Week 1 Introduction

You may also view this interactive map of the Arab Conquests of the same period: 

Islamic civililzation map

http://global.oup.com/us/companion.websites/fdscontent/uscompanion/us/static/companion.websites/9780199399611/Maps/10.1/web/10.1.html

Class Readings in Classical Arab History 

Our class readings for weeks 1-5 will include readings from the following classical authors and accounts.  All readings are found as PDF files in the G:drive for course at the college.

We shall read excerpts from the following:

1) Ibn Ishaq, Sirat ar-rasul allah (translation by A. Guillaume)  (Arabic /English translation)
2) Al-Waqidi.  Futuh al-Sham (Conquest of Damascus)
3) Al-Baladhuri, Futuh al-Buldan (Conquest of the Countries) (Arabic / English translation)
4) Ibn Sina's autobiography (Arabic / English translation
5) Ibn Munqidh's Autobiography (English translation)
6) Ibn Khaldun's description of education in the Maghrib, Andalusia, Ifriqiyya and the Mashreq (Arabic/English translation)

Documentaries:  one or more excerpts from the following documentaries may be shown:

When the Moors Ruled Europe
Jim Al-Khalili, Islam and Science (BBC, parts 1 and 2)

Establishing the Umma:  The Early Culture and Community of Muslims   

The main sources of the Prophet Muhammad’s life are the Quran, hadith, and sīra literature.      The Early Caliphs and the First Fitna or Civil War    Upon the death of the prophet Muhammad, the leadership of the Muslim community was assigned to Abu Bakr, his close companion.  In fact of the first four caliphs, often referred to as the rightly guided caliphs, all were companions of the prophet (Berkey, 2003).    The Quran was probably first compiled and systematically written down during the Caliphate of Uthman.  An interesting discovery was made in 1972 during restoration of the Mosque of Sanaa in Yemen that revealed a partial manuscript of a Quran from around 660 AD.  

Key Text:  The Constitution of Medina

Historians consider this among the key early documents of Arab and Muslim history.  It appears in Ibn Isḥāq’s biography of the Prophet (PBUH) (Isḥāq, 1967), as well as in Abū ʿUbayd’s Kitāb al-amwāl (Abū ʿUbayd al-Qāsim ibn Sallām, Kitāb al-amwāl, ed. Muḥammad Khalīl Harrās, Cairo 1388/1968).  According to the text found in Ibn Ishāq it appears to have been written after the Hijra when the Prophet (PBUH) and the Muslim community are growing in Medina.  A good summary of its historical significance is found in the Encylopedia of Islam (Lecker, 2012). Lecker notes the division of the document into two separate sections.  The first half deals with the respect and negotiation of the original Muslim population, mostly of Mecca, the Muʾminūn (lit. “the believers,” or “those who grant security”). This portion may be referred to as the Treaty of the Muʾminūn.” There are also sections referring to their relations with the larger Muslimun community now found in Medina.  The second part of the document is the referred to by some scholars at the Treaty of the Jews and deals with relations with the Jewish community around Medina.  Key portions of this document as translated by Lecker are found below.