AP World History - Chapter 11 Latest 2022 Already Passed
1. Why was the location of Arabia important? ✔✔Scattered oases, the highlands of Yemen, and
interior mountains supported sedentary village-based agriculture, an
...
AP World History - Chapter 11 Latest 2022 Already Passed
1. Why was the location of Arabia important? ✔✔Scattered oases, the highlands of Yemen, and
interior mountains supported sedentary village-based agriculture, and in the northern and southern
regions of Arabia, small kingdoms had flourished in earlier times. Arabia also sat astride
increasingly important trade routes, which connected the Indian Ocean world with that of the
Mediterranean Sea and gave rise to cosmopolitan commercial cities, whose values and practices
were often in conflict with those of traditional Arab tribes. (Original: p. 303; With Sources: pp.
474-475)
2. Why was Mecca an important city? Why was Mecca's dominant tribe important? ✔✔Though
somewhat off the major long-distance trade routes, Mecca was the site of the Kaaba, the most
prominent religious shrine in Arabia, which housed representations of some 360 deities and was
the destination for many pilgrims. Mecca's dominant tribe, the Quraysh, had come to control access
to the Kaaba and grew wealthy by taxing the local trade that accompanied the annual pilgrimage
season. By the sixth century, Mecca was home to people from various tribes and clans as well as
an assortment of individual outlaws, exiles, refugees, and foreign merchants, but much of its
growing wealth was concentrated in the hands of a few ruling Quraysh families. (Original: p. 303;
With Sources: p. 475)
3. How does the core message of Islam compare with that of Judaism and Christianity? ✔✔Islam
is monotheistic, as is Judaism and Christianity. Allah is the only God, the all-powerful Creator. As
the "messenger of God," Muhammad presented himself in the tradition of earlier prophets like
Abraham, Moses, and Jesus. Like the Jewish prophets and Jesus, Muhammad demanded social
justice and laid out a prescription for its implementation. (Original: p. 304-305; With Sources: pp.
476-477)
4. Why did the message of the Quran challenge the tribal and clan structure of Arab society? ✔✔It
not only challenged the ancient polytheism of Arab religion and the social injustices of Mecca but
also the entire tribal and clan structure of Arab society, which was so prone to war, feuding, and
violence. (Original: p. 305; With Sources: p. 477)
5. Explain the concept of the umma. ✔✔The just and moral society of Islam was the umma, the
community of all believers, replacing tribal, ethnic, or racial identities. Such a society would be a
witness over the nations, for according to the Quran, "You are the best community evolved for
mankind, enjoining what is right and forbidding what is wrong." In this community, women, too,
had an honored and spiritually equal place. The umma was to be a new and just community, bound
by a common belief, rather than by territory, language, or tribe. (Original: p. 305; With Sources:
p. 477)
6. Explain the five Pillars of Islam. ✔✔A. There is no god but Allah, and Muhammad is the
messenger of God. (absolute monotheism and a final revelation) B. prayer five times a day at
prescribed times and performed while facing toward Mecca C. Believers are required to generously
give their wealth to maintain the community and to help the needy. D. Ramadan is a month of
fasting—no food, drink, or sexual relations—from the first light of dawn to sundown. E.
