to pacify the region and routinize caravan trade. This trust made possible a
complex banking system that enabled a check drawn in Spain to be cashed
in China.
Islam, as a salvation religion with an activist God, concerned with just
whom might be found in heaven, fostered the “saving of souls” by convert-
ing infidels, which in turn sacralized military efforts and created vast terri-
torial expansion and a wealthy Empire ruled by a Caliphate, followers and
descendents of the Prophet. The Caliphate was the combination of temporal
and spiritual rule begun by Muhammad, and subsequently carried out by
his followers, Abu Bakr (his father-in-law), Umar, Uthman and Ali, collec-
tively the Rashidun(the rightly guided). After the death of the Prophet, power
moved from Mecca to Damascus, headed by the Omayyad Caliphate
(Damascus, 661–750). The Caliphs, however, unlike the Prophet, did not have
the power of prophecy. Selection was based on his being a devout follower.
The descendents or followers of Muhammad claimed authority as both sec-
ular and religious leaders of the community of faithful, the umma. With tal-
ented leadership, skilled and brave warriors, military conquest and expanded
trade, within 100 years, Islam had spread from Gibraltar to the Indus. Its
merchant classes grew in size, wealth and power. Following the triumph of
the Abbasid Caliphate (Baghdad, 750–1248), and a number of military con-
quests, the Muslims recovered Greco-Roman philosophy and science, learned
paper making from the Chinese and embraced numbering and math from
India. There was a period of cultural efflorescence. With peace came pros-
perity, and with prosperity came centers of learning devoted to philosophy,
arts, sciences and medicine. This would come to be seen as the Golden Age
as cities like Cairo, Baghdad, Damascus and Cordoba also became affluent
cities and great intellectual centers. Islam became one of the great civiliza-
tions. Islam indeed survived the sacking of Baghdad and continued to fos-
ter science and learning. But meanwhile, a long dormant Christendom was
ascendant. As its merchant classes grew, Muslim and Jews were expelled from
Spain in 1492. Soon the Europeans were able to circumnavigate the globe and
bypass the caravan trade of the Muslims. The Arabic Middle East would go
into decline as the Turkish Ottomans expanded their empire. But by the nine-
teenth century, that empire was in decline as industrial Europe flourished.
With WWI came the coup de grace of the Ottomans, now so weakened that
the Kemalists seized power and imposed a modernist course in Turkey.
302 • Lauren Langman