Episode 4 Creating an Islamic Culture

The Middle Ages Around the World

Dr Joyce E Salisbury

Film Review

Islam is built on five pillars of faith: monotheism (“there is no god but Allah”), prayer, alms giving and pilgrimage (the Hajj). Ramadan, Islam’s annual month of fasting, celebrates Mohammad’s first revelations from the angel Gabriel. The Hajj or pilgrimage to the Ka’aba in Mecca is based on the Islamic belief that Abraham and Ismail built the shrine dedicated to the ancient meteor worshiped by Saudi tribes.

Following Mohammad’s death, there was major conflict over his successor. His third wife Aiha wanted her father Abu Bakr to become the caliph (successor). Other followers wanted a religious leader, specifically Mohammad’s son-in-law and cousin Ali to succeed him. Ali, who supported Abu Bakr, but not his successor, was assassinated in 667. After Ali’s murder the Umayyad dynasty, which lasted nearly a century, took over the caliphate and became the Sunni branch of Islam.

Shi’ite Muslims have always believed the caliphate should remain in the Prophet’s family. Ali’s sons Hassan and Hussayn became the second and third Shi’ite rulers. Hussayn and his son were murdered in 680. The early Shi’ite branch of Islam ruled Egypt and North Africa from the 10th century on.

The current Houthis of Yemen belong to a third branch of Islam which views Hussayn’s grandson Zaid as the legitimate Shi’ite successor. Establishing a separate Zaidi state in Yemen, they have long played an important role in Middle East trade.

In North Africa, Berber tribesmen refused to accept Arab commanders and created their own Berber caliphate in the 11th century.

In 750 the Abbasids overthrew the Ummayyad caliphate and moved its capital to Damascus to engage more fully in the Silk Road trade. By the 10th century the caliphate had fragmented into regional territories ruled by military commanders called emirs. The Abbassids, who continued to control the former Persian empire, moved their capitol to Baghdad and relied on Persian administrators* and traders to run their caliphate. Although the Koran prohibits alcohol consumption, Muslims drank wine in the wine-producing cultures of Persia and Spain.

Although the Koran is full of significant reforms for women (the right to inherit and to initiative divorce), their fate during the Middle Ages depended on local cultural practices. At the time, all respectable Mediterranean and European women wore veils and/or head coverings, regardless of their religious beliefs. Although there’s nothing about female genital mutilation** in the Koran, owing to it earlier prevalence Egypt and Aksum, it became linked with Islam as it spread to Asia and the rest of Africa.

As Arabic Muslim armies transformed the territories they conquered, Arabic became the language of trade and government and the dinar became the principle currency. Renamed Kairouan, Carthage, the capitol of Tunisia became a major center of learning, a did Cordova, the capitol of Al Andalus (the Iberian peninsula). Cordova reached a population of 250,000 under Muslim rule and became famous for its library and stunning mosques and public buildings.

*The Persians taught their Muslim overlords to play chess and backgammon, to wear trousers instead of traditional Arab robes and to eat off tables instead of the floor.

**Muslims continued male circumcision because it was ordained in the Old Testament. Christians abandoned the practice, based on St Paul’s teachings that “the circumcision of the heart” had replaced it.

Film can be viewed free with a library card on Kanopy.

https://www.kanopy.com/en/pukeariki/watch/video/13172786/13172795