pilgrimage to Mecca—the Hajj (Original: p. 305-306; With Sources: p. 478) The Transformation
of Arabia
7. How was the umma different from the traditional tribes of Arab society? ✔✔The umma was
kind of a supertribe. Membership was a matter of belief rather than birth, allowing it to expand
rapidly. This was very different from the traditional tribes of Arab society. Furthermore, all
authority, both political and religious, was concentrated in the hands of Muhammad, who
proceeded to introduce the radial changes. Usury was outlawed, tax-free marketplaces were
established, and a mandatory payment to support the poor was imposed. (Original: p. 306; With
Sources: p. 478)
8. In what ways was the young Islamic community seen as revolutionary and distinct from
Christianity? ✔✔The birth of Islam differed sharply from that of Christianity. Jesus' teaching about
"giving to Caesar what is Caesar's and to God what is God's" reflected the minority and subordinate
status of the Jews within the Roman Empire. The answer lay in the development of a separate
church hierarchy and the concepts of two coexisting authorities, one religious and one political, an
arrangement that persisted even after the state became Christian. By contrast, the young Islamic
community found itself constituted as a state, and soon a huge empire. Muhammad was not only
a religious figure but also, unlike Jesus or the Buddha, a political and military leader able to
implement his vision of an ideal Islamic society. Nor did Islam give rise to a separate religious
organization. No professional clergy mediating between God and humankind emerged within
Islam. Teachers, religious scholars, prayer leaders, and judges within an Islamic legal system did
not have the religious role that priests held within Christianity. No distinction between religious
law and civil law, so important in the Christian world, existed within the realm of Islam. (Original:
p. 307; With Sources: p. 478)
9. In the centuries that followed, what civilizations became part of the new Arab state? ✔✔The
new Arab state became a huge empire, encompassing all or part of Egyptian, Roman/Byzantine,
Persian, Mesopotamian, and Indian civilizations. (Original: p. 308; With Sources: p. 480)
10. Why were Arabs able to construct such a huge empire so quickly? ✔✔For the first time, a
shared faith in Islam allowed the newly organized state to mobilize the military potential of the
entire Arab nation. The Byzantine and Persian empires were weakened by decades of war with
each other and by internal revolts. They also underestimated the Arab threat. Merchant leaders of
the new Islamic community wanted to capture profitable trade routes and wealthy agricultural
regions. Individual Arabs found in military expansion a route to wealth and social promotion.
Expansion provided a common task for the Arab community, which reinforced the fragile unity of
the umma. Arabs were motivated by a religious dimension, as many viewed the mission of empire
in terms of jihad, bringing righteous government to the peoples they conquered. (Original: p. 308-
310; With Sources: pp. 480-482)
11. Why did the Battle of Talas River in 751 leave lasting consequences for Asia? ✔✔Arab forces
reached the Indus River and seized some of the major oases towns of Central Asia. In 751, Arab
armies inflicted a crushing defeat on Chinese forces in the Battle of Talas River, which had lasting
consequences for the cultural evolution of Asia, for it checked the further expansion of China to
the west and made possible the conversion of Central Asia's Turkic speaking people to Islam.
(Original: p. 309; With Sources: p. 481)
12. Why did Muslims recognize Jews, Christians, and Zoroastrians as "people of the book?"
✔✔By the middle of the eighth century, Arabs viewed Islam as a universal religion actively
seeking converts, but even then they recognized Jews, Christians, and Zoroastrians as "people of
the book." This gave them the status of protected subjects and were free to practice their own
religion, so long as they paid a special tax. (Original: p. 310; With Sources: p. 482)
13. What were the incentives for the conquered people to claim a Muslim identity? ✔✔Slaves and
prisoners of war were among the early converts, particularly in Persia. Converts could avoid the
jizya, a tax imposed on non-Muslims. In Islam, merchants found a religion friendly to commerce,
and in the Arab Empire they enjoyed a juge and secure arena for trade. People aspiring to official
positions found conversion to Islam an aid to social mobility. (Original: p. 310; With Sources: p.
482)
14. What's the difference between Shia and Sunni Islam? ✔✔A central problem was that of
leadership and authority in the absence of Muhammad's towering presence. Who should hold the
role of caliph, the successor to Muhammad? Caliphs were close companions to the Prophet
Muhammad, selected by the Muslim elders of Medina. Division surfaced almost immediately as a
series of Arab tribal rebellions and new "prophets" persuaded the first caliph, Abu Bakr, to
suppress them forcibly. The third and fourth caliphs, Uthman and Ali, were both assassinated, and
by 656, civil war pitted Muslim against Muslim. Shia—Shiites felt strongly that leadership in the
Islamic world should derive from the line of Ali and his son Husayn, blood relatives of
Muhammad. The Shia invested their leaders, known as imams, with a religious authority that the
caliphs lacked, allowing them alone to reveal the true meaning of the Quran and the wishes of
Allah. Sunni—Sunni Muslims, held that the caliphs were rightful political and military leaders,
selected by the Islamic community, particularly from the religious scholars known as ulama.
