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2021 Lect 32 Islam — Transcript

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0:01in 615 the husband of a wealthy camel
0:03merchant went into a cave and spent some
0:06time meditating
0:07and when he came out he came out with
0:09information that was going to change the
0:11course
0:12of history so that's what we're going to
0:14talk about today we're going to talk
0:15about muhammad's revelations
0:17and the rise of islam
0:22let's talk a little bit about what was
0:23going on in this geographic region
0:25during the 7th century and if you look
0:28at the map you can see that mecca
0:30is in the western part of what's today
0:32saudi arabia
0:33on the arabian peninsula there and then
0:36hopefully you can also see that it's
0:38situated to be influenced by a number
0:40of different cultures on one hand you
0:44have the
0:44north african culture which we had
0:46talked about being very influential with
0:49learning
0:50mecca was a trading city so they would
0:52have had merchants coming regularly
0:54bringing ideas from that region we also
0:56are fairly close to the levant
0:58where judaism and christianity had both
1:01gotten their start
1:03so there would have been influences from
1:05there as well
1:06and judaism in fact is going to play a
1:09really important role in islam
1:11they share the same foundational texts
1:15and then of course islam is going to add
1:17to these texts with the quran
1:19but one of the most important people
1:21within judaism is
1:22abraham and if you can remember back to
1:25our discussions of judaism earlier in
1:27the semester
1:28you remember that god makes a covenant
1:31with
1:32abraham who was at the time living
1:34probably near
1:35ur in mesopotamia and
1:39he tells abraham that he is going to
1:41make him the father
1:43of his people and form a special
1:45covenant with abraham and his people
1:47abraham is already quite old by this
1:50point and he has not had any children
1:52with his wife sarah
1:53so god tells him that he's going to give
1:55abraham a son
1:57well as abraham waits for this promise
2:00and it continues to not happen his his
2:03wife
2:03of course says i am way too old to have
2:05children and in fact years go by and she
2:08doesn't and so abraham
2:10ends up taking a concubine hagar
2:13which wouldn't have really raised any
2:14eyebrows at the time polygamy was widely
2:16practiced
2:17and so he he takes this lady hagar and
2:20they have a son
2:22and he names him ishmael now sometime
2:25after that
2:27abraham's wife sarah does give birth to
2:29a son
2:30and isaac and this is going to be the
2:33line
2:34from which the jews come this is their
2:36um
2:37their fathers so this person of ishmael
2:41however is still very
2:42important a treasured son of abraham and
2:45there begins to be tension between hagar
2:48and sarah and
2:50abraham settles ishmael and his mother
2:53in
2:53mecca and so all right at the very
2:55beginning not only is there
2:57an important connection with judaism but
2:59also
3:00there's a sacredness to mecca there is
3:02the
3:03tradition says that abraham built a uh
3:06altar there and that this altar is going
3:09to be later
3:10uh incorporated into the tradition of
3:12the kaaba
3:13so um judaism is certainly one of the
3:17influences that's around
3:18and would have been something that
3:21muhammad would have been exposed to
3:23most likely within the city of mecca
3:29we just mentioned that christianity also
3:31would have been something probably being
3:33brought in with
3:34either merchants or missionaries by this
3:37point in the 7th century
3:39christians were actively sending out
3:40missionaries throughout
3:42throughout the mediterranean and it's
3:45quite possible that some of these
3:46missionaries could have been traveling
3:48through
3:49mecca and in fact there are some aspects
3:52of islam which seem to have similarities
3:55with christianity in addition to that
3:57shared tradition
3:58of the judaic scriptures there's also an
4:00emphasis upon this very personal
4:02relationship with god which we talked
4:04about
4:05the change of the heart which we talked
4:06about being present in the gospels
4:08within christianity
4:10another influence are going to be these
4:13different tribes who live around the
4:15subtle cities of places like mecca in
4:17medina
4:18there had been a long tradition of um
4:20transhumanity peoples that were
4:23living following herds of camel
4:25following herds of goats
4:27and these are the bedouins and the
4:29bedouins traditionally had been
4:31a polytheist and tended toward animism
4:35looking at spirits of rocks and water
4:38and things like that and perhaps it's
4:40less
4:41easy to see the influence of their
4:42religious beliefs within islam
4:45but they're they are going to play an
4:46important role in the way that islam
4:48moves uh from coming this very kernel of
4:52a religion throughout the arabian
