Communication Between Cultures

Mongol invaders moving out of Central

Asia through Afghanistan and Persia into

the Middle East ushered in the final era

of unified Islamic governance. Reaching

Baghdad during the mid-thirteenth cen-

tury, Mongol warriors destroyed the city and its inhabitants, bringing an end to the

Abbasid Caliphate. The devastation brought by the Mongol armies pushed the Turkish

nomads into the eastern regions of modern-day Turkey, where they met and defeated

the last of the Byzantine forces. These nomads became known as the Ottomans, and

they ruled Islam for more than 600 years. During their reign Ottoman armies advanced

into Europe as far as Vienna, Austria, and took control of the Balkans, where large

communities of Muslims remain today. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries

the European powers began to challenge the Ottoman Empire, then beset by internal

decay and unable to hold back the Christian nation forces. As the Ottomans retreated,

European powers rushed in to fill the void. Noted Middle East expert Bernard Lewis

points out the extent of this change:

By the early twentieth century—although a precarious independence was retained by Turkey

and Iran and by some remoter countries like Afghanistan, which at that time did not seem

worth the trouble of invading—almost the entire Muslim world had been incorporated into

the four European [colonial] empires of Britain, France, Russia, and The Netherlands.^165

The defeat of the Ottomans at the end of World War I ended more than thirteen

centuries of a unified Islam and replaced it with nation-states, many of which

remained under the domination of Western colonial masters until after World War

II.^166 In the wake of the departing colonial powers, many of the Middle East nations

fell under the rule of authoritarian, often autocratic leaders. The ability of these lea-

ders to rely on oil revenues for state capital allowed them to govern without approval

of or little concern for the people.

The Legacy of Islamic History

This brief chronology illustrates the richness of Islamic history, which helps shape the

identity and worldview of modern Muslims. History is particularly significant to

Muslims. As noted by Lewis,“Islamic history, for Muslims, has an important religious

and also legal significance, since it reflects the working out of God’s purpose for His

Community—those that accept the teachings of Islam and obey its law.”^167 From the

Muslim perspective, the early era of the caliphates represents a period of one ruler

exercising dominion over a single state. The perception of unity persisted even after

the caliphate had splintered into a variety of dynastic states, and the people of the

Islamic domain identified themselves not by nationality or ethnicity but as Muslims.

For contemporary Muslims, the history of Islam is continually reinforced through

(1) language, (2) geography, and (3) tribal affiliation, all of which are derived from the

religion’s Arabic origins.^168 Classical Arabic was the original language of the Koran, and

Arabic became the language of the Middle East and North Africa as a result of the early

Islamic conquests. Located in southeast Saudi Arabia, Mecca remains the holiest of all

Islamic sites and the annual destination of well over a million Muslims who make the

hajjeach year. Tribal affiliation, the basis of ancient Arabia’s societal organization, con-

tinues to exert a strong influence among most Muslims. The importance and role of

REMEMBER THIS

Islamic history and religion are directly linked.

The Legacy of Islamic History 193

Copyright 2017 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s).