Empire Building in DAR AL-ISLAM 1200-1450 [AP World History Review—Unit 1, Topic 2]

Empire Building in DAR AL-ISLAM 1200-1450 [AP World History Review—Unit 1, Topic 2]

Empire Building in DAR AL-ISLAM 1200-1450 [AP World History Review—Unit 1, Topic 2]

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In this video Heimler introduces an overview of Unit 1 Topic 2 in the AP World History curriculum, which is to say empire building in Dar al-Islam in the years 1200-1450 (and a little before).

While political Islam was crumbling in the Abbasid Caliphate, religious Islam was vital and spreading like mad. The first way it spread was through military invasion as it did in northern India. There, the Muslims established the Delhi Sultanate. However, they had much difficulty converting the mass of the Indian population to Islam since Hinduism was so deeply embedded in their culture.

The second way Islam spread was through the work of merchants as it did in West African urban centers like Mali, Songhay, and Ghana. Here much of the population converted to Islam by persuasion and sometimes for the purpose of economic advantage.

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Content

0.089 -> Hi and welcome back to Heimler’s History.
1.52 -> In this video we’re going to be looking at state-building in Dar al-Islam, which when
5.57 -> being translated means “everywhere Islam is…” ...or something.
8.58 -> Anyway, doesn’t matter: the point is, we’re going to see how Islam created a nice little
11.33 -> religious petri dish out of which empires in different parts of the world grew up.
14.62 -> So in the mid-8th century a new Islamic caliphate came into power in the Middle East and North
19.242 -> Africa known as the Abbasid Caliphate.
20.9 -> It was big, it was powerful, it was unified by the Arabic language and Islamic traditions,
25.96 -> but by 1000, little of that unity remained.
26.96 -> The political reality of the Islamic state (not to be confused with the Islamic State)
29.99 -> was fractured and breaking down, but the religion itself was still vital and spreading across
35.7 -> Afro-Eurasia.
36.7 -> So let’s look at two test cases for what happened when political Islam encountered
41.92 -> two different regions and how those regions responded.
48 -> First, India (or, in AP speak, South Asia).
50.32 -> So right around the turn of the 13th century some newly-converted Muslims, who also happened
54.02 -> to be Turkish, invaded India.
55.41 -> Now it’s important to know they were Turks because as such they became the third major
58.879 -> group to be the carriers of Islam after the Arabs and the Persians.
62.18 -> Well, long story short, they ended up establishing a Muslim political state in India called the
66.209 -> Delhi Sultanate in 1206.
68.6 -> Now remember, we’re thinking about how cultures responded to Muslim influence, and in India,
73.89 -> they had kind of a rough time.
74.89 -> You may remember that Indians had, for a LONG time, been Hindu.
78.289 -> And Hinduism, as a cultural phenomenon, had basically structured the entire Indian culture
82.06 -> for hundreds and hundreds of years.
83.689 -> And therefore, the Islam of these Turkish invaders didn’t gain much of a foothold.
88.04 -> And this is pretty remarkable since the Muslims were in power in most of northern India.
92.02 -> So let me stop here and do a quick comparison of the two faiths to help you understand why
96.829 -> much of the Indian culture looks at Islam and said, nuh uh.
100.159 -> Islam is monotheistic, which means they worship one God, and furthermore, that only one God
105.24 -> exists.
106.24 -> Hinduism, on the other hand was fantastically polytheistic, which means they believed in
110.069 -> the existence of many gods.
112.06 -> A key tenant of Islam is the absolute prohibition against representing Allah in any physical
117.039 -> form.
118.039 -> Hindus generated endless statues of their gods.
119.689 -> Muhammed taught the social equality of all Muslims.
122.52 -> Hinduism separated society into a rigid caste system whose hierarchical levels were impenetrable
127.649 -> by those of different castes.
129.149 -> So you can see that converting the mass of Indian society to Islam was about as likely
133.069 -> as an Eastern Orthodox bishop using unleavened bread in the Eucharist.
136.53 -> History joke!
137.65 -> Who’s with me?
139.38 -> Whatever, I’ll myself a high five.
142.36 -> It was a good joke.
143.36 -> Anyway, the point is, even though the Muslims remained in power, they were largely unable