4:53peninsula
4:54in the sense that there's a strong
4:56tradition of tribal loyalty
4:59so when you compare it to places like
5:00rome or persia where you have this
5:02overarching
5:04um political figure who is calling the
5:07shots
5:08the vetoings their alliances and loyalty
5:11were much more closely
5:12related to kinship and um
5:16the loyalty would have been with the
5:17tribe and that's something that
5:19uh the early muslims are going to have
5:22to
5:23deal with during the expansion
5:29we can turn now and talk about the
5:31person of muhammad or
5:32what we know about him and like most of
5:36the historical figures that we've talked
5:37about that are associated with major
5:39religions
5:40there is a lot of tradition and not a
5:42lot of
5:44evidence so what i can tell you now much
5:46like
5:47as we talked about the life of jesus is
5:49going to come from
5:50islamic traditions themselves and this
5:54tradition tells us that muhammad was
5:56orphaned very early in his life and he
5:59was
5:59raised by his uncle
6:03and as a young man he spent some time
6:06traditionally he had spent some time
6:08learning the pure oral arabic and this
6:12was something i think that that is going
6:14to influence
6:15the approach of islam which is to
6:18put place a lot of importance on
6:20language and words
6:22and the clarity of those words not
6:24changing those words
6:25and i think that that's something that
6:27is is right there at the very beginning
6:29even before islam there had been a
6:31tradition for for men in particular in
6:33that area
6:35to leave the cities if they were urban
6:37youth
6:38and spend some time among illiterate
6:41peoples
6:42and spend some time out in the desert
6:45and this was kind of seen as a
6:46purification and it really got them in
6:48touch with
6:49um the oral arabic and then also you
6:52know it's kind of toughening them up
6:54getting rid of the corruption of the
6:56cities um and that was a theme that
6:58we've talked about before
6:59when we looked at places like athens and
7:01sparta and the notion that living in an
7:03urban
7:04area can make you soft it can make you
7:06corrupt
7:07so it seems as if muhammad had spent
7:09some time
7:10doing that and then his father and his
7:13mother die
7:14and he moves into the house of his uncle
7:18now some of these traditions talk about
7:20there being indications that this was
7:22going to be
7:23a special child and not all of islam
7:27takes these traditions to be true but
7:29some do
7:30much like there are stories about jesus
7:32as a little child
7:34that are not included in the scriptures
7:36but become part of the tradition
7:38one is that he had this purification
7:41with a mysterious stranger he had
7:43early visions that indicated that he was
7:46going to play
7:47a role later in life
7:52and other traditions talk about his
7:53appearance that he was particularly
7:56beautiful he particularly had a shining
7:58kind of continent
7:59they used that term which means his you
8:01know he was particularly handsome but
8:03it's more than handsome it's more of a
8:05holiness to him um the
8:08the better sources pick up a little bit
8:11when we talk
8:12about him in his later life and he
8:14becomes married to
8:16a wealthy merchant widow khadija
8:19and this is again is going to be
8:20important her role in islam is going to
8:23be very important
8:24she is um important both as giving him
8:28moral support in the beginning
8:30and then also as a wealthy widow she's
8:32able to
8:33fund some of the later endeavors that he
8:34takes on as he expands
8:37this belief so
8:41the everything changes as we mentioned
8:43in our first slide
8:45when he retreats to the desert muhammad
8:47retreats to the desert
8:49to have some of this meditation time and
8:51again i think that's why it's important
8:53to talk about this was
8:54not an unusual thing for this cult in
8:56this culture for men to do
8:58and he had gone into traditionally the
9:01cave of hira
9:02and he this is when we talk about the
9:05revelations from gabriel which will be
9:07the source of the quran
9:09and i think it's important to note at
9:12this point
9:13that there is no indication that
9:16muhammad was literate
9:17and most most sources agree that he was
9:20not
9:21literate and so what he receives then
9:24is not a a pen and paper to begin
9:27writing down these revelations but
9:29instead he is told to recite
9:31what he hears so the angel gabriel
9:34appears to him
9:36and tells him to write or tells him
9:38sorry to recite
9:40what it is that these truths that he's
9:42going to get
9:43um and this is called the night of power
9:47so around the age of 40 he's in this his
9:50spiritual retreat he receives these
9:52messages
9:53and he is a little bit disturbed by what
9:55he's heard
9:56um he he seems to have been a little bit
9:59uncomfortable at first as someone
10:00probably would be if they see an
10:01angel appear to them but gradually uh he
