| arabesque | Decorative feature using highly complex interlaced lines. The 3 forms or modes of arabesque art include geometrical figures, plant forms, and calligraphy. The coming together of these three forms represents the unities of man and nature, male and female, God and man, etc. |
| caliph | An Arabic term for leader or ruler. |
| couplet | Two lines of a poem in which the last words of each line typically rhyme. |
| Islam | Arabic term meaning "submission to God" |
| hadith | Islamic law or traditions about Muhammad outside the Qur' an. |
| Koran (Q'uran) | an Arabic term meaning "the Recitation"; it is the holy book of Islam given to Mohammed by the archangel Gabriel. |
| monotheism | Religious belief that affirms that there is only one God, as opposed to polytheism, which accepts many gods, or henotheism, which admits that there are many gods but only one is to be worshiped. |
| mosque | Islamic house of worship. |
| Ramadan | The month in the Muslim (lunar) calendar in which fasting from before dawn to sundown is stipulated. |
| Shari’a | The code of law that covers religious, civil, and criminal law. It is the law of the land in several Muslim countries. |
| Sûra | The name for a chapter in the Qur’an |
| tessera | The small colored cubes of colored stone that make up a mosaic. |
Shahadah:
The Islamic profession of faith: "There is no God but Allah and Muhammad is His prophet."
Salat:
Prayer: five times a day, facing Mecca (birthplace of Muhammad in modern day Saudi Arabia; the place where Muhammad received his revelation.)
Zakat:
Alms-giving: 2.5% of one's wealth to benefit the poor and eliminate hardship and inequality.
Sawm of Ramadan:
Fasting during the holy month of Ramadan from sunrise to sundown.
Hajj:
Pilgrimage to Mecca by every able-bodied Muslim at least once in a lifetime.
Islamic denominations:
Shi'a: ("meaning the followers of Ali," Muhammad's son-in-law) A minority sect of Islam world-wide, the shi'a hold a majority in Iran
Sunni: These are the orthodox Muslims
Sufi: Muslim mystics
5.1 Muhammad and the Birth of Islam
Goals
Identify the significant events in the life of Muhammad.
Discuss the development of Islamic art.
Understand terminology related to Islamic architecture.
Identify the distinguishing features of an Islamic mosque.
Identify the Five Pillars on which Islam is founded.
Discuss significant historical events related to Islam and Christianity.
Identify similarities shared by Islam and Christianity.
Muhammad thought of the new revelation he had received from God as a new religion that could unify the whole human race under one God and bring it amity among nations. Islam regards itself as the final perfection of God’s revelation first announced to the Jews and later to the Christians. For that reason, Muhammad’s religion, based on the Qur’an, was an unapologetic missionary faith. Within two hundred years, Islam had spread from the desert world of Arabia throughout present-day Middle East and along the southern coast of the Mediterranean Sea and the Iberian peninsula of present-day southern Spain; much of this dispersion came via military conquest.
Islam’s rise coincided with a period of stagnation in what was the Christian West. The old Roman Empire was in a state of decline, having been hammered by successive waves of Barbarian invasions. The Byzantine Empire, with its capital at Constantinople, controlled only the city itself and its adjacent territories. It was an essentially inward-looking, conservative, and non-innovative culture. By contrast, Islam was a vigorous, young, religious culture. It became innovative and forward-looking during its apex (when the Abbasids ruled from its center in Baghdad) and later in Damascus, Córdoba, and Granada.
5.2 The Culture of Islam and the West
Goals
Discuss significant historical events related to Islam and Christianity.
Discuss Islam’s diverse cultural influences on the West.
Although Islamic incursions were halted in the West in the generations before Charlemagne and Muslims would not take possession of Constantinople until the 15th Century, there were constant exchanges between the two cultures even though they warred against each other with ferocity (i.e., the Crusades). This hostility shows up clearly in the West. In Christian eyes, the Muslims were simply “Infidels,” and their wickedness is a theme in The Song of Roland, where their beliefs and their practices are criticized and twisted into parody. The Christian Crusades had the expressed aim to wrest the Christian holy places from the Infidels.
The antagonism between the Christian West and the world of Islam has a long and bitter history. It is an antagonism that reflects itself today in the stereotyping of Muslims as backward, fundamentalist terrorists out to ruin the world. The irony is, of course, that we read such things on paper—an innovation that the House of Wisdom in Baghdad gave to the West in the medieval period. The real truth is that Islam is a highly complex and deeply rich culture in which religion is so central that it cannot be disentangled from political and social culture. Islam has a long tradition of learning and the arts with a worldview that attempts to explain the place of people in the social order under the watchful eye of an all-powerful God who is adored under the name of Allah.