One of the administrators, the Persian Nizam-al-Mulk, became one of the greatest statesmen of medieval Islam. The amount varied with the importance of the individual noble or administrator, and he could use it as he saw fit. Like prayer, zakah is considered a form of worship. Because the circumstances of each revelation were thought necessary to correct interpretation, the community, early in the history of Islam, concluded that it was imperative to gather as many traditions as possible about the life and actions of the Prophet so that the Quran might be more fully understood. This is not surprising, as the armies of those days were not like modern armies - but more like a federation of tribal mercenary groups who were not paid and whose only material reward came from the spoils of war. According to the aforementioned historians, tens of thousands of Arabs were put to the sword until their tribes re-submitted to Islam. By defeating Egypt, then still part of the Ottoman Empire, Napoleon exposed the inner weaknesses, both military and administrative, of the sultans, shattered the myth of Ottoman power, and inaugurated more than 150 years of direct political intervention by the West. At the beginning of this period, the European presence in the Islamic world was largely based on trade. One of the main distinctions between the hajj and the 'umrah is that the 'umrah can be done at any time of the year, while the hajj must be performed on specified dates. Geographical unity, however, was but one factor. The Almoravids came and crushed the Christian uprising, but eventually seized control themselves. The main body of the Shi'is, on the other hand, believes that the caliphate - which they call the imamate or "leadership" - is nonelective. The second caliph, 'Umar- appointed by Abu Bakr in a written testament - continued to demonstrate that viability. Another factor was that the Janissaries became too strong for the sultans to control The sultans were further weakened when it became customary to bring them up and educate them in isolation and without the skills necessary to rule effectively. Several Western nations have attempted mediation, a Palestinian spokesman has argued the matter before the General Assembly of the UN, and in 1977 President Sadat of Egypt traveled to Jerusalem and appeared before the Israeli parliament in an unprecedented peace initiative. Tamerlane died on his way to conquer China, and his empire melted away. This pattern was repeated throughout the Byzantine Empire. In 1917, however, Lord Balfour, the British Foreign Secretary, issued the Baltour Declaration, which promised British support for the establishment of a "national home for the Jewish people" in Palestine providing that "nothing shall he done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities" - a reference to the Arabs, who then were 92 percent of the population. Then, in 1482, in a trivial quarrel, the Muslim kingdom split into two hostile factions and, simultaneously, two strong Christian sovereigns, Ferdinand and Isabella, married and merged their kingdoms. In the history of the Middle Ages, this was far more important than ephemeral conquests. Elsewhere, Muslim leaders such as the Mahdi in the Sudan and 'Abd al-Qadir al-Jazairi in Algeria took direct action. Nothing more fully illustrates the confidence of the small community, as its military power, despite the battle of the Trench, was still negligible. The Quran nowhere prohibits the representation of humans or animals in drawings, or paintings, but as Islam expanded in its early years it inherited some of the prejudices against visual art of this kind that had already taken root in the Middle East. With the death of Muhammad, the Muslim community was faced with the problem of succession. Islamic law is thus different from any other legal system; it differs from canon law in that it is not administered by a church hierarchy; in Islam there is nothing that corresponds to a "church" in the Christian sense. Fighting then flared up in Palestine. Arabic calligraphy therefore came to be used not only in producing copies of the Quran (its first and for many centuries its most important use), but also for all kinds of other artistic purposes as well on porcelain and metalware, for carpets and other textiles, on coins, and as architectural ornament (primarily on mosques and tombs but also, especially in later years, on other buildings as well). From 821 onward Tahir and his descendants ruled Khorasan as an independent state, with the tacit consent of the 'Abbasids. This was the Hijrah - anglicized as Hegira - usually, but inaccurately, translated as "Flight" - from which the Muslim era is dated. It is largely owing to the existence of these traditional methods of recitation that the text of the Quran was preserved without error. Islam had a great impact on the culture of North Africa. Photo: Crowds at the small town of Mina cast pebbles at pillars that symbolize evil. Later, he consolidated the support of the tribes within the Arabian Peninsula and subsequently funnelled their energies against the powerful empires of the East: the Sassanians in Persia and the Byzantines in Syria, Palestine, and Egypt. Khalifah- anglicized as caliph - is a word meaning "successor" but also suggesting what his historical role would be: to govern according to the Quran and the practice of the Prophet. Arabic became and has remained the national language - the mother tongue - of North Africa and all the Arab countries of the Middle East. As Jewish forces were victorious - and as stories spread that some 250 Arab civilians had been massacred in a village called Deir Yassin - thousands of Palestinians fled, among the first of today's 3.4 million refugees and exiles. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. At first, most Muslims simply stayed in Spain; cut off from their original roots by time and distance they quite simply had no other place to go. Ironically, they also put an end to the centuries-old rivalry between the Arabs and Byzantines. The Fatimids built the Mosque of al-Azhar in Cairo - from which developed al-Azhar University, now the oldest university in the world and perhaps the most influential Islamic school of higher learning. The Americans started to get sucked into the complex world of Middle East politics, and with time, that interest grew and evolved: From self-determination of the Arabs to the drilling of the Arab . Immigration nevertheless continued and in the 1930s - with the rise of Adolf Hitler - and after World War II, Jewish immigration increased still further. The Arabs did not surrender easily; al-Andalus was their land too. The first great advance on the inherited mathematical tradition was the introduction of "Arabic" numerals, which actually originated in India and which simplified calculation of all sorts and made possible the development of algebra. In the sixteenth century, for example, the Ottoman Empire voluntarily granted a series of concessions called the "Capitulations" to European powers - concessions which gave the Europeans decided advantages in foreign trade in the empire. Photo: This eighth century manuscript from Mecca or Medina is one of the two oldest known existing copies of the Quran. In the Middle East-North Africa region, medians of more than half favor strict criminal penalties (57%) and the execution of those who convert from Islam to another faith (56%). Non-Muslims are often struck by the range of styles found in the Quran. To obtain them, of course, the Muslims had to export too, often using the imports from one region as exports to another: pearls from the Gulf, livestock from the Arabian Peninsula (particularly Arabian horses and camels), and - one of the chief products - cloth. In Syria, for example, many Christians who had been involved in bitter theological disputes with Byzantine authorities- and persecuted for it- welcomed the coming of Islam as an end to tyranny. But from the middle of the sixteenth century on the empire began to decline. The hajj proper must be made between the eighth and thirteenth days of the 12th month - Dhu al-Hijjah - of the Muslim year, but in one sense it begins when a Muslim approaches Mecca, bathes, trims his nails and hair, discards jewelry and headgear, and puts on the ihram dress. In an immediate sense, the Crusades had a terrible effect on some of the Muslim and Jewish inhabitants of the Middle East. The surahs themselves are of varying length, ranging from the longest, Surah 2, with 282 verses, to the shortest, Surahs 103, 108, and 110, each of which has only three. Although individual Turkish generals had already gained considerable, and at times decisive, power in Mesopotamia and Egypt during the tenth and eleventh centuries, the coming of the Seljuks signaled the first large-scale penetration of the Turkish elements into the Middle East. Again, however, the effects were temporary and the empire continued to lose territory through rebellion or foreign intervention. The Ottomans were not content merely to improve and develop the types of script that they inherited from the Arabs and Persians but also added a number of new styles to the calligrapher's repertoire. Most Arab countries, for example, have embraced the concept of the sovereign nation-state and Western patterns of political administration: parliaments, political parties, and constitutions. An elite corps of slave soldiers conscripted from the subject population of the empire, they were carefully selected on the basis of physique and intelligence, educated, trained, introduced to Islam, and formed into one of the most formidable military corps ever known. Everything under IslamiCity is categorized under the major hubs you see in this panel. They were repulsed, but by 1444 they had advanced into Greece and Albania, leaving Constantinople isolated though unconquered. For twenty years, especially during the rule of Sultan Malikshah, he was the true custodian of the Seljuk state. To make things more difficult, the Prophet had not left clear instructions as to who should lead the community after his death. They imported the technologically advanced "ondanique" steel from India, for example, and then processed it at such famous centers of weapons manufacture as Damascus and Toledo, both of which cities won fame for their blades. This is not really a type of script in itself but consists of a text in one of the standard scripts such as naskhi worked into a pattern in which one half is a mirror image of the other. Iran's attempts to spread a populist notion of political Islam regionally and globally . In describing the fate of Islam in Spain, Irving suggested that the Muslims were then swiftly and thoroughly wiped out. Thereunto we give them the pact of Allah and the protection of