John: Hi, there I'm John Green.
This is Crash Course World History, and today we're gonna talk about Islam,
which like Christianity and Judaism,
grew up on the east coast of the Mediterranean,
but unlike Christianity and Judaism,
it's not terribly well understood in the West.
For instance, you probably know what this is and what this is.
You probably don't know what that is. Google it.
Mr. Green, Mr. Green, why do you think
people know so little about Islamic history?
Did you just ask an interesting, non-annoying question, me from the past?
I think we don't know much about early Islamic history
because we don't learn about it, because we're taught
that our history is the story of Christianity in Europe,
when in fact, our history is the story of people on the planet.
So, let's try to learn something today.
(upbeat music with whistling)
So, in less than 200 years, Islam went from not existing
to being the religious and political organizing principle
of one of the largest empires in the world,
and that story begins in the 7th century CE,
when the angel Gabriel appeared to Muhammad, a 40-ish guy,
who made his living as a caravan trader,
and told him to begin reciting the word of God.
Initially, this freaked Muhammad out as, you know,
it would, but then his wife and a couple other people
encouraged him and slowly he came to accept the mantle of prophet.
A few things to know about the world Islam entered,
first, Muhammad's society was intensely tribal.
He was a member of the Quraysh tribe living in Mecca,
and tribal ties were extremely important.
Also, at the time the Arabian Peninsula
was like this crazy, religious, melting pot.
Like most tribal Arabs worshiped gods
very similar to the Mesopotamian gods you'll remember from episode 3,
and by the time of Muhammad, cult statues of many of those gods
had been collected in his home town of Mecca
in this temple-like structure, called the Kaaba.
But, Arabia was also home to monotheisms like Christianity and Judaism,
and even a bit of Zoroastrainism;
so the message that there was only one god
wouldn't have been like as surprising to Muhammad
as it was, for instance, to Abraham.
Also, and this will become very important,
the northern part of Arabia was sandwiched between the Byzantine Empire
and the Persian Sasanian Empire, and you'll remember
those guys were always fighting.
They were like snow boarders and skiers,
or like the Westboro Baptist Church and everyone else.
At its core, Islam is what we call a radical reforming religion,
just as Jesus and Moses sought to restore Abrahamic monotheism
after what they perceived as straying, so too did Muhammad.
Muslims believe that God sent Muhammad as the final prophet
to bring people back to the one true religion,
which involves the worship of and submission to a single and all-powerful God.
The Koran also acknowledges Abraham, and Moses, and Jesus, among others,
as prophets, but it's very different from the Hebrew and Christian Bibles.
For one thing, it's much less narrative, but also,
it's the written record of the revelations Muhammad received,
which means it's not written from the point of view of people,
it is seen as the actual word of God.
The Koran is a really broad-ranging text,
but it returns, again and again, to a couple of themes;
one is strict monotheism, and the other is the importance of taking care
of those less fortunate than you.
The Koran says of the good person, "Spends his substance,
"however much he himself may cherish it, upon his near of kin,
and the orphans, and the needy, and the wayfarer, and the beggars,
"and for the freeing of human beings from bondage."
These revelations also radically increase the rights of women and orphans,
which is one of the reasons that Muhammad's tribal leaders
weren't that psyched about them.
(digital sounds) To talk more about
Islamic faith and practice, let's go to the thought bubble.
The five pillars of Islam are the basic acts considered obligatory,
at least by Sunni Muslims.
First is the Shahadah, or the profession of faith.
There is no God, but God, and Muhammad is God's prophet,
which is sometimes translated as there is no God but Allah,
and Muhammad is Allah's prophet, which tries to make Muslims sound other,
and ignores the fact that the Arabic word for God,
whether you're Christian or Jewish or Muslim, is Allah.
Second, Salat, or ritual prayer five times a day,
at dawn, noon, afternoon, sunset, and late evening,
which are obligatory unless you haven't hit puberty,
are too sick, or are menstruating.
Keep it PG, thought bubble.
Third, Sawm, the month-long fast during the month of Ramadan,
in which Muslims do not eat or drink or smoke cigarettes during daylight hours.
