Deck 11: The First Global Civilization: the Rise and Spread of Islam

Question 1

Islam originated in

A) Egypt.
B) Turkey.
C) Arabia.
D) Iraq.

Answer 1

Arabia.

Question 2

Which of the following continents was NOT affected by Islam in the millennium after 600 C.E.?

A) Africa
B) Europe
C) Asia
D) South America

Answer 2

South America

Question 3

The Arabic camel nomads were referred to as

A) Hashim.
B) bedouin.
C) mawali.
D) ayan.

Answer 3

bedouin.

Question 4

Which of the following statements most accurately describes the extent of sedentary agriculture in the Arabian peninsula?

A) There was no sedentary agriculture in the Arabian peninsula because of the extreme aridity of the climate.
B) In the far north along the borders with the Persian empire sedentary agriculture was common.
C) Only in the coastal regions of the far south of the Arabian peninsula did extensive sedentary agriculture develop in ancient times.
D) Sedentary agriculture was distributed throughout the peninsula as the result of the construction of extensive irrigation systems.

Question 5

Which of the following cultures found in the Arabian peninsula was most significant in shaping the development of Islam?

A) Bedouin
B) Urban
C) Sedentary agricultural villages
D) Hunting and gathering

Question 6

Which of the following statements concerning bedouin society is NOT accurate?

A) Bedouin herders lived in kin-related clan groups.
B) Bedouins lived in highly mobile tent encampments.
C) Clans were commonly congregated together in larger tribal groupings.
D) Arabian society fostered strong dependence on loyalty and cooperation with kin.

Question 7

Leaders of bedouin clans were called

A) shaykhs.
B) wazirs.
C) mawali.
D) dhows.

Question 8

What was the most important city in northern Arabia?

A) Medina
B) Ka?ba
C) Mecca
D) Jerusalem

Question 9

Which of the following statements concerning inter-clan relationships in bedouin society is most accurate?

A) Clans within the same tribe almost never engaged in warfare, but violence between different tribes was common.
B) Arabic society was too mobile to result in many contacts between clans, therefore violence was minimal.
C) Inter-clan violence over control of water and pasturage was common.
D) Inter-clan violence was regulated by a universally recognized code of law imposed by the Quraysh in Mecca.

Question 10

What was the result of inter-clan rivalries?

A) It kept population down in a region that could support few people.
B) It weakened the bedouin in comparison to neighboring peoples and empires.
C) It allowed for intermarriage between clan groups, thus preventing social isolation.
D) It prevented mobility and migration that would have debilitated efforts at more complex social organization.

Question 11

What clan was responsible for the foundation of Mecca?

A) Umayyad
B) Abbasid
C) Aghlabid
D) Almoravid

Question 12

What was the Ka?ba?

A) The tribe that dominated Mecca
B) The name given to Muhammad?s flight from Mecca
C) The port of Mecca
D) The religious shrine that was the focus of an annual truce

Question 13

What was the major difference between Medina and Mecca?

A) Political dominance in Medina was contested between a number of Jewish and bedouin tribes.
B) Mecca was established in an oasis, and Medina was in a mountainous region.
C) Medina was engaged in long-distance caravan trade, while Mecca was not.
D) Medina was located on the western side of the Arabian peninsula, while Mecca was located on the Persian Gulf.

Question 14

Which of the following statements most accurately describes the status of women in bedouin society prior to Islam?

A) Women were regarded as little more than property with neither rights nor status.
B) Descent in bedouin tribes was strictly patrilineal.
C) Women were the equal of males in the rugged society of the desert bedouin.
D) Women in pre-Islamic bedouin culture enjoyed greater freedom and higher status than those of the Byzantine and Persian empires.

Question 15

What was the nature of the material culture of bedouin society?

A) The bedouins constructed numerous temple complexes featuring monumental architecture in the form of pyramids.
B) Although their nomadic lifestyle did not permit the development of monumental architectural forms, the bedouins were skilled painters and sculptors.
C) Mecca was a major center for the development of art and architecture, but the desert bedouin produced little of cultural value.
D) Except in the sedentary agricultural communities of the south, there was little art or architecture; and the chief focus of cultural creativity was oral poetry.