10:05makes peace with himself that this is
10:06something that he needs to share he's
10:08been commanded by god
10:10to share these truths and he begins
10:12telling his immediate family
10:14tradition says that along with his wife
10:17his
10:18his cousin ali was his uh and also his
10:22brother because he was adopted into that
10:24family ali
10:25is his first convert um
10:28so at first it really is just a very
10:31small
10:32number of people but as they begin to
10:34expand this is where the trouble starts
10:37part of the reason why mecca was so
10:39popular and so prosperous
10:41is because of the existence of this
10:44kebab
10:45had talked about traditionally it being
10:48thought of as when perhaps the first
10:51um abraham had made a uh altar there
10:55after he had moved ishmael um and his
10:57mother to that city so there was this
10:59tradition of it being an altar
11:01but over the ensuing years it was also
11:04considered to be this this really pagan
11:06um symbol and people would come and they
11:08would leave votives there and
11:10so it really was a nice money maker for
11:13the villagers
11:14and muhammad begins talking about it
11:16being really unclean this is kind of a
11:18pagan
11:19blasphemous practice and they're not
11:21happy about the fact
11:23that he is trying to upset trade in that
11:26region
11:33things really come to a head when
11:34there's an attempt on muhammad's life
11:37and they realize that they are not
11:39welcome in the city and they're going to
11:40have to
11:41leave and so a an escape is planned in
11:44the middle of the night
11:46muhammad and his immediate family is
11:48going to flee
11:49to the northern city of medina and
11:52this becomes incorporated into one of
11:55the sacred traditions of islam which is
11:57the
11:57the hijra the flight that's what that
11:59commemorates
12:01is muhammad leaving mecca
12:04and traveling to medina and you would
12:07think well what what difference does it
12:08make
12:09in medina aren't they going to be
12:11equally troubled by his
12:13teachings and they were not um they are
12:16actually welcoming of him
12:18they are listening to what he has to say
12:20and he very quickly rises to the highest
12:22levels
12:23of a civil office in medina they make
12:26him
12:26kind of like a mayor and he begins
12:29teaching and also to
12:31implement some of these reforms that
12:33he's been talking about there's this
12:34political form
12:36turmoil in medina and the first thing he
12:38does is to establish order
12:40and then he begins to do things like um
12:42institute
12:43giving alms to make sure that that the
12:45poor are being taken care of
12:47in order to do all of these things he
12:50needs money
12:51and we know that he went out with other
12:54of his followers from medina and they
12:57organize
12:57raids on caravans in order to finance
13:01some of these
13:02changes and it seems to have taken off
13:04pretty well medina
13:06becomes more successful more prosperous
13:09and more at peace and finally
13:12they are at a place where he's going to
13:14be able to return to mecca that does
13:16seem to have been part of his plan to
13:18return to the sacred city
13:20of mecca now i do want to say just a
13:22little bit about another
13:24um institution which which comes about
13:27in the very early days of islam which is
13:29jihad
13:30and i think jihad the word jihad occurs
13:33at least
13:34400 times in the quran and it's been
13:37used in
13:38all different kinds of of ways
13:41now one of the ways does go back to
13:43these first
13:44raids on on caravans but also
13:48this idea that there is a necessity
13:51of defense of the faith so if you feel
13:54as if the faith is being
13:55threatened um then
13:58it's it's warranted to take on this
14:01notion of jihad
14:02it's not really a campaign of aggression
14:04but it's a campaign of defense
14:06the other meaning of jihad is more of
14:10the internal
14:10struggle the struggle of the soul to
14:12follow god
14:14and throughout islam there have been met
14:16the history of islam there have been
14:17many different
14:19interpretations and uses of this word
14:21jihad so i just wanted to mention it is
14:24part of the original
14:26text however it's been interpreted by
14:28different leaders in different ways
14:38in 629 muhammad is able to return to
14:42mecca
14:42and he's be able to return with a fairly
14:44intimidating force behind him
14:46so although it's not a military takeover
14:48takeover of the city
14:50i think the implication is there that
14:52unless you are going to submit
14:53to this new powerful leader there
14:55probably would have been
14:56a military intervention so by 6 30 he
15:00has reinstated back
15:01within mecca he's able to overcome all
15:04of those who had opposed him before
15:07and now we have a series of steps in
15:09which islam is going to move
15:11from kind of a small religion
15:15to this empire and again we talked about