Since Ramadan is a lunar calendar month, it moves around the seasons,
and obviously, it's most fun during the winter when the days are shorter,
and least fun during the summer when days are both long and hot.
Fourth is Zakat, or alms giving, in which non-poor Muslims
are required to give a percentage of their income to the poor.
And lastly, Hajj, the pilgrimage to Mecca
that Muslims must try to fulfill at least once in their lives,
provided they are healthy and have enough money.
There's also more to understanding Islam than just knowing the Koran,
like Judaism, with its tall mood,
and Christianity with its lives of saints and writings of church fathers,
Islam has supplementary sacred texts,
chief among which is the Hadith, a collection of sayings
and stories about the prophet. Thanks, thought bubble.
Oh, it's time for the open letter?
(instrumental harp) Magic.
An open letter to the 72 virgins.
Oh, but first, let's check what's in the secret compartment.
Oh, it's Andre the Giant. Did you know that Andre the Giant
died a virgin is a fact that I made up?
Dear 72 virgins, hey there. It's me, John Green.
Did you know that not all hadiths were created equal?
Some sayings of the prophet are really well sourced,
like for instance, a good friend or a relative heard the prophet say something,
and then it ended up as a hadith.
But, some hadiths are terribly sourced, like not to be a reverend;
but some of it is like middle school gossip,
like Rachel told Rebekah that her sister's brother's friend
kissed Justin Bieber on the face.
And the vast majority of Muslims
don't treat terribly sourced hadiths as scripture,
and the idea that you go heaven and get 72 virgins is not in the Koran,
it's in a terribly sourced hadith,
so it is my great regret to inform you, 72 virgins,
that in the eyes of almost all Muslims, you do not exist.
Best wishes, John Green.
One more thing about Islam, like Christianity and Judaism, it has a body of law.
You might have heard of it, it's called Sharia;
although we tend to think of Sharia as a single set of laws
that all Muslims follow. That's ridiculous.
There are numerous competing ideas about Sharia,
just as there are within any legal tradition.
So, people who embrace this world view were called Muslims,
because they submitted to the will of God,
and they became part of the Ummah, or community of believers.
This would be a good moment for an Uma Therman joke,
but sadly, she is no longer famous.
I'm sorry if you're watching this, Uma Therman.
Being part of the Ummah trumped all other ties,
including tribal ties, which got Muhammad into some trouble
and brings us, at last, back to history.
So, as Muhammad's following in Mecca grew,
the Ummah aroused the suspicion
of the most powerful tribe in Mecca, the Quraysh.
And it didn't matter that Muhammad himself was born into the Quraysh tribe,
because he wouldn't shut up about how there was only one God,
which was really bad news to the Quraysh tribe
because they managed the pilgrimage trade in Mecca,
and if all those gods were false, it would be a disaster economically.
Although, come to think of it, in the end
the Meccan pilgrimage business turned out just fine.
So, the Quraysh forced Muhammad and his followers out of Mecca in 622 CE,
and they headed to Yathrib, also known as Medina.
This journey, also known as the Hijrah, is so important
that it marks year 0 in the Islamic calendar.
In Medina, Muhammad severed the religion's ties to Judaism,
turning the focus of prayer away from Jerusalem to Mecca.
Also, in Medina, the Islamic community started to look a lot more
like a small empire than like a church.
Like, Jesus never had a country to run,
but Muhammad did almost from the beginning,
and in addition to being an important prophet, he was a good general,
and in 630, the Islamic community took back Mecca.
They destroyed all those idols in the Kaaba,
and soon Islam was as powerful a political force
in the region as it was a religious one;
and it's because the political and religious coexisted from the beginning,
that there's no separate tradition of civic and religious law
like there is in Christianity and Judaism.
So, then when Muhammad died in 632 CE,
there wasn't a religious vacuum left behind.
Muhammad was the final prophet, the revelation of the Koran would continue
to guide the Ummah throughout their lives,
but the community did need a political leader, a caliph,
and the first caliph was Abu Bakr, Muhammad's father-in-law,
who is not without his opponents.
