so welcome to our second our first lecture of the year for this world history class and this lecture is going to be done in three parts the first part is all about muhammad and the beginnings of islam and its early spread and then we will close when we get to the abbasid empire so what we see here on this map is we see [Music] we see a the islamic world right and when we see the islamic world it's going to start here in mecca and then it's quickly going to spread to what everything you see here that is not a yellow color so from spain or all under loss all the way into india so let's start with the life of muhammad muhammad was born in mecca and which is in current day saudi arabia sometime around the year 570 ce we don't know exactly when he was born but sometime around then and so muhammad has an interesting upbringing he was born into a wealthy trading family mecca was on a trade route it was an oasis town in the middle of the desert and so people would naturally stop there as they go up and down the arabian peninsula to get resupplied and watered and so it became a trading center and it was very cosmopolitan city there were christians there and jews and animus and all kinds of different religions that muhammad is going to be exposed to an early age so while he was born to a wealthy trading family he however is going to be orphaned at a fairly early age and so his extended family is wealthy but he is rather poor and so he will grow up on the streets of mecca sometimes without enough food and so when he gets older that will affect his ideas of giving to the poor as we will see if we see in the bottom right hand picture you see this is um an image a muslim image of the birth of muhammad we can see here he is the birth of muhammad and there's angels there in marking this great this great event that will be part of the muslim faith he gets older and he marries an older woman um who's wealthy she's also part of a trading family um and so through her he starts to run her business they have a loving marriage um and so he goes from poverty to wealth and he's doing all right when he gets to be about 40 a little bit less maybe a little bit more he has what we might call a spiritual crisis he's about middle aged and he's wondering if this is all there is to life you know when he was young he probably wanted wealth and stability like all of us do um and then when he had that he's successful he's got a wonderful marriage he's he's accepted um he wonders is there more to life than this is there something spiritual that he's lacking because he has all the the you know materialistic comforts of life and so he starts to think about this but he can't he can't contemplate the meaning of life when he's in mecca because he's busy with his business um and busy with married life and the town is noisy and so he goes up into the mountains and there is a cave up in the mountains around mecca and he goes there at night to just be cool and to think about what his life is all about and so according to muslim tradition he is going to have a visitation from the angel gabriel and so this angel comes to him and you can see muhammad here he has the he has the fire around his head searching is seeing enlightenment in the christian world it's usually a halo that we see on religious figures and so the angel gabriel according to islamic tradition comes to him and says you know allah or god knows that you have been searching and allah wants to make you his last prophet his last person that he's ever going to send to earth to explain to the people what the meaning of life is what god wants us all to do with our lives and how to treat one another and so this in the islamic tradition is called the night of power where muhammad gets his first revelation from allah through gabriel now this is going to heavily build on judaism and christianity because like i said there were lots of jews and christians in mecca already and so this is appealing to muhammad this idea of monotheism one god and muhammad would say to his soon-to-be followers that allah is the same god as the god of the christians and the jews and he has already revealed his message to people through jesus and moses and abraham and isaac a lot of the people in the jewish or christian tradition and they all were coming from the same god and had the same message but over time the message has changed in people's minds they've forgotten it they've got it wrong and so god is sending one more prophet to the world to tell people the will of allah or god and so we have this idea in islam that muhammad is the seal of the prophets he is the last prophet god will send to humanity their last chance to really get god's message correctly um and so that's what he says um now hopefully he was that he would convert jews and christians to his faith because he says i'm i'm the same faith as you i'm just a more recent updated addition a more direct path to allah or god and some jews and christians convert but really his first converts are going to be his friends and family his wife is his first convert um and then then it'll grow from there and so judaism and christianity and islam form what we today call the great monotheistic face of the world they are all believing in one god and judaism will remain small but christianity of course has spread since its inception and then islam of course will spread rapidly after muhammad starts to have his um his messages with with the angels and then spread his faith so let's take a little bit a a a little bit more in-depth look at the beliefs of islam just so just a very survey kind of level and so like judaism and christianity who he's being impacted by there is a holy book in judaism called the torah which is on the left and of course in the christian christian tradition there is the bible which is the torah plus additional um books in the old testament and then the gospels of the new and so forth and so islam says those are all fine god sent his message to people but like i said over time it's gotten deluded or they've lost their way and so here we're going to have an updated version a more direct path to god and it's going to be written down in the quran and so muhammad will start giving his revelations and then his followers later on will start to write down um his life and his teachings in two books one is called the quran and the other one is called the hadith and so just like the other religions it's monotheistic just like the other religions the monotheistic face is going to have a central holy book and so high literacy here in what will be the muslim world all muslims are commanded to read the