Unit 1

• Byzantine Empire


  Eastern Roman Empire after 485 CE
• Constantine I reinvigorated the Roman Empire through reforms


  4th century
• Constantine I


  • Built an imperial city on Byzantium, naming it Constantinople
  • Moved the capital closer to the Sassanid Persian Empire
• Splitting the Roman Empire


  1. Constantine moved himself and his administration to Constantinople

  2. Effectively split the Empire into East and West
• Migration Period


  • Large-scale movement of Germanic, Gothic, and Slavic peoples into and within the Roman Empire
  • Followed by Huns and Avars
• Movement of peoples in Europe


  Threatened Roman imperial power
• The West fell to the disorder and pressure of the migrating peoples in 485 CE
• The East continued and remained an effective force in the Mediterranean region for several centuries under mostly Greek rule and administration
• Justinian I


  Temporarily reconquered the Western Empire in the 6th century
• Despite the temporary reconquest, the West would again fade away, leaving the Roman Empire in the hands of Greeks centered in Constantinople
• Code of Justinian


  • Set the precedent for most modern state legal systems
  • Established common civil law
  • Lasting legislation
  • Recording and adherence to judicial precedents
  • Formal training for students of law
• Cyril and Methodius


  • Began the mass conversion of surrounding hostile Slavic peoples to Eastern Orthodox Christianity
• Byzantine Empire


  • Effective economic force, connecting the Western world to the trade of South and East Asia through the Silk Roads
  • Brought plagues like the Plague of Justinian and the Black Death, reducing populations substantially
• Byzantine-Sassanid War, a major setback for the Byzantine Empire

  602-628 CE
• Byzantine-Sassanid War


  Weakened both states, led to the fall of the Sassanids to Arab conquests and the loss of more than half of the Byzantine Empire to Muslim invaders
• Macedonian Renaissance, a period of resurgent growth for the Byzantine Empire


  11th and 12th centuries
• The Byzantine Empire reached its zenith in the centuries prior to the Macedonian Renaissance
• The Byzantine Empire was finally ended by the taking of Constantinople by the Ottoman Empire


  1453
• Rashidun Caliphate


  • Despite its military successes, was not internally stable
  • Most of the initial caliphs did not enjoy natural deaths, and were instead assassinated or poisoned due to factional disputes within the Arab population
• Rashidun Caliphate


  1. Period of civil war

  2. Victory of the faction led by the Umayyad clan

  3. Umayyad clan established control
• Umayyad Caliphate


  • Existed from 661-750 CE
  • Held its capital in Damascus, Syria for the majority of existence
  • Warred intermittently with the Byzantine Empire
• Umayyad Caliphate continued territorial expansion


  Reached its zenith by expanding to the borders of France and Morocco in the West and India and China in the East
• While the caliphate continued most state practices, such as the dhimmi status and jizya tax, their popularity waned amongst the conquered peoples—particularly their preferential treatment of Muslim Arabs over others
• Mamluks


  Non-Arab warriors who became an increasingly popular practice, and after 1258, they would inherit the title of caliphate in Egypt
• Umayyad Caliphate's attitudes towards non-Arab Muslims, which were perceived and treated as inferiors


  Caught up to them in 750 CE
• Abbasid Revolution


  1. A faction of Arabs, with the support of many non-Arab Muslims were able to successfully revolt against the Umayyad

  2. Created the Abbasid Caliphate
• Abbasid Caliphate


  • Was not able to further territorial expansion
  • But was successful in enriching and reforming the caliphate's state administration—mostly along the Persian centralized model
• Under the Abbasids, and their capital city of Baghdad, Islam experienced a Golden Age of cultural, religious, scientific, astrological, mathematically, and literary accomplishments
• The House of Wisdom was created – a library (research and educational center) constructed in Baghdad
• Abbasid Caliphate


  Successfully crossed the Saharan desert through the use of camels and caravans, thus connecting the Islamic world with the kingdoms of West Africa, as well as their gold, copper, salt, and large-scale slave trade
• Economically, the caliphate sat at the center of the Afro-Eurasia world, benefiting tremendously from the knowledge, goods, and wealth exchanged through the Old World
• Islam itself, by the 9th-century BCE, had reached far into Central Asia, South Asia, North Africa, West Africa, East Africa, parts of Europe, converting several key ethnic groups to the Islamic faith in its wake
• Disputes over the rightful caliph


  Had plagued the Muslim world since Muhammad's death, even resulting in a violent religious split between the Sunni and Shi'a Muslims
• Along with theological disputes, civil and political disputes across such a vast empire [caliphate] made it extremely difficult to maintain military and administrative hegemony (influence) across a multitude of ethnic groups
• Faction splits and regional conflicts


  Resulted in the Abbasid caliphate losing direct control over most of the Muslim world by the 10th century
• Even after the loss of territories east of Egypt by the 10th century, and despite the destruction of Abbasid military power in the 11th century by Seljuk Turks, and the destruction of its capital in Baghdad by the Mongols in 1258, the Abbasid caliph continued his religious rule from the Fatimid Caliphate in Egypt until 1171
• Following 1171, the primary military and religious force for Islam would come from the Turkish Ottoman Empire, ruling as a Sunni Islamic State, and the later Persian Shi'a state known as the Safavid Dynasty
• Despite the loss of its caliphate, and the primacy of Arabs in Muslim areas, Islam continued to expand across the trade routes of the Indian Ocean to West Africa, East Africa, South Asia, Southeast Asia, and Indonesia by trade and diasporic migration, thus setting the foundations for what is today the Muslim world