15:17this with christianity right it starts
15:19as the small
15:20jewish sect within the levant and then
15:23it kind of moves toward
15:24becoming a world religion so that's
15:27similar with islam
15:29one of the first things that muhammad
15:31does is to
15:32cleanse the kebab and remember this had
15:34been that spiritual
15:36stone that pilgrimage site at the center
15:39of mecca
15:40and he reinstates its spiritual
15:42significance within judaism
15:44and removes all of the different pagan
15:48uh little icons and candles and all the
15:50types of things well not candles but
15:52probably oil lamps at that point all of
15:54those things that had been
15:56kind of littering that area and it makes
15:58it the center of pilgrimage as the
16:00center and of course it still is one of
16:02the
16:03five pillars of islam to try to make a
16:05pilgrimage to mecca
16:08the next task that muhammad has is to
16:11begin consolidating
16:13all of these tribes and and
16:16removing those tribal identities and
16:19really replacing them with a more
16:21unifying arab identity
16:23so much of the rest of muhammad's life
16:25is spent unifying
16:27the arabian peninsula into one
16:30cultural unit
16:37we don't have a lot of personal details
16:40about muhammad as he's leading these
16:42campaigns and unifying the arabian
16:44peninsula
16:45but most historians feel as if he
16:48exhibited some qualities that are pretty
16:50widely
16:50recognized as being important for
16:52success i mean first of all he must have
16:54been fairly charismatic
16:56in order to have reached these diverse
16:59tribes
17:00the bedouin tribes which were often
17:01pretty hostile toward each other so it
17:04must have been a force of personality
17:06um that allowed him to connect with
17:09these different people
17:10and then they also agree that he seems
17:12to have been a pretty shrewd negotiator
17:14in addition to
17:15writing sometimes out with his men into
17:18battle
17:19um he often was able to negotiate
17:22treaties in a way which left both
17:24parties feeling like they had
17:26uh succeeded in achieving something
17:29so the the person of muhammad um was
17:32definitely a force
17:33in in the early expansion of islam
17:37and then of course within the religion
17:39just like with christ you know they're
17:40going to tell us that christian the
17:41christian scriptures tell us that christ
17:43was
17:44was god um muhammad is never seen
17:47as god but he's definitely seen as being
17:49inspired
17:50by god so this is going to play a role
17:52too and why he's able
17:53to achieve all of these things because
17:56he has he's doing the will of god
18:00in 632 muhammad
18:04dies but before he does he has another
18:07couple of experiences which are going to
18:09play into the original
18:11institutions of islam one of them is the
18:14night journey
18:16and the other is the mirage and this is
18:18a very spiritual
18:20journey that takes muhammad
18:23to the temple mount the temple that was
18:26built by
18:26solomon you know begun by david and then
18:28finished by solomon within judaism
18:31and at this point he is taken up into
18:34heaven
18:35and he receives more instructions about
18:37how people should pray
18:39how they should live their lives as one
18:41as people devoted
18:43to god and so that's kind of what's uh
18:46depicted here in the ascent of muhammad
18:49to heaven and it's it's interesting this
18:50is a 16th century
18:52image that you're seeing here and as
18:54we'll talk about
18:56this was a rather unusual because people
18:59are not supposed to be represented
19:01within islamic art they are going to
19:03borrow from the judaic tradition which
19:05talks about no graven images
19:08so you don't generally see depictions of
19:10muhammad
19:11at all instead islamic art is generally
19:14going to consist
19:15of beautiful patterns and colors
19:18interwoven you'll see things like
19:19vegetation
19:20but you're not going to see images of
19:22the prophet as we
19:24as we did with with jesus as the messiah
19:26there were lots of different pictures of
19:28jesus so muhammad dies in 632 and that's
19:32when things become a little bit
19:33difficult because
19:34we have this very charismatic leader
19:37inspired leader at the center
19:38and what happens when he dies and there
19:41is
19:42indication there was a little bit of
19:43contention about who should take
19:45over for him should it be one of his
19:48long-term
19:49supporters these companions of the
19:51prophet that had followed him
19:53or should it go through a bloodline
19:56should this be
19:57um perhaps he didn't have a living son
20:00but the natural choice probably would
20:02have been his
20:02son-in-law who was also his cousin this
20:05person of ali that we
20:06spoke about before so as we'll see it
20:09ends up being
20:10this companion line um that takes over
20:14after muhammad dies but there always is
20:16that hint of perhaps
