Weekly Notes Summary
(this page will be updated weekly, except for review and exam weeks)
Textbook readings:
Introduction, p. 129-134
Teachings, p. 141-150
Women, p. 154
Jihad, p. 156
Worship and Ritual, p. 158-161
Sufi Poetry, p. 171-172
Islam
I. Islam: “submission;” “peace”
A. From the triliteral root SLM
1. ISLAM: “surrender, submission”
2. MUSLIM: “one who submits (to God)
3. SALAM; S(H)ALOM (Hebrew): “peace”
II. Muhammad (570-632 CE)
A. Muhammad’s tribe: the Quraish.
B. The call from Allah through the angel Gabriel (c. 610 CE).
C. Mecca to Medina to Mecca (622-630 CE).
1. 622 CE: the year of Hijrah, or “migration,” the first year of the Muslim calendar. All years since then are marked “A.H.,” or anno hegirae.
III. The Qur’an (Koran)
A. Qur’an: “recitation”
1. That which Gabriel recited to Muhammed.
2. That which Muhammed recited to his people.
3. That which the believer recites today.
B. The Qur’an is not narrative but instructive/declarative in format. 114 chapters (surahs).
C. Language patterns and oral utterance.
D. The Qur’an does not simply deny the Hebrew and Christian texts.
1. Oral tradition.
2. Abraham, Moses, Jesus . . .
IV. The Five Pillars of Faith
A. Shahada (“Confession”): “There is not god but God (Allah), and Muhammed is his final prophet” (not the only but the final).
B. Salat (“Prayer”): Five times per day, in the direction of Mecca (upon arising, noon, mid-afternoon, sunset, before retiring).
C. Zakat (“Charity”): 1/40th or 2.5% of one’s earnings/material assets for the poor. Some sources say the amount of the alms should fall between 2.5% and 10%.
D. Sawm (“Fasting”): During the ninth month of Ramadan, from sunrise to sunset; not simply from food/drink, tobacco, but also from harsh thoughts and unkind acts.
E. Hajj (“Pilgrimage”): During the month of Dhu al-Hijah, a journey to the Great Mosque in Mecca. If it is economically feasible, one is expected to do so at least once in one’s life. But the internal pilgrimage is just as important to acknowledge. Like Jerusalem for Christians, Jews and Muslims alike, Mecca is a place in the heart as well as on the map.
V. The Mosque (from masjid, “a place for prostration/bowing down”).
A. The Mihrab: the “pointer” toward Mecca.
B. The Muezzin: the “reciter;” the caller to prayer.
C. The Minaret: a prayer tower; ascended by the muezzin to call people to prayer.
D. The Kaaba Stone at the Great Mosque of Mecca.
VI. Other Doctrines and Features of Islam.
A. Jihad (literally, “struggle,” “striving”). Often a reference to “holy war.”
1. Psychological: the “inner jihad.”
2. Political: defensive or to right a wrong.
B. Treatment of Women.
1. Both culturally and doctrinally determined (cf. Hadith)
2. The practice of polygyny.
C. Shirk (“idolatry”).
VII. Contributions of Muslim Culture
A. The fine arts: calligraphy, the arabesque, geometric design, literature (romantic poetry, episodic narrative form)
B. Aristotelean science and logic (via the Crusaders returning from the Holy Land); mathematics (“Arabic” numbers), astronomy, optics, distillation
C. Cf. “Robin Hood”
VIII. Historical Overview
A. Following Muhammad’s initial introduction of Islam to the region, independent tribal groups were joined together through a combination of force and diplomacy. Within a decade, Arab forces overran the Byzantine and Persian armies, eventually extending the boundaries of the Muslim empire to Morocco and Spain in the West and to India in the East.
As the role of jihad is all too often misunderstood (see discussion of jihad, above), it is important to emphasize that there were in fact three options that were presented to the tribes and cultures that the Islamic conquests encountered:
1. Full conversion to Islam.
2. Acceptance of rule as “protected” people who chose to retain their own religions; this choice included payment of a poll tax.
3. The sword/battle if neither the first nor the second option were accepted.
B. Historical Periods
1. The Caliphate (632-1258; caliph = “successor/deputy”).
2. The period of the “rightly guided caliphs” (632-661), also known as “the normative period.” These caliphs included:
a. Abu Bakr (immediate successor to Muhammad, 632-634); ordered the first complete textual compilation of Muhammad’s revelations, i.e, the Qur’an.
b. Umar ibn al-Khattab (634-644).
c. Uthman ibn Affan (644-656); ordered a definitive edition of the Qur’an in 650. All other variant portions, etc. were to be destroyed. Edited by Zayd ibn Thabit, this edition remains the “definitive Qur’an.”
d. Ali ibn Abi Talib (son-in-law of the Prophet; genesis of the Shia sect, 656-661); Ali was assassinated by anti-Shia supporters of the Umayyad clan (see below).