Many people wanted Ali, Muhammad's son-in-law to lead the community,
and although he did become the fourth caliph, that initial disagreement,
to radically over-simplify it because we only have 10 minutes,
began the divide between the two major sects of Islam, Sunni and Shia.
And even today, Sunni Musilims believe
Abu Bakr was rightly elected the first caliph,
and Shia Muslims believe it should have been Ali.
To Sunnis, the first fourth caliphs,
Abu Bakr, Umar, Uthman, and Ali are known as the rightly guided caliphs.
In many of the conservative movements in the Islamic world today,
are all about trying to restore the Islamic world to those glory days,
which like most glory days, were not unambiguously glorious.
Abu Bakr stabilized the community after Muhammad's death
and began the process of recording the Koran in writing,
and started the military campaigns against the Byzantine and Sasanian empires,
that within 116 years would allow
the Islamic Empire to go from this, to this.
His successor, Umar, was both and uncommonly good general
and a brilliant administrator, but like so many other great men,
he proved terrible at avoiding assassination,
which gated the caliphate of Uthman, who standardized the Koran
and continued both his predecessor's tradition of conquest
and his predecessor's tradition of getting assassinated.
Then, Ali finally got his turn as caliph,
but his ascension was very controversial and it ultimately led to a civil war,
which eventually led to the emergence of Uthman's tribe, the Umayyads,
as the dynasty that would rule over
an ever-expanding Islamic Empire for more than 100 years.
It's common to hear that in these early years,
Islam quotes spread by the sword, and that's partly true, unless you are ...
Wait for it: The Mongols.
(classic movie audio)
Actually, as usual, the truth is more complicated.
Many people, including the Mongols,
but also including lots of people in Central and East Asia,
embraced Islam without any military campaigns;
and in fact, the Koran says that religion must not be an act of compulsion,
but this much is true, the early Islamic Empire was really good at winning wars.
And situated, as they were between two very wealthy empires,
the Byzantines and the Sasanians, there was plenty to fight for.
The first to fall with the Sasanians, the last non-Muslim successor
to the Persian Empire, they were relatively easy pickings
because they had been fighting the Byzantines for like 300 years
and they were super tired, also they had recently been struck by plague.
Plague, man, I'm telling you, it's like the red tortoise shell of history.
(slow descending whistle)
But, in those early days, they did pry away some valuable territory
like Egypt, and the Holy Land, and then eventually, they got into Spain,
where various Muslim dynasties would entrench themselves
until being expelled in 1492.
But as good as they were at making war,
it still tempting to chalk up the Arab success to,
you know, the will of God.
And certainly, a lot of the people they conquered felt that way.
Wars in this part of the world didn't just pit people against each other,
they also pitted their gods against each other;
so, while the Islamic Empire didn't require its subjects to convert to Islam,
their stunning successes certainly convinced a lot of people
that this monotheism thing was legit.
Once again, John Green, proving super hip to the slang of today's young'uns.
Also, you paid lower taxes if you converted, and just as taxes on cigarettes
lead to people not wanting to smoke,
taxes on worshiping your idols lead to people
not wanting to worship them many more.
So, in a period of time that was, historically speaking,
both remarkably recent and remarkably short,
a small group of people from an area of the world
with no natural resources managed to create one of the great empires of the world,
and also one of its great religions;
and that very fact may be why people of Western European decent
remain largely ignorant about this period,
not only with the Muslims great conquers, they spawned an explosion
of trade and learning that lasted hundreds of years.
They saved many of the classic texts that form the basis of the so-called
Western Canon, while Europe was ignoring them,
and they paved the way for the Renaissance.
While it's important to remember that much of the world
between Spain and the Indus River wasn't Arabized,
most of it was so thoroughly Islamised that these days we can't think
of the world we now call the Middle East without thinking of it as Islamic.
Like perhaps, the greatest testimony to Islam's power
to organize peoples' lives and their communities
is that in Egypt, five times a day,
millions of people turn away from the pyramids, and toward Mecca.
Egypt, birth place to one of the longest continuous cultures
the world has ever known, is now the largest Arab country in the world.
Next week, we'll talk about the dark ages.
Spoiler alert:
They were darkest in the evening.
Thanks for watching, and we'll see you next time.