Figure 1.--The Arab heartland Middle East until World War I was largely isolated from the West This was in part because much of it was occupied by the Ottomon Turks who discouraged contacts with the West. After the War Middle Eastern countries began to achieve independence, alothough much of the area continued be European colonies or strongly influenced by European countries (Britain, Italy, and France). The result was culture shock on the part of both Europeans and the Arabs. Note that the Arab women here wear traditional clothing and veils, but the boys wear western clothes.

Arab bedouins burst out of the Arabian desert in 7th centuary AD. The Arabs were followers of the prophet Muhammad. They swept through the Holy Land and Mesopotamia, driving back the Byzatines and defeating the Persians in 637 AD. At the time most in the pople in th region wre Christians and Zoroastrians. The Arabs set about spreading the Islamic faith, but allowed much more religious diversity than was the case of Christian Europe. Depite the overwealming military victories, the force of Islam was imerilde in 661 in a fight over sucession. It was at this time that the schism betweenthe Shiites and Sunis developed. The beoudins Arabs by the 8h century had acquired the civilization of the people they conquured. They founded a new capital at Bagdad in 762. This was the golden age of Islam. While Christian Europe after the fall of Rome descended into a dark age, there was an outpouring of learing and culture in the Islamic world. Baghdad in particular became a renowned center for learning, including science, mathematics, philosophy and literature--especially poetry. Aran rule extended west to Spain. Only gradually did Spanish Christians begin the reconuest in Spain. For centuries the major contacy beten the Islamic Arabs and Christian Europeans was in Spain. Crusaders launched efforts to retake the Holy Land, bringing Europe in contact with the advanced civilization of the Arabs. These contact were to fuel the revival of learning in Europe. The Mongols swept out of trackless plains of central Asia to destroy Bagdad and massacre its people in 1258. The leading figure in the Arab world, the Caliph was executed. Bagdad and the civilization of the Arabs was devestated. Never again would Arab civilization be such a center of earning and enlightenment. Gradually the Otomon Turks became the dominate power in the Islmic world. The Ottomons presed on the Byzatines, taking Constanople in 1453. They then conquered the Balkans, driving deep into Europe, only beeing stopped at the gates of Vienna. The Ottomons conquered Mesopotamia in 1533, ruled until 1918 when th British with hhelp of T.H. Lawrence and the Arab Army expelled them from the Holy Land in the west and Mesopotmia in the east. The role of Islam in the modern world is a subject of increasing sebate. Many think that Wahabism and Ben-Laiden fundamentalist terrorism is an aberation. Others express concern that their are findamental contridictions between Islam and the West over fundamental concepts such as peace, democracy, and market economics.

Mesopotamia

Historians believe that settlement of the Fertle Cressent creaetd by the Tigris Euphrates Rivers began about 7000 BC. Several important civilizations developed in the Fertile Cressent. The generic name for the cultures of Fertile Cresent is Mesopotamia. The first major civilization was the Sumerians who devloped a loose coaltion of independent city states. Their civilization was concentrated in the marshy south where a thriving civilization emerged about 3500 BC. Summerians developed the pottery wheel from which they mad clay untensils. They also developed an early lunar calendar and advanced mathematics. An inovative irrigation system permitted the first intesive cultivation of the Tigris Euphrates. The Summerians also developed the first primitive writing, cuniform writing first used for commercial records, but evolving into literature such as poetry. The Summerians with their advanced agricuture were able to support the first first urban centers. The first city appears to be Ur. It apparent was fom Ur that Biblical Patiarch left to find Canaan. The Amorite King Hammurabi unified the Sumerian city states. He is know or enacting the fist written legal code. The Amorites and other war-like people from the hearding socities of the north blended blended with agraian Sumerian civilization. Babylon developed as the most important city of the region. Babylon was destroyed by the Assyrians, another war-like northern peolpe, in 669 BC. Nebuhadnezzar II rebuilt Babylon as the worlds most beautiful and advanced city. It was the sit of the Hanging Gardens and Tower of Babel. Babylon was conuered by Alexader the Great in 331 BC who set out to Hllanize it. The Persians after defeating Roman armies led by Anthony, conquered Mesopotamia in 64 AD.

