphy. Despite the great body of tradition and law, however the practice of Islam is essentially personal - a direct relationship between individuals and God. Photo: This eighth century manuscript from Mecca or Medina is one of the two oldest known existing copies of the Quran. From Iraq the Mongols pressed forward into Syria and then toward Egypt where, for the first time, they faced adversaries who refused to quail before their vaunted power. Then, in 1497, five years after Ferdinand and Isabella ended Islamic rule in Spain, Vasco da Gama led a fleet of four Portuguese ships around Africa and in 1498 found a new sea route to India from Europe. Sharia law has wide-reaching influences on business within the region which need to be appreciated. Islamic law is thus different from any other legal system; it differs from canon law in that it is not administered by a church hierarchy; in Islam there is nothing that corresponds to a "church" in the Christian sense. The Mansuri Hospital in Cairo, Egypt, was an important teaching hospital in medieval times. BBC 2014 The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. 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). In Mecca the plotters arrived at Muhammad's home to find that his cousin, 'Ali, had taken his place in bed. While the presence of Islam in West Africa dates back to eighth century, the spread of the faith in regions that are now the modern states of Senegal, Gambia, Guinea, Burkina Faso, Niger, Mali and Nigeria, was in actuality, a gradual and complex process. In the wake of the Ridda wars, and of the Arabs' sudden conquest of most of the Near East, the new religion became identified more sharply as a monotheism for the Arab people. The major rites of the hajj begin on the eighth day of Dhu al-Hijjah when, with thunderous cries of "Labbayk!" The major exception to this arrangement is the opening surah, "al-Fatihah," which contains seven verses and which serves as an introduction to the entire revelation: In the Name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate. The Muslim legacy included advances in technology too. In some ways the 'Abbasids were more fortunate than the Umayyads. Shortly afterwards the Muslim army attacked the Sassanid Empire in Iraq, gaining a massive victory in 637 at the Battle of Qadasiya, and gradually conquering more and more of Iraq over the next dozen years. Henceforth, the organizational principle of the community was not to be mere blood kinship, but the greater brotherhood of all Muslims. The sunnah - which supplements and complements the Quran, the Word of God, and is next to it in importance - embodies the meticulously documented acts and sayings of the Prophet recorded in a body of writings called the hadith. One important addition by the Ottoman calligraphers was the script called diwani, so called from the word diwan (meaning state council or government office) since it was at first used primarily for documents issued by the Ottoman Council of State. Although the House of Wisdom originally concentrated on mathematics, it did not exclude other subjects. Save by His leave? Islam, they say, was revealed through a long line of prophets inspired by God. In their sweep through the Islamic world the Mongols killed or deported numerous scholars and scientists and destroyed libraries with their irreplaceable works. The Quran nowhere prohibits the representation of humans or animals in drawings, or paintings, but as Islam expanded in its early years it inherited some of the prejudices against visual art of this kind that had already taken root in the Middle East. 'Umar adopted this attitude in administrative matters as well. The basmalah in the thuluth script on the right has been written in the shape of an ostrich. In the ninth century the Caliph al-Mamun, son of the famous Harun al-Rashid, began to tap that invaluable source. Actually the Sunnis and the Shi'is are agreed upon almost all the essentials of Islam. In the meantime, the Mongols, like so many of the peoples who had come into contact with Islam, had begun to embrace it. During the second Mongol invasion, Tamerlane had met and very nearly annihilated another rising power: the Ottomans. Yet it is, in the deeply personal terms of a Muslim, something more as well. To a degree almost incomprehensible in the West it shapes and colors broadly, specifically, and totally the thoughts, emotions, and values of the devout Muslim's life from birth to death. During the early twentieth century too, a group called the Young Turks forced the restoration of the constitution (which had been suspended by Abdul-Hamid), eventually deposed the sultan, and again attempted to modernize the Ottoman state. His reign was long - from 724 to 743 - and during it the Arab empire reached its greatest extent. 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. But the Fatimids' dreams of gaining control of the Islamic heartland came to nothing, partly because many other independent states refused to support them and partly because they, like the 'Abbasids in Baghdad, lost effective control of their own mercenaries. Advertisement. Even earlier, Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon had broken their ties with Britain and France. The single largest Muslim-majority society in the world is Indonesia, whose population of 230 million is 89 percent Muslim. The early state began in Medina and gradually gained Mecca, Hunayn, Tabouk, and a large majority of the populated regions of the Arabian Peninsula. Please consider upgrading your browser software or enabling style sheets (CSS) if you are able to do so. The Technology of the Medieval Islamic WorldOverviewFor centuries during the European Middle Ages, non-European cultures continued to make progress in science and technology, only marginally affected by Europe's troubles and relative stagnation. 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. And what is after them, 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. Non-Muslims are often struck by the range of styles found in the Quran. However, the sharifs of Mecca and Medina are virtually independent. Nizam-al-Mulk was the patron of the poet and astronomer 'Umar al-Khayyam (Omar Khayyam), whose verses, as translated by Edward FitzGerald in the nineteenth century, have become as familiar to English readers as the sonnets of Shakespeare. In the countries that use the Arabic alphabet, on the other hand, calligraphy has continued to be used not only on important documents but for a variety of other artistic purposes as well. In addition to education, contact with the West led to improvements in medical care and the introduction of Western techniques in agriculture, commerce, and industry. Ibn Ishaq, one of the earliest biographers of the Prophet, says it was at about this time that Muhammad sent letters to the rulers of the earth - the King of Persia, the Emperor of Byzantium, the Negus of Abyssinia, and the Governor of Egypt among others - inviting them to submit to Islam. The Medieval Islamic Empire was a collection of regions in which Islam was practised. Two sects have co-existed for centuries and share many fundamental beliefs and practices, they say was! Tamerlane had met and very nearly annihilated another rising power: the Ottomans written on soil analysis, water and... Some ways the 'Abbasids were more fortunate than the Umayyads taken his place in bed of Wisdom concentrated., Sports, Food, Music and much more possible that the Arab empire reached greatest... 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