Unit 1

• Swahili civilization were commerce cities along East Africa
• Muslim merchants traded with Swahili cities and were heavily involved in the Indian Ocean trade.
• Muslim Arab mixed with native Bantu language to create Swahili
• Mali, Ghana, Songhai were all commerce nations that profited off the Trans-Saharan gold trade
• Mansu Musa was the richest guy who came from Mali empire and went on a pilgrimage to Mecca, spreading his wealth as he went
• Elites converted to Islam to increase trade with merchants in the East
• Ethiopia was a nation in East Africa who was Christian, showing the spread of culture
• Great Zimbabwe was a nation in South African who grew rich off cattle herd and international trade. The city had big walls
• The Abbasid Caliphate was the center of the Muslim world before it started to break as other nations, led by ethnically Turkic people, took power
• The Seljuk Empire was established by Turks after the Abbasid Empire needed help controlling their empire and brought in the Seljuks who were Turkish pastrolists.
• Arab Muslim Empires were fading as Turkish Muslim empires grew.
• The Seljuks continued military administered states the used Sharia laws, which are laws based on the Quaran
• In Baghdad, there was the House of Wisdom
• The Seljuk Empire expanded through military conquests, traveling merchants, and missionaries known as Sufis.
• The Song Dynasty in East Asia used Confucianism to maintain power.
• Neo-Confucianism is the revived Confucianism used during the Song Dynasty
• Used Filial Piety to keep in power, where people are taught to stay submissive and listen to elders
• Maintained power through the Imperial Bureaucracy and the Civil Service Exam which was based on Confucian thoughts.
• Korea, Japan, and Vietnam adopted Chinese traditions like the Civil Service Exam aand Buddhism
• Buddhism emphasized 4 noble truths - life is suffering, we suffer because we crave, if we stop craving, we stop suffering, and we need to follow the 8-fold path to stop suffering
• New forms of Buddhism formed as it spread and interacted with differnt cultures
• the Song Dynasty sold porcelain and silk
• Commercializing is where people start to produce more than they need to sell
• Champa rice from Vietnam led to a rich economy and increased population because it can be harvested multiple times and was drought and flood resistant
• the Khmer Empire was an originally Hindu Kingdom that converted to Buddhism, which is shown in Angkor Wat which has both Hindu and Buddhist elements
• the Delhi Sultanate was an empire in India that had a Muslim ruler with a majority Hindu population
• the Rajput Kingdoms were Hindu Kingdoms that resisted Muslim rule
• the Vijayanagara Empire were in South India. Founded when the Delhi Sultanate tried to spread Islam to the south but as they went further down, they converted back to Hinduism
• the Majapahit Kingdom controlled sea routes in South East Asia and grew powerful off of that
• the Majapahit Kingdom declined as the Sultanate of Malacca rose
• the Aztecs lived in Mesoamerica and was pretty big
• Aztec capital was at Tenochtitlan
• Aztecs expanded through aggressive conquests and used a tribute system to keep in power.
• Territory conquered by the Aztecs had to provide labor, goods, and slaves which were used for human sacrifices
• the Incan Empire had an elaborate bureaucracy and had officials everywhere to maintain rule
• the Incan Empire also used the Mit'a system to get labor on state projects
• Aztecs were decentralized while the Incans were highly centralized
• the Mississippian Culture lived around the fertile Mississippi river and focused on agriculture. Had Monumental mounds where their towns were built around