Muhammad

Mohammed was born in some time around 570 AD. Mohammed grew up in a trading community and was influenced by the many religious traditions of the Middle East. He came to see himself as God's final prophet. The Arabian Peninsula at the time was racked by warring tribes. Mohammed's familt belonged to the Fihr or Quarish/Koreish tribe. This was the dominant tribe in the southern Hijas (Hedjaz) around Mecca. Even before the advent of Islam, Mecca was the both the major religious and commercial center in the Arabian peninsula. The Fihr acquired considerable prestige from their role as gardians of the Kaaba in Mecca. The Kaaba even before Islam was an object of reverance among the Arab tribes who visited Mecca in annual pilgrimages leaving offerings and tributes. Mohammed married Khadija who was a wealthy widow. Mohammed had religious vissions which were set down in theHoly Koran. He tried to convert his tribe in Mecca, but was rejected. Two exceptions were Ali, his son-in-law who married his daughter Fatima, and Abu Bakr. When the people in Mecca tried to kill him, he fled to Medina (622 AD), This is known as the Hegira. Islam bases its calendar on the Hegira. Safe in Medina, Mohammed created a theocraric state based on Islam. War with Mecca followed until Mohammed returned in triumph (630 AD). The prestige of the Fihr was important to Mohammed when he began his religious reform and political effort which led tp the conquest of the Arabian Pm=ninsula and the joining of the various tribes into a single Arab nation with a common religion and legal code a common sacred sanctuary. As an older man Mohammed acuired additional wives, including Ayesha.

The Arabs

The Arabs were a little-known bedouin people from the Arabian Peninsula. For centuries they busied themselves with fraticidal wars and raids. Ourside religions had made some inroads into the native Animism. The Prohet Muhammed provided a religious system that for the time included many advanced themes. In particular in ended fracticidal warfare. Rather the fighting spirit of the bedouin was directed outward. Beedouin warriors who fired with the relevations of the Prophet and the lure of booty burst into the settled lands of the Middle East (7th century AD). The result was one of the most rapid and significant military cazmpaigns in human history. The Arab lands today steach 5,000 miles from Iraq in the east west to Morocco on the Atlantic Ocean. The Arab world straddles two continents, Asia and Africa. The Arab lands have coasts on importan bodies of water, including: the Atlantic Ocean, the Mediterranean Sea, the Arabian Gulf, the Arabian Sea, the Gulf of Aden, the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean. The Arabs oversaw one of the great cultural flowerings of human history--the Caliphate. And for the time the Arabs were a rare island of tolerance and learning. Time has, however, passed the Arabs by. There was nothing in the Arab world resembling the Renaissance, Reformation, and Age of Reason in the West. The West tends to look forward. The Arabs in contrast are obsessed with tradition and looking back at the great achievements of the Caliphate. [Lamb] For the Arabs, if a concept isn't inshrined in the Holy oran or otherwise tied to tradition, it is suspect. Islam strongly encourages this outlook because as Arab and other Muslim readers have told us, the Holy Koran is just as relevant today as it was for Muhammed and the Arabs of the 7th century. The result today is a failed Arab society.

Islam

Islam is one of the great monothestic religions. The religion is set forth in the Koran which teaches that there is but one God and Muhammad is his prophet. The word is also used to descibe th civilization and countries in which the Islamic religion dominates. Islam for several centuries while Christian Europe fell into the dark ages and intolerance prevailed, Islam developed a rich often tolerant society which developed science, mathematics, literture, and art. Much of this was based on mjor precepts of the Koran. One of those precepts was tolerance for other civilizations and religions, especially people of the Book. Today many of these basic precepts of Islam are questioned by Fundamentalist Islamic scholars.

