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Research essay questions for Early and Medevial Islamic history - Coggle…
Research essay questions for Early and Medevial Islamic history
Why is ‘early Islamic history’ a challenging area of study? What are the main
problems? How might they be solved?
Can we account for the scope and success of the early Islamic conquests? Can
the various explanations be reconciled?
Why did ‘Abd al-Malik (r. 685-705 CE) build the Dome of the Rock?
Discuss the factors involved in the ‘Abbasid Revolution (750 CE).
Introduction
The Abbasid revolution is a key momment in the political development of Islam and the caliphal system, it marks the first great revolution and power change within this politcal system. The dynstaty that is established will rule for nearly the next 200 years (Kennedy, 2004).
The causes of the Abbasid revolution are a subject of debate within the acedmic community with reasoning for the revolution linking tribalism, religous discontent, collapsing central authority and regional discontent (Daniel, 1997). Scholars writing durring the Abbasids tend to agree with modern scholars on the rage of reasonings with relgious tensions and a combination of tribalism and factionalism being attributed to the revolution (Judd, 2010).
In this essay I will argue that it was a combination of these factors that led to the revolution, but that it was the slow deccay of the Umayyad government and its central control that meant that relgious, factional, tribal and provincal tensions were made worse.
Main body
Religon
The Abbasid revolutions core ideological basis was the concept of da'wah or the idea that the reasons for the struggling Islamic community was that it had abonded proper Islam (Sharon, 1983, p22).
The idea of the loss of true Islam was already developing within the community with proto-Shi'a groups begining to form and seek relgious reform (Berkey, 2003, p103).
These movements saw that the return of Muhammad's family would help lead to the community returning to the correct path and the return of prosperity that they had been promised with the rise of Islam (Kennedy, 2005, p3).
This sentiment was particularly present within the convert community that felt they were being treated like second class citizens having to pay more tax then born Muslims (Berkey, 2003, p102).
It was not only recent converts that were chaffing under the way Islam was being run, in the province of Khurasan there was a general feeling that Umayyad appointed govenors have little interests in the lives of pious Muslims (Kennedy, 2005, p8).
Overal there was an immage that the Umayyads were an un-Islamic regime (Berkey, 2003, p105), that had no regard for the lives and interests of pious Muslims and were instead to focused on the material world and that they had to be removed for there to be an Islamic revival (Kennedy, 2005, p8).
Dislike of the Umayyads
However, to place the revolution solely within the frame of religon leads to us ignoring the state of caliphate in the run up to the revolution.
By the time of the revolution the Umayyad regime had been gripped by political crisis from the rise of al-Walid 2nd in 743 who was overthrown a year later in 744 (Cobb, 2011, p255).
Al-Walid's successor was not in power for long when he was overthrown by Marwan also in 744 (Cobb, 2011, p259); with Marwan in control the government was still faced with constant revellions in Syria, Iraq an Hijaz (Cobb, 2011, pp258-261).
These persisten problems with revellions meant that the Umayyads began to rely on the use of Syrian soliders and would station them across the empire. However, this angered Arabs in provinces like Iraq who resented the control of the Syrians in the empire (Kennedy, 2016, p37).
These probelms were made worse in the province of Khurasan were contuined instability meant that the central government was loosing grip on power (Kennedy, 2016, p43) and where anger transfered from Iraqi Arabs who chaffed under Syrian rule became present in the province (Sharan, 1983, p63).
As the sense that the province was under forign rule, enforced by Syrian troops, opposition to the Umayyads became a sense of pride among Arabs and a feeling that crossed tribal devide (Sharon, 1983, pp63-65).
It is not an entirly inacurate assement to say that by the time of the Abbasid revolution, the Umayyad Caliphate was a, or least on the verge of becoming, a failed state in, at least, some parts of the empire.
As the government began to loose control it was only natural that a new regime would fill its shoes.
Conculsion
To conlcude, the Abbasid revolution made use of relgion as the ideological basis of their revolution in which there needed to be a return to the Islam of Muhammad (Sharon, 1983).
This arguement, however, was only possible as the Umayyad caliphate had begun to collapse and as central government lost control of both changing religous ideals and also political movements with its terirrory (Cobb, 2011).
As Paul Cobb describes it ‘the Abbasid revolution was, after all, merely the final fillip to an Umayyad civil war’ (2011, p266). Instead of religon being the spark of the revolution it is more liekly that it provided the layer of justification needed for the Abbasids to sieze power from a dying regime.
Is the ‘Abbasid ‘Golden Age’ a useful concept, or a rose-tinted view of a
productive era of history? Illustrate your argument with examples.
Examine enslavement in Islamic societies of the past, with particular focus on
manumission/emancipation (Kemil), legal rights (Philip), social mobility (Alex) and gender (Archie).
Gender
Overview of the role of male and female slaves:
What were there main roles in the system?
Quick look at some of these roles in a general sense (not including conubines and eunuchs).
Focus on the two highly infleuntial roles:
Concubinage
What is it?
Umm Walads
Issue of its genuine presence in Islam.
Case study
Queen mother Umm al-Muqtadir.
Eunuchs
What is it.
Different roles they could fill.
Political
Domestic
Military
Case study
Am¯ın al-D¯ın Ahyaf al-Muj¯ahid¯ı
Analyse the rise and fall of the Fatimid dynasty (909-1171 CE).
Examine the Crusades from the viewpoints of Muslims, Eastern Christians,
and Crusaders. How different were their experiences and their accounts?
What were the main functions of the medieval madrasa? Which sections of society were able to access its services? Was the madrasa an institution of social inclusion?
‘Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn al-Ayyūbī (Saladin) defended the Islamic world against the Crusaders (1171-1193 CE). Can we see past the hagiography to get to the real facts about his life?
Examine the roles Muslim women have played in social, political, intellectual
and economic history, using an intersectional model.
How did the Mamluks achieve and then maintain power?
Analyse the distinctive features of Islamic culture and religion in China over
past centuries.