His Prophet, the caliphs and the believers. The verses of the Quran stress God's uniqueness, warn those who deny it of impending punishment, and proclaim His unbounded compassion to those who submit to His will. Muhammad's followers were harassed, abused, and even tortured. The zakah prescribes payments of fixed proportions of a Muslim's possession for the welfare of the community in general and for its needy members in particular, whether Muslims or non-Muslims. After an initial success the Muslims were driven back and the Prophet himself was wounded. If you hold fast to this you will never go astray.". The cloth trade produced a number of auxiliary exports: gold and silver thread for embroidery, gum from the Sudan for glazing, and needles, looms, and dyestuffs. Cordoba also had some 900 public baths, Europe's first street lights and, five miles outside the city, the caliphal residence, Madinat al-Zahra. This led to such memorable works as Sirat Rasul Allah, the "Life of the Messenger of God," by Ibn Ishaq, later revised by Ibn Hisham; one of the earliest Arabic historical works, it was a key source of information about the Prophet's life and also a model for other important works of history such as al-Tabari's Annals of the Apostles and the Kings and his massive commentary on the Quran. As societies become larger and more complex, its people become more likely to join monotheistic religions. "Both their identities were challenged: their American identity and their Muslim identity," said Asani, who teaches Indo-Muslim and Islamic Religion and Cultures . Thee only do we worship, and Thee alone we ask for help. The tughra later came to be used both in Turkey and by rulers of t the Arab countries as a kind of royal insignia or emblem, on coins and stamps and wherever a coat of arms or royal monogram would be used by European governments. They also organized a bureaucracy able to cope with the complex problems of a vast and diverse empire, and made Arabic the language of government. Until that time the Egyptian, Greek, and other cultures used their own numerals in a manner similar to that of the Romans. During this period the Mongols built mosques and schools and patronized scholarship of all sorts. The Umayyads, furthermore, encouraged such writers as 'Abd Allah ibn al-Muqaffa' and 'Abd al-Hamid ibn Yahya al-Katib, whose clear, expository Arabic prose has rarely been surpassed. It was from these six, and from kufic, that later calligraphers, not only in the Arab world but in Iran, Turkey, and elsewhere as well, developed and elaborated other scripts. Islam is based on the belief in one God (Allah) and the teachings of Muhammad as recorded in the Quran, the holy book of Islam. The Alhambra was begun in 1238 by Muhammad ibn al-Ahmar who, to buy safety for his people when King Ferdinand of Aragon laid siege to Granada, once rode to Ferdinand's tent and humbly offered to become the king's vassal in return for peace. Muhammad's Mission and Campaigns. Islam, major world religion promulgated by the Prophet Muhammad in Arabia in the 7th century ce. In the meantime, the Mongols, like so many of the peoples who had come into contact with Islam, had begun to embrace it. Although the Arab Spring was marked by the rise of Political Islam movements, it also opened the door to discussions on topics that had long been Members of the two sects have co-existed for centuries and share many fundamental beliefs and practices. 'Abbasid writers also developed new a genres of literature such as adab, the embodiment of sensible counsel, sometimes in the form of animal fables; a typical example is Kalilah wa-Dimnah, translated by Ibn al-Muqaffa' from a Pahlavi version of an Indian work. To the east they extended their influence into Transoxania, an area north of the Oxus River in today's Soviet Union, and went on to reach the borders of China. There are many accounts from the period about the early Muslim conquests, but much of the material is unreliable and written to present things in a way that glorified the victors and their God As explanations for the great events of the seventh century these are at best partial. We'd love it if your icon is always green. To practice their faith, Muslims must accept five primary obligations which Islam imposes. The most stable of the successor dynasties founded in the ninth and tenth centuries was that of the Fatimids, a branch of Shi'is. But then, in 1380, a new Turko-Mongol confederation was hammered together by another world conqueror: Tamerlane, who claimed descent from Genghis Khan. They collected and corrected previous astronomical data, built the world's first observatory, and developed the astrolabe, an instrument that was once called "a mathematical jewel." Although the Suez Canal, for example, has been of immense value to Egypt, the profits for nearly a century went to European shareholders in the company that managed the canal. He wrote (originally cited in Robert Gottfried's Black Death):. His Throne extends over the heavens and earth; Welcome to the world's oldest and most recognized Islamic Web site. Although he assigned Muslim governors to the new provinces, existing Byzantine and Persian administrations were retained wherever possible. Despite the great body of tradition and law, however the practice of Islam is essentially personal - a direct relationship between individuals and God. document.write ('