ART AND SCIENCE:
ISLAMIC CULTURE

Themes

• Review: shahada, umma, dar-al-Islam, Islam, Jihad
• Muslim expansion and political consolidation
• Islamic Empire: cultural diversity, cultural flowering

Expansion and Political Consolidation

• 1st conquests 632-644: Persia, Jerusalem, Syria, Egypt
• Civil wars 644-661/692: Shiites, Ummayads
• Ummayad dynasty 661/692-750: caliphs
• Abbasid dynasty 750-1258:
• Seljuk Turks 1050s-: sultanate
• Mongol conquest 1258: Genghis Khan

Culture

• Arab:
• Jihad:
• leadership:
  • caliphs: election, dynasty, or military force?
    • Abu Bakr, Omar, Othman versus Ali
    • murder of Othman 656
    • death of Husain 680
  • Umayyad caliphate:
  • Abbasid caliphate:
  • decline of caliphates c. 945-1200s: amirs, sultanates
  • Arab, Persian, Turk

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• social:
  • Arabs versus non-Arabs
  • other monotheists
  • women

Art and Science

• Language, cultures, and learning
  • Arabic and Quran __________
  • __________
  • intellectual vibrancy, cultural flowering
    • Persian, Greek, Indian learning
    • law, medicine, science (astronomy, optics, math), chess
    • marriage of art and science
• Art and Experience
  • Quran and literature *
  • the seeker: pilgrimage, Shi`ites, Sufi mystics
    • al-Ghazzali, The Alchemy of Happiness
  • architecture: mosque *, minaret *, mosaics *
  • book illuminations *

Conclusions

• richness, diversity, achievement of Islam
• comparisons to other cultures, expressions of identity through art

Links