(Original: p. 311-312; With Sources: pp. 483-484)
15. Describe the first dynasty after the era of the Rightly Guided Caliphs. ✔✔The first dynasty
came from the Umayyad family (ruled 661-750). Under its rule, the Arab Empire expanded greatly,
caliphs became hereditary rulers, and the capital moved from Medina to Damascus in Syria. Its
ruling class was an Arab military aristocracy, drawn from various tribes. (Original: p. 312; With
Sources: p. 484) 16. Why did Umayyad rule provoke growing criticism and unrest? The Shia
viewed the Umayyad caliphs as illegitimate usurpers, and non-Arab Muslims resented their
secondclass citizenship in the empire. Many Arqabs protested the luxurious living and impiety of
their rulers. (Original: p. 312; With Sources: p. 484)
17. What was the impact of the Abbasid rule after the overthrow of the Umayyad Dynasty? ✔✔In
750, the Abbasids moved the capital to Baghdad and they presided over a flourishing and
prosperous Islamic civilization in which non-Arabs, especially Persians, now played a prominent
role. Persian cultural influence was reflected in a new title for he caliph, "the shadow of God on
earth." But the political unity of the Abbasid Empire didn't last long. Beginning in the mid-ninth
century, many local governors or military commanders effectively asserted the autonomy of their
regions, while still giving formal allegiance to the caliph of Baghdad. The Islamic world had
fractured politically into a series of sultanates, many ruled by Persian or Turkish military dynasties.
(Original: p. 312-313; With Sources: pp. 484-485)
18. Who were the Sufis? ✔✔A second and quite different understanding of the Islamic faith
emerged among those who saw the worldly success of Islamic civilization as a distraction and
deviation from the purer spirituality of Muhammad's time. Sufis represented Islam's mystical
dimension, in that they sought a direct and personal experience of the divine. Through renunciation
of the material world, meditation on the words of the Quran, the use of music and dance, the
veneration of Muhammad and various saints, Sufis pursued the obliteration of the ego and spiritual
union with Allah. (Original: p. 313; With Sources: p. 485)
19. In what ways were Sufi Muslims critical of mainstream Islam? ✔✔To Sufis, establishment
teachings about the law and correct behavior, while useful for daily living, did little to bring the
believer into the presence of God. For some, even the Quran had its limits. They felt that many of
the ulama had been compromised by their association with worldly and corrupt governments.
Sufis, therefore often chartered their own course to God, implicitly challenging the religious
authority of the ulama. (Original: p. 314; With Sources: p. 486)
20. How did the rise of Islam change the lives of women? ✔✔Socially: The Quran provided a mix
of rights, restrictions, and protections for women. The earlier Arab practice of infanticide was now
forbidden. Women were given control over their own property, dowries, and were granted rights
of inheritance, but at half the rate of their male counterparts. Marriage was a contract between
consenting parties, thus making marriage by capture illegitimate. Divorce was possible for both
parties, but was more readily available for men. In pre-Islamic Arab tribes, taking multiple
husbands was legal, but now it was prohibited, while polygamy was permitted for husbands. Now
veiling and the seclusion of women became standard practice among the upper and ruling classes,
removing them form public life. Spiritually: In early Islamic times, a number of women played
visible public roles. Women prayed in the mosques, although separately, standing beside the men.