20:17there should have been a favoritism
20:19toward the bloodline
20:25it's these companions of the prophet
20:26then that are going to immediately
20:28succeed
20:29muhammad after his death at about he's
20:32about 60
20:3262 when he dies and
20:36there develops around them this office
20:38of the khalif
20:39and so abu bakr after he dies umar is
20:42going to take over and then after his
20:44death uthman and all of these are going
20:46to hold the title of khalif which
20:48really from the very beginning is a
20:49synthesis of
20:51both political and spiritual duties so
20:54this
20:54office really makes you the spiritual
20:57leader of your people
20:58and then also the highest secular
21:00authority really merged into
21:02into one and i think this is different
21:05than what we see happening
21:06in the west where even though
21:07constantine has become
21:10part of the christian religion he's
21:12influential in the christian religion
21:14he is um offset by this this
21:17bishop of rome or these patriarchs who
21:19are also very powerful in their own
21:21right
21:22so within islam in the beginning there's
21:23really going to be a merger of that
21:25within the caliphate it's after the
21:28death of uthman
21:30that we see an important division
21:32between the early
21:33muslims and it stems back to that
21:36consideration of who should have
21:38succeeded the prophet should it have
21:40gone to these companions or should it
21:42have followed
21:43the bloodline and we have ali who if you
21:46remember this is his cousin
21:48it's his adopted brother they had grown
21:50up in the same household together
21:52and then ali had married muhammad's
21:54daughter
21:55he had married fatima and there's still
21:58this sense that perhaps ali
22:00should have been the one that succeeded
22:03muhammad
22:03and there begins to be some suspicion
22:06that uthman was assassinated by the men
22:08of ali and heading that that suspicion
22:12that opposition
22:13is muhammad's wife aisha
22:17and his first wife khadijah had died
22:19quite some time ago
22:20and aisha had become an important figure
22:23in his life and an important figure
22:25within the early muslim community and
22:28the opposition to that is going to
22:30culminate in what's considered
22:31um a real pivotal moment for islam the
22:34battle of the camel or sometimes it's
22:36called
22:36the battle of basra it's near basra iraq
22:40and the forces supporting the companions
22:42of the prophet
22:43are led by ayesha and not only is she
22:46the wife of muhammad
22:48but she's also the daughter of abu bakr
22:50so you can really see she has that um
22:53that motivation to preserve that line to
22:56oppose ali
22:58so alice forces are going to meet um
23:01aisha's forces and ali's
23:05are ultimately going to gain the victory
23:08that day and there's this image within
23:11tradition that has
23:14aisha herself sitting on top of a camel
23:16watching this battle go on
23:18um it's kind of an iconic moment in
23:21islamic history but even though
23:24ali is going to eventually assume the
23:27throne
23:28after this i'm sorry become the khalif
23:30after this
23:31there really is never unity within those
23:34two groups
23:34again and in a short period of time
23:38there is going to be another coup that's
23:40led um
23:41by muawiyah and he assassinates ali
23:45and at this point there's going to be
23:47the establishment of the new
23:48the new dynasty the umayyads so
23:51at not only do we have these two
23:54decisions about
23:55or two sides as to who should succeed
23:57the prophet but you begin to have these
23:59two
23:59sects which you're probably more
24:01familiar with um today which is the
24:03shiite and the sunni
24:05muslims now the shiite and the sunni
24:08since this period of time
24:10have had differences in the way they
24:13interpret
24:14the quran the the role of imam so there
24:16are there are differences
24:18in addition to just this this uh
24:20disagreement about who should have
24:22succeeded the prophet
24:23but at its beginnings at its core that's
24:26really what
24:27it was about and it's the sunni who are
24:29going to end up
24:30becoming predominant in the early muslim
24:33empire
24:38the period under the umayyads is a
24:40period of almost unbelievable expansion
24:43we had looked at some maps when we
24:45talked about christianity that talked
24:46about the spread of christianity from
24:49this small
24:50sect within the levant to most of the
24:53mediterranean world
24:54and that spread took about 400 years
24:57and in comparison the spread of islam
25:01is going to be much more rapid and i'll
25:03show you a map here in a minute that
25:04kind of details that but it really
25:06is unprecedented in history to see
25:09a new belief system and indeed a
25:11political system
25:13which is going to expand at this rate
25:16um so what exactly was contributing to
25:20these this rapid expansion
25:22and so we'll start first with the
25:24message of islam
25:26so there were aspects of this that
25:29seemed to have
25:30appealed to many people perhaps part of
25:33it was a return to a true monotheism
25:36remember that within christianity you
25:38had this emphasis
25:40of a personal relationship with god
25:42which islam is also going to have
25:45but christianity has this complicating
25:47factor that
25:48it acknowledges the existence of jesus
25:51who is
25:52fully god and fully man and then you
25:55also have the holy spirit
25:57and yet they are all in one that is one
25:59of the divine mysteries of the trinity
26:02and you can see where that is kind of a
26:04stumbling block for many people to try
26:06to understand
26:07how does this religion work exactly so
26:10in some ways
26:10um islam could have appealed to people
26:13because of its
26:14its focus his return to this this
26:16monotheism
26:18that we had seen in judaism but with a
26:20real emphasis
26:21on a personal relationship with god also
26:26the other factor more pragmatic factor
26:29is what's been going on between the
26:31persians and the byzantines
26:33remember when this last lecture that we
26:35talked about the expansions under kuzrow
26:37ii
26:38and then you have the defeat of kuzrow
26:40by heraclius the byzantine emperor
26:43so they're while they're pushing back
26:44and forth they are succeeding and really
26:47weakening both of their empires they're
26:49losing men
26:50they're losing supplies um and so
26:53both of those empires were not at their
26:57their strength their peak strength uh
26:59when islam first emerges
27:01and starts to move out of the arabian
27:03peninsula
27:04the other in thing that's complicated
27:07complicating
27:08christianity complicating christianity
27:11is quite a thing to say
27:13but it is also this this uncertainty
27:17about how it should be expressed
27:19and we didn't get too much into the
27:21different heresies at the time
27:23but i did mention that there were a
27:24number of councils that were held
27:27in order to determine the the divinity
27:30of christ
27:31is he fully man is he fully god was he
27:34born of mary
27:35is is mary in particular a special
27:37person or was she just another a lady a
27:40vessel that god used
27:41so there are different expressions of
27:43christianity coptic orthodox
27:45monophysitis
27:46arianism um nestorianism i won't make
27:50you
27:50memorize all the is isms but just know
27:53that this is a very complex picture
27:55and in many cases these are things that
27:57people
27:58really took to the streets about there
28:00are there are
28:02examples of people having mass riots in
28:04constantinople
28:06because of these differences in their
28:08religion
28:09they're all christians but they're
28:10interpreting it in different ways
28:12so that was another thing that possibly
28:14could have contributed to the success
28:17of islam in many cases
28:20the muslim invaders were happy to let
28:22people continue
28:24to practice whatever version of
28:26christianity they had previously been
28:28practicing
28:29as long as they paid a certain tax a
28:32certain muslim tax
28:34and this was a lot more tolerant than
28:36what some of the byzantine emperors were
28:38expecting which was to really
28:40follow their lead so
28:43these persian persian and byzantine
28:45influences in some ways
28:47are going to influence the court
28:49particularly the persian court is going
28:51to influence the way the caliphate
28:53develops um because they had been
28:57so long this large autocratic
29:00administration they knew how to run
29:02things
29:03and these this early islamic empire is
29:05going to lean on those institutions
29:08but in other ways um they're really
29:10going to start to bring this new sense
29:12of muslim-ness
29:14to this region it's going to be more
29:16important than what language you speak
29:18um or what your face or skin color or
29:21eye shape or any of those types of
29:23things looks like
29:24you're going to be able to be unified as
29:27a
29:28as a muslim and that happens during the
29:31umayyad
29:31expansion that second wave of expansion
29:38during that period of the seventh
29:40century there are
29:41many many different military encounters
29:44but there were three that really helped
29:46to set the boundaries of what this
29:49new islamic empire will look like so we
29:52know during the death
29:54or before the death of muhammad they had
29:56managed to take over all of the arabian
29:58peninsula
30:00and then there's going to be a second
30:02wave of expansion
30:04under the first kalis which takes over
30:07much of what had been
30:08persia and syria and into egypt
30:11and then there will be that final push
30:14under the umayyads
30:16which is going to go into north africa
30:18all the way up into the iberian
30:19peninsula
30:21so these are where the boundaries are
30:22really established
30:24although they make it to the gates of