146.78 -> to convert the Indian culture en masse.
148.959 -> But there were some notable exceptions.
150.2 -> There was a group of Muslim missionaries known as the Sufis, and they had embraced a form
154.349 -> of Islam that emphasized more emotional and ecstatic experiences, and therefore it was
158.849 -> a more popular form of Islam.
160.75 -> Furthermore, Sufi holy men were willing to accommodate Hindu gods and religious festivals.
164.799 -> And therefore there was a small population of Hindus who found all of this very attractive
168.349 -> and therefore converted.
170.03 -> Most of the Indians doing the converting were either disillusioned Buddhists or those who
173.12 -> belonged to the lowest caste and as a result had a very difficult life.
176.909 -> For them, Islam’s promise of egalitarianism (or equality) was all they needed to become
182.06 -> believers in Allah.
183.39 -> Okay, so that’s how India responded to the military and religious invasion of the Muslims.
187.48 -> Let’s go over to West Africa for our second test case.
190.31 -> In West Africa, Islam spread not by military conquest, but by the commercial enterprises
194.709 -> of travelling merchants.
195.87 -> And so as these merchants began to explain the tenants of Islam, people in West Africa
199.54 -> converted on a voluntary and peaceful basis.
202.409 -> Primarily conversions occurred in the great urban centers of West Africa like Ghana, Mali,
206.459 -> and Songhay.
207.81 -> And under these different sets of circumstances, Islam spread like mad.
210.56 -> In this region Islam spread to the highest levels of government.
213.569 -> In fact, the ruler of Mali, a guy by the name of Mansa Musa, went on the hajj (which is
218.42 -> to say, pilgrimage to Mecca).
220.349 -> And when he did, a great retinue accompanied him carrying magnificent displays of his wealth.
225.17 -> So the point of all this is that between India and West Africa there were very different
228.959 -> responses to the spread of Islam.
230.689 -> Now I only gave you two examples, but there are several others we could consider.
233.829 -> But instead, I want to shift and talk about the economic, cultural, and technological
237.189 -> innovations that the Muslims brought into every culture they found themselves.
241.099 -> First, economics.
242.109 -> Muslims, influenced by the teaching of Muhammed, thought highly of merchants and commercial
245.92 -> activity.
246.92 -> And as such, Muslims were some of the most dominant players in the Afro-Eurasian trade
250.469 -> network.
251.469 -> And in doing all of this buying and selling, they came up with a few economic innovations
255.17 -> worth mentioning like new forms of banking, the granting of credit, and business contracts.
260.799 -> Soon these innovations became commonplace along the networks of exchange.
264.61 -> Second, technology.
266.05 -> Muslims made improvements on rockets, which, of course, they got from the Chinese.
269.47 -> The Chinese figured out that in addition to using gunpowder in pyrotechnic displays and
273.88 -> fireworks, they could also blow people up.
276.15 -> The Muslims took it one step further and figured out how to launch rockets with greater accuracy
281.4 -> at ships.
282.4 -> Big lesson in world history: There’s always more ways to blow people up.
285.58 -> Muslims also advanced the development of Chinese papermaking.
287.84 -> And the result of these innovations were that bureaucrats in kingdoms across the world could
292.44 -> tighten their grip over their people’s lives, because the more you can write down, the more
296.52 -> you can hold people accountable for.
298.44 -> Third, culture.
299.68 -> Muslims were fastidious about translating the great works of Greek philosophy and natural
303.62 -> science into Arabic.
305.18 -> They translated medical texts, scientific texts, philosophical texts.
308.819 -> And therefore the Muslims not only preserved these ideas but went on to innovate and expand
313.03 -> upon them.
314.03 -> In fact, in 830 the Abbasid caliph al-Mamun established what he called the House of Wisdom
318.7 -> in Baghdad which became an academic center for learning, research and translation, for
324.291 -> the next few centuries.
325.35 -> So that’s how Islam spread, how Muslims engaged in state-building, and how western
332.11 -> culture has the Muslims to thank for preserving its greatest achievements in old western literature.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gNlhcUJzKN0