However, Islam offered new outlets for women in religious life. The Sufi practice of mystical
union with Allah allowed a greater role for women than did mainstream Islam. Some Sufi groups
had parallel groups for women, and a few welcomed them as equal members. In Shia Islam, women
teachers of the faith were termed mullahs, like their male counterparts. Islamic education, either
in the home or Quranic schools, allowed some to become literate. (Original: p. 315-316; With
Sources: pp. 487-488)
21. As Islamic empires spread through traditional Middle Eastern cultures, what were some signs
of a tightening patriarchy? ✔✔With no sanctions in the Quran or Islamic law, customs derived
from local cultures crept into Islamic society, such as honor killing of women by their male
relatives for violating sexual taboos, and in some places, clitorectomy. Women were viewed
negatively, as weak, deficient, and a sexually charged threat to men and social stability. In any
cultures, concern with family honor, linked to women's sexuality, dictated harsh punishments for
women who violated sexual taboos. (Original: p. 316; With Sources: p. 488)
22. Identify some similarities and differences in the spread of Islam to India, Anatolia, West Africa,
and Spain. (Hint: How did Islam spread and was it the dominant faith?) ✔✔Islam spread to India,
Anatolia, and Spain in part through force of arms of Islamic armies, while Islam arrived in West
Africa with Muslim traders. Sufis facilitated conversions by accommodating local traditions,
especially in India and Anatolia, but played little role in West Africa until at least the 18th century.
In India, West Africa, and Spain, Islam became one of several faiths within the wider culture,
while in Anatolia it became the dominant faith. (Original: pp. 317-323; With Sources: pp. 489-
495)
23. In what ways was Anatolia so much more thoroughly Islamized than India? ✔✔By 1500, the
population of Anatolia was 90% Muslim and largely Turkic-speaking. Anatolia was the heartland
of the powerful Turkish Ottoman Empire that had overrun Christian Byzantium. The population—
perhaps 8 million—was far smaller than India's roughly 48 million people, but far more Turkicspeaking peoples settled in Anatolia, giving them a much greater cultural weight than the smaller
colonizing force in India. Byzantine civilization in Anatolia focused on the centralized institutions
of church and state, was rendered leaderless and dispirited, whereas India's decentralized
civilization, lacking a unified political or religious establishment, was better able to absorb the
shock of external invasion while retaining its core values and identity. Anatolia built q new society
that welcomed converts and granted them material rewards and opportunity for high office.
Moreover, the cultural barriers to conversion were arguably less severe than in India. (Original: p.
319-320; With Sources: pp. 491-492)
24. Why was commerce in the Islamic world valued as a positive thing? ✔✔Muhammad himself
had been a trader, and the pilgrimage to Mecca likewise fostered commerce. The extraordinary
spurt of urbanization that accompanied the growth of Islamic civilization also promoted trade.
(Original: p. 325; With Sources: p. 497)
25. What ideas and technologies were diffused and exchanged as trade and commerce developed
a "capitalist" economy that spanned the Old World? ✔✔Agricultural practices and products
included rice, sugarcane, new strains of sorghum, hard wheat, bananas, lemons, limes, watermelon,
coconut palms, spinach, artichokes, and cotton. Some of these found their way into the Middle
East and Africa. Both sugarcane and cotton came to play central roles in the formation of the
modern global system after 1500. Technology also diffused with the ancient Persian techniques
for obtaining water by drilling into the sides of hills; Muslim technicians made improvements on
rockets, first developed in China; and papermaking techniques entered the Abbasid Empire from
China in the eighth century. Likewise, ideas circulated across the Islamic world. Scientific,
medical, and philosophical texts, especially form ancient Greece, the Hellenistic world, and India,
were systematically translated into Arabic, for several centuries providing an enormous boost to
Islamic scholarship and science. Using Indian numerical notation, Arab scholars developed algebra
as a novel mathematical discipline. They also undertook much original work in astronomy and
optics, They built upon earlier Greek and Indian practice to crate a remarkable tradition in medicine
and pharmacology. (Original: p. 325-326; With Sources: pp. 497-498)
26. What did the journeys, of the travelers Ibn Battuta and Marco Polo, reveal about the world of
the 13th and 14th centuries? What happened after 1700? ✔✔They show that Islamic civilization
was then the central fact of the Afro-Eurasian world, while Europe was still on the margins. After
1700, Europeans increasingly assumed the central role in world affairs. (Original: p. 329)#
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