Guided Reading for The Western Traditions.

Find the answer to each of these questions as it is given in the textbook before moving on to the next question. Some answers, drawn from the textbook alone, will be rather simplistic. They can, and should, be elaborated upon as your knowledge of the subject grows.

Pages 416 - 454:

The symbol (*) after a question indicates that these might be used for longer essays in your quizzes.

 

1. What are the essential features of a mosque? (*)

 

2. Are minarets characteristic of all mosques?

 

3. Is there a universal Islamic architecture that is uniform around the whole world?

 

4. What are the three themes or motifs of Islamic art?

 

5. What does the Qur’an specify about the making of images?

 

6. What has remained absent from the art of Muslims?

 

7. What is the dar al-Islam?

 

8. Who were the Sasanians (or Sassanids) and under whose control did they come?

 

9. When did North Africa come under Muslim control?

 

10. What happened with the shift of the Muslim capital from Damascus to Baghdad?

 

11. In what and how have religious scholars and Sufi masters recently played a crucial role?

 

12. When did the Arabs conquer the Iberian Peninsula?

 

13. When was the period of Arab Spain? (*)

 

14. Which Moroccan dynasty in Spain hastened the trend towards the Christian reconquest of Spain? Why was this?

 

15. What happened in 732 CE?

 

16. By what time was Islam a formidable social and political force in Africa?

 

17. What is the relation of the Swahili language to Arabic?

 

18. When and from where did the Khoja Isma‘ilis migrate to Africa?

 

19. In what present-day country were the famous cities of Samarkand (Samarqand) and Bukhara?

 

20. Who succeeded the Samanids as rulers of the Middle East in the Eleventh century?

 

21. Who reached their peak in the sixteenth century? What was the extent of their power?

 

22. How did the crescent come to be seen as the symbol of Islam?

 

23. After what time are there mosques in the main inland cities of China?

 

24. When and where did the Naqshbandi Sufis attempt to establish an independent Muslim state in China?

 

25. By what time was most of India under Muslim rule?

 

26. What happened in India for the first time in the geographical spread of Islam?

 

27. When and in response to what did many well-known Islamic religious scholars migrate to India?

 

28. What is Urdu?

 

29. Who was Kabir?

 

30. By what time did the British rule all of India?

 

31. Where are the largest Muslim populations in the world? (*)

 

32. How is it probable that Islam was carried into Southeast Asia?

 

33. What ended the rise and fall of small Muslim kingdoms in Southeast Asia? What effect did this have?

 

34. What proportion of the world population of Muslims live in Southeast Asia?

 

35. What will happen at "the head of every hundred years," according to hadith?

 

36. What was one external impetus for Islamic reform? (*)

 

37. What did the crusaders take home with them that was also left in Muslim lands?

 

38. What was the Wahhabi movement? What did it preach?

 

39. Where in particular did Sufi Shaykhs spearhead a long struggle against colonialism?

 

40. Where and when did the Mahdiyah movement establish an Islamic state?

 

41. Who landed in Egypt in 1798?

 

42. Of what did the 19^th century Islamic reformer Jamal al Din al-Afghani cherish an ideal vision?

 

43. What was the conclusion of Afghani’s argument concerning the irrationality of Christianity?

 

44. Who implemented educational reforms as the Grand Mufti of Egypt at the end of the 19^th and beginning of the 20^th century?

 

45. What was the situation of the Muslim community on the Indian subcontinent before British rule?

 

46. What was the "Anglo-Muhammadan Law?"

 

47. What was the relation of revelation and nature for Ahmad Khan? (*)

 

48. Who was the greatest Muslim thinker of modern India?

 

49. What was the express aim of Kemal Ataturk after 1924 in Turkey?

 

50. What is the significance of the adoption of broad-brimmed hats in an Islamic community?

 

51. For what did Rashid Rida argue in his 1924 treatise on the Supreme Caliphate? In which ideological framework did this later figure?

 

52. What was the aim of the Muslim Brothers founded in 1928 by Hasan al-Bana?

 

53. Who were Gamal Abdel Nasser, Anwar Sadat, and Hosni Mubarak?

 

54. What do most contemporary Islamic revivalist movements reject as decadent Western values and practices?

 

55. What happened in the Sudan in 1969? What were its results?

 

56. Upon what did Ruhollah Khomeini and his fellows build the Iranian Islamic Republic?

 

57. What is the meaning of the title "ayat Allah" (="ayatollah"), what is his role?

 

58. What is said to be anticipated in the early decades of the 21^st century regarding the population of France?

 

59. What do many hope will promote a spirit of mutual respect and acceptance in an increasingly pluralistic world?

 

60. What was true of the majority of people kidnapped from the coast of Senegal, Niger, and the Sudan as slaves?

 

61. Who were Elijah Poole and Wallace D. Fard? (*)

 

62. Why do African-American Muslims sometimes refer to themselves as Bilalians?

 

63. Who can be thought of as the first Muslim missionary in America?

 

64. When was the first masjid (mosque) built in the US?

 

65. What was the status of women in Arab society before Islam? (*)

 

66. What significant restrictions does the Qur’an place upon polygyny (that is, having multiple wives)?

 

67. What does the Qur’an stipulate regarding women’s property?

 

68. What does the Qur’an say about the hijab, or veiling of women?

 

69. What have many hoped might allow for better relations between Western and Muslim worlds?

Additional Notes: