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Summary History of the Middle East: H1-H9
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Samenvatting van het boek van William Cleveland: A History of the Modern Middle East
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Cleveland – A History of the Modern Middle EastH1-H9
H1: The rise and expansion of Islam
Before Islam two competing imperial states:
- The Roman-Byzantine Empire
- The Sasanian Empire of Iran
Byzantium was weakened by challenges to military, religious and administrative authority.
Although the Byzantine and Sasanian empires were in transition when Islam first extended into them,
it is important to recognize their impact on the development of Islamic governing practices and
religious doctrine. Formative Islam would be influenced by the Greek legacy of Byzantium, by the
bureaucratic tradition of Iran, and by the concepts of emperor that had developed in the
Constantinople and Ctesiphon courts. Islam must be understood as a product of the societies into
which it spread as well as of the society from which it originated.
Pre-Islamic Arabia
The Arabian Peninsula of the early seventh century lacked any central organizing authority. Tribes
were the largest units of social and political organization to which individual’s loyalties were given.
Competition for the scarce recourses of the land created rivalries among the tribes, and warfare
became ingrained as a way of life. The widespread experience of the Arabs in warfare would be a
significant factor in the early expansion of Islam.
Notwithstanding the divisions inherent in the tribal structure of pre-Islamic Arabia, forces of cultural
unity were present. The existence of poetry, which was recited at market fairs and tribal gatherings,
has convinced historians that the Arabs of the seventh century possessed a common poetic language
that could be understood across different regions of the peninsula. This was of the utmost
significance for the spread of Islam because it meant that the Prophet Muhammad’s religious
message could be communicated to Arabic speakers across a broad expanse of territory.
Muhammad and the foundations of Islam
Muhammad not only criticized the wealthy Quraysh merchants’ attitudes but also condemned the
religious practices that made Mecca a prosperous pilgrimage center.
It would be an exaggeration to call Arabia a cohesive, unified state after the surrender of Mecca;
nevertheless, the transformation the Prophet crated had been substantial. He had implanted the core
concept of a community of believers united in their recognition of a single Supreme Deity and in their
acceptance of that deity’s authority in their daily lives.
The Arab conquests and the first empire
Successor (caliph): Abu Bakr. The dispute over the first succession sowed seeds of conflict that have
affected Islam throughout its history. The second caliph, Umar, recognized the need to direct the
tribes’ raiding instincts away from intercommunal conflict and authorized attacks against southern
flank of Byzantium and Sasanian Iran. Thus began the epoch of the Arab conquests and the building
of an Islamic empire. In 637 the Arab forces defeated the imperial Sasanian army. Success against
Byzantium was equally swift.
Even more stunning than the speed and extent of the conquests was their durability. The conquests
would not have been so swift or so durable without the existence of a combination of social,
economic, and religious factors that facilitated the local population’s acceptance of the new Arab
rulers. First, monotheistic religions were widely practiced among the peoples in the conquered
,territories, and the Islamic assertion of monotheism placed it within the existing religious traditions.
Second, Islam manifested considerable tolerance toward non-Muslims. Although some of the
conquered peoples adopted Islam, the Arabs did not encourage conversions during the first century
of their rule; this was partly because the jizyah constituted an important source of state revenue and
partly because the Arabs regarded it as an exclusively Arab religion.
The first civil war and the end of the Rashidun caliphate
When Arab tribesmen murdered the caliph Uthman in 656 the succession issue reemerged. It was
resolved only after a civil war that left an enduring schism within the Islamic ummah. Ali was chosen
to succeed the murdered Uthman. Ali represented a broad coalition of interests calling for greater
equality among all Muslims, both Arab and non-Arab, and for the restoration of the leadership of the
community to the house of Muhammad. But Mu’awiyah contested Ali’s right to the caliphate. The
forces of the two claimants to the leadership met at the battle of Siffin in 657. In its aftermath, a
substantial portion of Ali’s forces withdrew their support.
From Arab exclusivism to Islamic universalism: the Umayyad and Abbasid empires
Ali’s passing marked the end of the first phase in the Islamic community’s development and the
beginning of a new period of imperial expansion and consolidation. Mu’awiyah became the founder
of the Umayyad dynasty (661-750). He was a pragmatic ruler whose principal concerns were
continued expansion of Islam, management of the state’s resources and consolidation of his dynasty.
Although the conquests continued to bring material wealth to Damascus under Mu’awiyah’s
successors, internal dissension troubled the Umayyad Empire. The policy of Arab exclusivism was
partly responsible for this. This ruling elite continued to equate Islam with Arab descent and to
administer the empire’s fiscal and social affairs in such a way as to favor the Arabs and to discriminate
against the growing number of non-Arab converts to Islam. The discontent culminated into a
revolution that overthrew the Umayyad house in 750 and brought to power a new dynasty – the
Abbasids (750-1258). Under the Abbasids the heroic age of the conquests gave way to the
developments of administrative institutions, commercial enterprises and a legal system. The new and
vibrant Islamic civilization arose found its first expression in the period of the high caliphate (750-945)
of the Abbasid Empire. The Abbasids abandoned the Arab exclusiveness and in its place they adopted
a universalist policy accepting the equality of all Muslims, regardless of their ethnic origins.
The Abbasid solution to the problem of political authority was to centralize it and to place it in the
hands of an absolute monarch who exercised the powers of both secular king and spiritual head of
the Islamic umma.
Conclusion
In the short span of time from the Prophet Muhammad’s death in 632 to the transfer of the imperial
capital from Damascus to Baghdad in the 750s, the Islamic umma had expanded from its Arab origins
to embrace a universal world empire.
H2: The development of Islamic civilization to the fifteenth century
Patterns of Islamic history
Islamic history is sometimes treated as the rise and decline of the Abbasid Empire. This is misleading.
Even when Abbasid power had peaked, other Islamic dynasties and cultures were rising. The regional
empires expanded and enriched Islamic traditions in areas beyond the Abbasid domains. Thus,
although the fall of the Abbasid Empire in 1258 resulted in considerable political fragmentation, it did
not lead to a ‘’dark age’’ of Islamic culture or create a political vacuum in the central Islamic lands.
The creation and uses of wealth
The advent of the Abbasid Empire ushered in an era of economic prosperity that led to a revival of
, urban life and the expansion of trade and industry not only within the Abbasid domains but also
throughout the world of Islam. From the eighth century onward, Islam became a global civilization in
which knowledge, technology, and artistic tastes were transported back and forth across a vast
domain.
Islamic rituals and institutions
Islam was flexible enough to embrace new practices and accommodate regional variations but
rigorous enough to preserve its core identity.
Sufism
It began as an ascetic movement among individuals who opposed the worldliness and materialism of
the Umayyad court in Damascus. During the ninth century, Sufism evolved into a devotional
movement centered on the love of God.
Two versions of leadership: Sunni Caliph and Shi’a Imam
‘Sunnah’: Muslims who followed community custom.
Shi’a Imams: possess esoteric knowledge not granted to other humans, including knowledge of the
hidden meanings of the Quran.
The Middle East from the eleventh to the fifteenth centuries: an overview
During the eleventh century, military power and the ruling authority that went with it passed from
Arabs to Turks in central Islamic lands. Seljuks. The Seljuk period had lasting importance: it
demonstrated the absorptive qualities of Islam, as the Turks adjusted quickly to urban life and
adopted the high cultural traditions of Islam. In addition, the Seljuks were responsible for a
rejuvenation of Sunni Islam. Moreover, the Seljuks expanded the domains of Islam into eastern
Anatolia, thus laying the groundwork for the emergence of the Ottoman state.
Also: Mongols and Mamluks.
H3: The Ottoman and Safavid Empires. A New Imperial Synthesis
The rise of the Ottoman Empire
The future Ottoman Empire originated as one of over a dozen small Anatolian principalities that arose
in the wake of the Mongol invasions of the thirteenth century. These Turkish principalities were
Islamic warrior states whose ongoing military confrontations with Christian Byzantium were inspired
by religious motives as well as by a desire for material gain. The gazi spirit against non-Muslims would
decisively shape the Ottoman Empire. The drive to acquire the spoils of war and to achieve temporal
power also inspired the tribesmen and their chieftains. The chieftains efforts to adopt the practices of
high Islamic tradition was another factor that shaped the Ottoman Empire.
Ottoman military superiority: navy, land army, gunpowder weapons.
Ottoman ruling institutions and attitudes
One reason for the success was their official recognition that the diversity of their subject territories
required flexible administrative practices that could accommodate the needs of different regions and
cultures. It is important to recognize the skills the Ottoman ruling class employed to entrench among
the subject peoples of the empire an appreciation for the benefits of Ottoman rule.
The principles that shaped the ruling Ottoman elites’ attitude toward state and society came from
four basic sources:
1). Tradition of gaza, holy war against non-Muslims for the purpose of expanding Islamic
domains.
2). Legacy of urban Islamic civilization, which included the notion of dynasty, monarchial
patronage of scholars, and a belief in the ruler’s responsibility for instituting and
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