quran and to know it because that is the word of god and so we all have this and so when islam starts to spread they're very tolerant and accepting of jews and christians because they believe they follow the same god they have the same prophets just with the addition of muhammad and they also have this tradition of a holy book so next well what does what is islam tell people they need to do and so there are these things called the five pillars of the faith in other words the five core beliefs that muslims need to do and believe to be muslim or one who submits some muslim right and so these are not in any particular order but the first one we're going to talk about is you have to publicly state your faith and so here it is in arabic on the modern flag of saudi arabia but you you know muslims are supposed to say there is no god but allah saying that they are monotheistic and that muhammad is the messenger of allah that muhammad is the seal of the prophets the last one and that's really the core message of islam they are monotheistic god is allah and that you should follow the teachings of muhammad to make god happy and to get into heaven next you must pray five times a day um and so muslims now that seems like a lot for some people and maybe not as much to others but the the idea of praying five times a day is that all throughout your day in the morning and in the afternoon and the evening and then at night the reason you need to do this is because you're supposed to pur continuously connect with your god and constantly think you know what would allah have us do how is my day going am i being a good muslim am i being dedicated so it's supposed to be this create this personal connection with allah and so we see here we have in calligraphy we see it being kind of drawn out of a person at prayer now originally in islamic communities in the arabian peninsula among the first muslims they considered it sacrilegious or irreligious to draw images of animals or plants or humans because that is like recreating what god created and so there's a tradition in the islamic world of doing geometric patterns or this kind of calligraphy as an art form and so that's an example of how islam is impacting kind of the art culture of this part of the world next you're supposed to give alms to the poor um you're supposed to give to charity you're supposed to give to the poor people and of course maybe this came from muhammad's early days when he was poor on the streets of mecca and so you know he just carried with them that idea that you should help other people and so that's one of the pillars of the faith next once in in muslims lives they must take a haj if they're able to ahaj is a trip a pilgrimage to where it all began mecca to reconnect with your faith to reconnect with the other believers what we call dar al-islam the islamic world and as we see islam spreads this is going to have a huge impact on world history because islam as i had said will spread from spain through north africa obviously the arabian peninsula through southwest asia all the way to india and people in all of those different cultures and places will all come together um once a year not every year but once in their life and they will take their hajj to mecca and they will circle the kaaba which is this this holy place right in the center of the picture that you can see here there it is and all of these dots these are people circling the kaaba saying prayers reflecting on their life and as they come together they will exchange ideas and thoughts and cultural practices and so we will see in our future notes of how i all of these things ideas crops technology is going to spread rapidly through the islamic world and that's really what this course is about at its essence world history is about the interactions of people and how they spread ideas back and forth so the hajj with bringing all of these muslim pilgrims together is going to play a big part in that and of course the fifth pillar well the fifth that we're going to cover um is the fast during the month of ramadan so the month of ramadan is the holy month of islam and during that month you're not supposed to eat or drink from sun up to sundown and of course you can eat and drink after but it's this month long of fasting and lots of religions have this tradition of where you deny yourself something for a period of time to kind of force yourself to realize that you are um that you're focused on your faith and you're part of something bigger um and you need to reconnect with it and suffer a little bit to make you reflect um and so we see that these are the five pillars of the faith now over time there develops kind of an a sixth pillar of the faith and that is called jihad and so for most muslims around the world jihad is to wage a war a struggle internally against sin in your life to constantly be a warrior in your life against um evil and sin and bad and so this is the concept of jihad this holy war against sin in in your daily life and you're working and praying and living life and so we see we have these pillars of these things that hold up the faith of islam so let's now go back to politics a little bit and so we talk about the conquest of islam and so when muhammad started to spread his message in mecca like i said it went to his followers it went to his early followers were his friends and family and then it starts to spread a little bit more a little bit more and before you know it um his message is kind of angering the people of mecca because um they either don't want to convert or they don't like his message that you're not supposed to um drink and you're not supposed to smoke and you're not supposed to um you know do things that will keep you from focusing on allah and so they don't like that message they also see him as a power threat to the traditional ruling elite of the city because he's getting all these followers and so they kick him out of mecca um and so he will then go to the next city called medina or yathrib and so he from there he starts to spread his faith around the arabian peninsula and he's going to and so this is the hijra the hidra is the beginning of the islamic calendar around the year 600 so in the islamic world um here in the west we say it's i don't know 2020 where you've subtracted about 600 years and that would be the islamic calendar because people or cultures start their calendar for when they think it's like the most important event and when muhammad is kicked out of mecca and he goes to yathrib or the city of medina it's the same thing um he's starting his his ministry to the world um and so we see that is