Conquest

The Arabs swept through the Holy Land and Mesopotamia, driving back the Byzatines and defeating the Persians in 637 AD. At the time most in the pople in th region wre Christians and Zoroastrians. The Arabs set about spreading the Islamic faith, but allowed much more religious diversity than was the case of Christian Europe. Islam when the Arab conquet began developed approches for dealing with the "conquered peoples". The conquered peoples were "protected persons" only if they submitted to Islamic domination by a "Contract" (Dhimma), paid poll tax - jizya - and land tax - haraj - to their masters. Any failure to do so was the breach of contract, enabling the Muslims to kill or enslave them and confiscate their property. The cross could not be displayed in public and the people of the book had to wear special clothing or a belt. Their men were not allowed to marry Muslim women, their slaves had to be sold to a Muslim if they converted and they were not allowed to carry weapons. They had to take in Muslim travelers, especially soldiers on a campaign. This took place after a decade when Muhammad was dead and when his second successor and son-in-law Umar announced these terms to conquered Christians. The resulting inequality of rights in all domains between Muslims and dhimmis was geared to a steady erosion of the latter communities by attrition and conversion. While these provisions seem draconian, they were less rigorous at the time than the approaches taken when Christians conquered Islamic principalities.

Schism

Depite the overwealming military victories, the force of Islam was imerilde in 661 in a fight over sucession. It was at this time that the schism betweenthe Shiites and Sunis developed.

The Caliphiate (750-1258)

The beoudins Arabs by the 8h century had acquired the civilization of the people they conquured. They founded a new capital at Bagdad in 762 which became a bustling center of world commerce and culture at a time that civilization of the West was mired in the Dark Ages. The Abbasid Caliphate is seen as the golden age of Islam--the pinnacle of Arab culture. While Christian Europe after the fall of Rome descended into a dark age, there was an outpouring of learing and culture in the Islamic world. Baghdad in particular became a renowned center for learning, including science, mathematics, philosophy and literature--especially poetry. Renounded universities, libraries, and public baths were built at Bagdad. The Caliphiate was seized by the Seljuk Turks in 1055.

Spain

Arab rule extended west to Spain. A Moorish or Saracen army crossed the Straits of Gibraltar from North Aftrica (711). The Moorish army consisted of Moslems of varying origins. The Moorish army was predominately Arabs, but included Berbers, Syrians, and others). The Moors at the Battle of Río Barbate defeated the forces of Roderick, the last Visogothic king (July 19, 711). The Moors moved through the Toulouse Kingdom destroying ant armed resistance and over the space of a few years totally dominated the Peninsula. They then crossed the Pyranees amd moved into southern France. There they were defeated by tyhe Frankish leader Charles Martel at the Battle of Poitiers (732). The Moors moved back accross the Pyraneees and never again seriously threatened France. Only gradually did Spanish Christians begin the Reconquista. For centuries the major contacy beten the Islamic Arabs and Christian Europeans was in Spain.

The Crusades

Christian pilgrims after the Arab conquests of the 7th and 8th centuries had to travel through Islamic lands to venerate the great shrines in Jeruselum and other Biblical sites in the Holy Land. In addition the Ottoman Turks were increasingly encroaching on the Eastern or Byzantine Empire. The Turks apparently preyed upon Christian pilgrims. Byzantine Emperor Alexius Comnenus, perhaps concerned about the plight of the pilgrims, more likely seeking allies against the Turks, wrote to a friend Robert, the Count of Flanders, in 1093. He recounted the alegeded atrocities inflicted on the pilgrims by the Turks. Count Robert forwarded Comnenus' letter to Pope Urban II. Pope Urban like Emperor Comnenus perhaps concerbed about Christian pilgrims, more likely seeing a political opportunity, decided to promote a military crusade to seize the Holy Land from the infidel Turks. European Christians at the time were locked in intractable dynastic wars in England, France, Italy, and other domains, destabilizing large areas of Europe. The Pope sought to redirect the fighting to an infidel adversary. Pope Urban's crusade, the First Crusade, was launched in 1095. The Crusaders effort to retake the Holy Land, brought Europe in contact with the advanced civilization of the Arabs. These contact were to fuel the revival of learning in Europe.