3. The caliph exercised direct political, military, judicial control; chosen through a process of consultation, nomination through a group of electors who, in turn, presented the caliph to the people for acceptance by public acclamation.
4. The Umayyad Empire (661-750).
a. Capital moved to Damascus (from Medina); a more established, cosmopolitan Greco-Roman Byzantine city to symbolize this new imperial age.
b. Conquest of North Africa-Spain during this period.
c. Ali’s son, Husayn, initiates a revolt that leads to the overt division of Islam into its two major branches of Sunni (“community of consensus”) and Shia (“partisan”). As was his father, Husayn is assassinated. The martyrdom of Husayn results in the Shia declaration that the leadership of the Muslim community belonged to the descendents of Ali, i.e., the family of Muhammad.
d. Ali, therefore, was the first Imam (“divinely inspired spiritual leader”), whose succession was, in the eyes of the Shia sect, usurped by the Sunni caliphs.
e. Within the Shia community, various sub-sects develops, such as the “Seveners” and the “Twelvers.” These numerical designations are based on their respective understandings of the disappearance of their Imam and the ensuing disruption of hereditary succession (explain), to be followed by his eventual messianic return as the mahdi.
f. While awaiting the return of the missing Imam, the community to be guided by ulama (“religious scholars”), not unlike “interim Imam.” Cf. also Ayatollah of Iranian tradition.
The Ulama: as interpreters of the law, their influence and tradition developed into what is today known as Sharia (“Islamic law”). But during the Umayyad Period, many saw this interpretation as based more on the mind of the caliph than on that of God. As the Empire spread, legal interpretation became assimilated into the various customary and/or indigenous practices of the regions that were absorbed into the empire (while not a legal issue per se, consider, for example, the varying patterns of conventional Muslim dress that are determined by their respective nations and cultures, and not by Islam as a whole or the Holy Qur’an).
Pragmatically speaking, such assimilation and cultural shaping was necessary in order for the Empire to maintain itself over so many different groups (tribal, ethnic, etc.); but this is what inevitably produced what many protesters saw and an un-Islamic society overall.
Reaction to this diffusion resulted in, among other factions, mystical sects such as Sufism, and their pursuit of the “real” encounter with God through a radical detachment from the worldly trappings of empire and caliphate.
5. Abbasid Empire (750-1258): the flowering of Islamic civilization
a. Under Shia influence, the Umayyads are overthrown in 750 by Abu al-Abbas, a descendent of the Prophet’s uncle. The capital is moved to Baghdad.
b. The Abbasid Empire is known not only for its continued wealth and political power, but also for its extraordinary cultural activity and accomplishments in the arts, technology, philosophy and the sciences.
c. During this period, Muslim scholars and scientists acquired the literary, scientific and philosophical works of the Greek and Roman West, materials that had been more or less lost to the West following the fall of the Rome to the Germanic tribes in 476 CE. Muslim scholars such as Avicenna (980-1037) and Averroes (1126-1198) translated and adapted classical philosophical thought of Plato and Aristotle to Islamic belief. Muslim scientists did extraordinary things in astronomy, optics and mathematics. Once these ideas were “rediscovered” by the West, they set the stage for the scholastic methods of such Christian theologians as Thomas Aquinas and Anselm of Canterbury, and ultimately the European Renaissance itself.
d. The formalization of Islamic law: Sharia. The Ulama (religious scholars) evolved into a distinct social group, including judges (qadi) who interpreted and administered the law in a defined judicial system.
e. The Christian Crusaders conquer Jerusalem: 1099
f. Saladin retakes Jerusalem for Islam: 1187
g. The Mongols conquer Baghdad, ending the Abbasid empire: 1258
6. Subsequent major Muslim empires that arose from ca. 1500-1800 include:
The Ottoman Empire (modern Turkey)
The Safavid Empire of Persia (Iran)
The Mughal Empire of India
The Wahhabi Reform Movement of the 1700s, originating in Arabia under the guidance of Muhammead ibn Abd al-Wahhab (1703-1787). “Wahhabism” is the historical root of many fundamentalist/pan-Islam movements in the Near East of the 19th-20th centuries, along with a heightened anti-Western consciousness in the face of increasing Western colonialism.
IX. Black Muslims/The Nation of Islam
A. W.D. Fard Muhammed
1. Came to Detroit
from Arabia in 1930, and worked with
Black communities until his disappearance in 1934.
B. Elijah Muhammed (Elijah Poole), 1897-1975.
C. Malcolm X (Malcolm Little), 1925-65.
1. Broke with
Elija Muhammed’s separatist position in 1964 (after visit
to Mecca).
2. Started Organization of African American Unity in 1964.
3. Assassinated in 1965.
D. Wallace D. Muhammed (son of Elijah Muhammed), took control after his father’s death in 1975; also rejected separatist beliefs of his father.
1. The World Community of al-Islam in the West.
E. Louis Farrakhan (Louis Eugene Wolcott), b. 1933.
1. Broke with Wallace Muhammed in 1978.
2. Retained “Nation of Islam” identity.