unit 1 PT 2

• Dar al-Islam means the house of Islam or everywhere Islam was the majority religion around 1200
• Imminent historian: 'Dar al-Islam is a big old honking house'
• Major religions that interacted during this period

  • Judaism
  • Christianity
  • Islam
• Judaism


  Ethnic religion of the Jews, originated in the Middle East, monotheistic
• Christianity


  Established by the Jewish prophet Jesus Christ, who claimed to be the Messiah, followers spread his message of salvation by grace, eventually adopted by the Roman Empire
• Islam


  Founded by the Prophet Muhammad in the 7th century on the Arabian Peninsula, Muhammad claimed to be the final prophet, salvation found in righteous actions like alms giving, prayer, and fasting
• After the death of Muhammad in 632, the faith he established began spreading rapidly throughout the Middle East, North and sub-Saharan Africa, Europe, and South Asia
• Dar al-Islam


  The house of Islam, the areas where Islam was the dominant religion
• Islam deeply affected the societies where it was practiced, perhaps most importantly through the trading connections that existed between various places within Dar al-Islam
• Before he was a prophet, Muhammad was a merchant, and his followers were also focused on trade, unlike Jesus' teachings on not accumulating wealth
• Islamic states in general became far more prosperous than Christian states prior to 1200
• Abbasid Caliphate


  Founded in the 8th century, ethnically Arab, experienced a Golden Age of Islam with many innovations and advancements
• By 1200, the Abbasid Empire was fragmenting and beginning to lose its place as the center of the Islamic world
• Several new Islamic Empires began to rise, largely made up of Turkic peoples, not Arabs
• New Turkic Muslim Empires

  • Seljuk Empire
  • Mamluk Sultanate
  • Delhi Sultanate
• New Turkic Muslim Empires

  • Military was in charge of administration
  • Implemented Sharia law
• Ways Islam expanded


  1. Military expansion

  2. Merchant activity and trade

  3. Efforts of Muslim missionaries, including Sufism
• Sufism


  • Emphasized mystical experience, available to anyone regardless of class or gender, lacked theological rigor
• Innovations in mathematics


  • Nasir al-Din al-Tusi invented trigonometry to better understand planetary and stellar motion
  • House of Wisdom in Baghdad preserved and translated Greek works, enabling the Renaissance in Europe