Career of the Prophet
Islam's Prophet and Messenger, d. 632 CE
Who is Muhammad?
The group of caliphs was not a dynasty per se, a fact that contributes to their prestige as rulers over Islam's earliest Golden Age of piety and rightly-guided conduct.
Who were the Rashidun Caliphs?
The Fatimid dynasty ruled Egypt and Syria from this capital city, which they founded in 969 CE
What is Cairo?
This female mystic from early Islamic Iraq is best known for the collection of short anecdotes written about her and her struggle to achieve divine union.
Who is Rabe'a al-'Adawiyya?
This towering early Islamic jurist formulated a synthesis of "sources of Islamic jurisprudence" that provided a series of filters through which legal knowledge must pass.
Who was al-Shāfi'ī?
Islam's main scripture, its Arabic title translates as "The Recitations", highlighting its origins as oral revelations and the direct speech of God.
What is the Qur'an?
This dynasty of caliphs ruled from Damascus and reaped the great rewards of the early Islamic conquest state, which stretched from al-Andalus to India at its height.
Who were the Umayyads?
Most famous to you perhaps for their toolkit, leaders of this Turkish dynasty were granted the title of "sultan" by the 'Abbasid caliphs.
Who were the Seljuks?
These two "ideal types" of Sufism are associated with the careers of the mystics al-Hallaj and al-Junayd, respectively.
What are "drunken" sufism and "ethical" sufism?
These texts, originally oral traditions, provide evidence of what the Prophet and his early Companions would have said or done on a given occasion, and are a central source of Islamic law.
What are the hadith?
A major theme of the Qur'an, this concerns how to know right from wrong and humankind's role in defending themselves against evil.
What are Ethics?
This dynasty of caliphs ruled from Baghdad, the capital city they founded after ousting the Umayyad dynasty in a revolution.
Who were the 'Abbasids?
DAILY DOUBLE !!
This ideal model of politics stresses the idea that civilizations rests upon the fact that "there is a place for everyone, and everyone has a place"
What is the Circle of Equity? (Circle of Justice works too)
This towering Sunni Islamic thinker provided the intellectual and spiritual authority to allow Sufism as an approach to practicing Islam to achieve mainstream status by the 12th century.
Who was Abu Hamid al-Ghazālī?
This is the lived example of the Prophet Muhammad and gives its name to Islam's largest sect.
What is the sunna (Sunnism is also ok)?
A major theme of the Qur'an, this concerns "Final Things", such as the Day of Judgment, the coming of the Messiah and the Mahdi, the rewards of Paradise and the punishments awaiting sinners in Hell.
What is Eschatology?
Derived from the Arabic word "khalīfa", meaning "successor" or "deputy", this title was adopted by the leaders of the Muslim community after the death of the Prophet.
What is "caliph"?
These four items comprise the "Seljuk Toolkit," which the Seljuk dynasty employed to govern their sultanate and which was consequently employed by almost every other state in the Middle East that succeeded them.
What are mamluks, iqta's, urban autonomy, and the "Sunni Revival" (mentioning sultans and atabegs is ok too)?
This early Islamic battle is often cited as the birth-moment for the sectarian split between Sunnis, Shi'ites, and Kharijites (Ibadis).
What is the Battle of Siffin?
This Arabic word describes the use of analogical reasoning in Islamic jurisprudence.
What is qiyās?
The Prophet's clan, a minor grouping within the broader tribe of Quraysh. Membership in it carried immense spiritual authority for most Muslims.
What is the Banu Hashim (or Hashemites)?
A Greek word meaning "a universal city", this term is often used to described the sort of far-reaching and flourishing imperial center that the geographer Ya'qūbī describes in his account of Baghdad.
What is a "cosmopolis"?
This work of poetry is considered to be the national epic of Iran and was written under the patronage of the Ghaznavid dynasty to impart lessons about just kingship.
What is the Shahnameh? (The Book of Kings is ok too)
This figure, whose name translates literally as "thirty birds" served as the king that the group of mystical birds pursued with the guidance of the hoopoe in 'Attār's Sufi parable, The Conference of the Birds.
What is the Simorgh?
This Arabic word describes the "protected" status granted to non-Muslims living under Muslim rule who pay an additional tax called the jizya.
What is dhimma?