like the the event so as he goes out into the desert and he goes out to this other trading town he starts to unite the warring um pastoral tribes of the arabian peninsula now these people are already warriors because they they're nomadic people and they go from oasis to oasis looking for new pasture land and water to feed their camels and herds um and so they always have been fighting for resources and so they've always throughout history been this kind of rough and tumble world in the ribbon and peninsula where it's tribal violence versus tribal violence but muhammad comes and starts to give them this uniting message of islam and so instead of having them attack each other he says let's we're all going to be muslim and so then let's go out and conquer the world for islam and so he takes this kind of inward conflict and he he he ends that and then it starts to force itself outward and so these will make up um his early warriors that will spread the faith of islam through conquest and trade as we'll see and also missionaries and so by the end of muhammad's life this green area that you can see here this is more or less the area that we're going to see muhammad spread his faith with his followers so the majority of the arabian peninsula and then up into what is modern-day iraq and syria a little bit um and then he dies he dies around the age of 62 which was pretty old for that time in history and so then there's this crisis um what's going to happen without the leader of this faith will it disintegrate with him with his death and so what happens is his followers come together and the top followers of his faith decide that what they will do is they will elect a new leader and this new position of leader he cannot claim that he is a prophet divinely inspired by allah because muhammad said that he is the last prophet and so in the islamic world for quite a while well from this point on really we're going to see that islam is not hierarchical like other faiths christianity is hierarchical in many ways because you have like in catholicism you have a pope and cardinals and bishops all the way down but here in islam we can't have that because there's nobody that can claim that they are the next prophet of allah because muhammad said he was the only one and so there is not going to be this hierarchical structure that we see in other parts of the world in other faiths it's going to be very local and regional however there is going to be political hierarchy and so when the followers of muhammad after he dies what they do is they they elect a new leader and it's a new position called khalif c-a-l-i-p-h and the khalif is going to be the political leader the leader of the military but he is also responsible for spreading the faith so he's somewhat of a religious leader but he cannot come up with new revelations and so combining mosque and state is this new position called the khalif and so he is a religious leader but he cannot create new traditions and beliefs and so he's more political but a little bit religious too because he's responsible for spreading the faith of islam and so under this new person's leadership there's going to be actually four guys they're called the rightly god of khalifs there are four of them and first one leads islam and spreads a little bit more and then he dies and they elect a new right legato khalif and then so forth and so on until we get to the last khalif ali and he is the last person that personally knew muhammad and these people these khalifs they get their legitimacy people will follow them because they were all good friends of muhammad they all knew him and so when somebody would come to them and say why should i follow you as the leader of islam and of this political empire well i could say because i was good friends with muhammad and yeah i know what muhammad would say now when the last of the right leg of the khalifa ali we're going to have another crisis in islam we're going to have to figure out who's going to be the leader because there's nobody left alive who is a good friend of muhammad at that time who can claim leadership and so we'll come back to politics again in a second and so let's go to islamic society and so in islamic society as this new empire starts to spread they spread politically and they spread religiously we're going to see that there are social classes that develop wherever they go so at the top we have muslims and so these are people who have converted to islam they might be arab they might be other ethnic groups but they are muslims who have converted and they are at the top of the pyramid because they are members of the predominant faith that is ruling the society underneath them we have jews and christians or what we call people of the book these are people that islam islamic leaders were okay with they wish they'd convert but they're okay with because they still muhammad said that they follow the same god as allah and they have the same prophets that islam says that jesus was a prophet christians would say he's a messiah but muslims would say he was a prophet had a good message um just not a messiah and so they're okay with jews and christians because they believe in the same things that jews and christians do we just are adding this the quran and so you know jews and christians are kind of a lower level because they're not muslims so they can't be in positions of leadership but they're allowed to practice their faith the only thing they must do is they must pay the jijja so a jizya is like a religious tax um and so they say basically look you can be go to church you can go to mosque or or i'm sorry you can go to a temple or a synagogue but you have to pay a tax for to practice your faith which you can view in two ways you can view it as a punishment or you can view it not as punishment because they're allowing them to continue their faith and not forcing them to convert um anyway so they're the kind of this mid-level and then below are people that the muslims encounter in their conquest that are not jews and christians and so they're not people of the book and so they are going to be at the bottom of society and so we will talk more about this later but when islam makes its way into india later on in the year 7-11 we're going to see that muslim armies will attack buddhists and wipe out some of their their temples and take some of their wealth because they weren't people of the book and they refuse to convert but we'll also see that muslims will accept hindus and we'll talk about that when we get to south asia as well and the hindus will form a new group within the society as well but for