Dar al-Islam
The name of the religion founded through Muhammad's revelations, an Arabic word meaning "submission to the will of Allah.
Islam
Japanese warriors served powerful lords, protected estates, and lived by a demanding code that valued honor and a glorious death over a long life.
This belief system, common across early African societies, held that spirits inhabit animals, plants, and natural forces and play an active role in daily life.
Animism
Domesticated around 3400 B.C. in central Mexico, this crop became the most important food source for early American civilizations, capable of feeding a family of three for a long time on just four months of planting.
maize / corn
This class of people were bound to the land they worked, could not lawfully leave their birthplace, and made up the vast majority of the medieval European population.
serfs
Muhammad's migration to Medina in 622 CE is known by this name. In Medina, he united Arab and Jewish tribes under a single community and took on roles as political, religious, and military leader.
Hijrah
grandson of Genghis Khan conquered all of China by 1279, founded the Yuan Dynasty, and encouraged foreign trade, famously hosting the Venetian traveler Marco Polo at his court.
Kublai Khan
semi-arid zone situated along the southern edge of the Sahara slowly loses ground each year as the desert expands into it.
Sahel
This system of knotted strings in different colors was the Inca's primary tool for recording numerical data — tracking warriors, gold stores, and other government information without a written language.
Quipu
This title referred to the land itself — granted by a lord to a vassal in exchange for military service and loyalty under the feudal system.
fief
This mystical group within Islam rejected the wealth and ceremony of the Umayyad court, choosing instead a life of poverty and devotion to a personal, spiritual path toward God.
Sufi
Meaning "the way of the warrior," this unwritten Japanese code emphasized reckless courage, reverence for the gods, fairness, and generosity toward those weaker than oneself.
Bushido
In West Africa, oral historians known by this name served as living libraries, preserving the names of kings and the deeds of ancestors for younger generations.
Griot
Known as Mesoamerica's "mother culture," this civilization emerged around 1200 B.C. along the Gulf Coast of Mexico and left behind colossal stone heads, ceremonial centers, ritual ball games, and a ruling elite class that influenced all later Mesoamerican peoples.
Olmec
This empire, created when Otto I was crowned by the pope in 962, remained the strongest state in Europe until about 1100 but was plagued by conflicts between its rulers and the papacy.
the Holy Roman Empire
This Shi'a caliphate, which claimed descent from a daughter of Muhammad, began in North Africa, spread across the Red Sea into western Arabia and Syria.
the Fatimid caliphate
The Han government promoted this process — making conquered peoples part of Chinese culture — by sending farmers to settle new territories, encouraging intermarriage, and establishing schools to teach Confucian philosophy.
assimilation
migrating farmers originally from the savanna of what is now southeastern Nigeria used a slash-and-burn technique that forced them to relocate every few years as soil fertility declined.
the Bantu-speaking peoples
This Incan emperor took the throne in 1438 and transformed a small Andean kingdom into a 2,500-mile empire stretching along South America's western coast — his name literally means "World Transformer" or "Earthshaker."
Pachachuti
religious officials — ranging from local priests at the lowest level to bishops and the pope at the top — administered sacraments and held authority over medieval Christians' spiritual lives.
clergy
Muslim leaders and scholars preserved Greek scientific and philosophical knowledge that might otherwise have been lost at this Baghdad institution.
In 1192, the emperor granted this military title to Yoritomo of the Minamoto clan, creating a pattern of military dictatorship that ruled Japan through puppet emperors until 1868.
shogun
Uncovered by archaeologists in 1977, this city on a tributary of the Niger River dated to 250 B.C., making it the oldest known city south of the Sahara; its residents traded rice, fish, and pottery for copper, gold, and salt.
Djenne-Djeno
The Maya city of Tikal was located in this region, which stretched from southern Mexico into northern Central America and gave its name to the broader cultural zone where the first complex American societies arose.
Mesoamerica
Charlemagne's greatest military and political achievement ultimately collapsed when his grandsons signed this 843 agreement, dividing his empire into three kingdoms and paving the way for feudalism.
Treaty of Verdun