CCWH13 Islam KHAN

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.