The Rise of Islam
What was the desert-dwelling nomadic group of herders called?
Who were the Bedouins?
Who was the first caliph after Muhammad’s death?
Who was Abū Bakr?
What is the title for the “successor to the Prophet”?
What is a caliph?
What was the central structure of Muslim life that guided family and society?
What was the family?
What material did Muslims learn to make from the Chinese that helped spread knowledge?
What is paper?
What is the name of the building in Mecca that became Islam’s most sacred shrine?
What is the Kaaba?
Which caliph conquered Persia and established strong government rule?
Who was ‘Umar?
Which North African people converted to Islam and invaded Spain in A.D. 711?
Who were the Berbers?
What are the three main caliphates and their capitals?
Baghdad (Abbasid), Cairo (Fatimid), and Córdoba (Umayyad).
What mathematical concept did Muslims borrow from India and introduce to Europe?
What are Arabic numerals (including zero)?
What was Muhammad’s profession before becoming a prophet?
What was a caravan trader or merchant?
What name did Muslims give Christians and Jews?
Who were “People of the Book”?
What is Jabal Tāriq called today?
What is the Rock of Gibraltar?
What group of buildings became centers for prayer, education, and community gatherings?
What are mosques?
Who was the Muslim mathematician whose name gave us the word “algebra”?
Who was Al-Khwārizmī?
What event marks the first year of the Muslim calendar?
What is the Hijrah — Muhammad’s migration from Mecca to Medina?
What were the two main branches of Islam that formed after the death of Caliph ‘Uthmān?
What are the Sunni and the Shi‘ah (Shia)?
What city did the Turks capture in the mid-1000s that became the center of their empire?
What is Baghdad?
Name one famous Muslim medical scholar and his contribution.
Al-Rāzī (distinguished smallpox/measles) or Ibn Sīnā (wrote The Canon of Medicine).
What instrument did Muslim astronomers improve to chart stars and aid navigation?
What is the astrolabe?
What does the word “Islam” mean in Arabic?
What is “submission to the will of God”?
Who were the Muslim mystics who sought closeness to God through prayer and meditation?
Who were the Sufis?
What victory allowed the Turks to defeat the Byzantines in A.D. 1071?
What was the Battle of Manzikert?
What is the name for the art of beautiful writing in Islamic culture?
What is calligraphy?
What Spanish city became a leading center for medicine, learning, and culture?
What is Córdoba?
Name the Five Pillars of Islam.
Faith, Prayer, Almsgiving, Fasting, and Pilgrimage.
What battle stopped Muslim expansion into France in A.D. 732?
What was the Battle of Tours?
Name two major forces that eventually slowed Turkish expansion.
Who were the Christian Crusaders from the West and the Mongols from the East?
What famous book of folktales includes “Aladdin” and “Ali Baba”?
What is The Thousand and One Nights (or Arabian Nights)?
What were three major ways Islamic civilization influenced later European learning?
By preserving Greek/Roman texts, advancing science and medicine, and inspiring the Renaissance.