Question 16

What was the nature of pre-Islamic bedouin religion?

A) Most of the bedouin were Christians.
B) Most of the bedouin were Jews.
C) Bedouin religion for most clans was a blend of animism and polytheism focusing on the worship of nature spirits.
D) The bedouin were strictly monotheists who worshipped Allah.

Question 17

Which of the following represents a mounting pressure for change in pre -Islamic society?

A) Invasion from sub-Saharan Africa
B) Greater Byzantine and Sassanian control over Arabic tribes of the peninsula and Arabic migration to Mesopotamia
C) Influence of Hindu animism
D) Increasing influence of polytheism

Question 18

What was the clan into which Muhammad was born?

A) Umayyad
B) Abbasid
C) Almoravid
D) Banu Hashim

Question 19

When did Muhammad receive the first revelations that were eventually written down in the Quran?

A) 550 C.E.
B) 610 C.E.
C) 622 C.E.
D) 632 C.E.

Question 20

What was the initial response of the Umayyads to Muhammad?s new faith?

A) They regarded him as a threat to their wealth and power as he questioned the traditional gods of the Ka?ba.
B) They sought to protect him from a plot on his life by the Banu Hashim.
C) The Umayyads immediately accepted Muhammad as their religious and political leader and the chief power in Mecca.
D) The Umayyads simply ignored Muhammad as an insignificant member of a powerless clan.

Question 21

Which of the following statements concerning Muhammad?s flight to Medina is NOT correct?

A) He fled because of the threat of assassination in Mecca
B) He fled because he was invited to mediate a dispute between the tribes of Medina
C) Muhammad fled from Mecca with nearly one quarter of the city?s population
D) Once in Medina he attracted new followers to his faith

Question 22

The Umayyads were threatened by all of the following developments EXCEPT

A) Muhammad?s declared aim to destroy Medina.
B) the development of a new religion under Muhammad?s direction.
C) the growing power of Medina.
D) the new faith threatened to supplant the gods of the Ka?ba.

Question 23

What was the date of Muhammad?s flight to Medina from Mecca?

A) 570 C.E.
B) 610 C.E.
C) 622 C.E.
D) 635 C.E.

Question 24

What was the Umayyad response to Muhammad?s migration to Medina and subsequent success there?

A) The Umayyad rulers of Mecca ignored Muhammad as long as he was content to remain in Medina.
B) War broke out between Mecca and Medina resulting in the eventual victory of Muhammad and the Medina clans.
C) War broke out between Mecca and Medina resulting in the eventual victory of the Umayyads.
D) Reluctantly but peacefully, the Umayyads were converted to Islam.

Question 25

What is the name of the book that contains Muhammads revelations?

A) Bible
B) Arabian Nights
C) Umma
D) Qur?an

Question 26

Which of the following statements concerning the ethical system of early Islam is NOT correct?

A) Islam stressed the dignity of all believers and their equality in the eyes of Allah.
B) Islam stressed the responsibility of the wealthy and strong to care for the poor and weak.
C) A tax for charity was obligatory in the new faith.
D) The teachings of the Prophet and the Qur?an were not formally incorporated into a body of law.

Question 27

What was Muhammad?s teaching with respect to the revelations of other monotheistic religions?

A) Muhammad accepted the earlier Christian revelations, but rejected completely any influence from Judaism.
B) Muhammad accepted the earlier Judaic revelations, but rejected completely any influence from Christianity.
C) Muhammad accepted the validity of earlier Christian and Judaic revelations and taught that his own revelations were a final refinement and reformulation of earlier ones.
D) Muhammad stressed that only his own revelations had merit and that others were works of the devil.

Question 28

Which of the following is NOT among the ?five pillars? of Islam?

A) A confession of faith
B) Hajj
C) Zakat
D) Pilgrimage to Medina

Question 29

What happened after Muhammad?s death in 632?

A) Many of the bedouin tribes renounced Islam.
B) Islam ceased to exist until it was reestablished under the Umayyad dynasty at Damascus.
C) After a lengthy period of grief, the tribes selected a new leader based on the established principle of succession in the Quran.
D) A military commander, Khalid ibn al-Walid, was chosen as leader of Islam.