The Mongols (1258)

The Mongols played an enormously important role in world history. Although a relatively small population, the Mongols established the most extensive empire in histoiry, streaching from Korea to Eastern Europe. Only the Japanese suceessfully defied the Mongols. The Mongols swept out of trackless plains of central into Mesopotamia. Hulagu Khan sacked Bagdad and massacred its people in 1258. The leading figure in the Arab world, the Caliph was executed. The Mongols destroyed the irrigation system that supported the rich harvests in the Tigris Eurphrates Valley. Mesopotamia became a barren, arid plain. Bagdad and the civilization of the Arabs was devestated. Never again would Arab civilization be a great world center of earning and enlightenment.

Persia

Persia emerged as an important cultural center in the ancient world. Formidable mountins created a natutral fortress which aided Persians to build a destinct cultural identity in relative security, although major conquests added to the cultural mix. Alexander was the first conqueror (4th century BC). In modern modern times the Arabs invaded as imposed Islam (7th century). Than the Turks (10th century), and the Mongols (13th to 15th centuries). Modern Persian history begins with overthrow of Mongol control. We do not yet have information on Persian history after the Mongols. We do have some Persian images with depictions of clothing. Unlike much of Islam, Persia apparently permitted human depictions.

The Ottomans

Gradually the Otomon Turks became the dominate power in the Islamic world. The Ottomons presed on the Byzatines, taking Constanople in 1453. They then conquered the Balkans, driving deep into Europe, only beeing stopped at the gates of Vienna. The Ottoman Turks in 1453 seized Constantinople and by 1460 controlled most of Greece. Thousands of Greeks went into exile in Christain Europe and had an important influence on the European Renaissance. The Ottomons conquered Mesopotamia in 1533. For the next three centuries, the regional Christan powers (Venice, Austria, and Russia) warred intermitently with the Turks and Greece changed hands several times.

The Arab Rebellion (1918)

The Ottomons ruled Syria, the Holyland and Arabia until 1918 when th British with help of T.H. Lawrence and the Arab Army expelled them from the Holy Land in the west and Mesopotmia in the east.

Christian Minorities

Millions of Christians from Spain, Egypt, Syria, Greece, And Armenia; Latins and Slavs from southern and central Europe, henceforth lived under the shari'a. Christian majorities survived in most of the Balkans under thge Ottomans. This appears to have changed in modern times. What has happened to Christian majorities in the Middle East, North Africa, Bosnia and Kosovo, has happened to the Hindus. Pakistan had over 25 percent Hindus, now only 1.5 percent remained. If you are not a Muslim and living in an Islamic country now, you are sub servant to the Muslims.

Israel

America

Primarily because of American support for Israel, America in the eyes of many Arabs has been precieved as hostile. American support for Arab government which are mostly undemocratic has also angered many Arabs. The Fundamentalists charge that America is an evil society that has launched a war on the Arabs. Fundamentalits widen their appeal now charge that America has launched a war on Islam itself. In fact America has consistently acted to prevent starvation and mass murder of Islamic people. Some of these countrie are oil rich and others are impoverished countries of no real ecomnomic importance. The countries include: Afghanistan, Bosnia, Kosovo, Kuwait, and Somalia. America has often been accused of making war for oil. In fact in all of these countries, only Kuwait has important oil resources. And in Kuwait only Sadam seized the oil fields. After liberation, control of the oil fields immeiately returned to Kuwati control. There are Islamic scholars who dispute the Fundamentalits. Some even maintain that America is more Islamic (just and tolerant) than fundamntalist states like the Taliaban in Afghanistan.

Islamic Fundamentalism

The role of Islam in the modern world is a subject of increasing debate. Many think that Wahabism and Ben-Laiden fundamentalist terrorism is an aberation. Others express concern that their are findamental contridictions between Islam and the West over fundamental concepts such as peace, democracy, and market economics. Today many of these basic precepts of Islam are questioned by Fundamentalist Islamic scholars. One of the principal features of fundamentalist regims is intolerance to diversity. Not only do fundamentalists reject toleration of other religious faiths, but they are intolerant of other Muslims who differ from their narrow sectarian traditon. This was the casof the Taliban in Afghanistan and Reolutionary Iran. This extends to more than just religion as the Pastuns who dominated the Taliban brutally supressed other ethnic groups in the country.

Sources

Lamb, David. The Arabs: Journey's Beyond the Mirage .

Created: February 16, 2003
Last updated: 6:38 PM 7/30/2007