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. This status did not apply to polytheists, who could not be tolerated within a community that worshipped the One God. The Christians permitted Muslims to work, serve in the army, own land, and even practice their religion - all concessions to the importance of Muslims in Spain's still prosperous economy. Umayyad expansion also reached the ancient civilization of India, whose literature and science greatly enriched Islamic culture. There were, however, some positive accomplishments in this period, such as the Hijaz Railway. Some may also visit the Mosque of the Prophet in Medina before returning to their homes throughout the world in the "sudden, glad stillness" of those who have stood at 'Arafat. Like all Islamic ceremonies, prayer is simple and personal, yet also communal, and the wording of the prayers, the ablutions which are required before prayers, the number of bows, and other parts of the ritual are set out in detail. Sharia law has wide-reaching influences on business within the region which need to be appreciated. When, for example, al-Mansur died in 775 after a reign of twenty years, his son, al-Mahdi, inherited a full treasury and an empire that was more devoted to trade than war. Photo: Symbol of the oneness and centrality of God, the Ka'bah stands in the courtyard of Mecca's Sacred Mosque where at the season of the hajj the faithful gather for rituals that precede and end their pilgrimage. Thereafter Medina was entirely in the hands of the Muslims. 622-632 - Islamic Empire under Mohammad. Considered dispassionately, the venture was impossible. According to the chronicles of the day, the city had 700 mosques, some 60,000 palaces, and 70 libraries - one reportedly housing 500,000 manuscripts and employing a staff of researchers, illuminators, and book binders. The Ghaznavids patronized al-Biruni, one of the greatest and most original scholars of medival Islam, and the Hamdanids, a purely Arab dynasty, patronized such poets as al-Mutanabbi and philosophers like the great al-Farabi, whose work kept the flame of Arab culture alive in a difficult period. Other translations included a book On mathematical theory by Nichomachus of Gerasa, and works by mathematicians like Theodosius of Tripoli, Apollonius Pergacus, Theon, and Menelaus, all basic to the great age of Islamic mathematical speculation that followed. He directed the cleaning and reopening of the canals that irrigated the Tigris-Euphrates Valley - a key to the prosperity of Mesopotamia since the time of the Sumerians - introduced the use of the Indian water buffalo in the riverine marshes, and minted a standard coinage which replaced the Byzantine and Sassanid coins, until then the sole currencies in circulation. To cement social bonds further, Islam has instituted zakat al-fitr, an obligatory levy in the form of provisions or money for the poor, so that they can share in the joy of 'Id al-Fitr. Some regions never fully recovered and the Muslim empire, already weakened by internal pressures, never fully regained its previous power. And while Sunnis consider the caliph a guardian of the shari'ah, the religious law, the Shi'is see the imam as a trustee inheriting and interpreting the Prophet's spiritual knowledge. At first Muhammad divulged his experience only to his wife and his immediate circle. But neither he nor the four caliphs who succeeded him were the statesmen the times demanded when, in 747, revolutionaries in Khorasan unfurled the black flag of rebellion that would bring the Umayyad Dynasty to an end. In Iran, for example, there came into use a particularly graceful and delicate script called ta'liq, in which the horizontal strokes of the letters are elongated and which is often written at an angle across the page. At a later period the Janissaries became so powerful that they made and unmade sultans at their will, and membership in the corps was a sure road to advancement. The place had to be shown even if the sign which showed it indicated a unitary value of "nothing." It is therefore understandable that many observers predict the rapid decay of Islamic influence in the Middle East. ", Over the years, what started as a fortress slowly evolved under Ibn al-Ahmar's successors into a remarkable series of delicately lovely buildings, quiet courtyards, limpid pools, and hidden gardens. The Ottoman state was born on the frontier between Islam and the Byzantine Empire. The Fatimids won their first success in North Africa, where they established a rival caliphate at Raqqadah near Kairouan and, in 952, embarked on a period of expansion that within a few years took them to Egypt. Islam had profound effects on all aspects of daily life and society but these did vary over time and place. At Mina too, begins 'Id al-Adha, the great worldwide Feast of Sacrifice during which the pilgrims sacrifice animals - partly to commemorate Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his son and partly to symbolize a Muslim's willingness to sacrifice what is dearest to him. They were polytheistic and reaped all the political problems associated with polytheism. It is largely owing to the existence of these traditional methods of recitation that the text of the Quran was preserved without error. It was a necessary move, but also difficult - particularly when Ferdinand called on him to implement the agreement by providing troops to help the Christians against Muslims in the siege of Seville in 1248. Yet, though the evidence of the practical impotency of traditional religion in many current affairs is unmistakable, this conclusion is unwarranted--at least as a generalization. They were polytheistic and reaped all the political problems associated with polytheism. IslamiCity is making such material available in its effort to advance understanding of humanitarian, education, democracy, and social justice issues, etc. They recaptured Aleppo and besieged Edessa, thus bringing on the unsuccessful Second Crusade. In Lebanon missionaries from several countries founded a network of schools and universities. What today is known as Islamic architecture was influenced by Roman, Byzantine, Persian and all other lands which the Muslims conquered in the 7th and 8th centuries. Because of this growth in commerce the 'Abbasids also developed a system by which a muhtasib, an inspector made sure that proper weights and measures were given and that dishonest practices of all sorts were avoided. 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. The Golden Age also, little by little, transformed the diet of medieval Europe by introducing such plants as plums, artichokes, apricots, cauliflower, celery, fennel, squash, pumpkins, and eggplant, as well as rice, sorghum, new strains of wheat, the date palm, and sugarcane. For one thing, it was a tacit recognition of the end of an era. 