now let's keep it simple let's say there are three levels there's muslims there's jews and christians and then there are people who are animus perhaps or some other faith that were considered beneath in society because they weren't believing in the same god as jews and christians and muslims and so they're going to take the lower status of society let's look at the impact next of islam on another aspect of society women so as islam starts women could own businesses women did not have to be veiled women could get a divorce women had quite a few social um cultural rights but as islam spreads it's going to come in contact with two empires they're going to come in contact with a christian byzantine empire north and then he's going to come in contact with the persian empire to kind of the northeast from arabia and these two empires have a tradition of having women wear a veil out in public and have them be um and chaperoned by men and so as these cultures interact muslims are going to say yes we like this and so it's going to be part of the muslim tradition moving forward that women should be under the veil um and that they should be um escorted wherever they go or chaperoned and so you know depending on where you live in the world today this can kind of take two interpretations if you're from the west and you believe in the idea of individual freedoms and rights for women women and men you think that this is something that's taking away women's rights because um it's making a more patriarchal or male-dominated society if you're from the islamic world at the time you know no say this is a good thing because women are going to be chaperoned for men which means they're not going to be they're going to be protected and they're not going to be raped and beaten um because the men and their family will always be there to protect them and so culturally it just kind of depends where you are how you view this today um next is so this is going to be a patriarchal society and so that means men in charge and so women and men cannot worship in the same place um the islamic world would say men and women need to focus on their connection to allah and their prayers and they can't be sitting next to somebody who they may have an attraction to that would distract them um and so you know and there are other reasons as well but you know so we need to keep them separate um so they can focus on their faith and so um they cannot worship together women cannot um hold political positions um they will be an important part of the family structure and they will have some influence over their husbands in that way but they cannot be political leaders next women cannot be killed it before muhammad infanticide female infanticide with the killing of female babies was a practice that was done and so in order to protect women because in the islamic world all people all believers are equal in the eyes of allah we cannot let somebody be killed because we're all equal in the eyes of allah and so um women can no longer suffer from female infanticide killing female babies in favor of having male babies and so we see that women are also being granted some legal protections here next we have the practice of polygamy and so that means that you can have more than one wife the legal limit at this time was four wives because that's what it said um in the quran and so um four wives this again can be viewed in a positive or negative way depending on your cultural traditions um in a positive way uh let's say that you are a woman who doesn't have a husband so you have no protection you have nobody to help since you can't own a business um you have nobody who can provide for you and so in situations like that it's allowable for a man to take another wife um and so this woman is now going to be protected um you know perhaps your husband dies and you're a widow and so you need protection and so this allows for men to protect more women from the more western world you see this as a way of lowering the status of women because the more of anything you have that's value goes down and so if you're a woman you have less control over your husband if he has three other wives so let's not get caught up too much in how we view it's a positive or negative it just is part of the culture and it just depends on where you're from and how you view it next so another impact of islam on society is that the government will take the quran as its legal code and so this is known as sharia law and so if i'm an islamic ruler i'm the khalif the leader of the the state and i'm the leader of the empire i don't need to create a separate legal system we already have it in in built the the quran already says in the hadith already say what or is allowed and what is not allowed in life and so why should the government create new rules when we have rules set up in the quran and so here's another example of islam impacting society as it's going to impact the legal system known as sharia next we're also going to see islam spread the language of the arabic language so the arabic language is the language that was spoken by muhammad and the people in mecca and his early followers and so that's what the quran and the hadith are written in and it is a pillar that all you know muslims need to know their their quran and they need to know the sayings in it and so it of course can be translated into other languages as it spreads but in order to really get the real meaning of it and not have anything lost in translation from one language to another muslims need to read and speak arabic and so as the islamic world spreads the language of the the arabic language will spread um throughout dharal islam or the islamic world which allows people to communicate and ideas to get spread faster trade to go faster so next let's go to b expansion and division so the islamic world will spread quickly from its beginnings here in mecca and we talked about the um how is muhammad was kicked out of mecca and went to medina or yathrib and that began kind of the islamic calendar and then throughout his life muhammad is going to spread islam to the arabian peninsula and then the right legato khalifa will spread it even further and then what we have next is we have a big huge dynasty called the umayyad dynasty and the umayyad dynasty is going to spread it to everything you see in green here it's a really expansionist dynasty that happens very rapidly in terms of world history um now the umayyad dynasty gets its name from the umayyad family that was kind of the extended family that's going to take over um and we'll talk about that in a bit the transition from the right