30:26constantinople you can see there in 674
30:29there's a long siege of constantinople
30:32they are not able to take the city so
30:34rome is going to
30:36persist there continue to be emperors um
30:38in the eastern roman empire
30:41until for another thousand years or
30:43almost a thousand years
30:45they stop advancing into europe at about
30:48where the pyrenees
30:49intersect uh what is today france and
30:52spain in portugal or spain
30:55and you have the battle of tour or the
30:57battle of poitiers
30:58um both names for the same battle
31:00depending upon which side
31:02you're on and this is where the muslim
31:04advance
31:05is halted by um the frankish king at the
31:08time right we know the germanic peoples
31:09have come into the west
31:11and they are no longer ruled by rome but
31:13instead we have these
31:15nascent uh germanic kingdoms so the
31:18franks stop
31:19the advancement of muslims uh into
31:21france
31:22although most historians agree that the
31:25caliphate was probably not that
31:26interested in pushing too much further
31:28you can see geographically that would
31:30have been very far
31:32from their original starting point it
31:34would have been difficult to administer
31:36so they probably were not putting a
31:38whole lot of effort
31:39into that but the franks are going to
31:41take great pride at stopping that muslim
31:44advance however you can see that
31:47throughout most of the middle ages that
31:49iberian peninsula
31:51is going to remain a mixture
31:54of muslims and christians
31:58and jews and a lot of historians have
32:00found this to be
32:01a really rich place for research because
32:04even going into
32:06contemporary times of course this is
32:09still a concern we still have
32:10tensions between these three major you
32:13know what we're calling the universal
32:14religions the very large religions
32:16continue to bump up against each other
32:19and sometimes they live very peacefully
32:20and sometimes it is less peaceful so
32:23throughout spain has become a kind of a
32:25rich environment for looking at how
32:27these ancient groups
32:29dealt with one another so another thing
32:33i wanted to talk a little bit about in
32:34terms of the expansion
32:36were their policies and sometimes you
32:39hear a lot about people being converted
32:41by the
32:42sword and meaning that you know you're
32:43really not given a choice whether you
32:45want to be
32:46a muslim or not and the truth is that
32:50both christians and muslims at times con
32:53did these types of conversions um in the
32:56sense of chris
32:57in the christians a great example is the
32:59frankish king charlemagne who's going to
33:01go
33:02into germania with those those peoples
33:04were still
33:05pagan and they're essentially going to
33:08have to accept christianity
33:10or or die at the worst or perhaps be
33:13enslaved
33:14and there are examples of that happening
33:16within islam also
33:18but much more frequently within islam
33:22is this um division
33:25and of their approach so with when our
33:28in the readings that you did for class
33:30we talked about the first part of the
33:32we looked at the the cow the first um
33:34part of the quran
33:36and it talks about these people of the
33:38book
33:39and so this is a direct reference to
33:42christians
33:43and jews because they share in that
33:45heritage
33:46of judaism they are acknowledging the
33:49same god
33:51however the koran argues that they have
33:54splintered they have
33:55they have strayed they have disobeyed
33:57and gone in
33:58paths which are not appropriate but they
34:01still are recognized as being
34:03people of the book so generally what
34:05would happen is they would be asked to
34:07pay a tax
34:08they could um continue to practice their
34:11faith
34:11but they would have to pay this extra
34:14tax and
34:16the pagans people that were paid
34:17practicing polytheistic
34:19or or animistic type religions seem to
34:22have been treated with less tolerance
34:23that's where you were seen that's where
34:25you would have seen
34:26kind of forced more forced conversions
34:29um to that faith but in general
34:32you know it's a matter pragmatically
34:34people that don't convert
34:35are a source of revenue they are paying
34:37taxes and in fact
34:39there are historical um there is
34:41historical evidence for people
34:43converting
34:44because they don't want to pay the tax
34:45and people are questioning their
34:47sincerity
34:48um yesterday you were a good you were a
34:50good christian and today you're you're
34:51claiming to be a good muslim
34:53um because you don't want to pay this
34:54tax so it's a it's a really complex i
34:57think picture
34:58and it's one that we shouldn't
34:59understand as just
35:01a purely military kind of convert by the
35:04sword
35:05mentality either in christianity or in
35:09islam

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