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. Of much greater importance to Islam, however, was 'Uthman's compilation of the text of the Quran as revealed to the Prophet. The exercise of self-control extends far beyond refraining from food and drink; to make one's fast acceptable to God, one must also refrain from cursing, lying, cheating, and abusing or harming others. The fifth pillar of Islam is the pilgrimage to Mecca - the hajj. In fact, by emigration to North Africa and elsewhere, many Muslims carried remnants of the Spanish era with them and were thus able to make important contributions to the material and cultural life of their adopted lands. Requiring a high degree of engineering skill, qanats were built some fifty feet underground with a very slight inclination over long distances to tap underground water and were provided with manholes so that they could be cleaned and repaired. Worse than that, . The revelations he received at this time and those he did so later are all incorporated in the Quran, the Scripture of Islam. During what is known as the Golden Age of Islam, which lasted roughly between the mid-eighth century until the 13th century, the Muslim world was the center of intellectual activity, with Baghdad serving as the capital for philosophers, mathematicians and scientists. After the battle of al-Yamamah in 633, 'Umar ibn al-Khattab, later to become the second caliph, suggested to Abu Bakr, the first caliph, that because of the grievous loss of life in that battle, there was a very real danger of losing the Quran, enshrined as it was in the memories of the faithful and in uncollated fragments. The first battle, which took place near Badr, now a small town southwest of Medina, had several important effects. The Mansuri Hospital in Cairo, Egypt, was an important teaching hospital in medieval times. Photo: The sun rises over Jabal al-Rahmah, the Mount of Mercy, where Muhammad in his farewell sermon told the assembled Muslims, "I have delivered God's message to you and left you with a clear command: the Book of God and the practice of His Prophet. But sharp ideological and ethnic differences within the region create conflict today. It impeded private capital . Nizam-al-Mulk, furthermore, was a devout and orthodox Muslim who established a system of madrasahs or theological seminaries (called nizamiyah after the first element of his name) to provide students with free education in the religious sciences of Islam, as well as in the most advanced scientific and philosophical thought of the time. After the death of 'Umar an advisory council composed of Companions of the Prophet selected as the third caliph 'Uthman, during whose rule the first serious strains on Islamic unity would appear. One was a system of banking and exchange so sophisticated that a letter of credit issued in Baghdad could be honored in Samarkand in Central Asia or Kairouan in North Africa. Each millet was relatively autonomous, was ruled by its own religious leader, and retained its own laws and customs. In medicine they experimented with diet, drugs, surgery, and anatomy, and in chemistry, an outgrowth of alchemy, isolated and studied a wide variety of minerals and compounds. In it he stresses the responsibilities of the ruler: for example, if a man is killed because a bridge is in disrepair, it is the fault of the ruler, for he should make it his business to apprise himself of the smallest negligences of his underlings. Praise be to God, Lord of the Worlds; The scholars at the House of Wisdom, unlike their modern counterparts, did not "specialize." They were repulsed, but by 1444 they had advanced into Greece and Albania, leaving Constantinople isolated though unconquered. It showed that the political consciousness of the Muslim community had reached an important point; its members defined themselves as a community separate from all others. Later, in the early fall of 622, he learned of a plot to murder him and, with his closest friend, Abu Bakr al-Siddiq, set off to join the emigrants. While the presence of Islam in West Africa dates back to eighth century, the spread of the faith in regions that are now the modern states of Senegal, Gambia, Guinea, Burkina Faso, Niger, Mali and Nigeria, was in actuality, a gradual and complex process. He was also a man devoted to common sense, as the titles of two of his works suggest. Herbert's hero, Paul Atreides, is a man whose sense of supernatural mission is shadowed . They not only sponsored translations of Greek works, but wrote a series of important original studies of their own, one bearing the impressive title The Measurement of the Sphere, Trisection of the Angle, and Determination of Two Mean Proportionals to Form a Single Division between Two Given Quantities. Ibn al-Haytham, for example, wrote The Book of Optics, in which he gives a detailed treatment of the anatomy of the eye, correctly deducing that the eye receives light from the object perceived and laying the foundation for modern photography. At their peak they ruled North Africa, the Red Sea coast, Yemen, Palestine, and parts of Syria. As the Prophet said, "The best of prayers is the prayer of the Day of 'Arafat.". Completed in 1908, it permitted thousands of Muslims to make the pilgrimage in relative comfort and safety. Islamic architecture encompasses a wide range of both secular and religious styles from the early history of Islam to the present day. Closely connected with the trade in dyestuffs was the trade in medicines, an offshoot of 'Abbasid advances in medicine and the spread of hospitals in all major Islamic cities. Abu Bakr, who ruled from 632 to 634, secured the entirety of the Peninsula and extended into present-day southern Iraq, Kuwait, Syria, Jordan, and . He knows what lies before them In addition to having administrative abilities, he was an accomplished stylist whose book on statecraft, Siyasat-Namah, is a valuable source for the political thought of the time. 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. Photo: The Mamluks, originally a class of soldier slaves, seized power in Egypt in the thirteenth century and stood fast against the Mongols. Because the religious, political, and military achievements of the Islamic period loom so large in the history of the world, the extraordinary cultural, scientific, technological, and commercial achievements are frequently obscured or overlooked. And what is after them, Islam is a monotheistic religion founded in the 7th century by the prophet Muhammad. 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