lane of khalifs to the umayyad dynasty so let's kind of go through this little brief timeline the founder of islam is muhammad and then when he dies we have four rulers in succession called the rightly grand khalifs that all knew muhammad personally so that's where the legitimacy rule comes from and when the last um right like out of khalif dies the last one who really knew muhammad ali then we have this new family take over and it's the umayyad family and they really um spread it throughout this part of the world so how do the umayyads treat people who are non-believers does it change does it stay the same is it a change or a continuity and so they're going to continue the idea of the people of the book and so jews and christians and then when we get over here into india hindus they are all going to be protected people called dini dhini are going to be jews christians hindus people that have a religious book that they follow that muslims are going to say okay we're fine with as long as you pay the jij attacks you're okay and you can continue to practice your belief and so we see that islam continues this idea of acceptance one because you can get just your tax money so that's good for the empire if you continue to get this tax money plus if you start to clamp down on religion you start to persecute them then people might rebel and that's going to weaken the empire from within so there's all kinds of reasons here to continue to let people of different faiths practice their religion next let's talk about so as islam spreads there's going to be what happens to a lot of faiths a split in the faith occurs um it happens in christianity when you see we go from catholics to protestants and and so forth and so on and judaism as well um in hinduism and buddhism as well um and so let's talk about the split in the islamic faith and so it really happens when we go from the last of the rightly out of khalif's to the umayyad dynasty and so we had muhammad as we said he was the first the founder of islam and then we had the four rightly god of khalifs and then when the last khalif who knew muhammad dies his name is ali when he dies people wonder well who's going to be the next khalif the next leader of the faith because nobody knew muhammad everybody who knew muhammad as as a colleague and a friend as a leader is now dead and so the umayyad family takes over and so there are going to be some muslims that are not okay with this like no no no we can't just have any random wealthy family take over um the khalif the caliphate right the leadership of islam we need to have somebody that was connected in some way to muhammad like the four rightly or the caliphs and so we see this group of muslims called shiite or shia the sect is called shiite the people are called shia and they say no no no the leader of islam must be somebody who was related to muhammad in some way and ali the last of the four right legalists he was he was related to muhammad through marriage and so they say you know ali's family should now be the leader of the of the of the muslim empire and so they're going to splinter off as kind of a a sect within islam right now it says there are a minority and so then and now shia are not the majority at all of muslims they're not a significant majority at all they're they're a large minority but they're still a minority and so they are going to have some friction with the majority of muslims it starts out over these political reasons then over time more religious ideas kind of creep in that separate them from the rest of the muslim community as well today um you'll find mo shia in modern-day iran and in modern day iraq next we have sunni now sunni are the majority of muslims then and now and at that time when we have the last of the right liver caliphs die ali and we're looking for a new leader when the umayyad family take over who were not related to muhammad in any way and they say we're the leaders most people are okay with it you know they just want to live their lives they want to be good muslims and they want to follow the quran and sharia law and whoever's in charge of the empire is in charge of the empire and so this is the majority of muslims then and now and like i said over time there's is going to be more than just a political difference between shia and sunni there's going to be religious beliefs that also kind of start to filter in that that separate the two next later on we're going to have another group of muslims be created and it's the sufi now the sufi they're going to fulfill the role mostly of missionaries for islam um the sufi are looking for a more spiritual relationship with allah they're trying to get a more con personal connection and so they believe in mysticism um and dance and um and in music and anything that can heighten your senses heighten your emotions that help you feel allah in your life and so they're looking for this kind of more mystical spirituality if you will spirituality means this more intense personal emotional connection with allah and so they're very excited about their faith and they want to go spread it and so these sufi will go out into the world and start to spread islam so islam is going to spread through conquest it's also going to spread through missionaries as we're going to see in later parts of the lectures it's also going to spread through merchants people are trading next um under sufi we've already talked about missionaries let's talk about aesthetic so ascetic means that you give up a lot of um things that make you feel good traditionally so if i'm like in christianity you have ascetic monks where they focus their whole life on god and they give up maybe talking they take a vow of silence or they give up sex they take a vow of chastity or they give up money they take a vow of poverty that's ascetic giving up things that the rest of the world value so you can focus on your faith and so some sufis are going to be ascetic and as they go out to be missionaries and spread the faith it's really going to impress people they're not muslim because wow these holy men they've given up a lot for allah and their faith maybe they have something to say i really respect what they're doing because i couldn't do that and so we're going to see that this ascetic lifestyle is going to help these people spread islam because people respect them for being so devoted to their faith so that's it for this lecture part one when we come back we'll talk about the abbasid dynasty and how they spread the faith and the trade that goes on the cultural interchange that goes on throughout the time period so that's it for part one