Question 30

The wars to defeat rival prophets and restore the unity of Islam were called

A) Ridda.
B) dhow.
C) Karbala.
D) the first fitnah.

Question 31

The office of the political and religious successor of Muhammad was called

A) wazir.
B) dhow.
C) Karbala.
D) Caliph.

Question 32

Which of the following was NOT a reason for the early expansion of Islam beyond Arabia?

A) The desire for booty
B) The sense of common cause and united strength
C) The desire to convert new populations to Islam
D) A means to release the energies of the bedouin tribes against others than themselves

Question 33

Why did the Arab warriors not want to convert large numbers of people to Islam?

A) Muhammad specifically stated that Islam could only be spread among the Arabs.
B) They would have had to share their booty and would have lost tax revenues.
C) They lacked the political organization to govern them and feared insurrection by non-Arabs.
D) Conversion would have slowed down the process of conquest.

Question 34

Which of the following areas of the Byzantine empire was NOT conquered by the Muslims by 650 C.E.?

A) Palestine
B) Egypt
C) Syria
D) Asia Minor

Question 35

Why was the Caliph Uthman disliked by so many Arabs?

A) He had halted the process of expansion and thus stopped the flow of booty to the tribesmen.
B) He was the first Caliph to be chosen from Muhammad?s early enemies, the Umayyads.
C) He was not an Arab.
D) He was a firm supporter of Muhammad?s son-in-law and nephew, Ali.

Question 36

What was the result of the first civil war between Ali and the Umayyads?

A) Ali was able to defeat the Umayyad clan and reduce them to political insignificance.
B) Ali was killed in the conflict, but his son Hasan was named Caliph and won a great victory over the Abbasids.
C) Despite early successes, Ali?s faction disintegrated leading to an Umayyad victory and Ali?s assassination.
D) Ali suffered a disastrous military defeat at the Battle of Siffin, and the Umayyads emerged victorious.

Question 37

The political and theological faction within Islam that recognized only Ali and the descendants of the family of Muhammad as rightful rulers was called

A) Shi?as.
B) Sunnis.
C) Kharij.
D) Fiqhs.

Question 38

Under the Umayyads, the political center of Islam shifted to

A) Baghdad.
B) Merv.
C) Constantinople.
D) Damascus.

Question 39

What was the nature of citizenship within the Umayyad empire?

A) All converts to Islam, regardless of their ethnic origins, were full citizens and members of the elite.
B) Only Muslim Arabs were first-class citizens.
C) The Umayyads recognized all residents of their empire, whether Muslims or ?peoples of the book? as full citizens.
D) Arabs rapidly lost their dominance in the Umayyad empire to the native residents of Persia.

Question 40

The term for non-Arab Muslim converts is

A) jizya.
B) dhow.
C) mawali.
D) dhimmis.

Question 41

What was the Umayyad attitude to other religions?

A) The Umayyads suppressed all religions within their territories other than Islam.
B) The Umayyads converted to Christianity, but continued to permit the open worship of Islam.
C) The Umayyads displayed tolerance towards the religions of dhimmi peoples.
D) Christianity and Judaism were suppressed as heresies, but other communities were permitted to retain their religions.

Question 42

What was the most significant of the transformations brought about by the Abbasids? rise to power?

A) The final defeat of the Byzantine empire
B) The admission of the mawali as full members of the Islamic community
C) The destruction of absolutism within Islamic government
D) The destruction of Sunni influences within Islam

Question 43

The Abbasids moved the political center of their empire to

A) Baghdad.
B) Constantinople.
C) Merv.
D) Damascus.

Question 44

What was the nature of the Abbasid government?

A) The Abbasids abandoned the formality and absolutism of the Umayyads and established an open and representative government.
B) The Abbasids outdid the Umayyads in establishing an absolutist government symbolized by the growing powers of the wazirs and the sinister presence of the executioner.
C) The Abbasid government represented a return to the principles of government in the first days of the Orthodox Caliphate.
D) The Abbasids continued the policies of the Umayyads virtually without change, including the maintenance of an exclusively Arabic elite.

Question 45

What was the nature of the economy of the Abbasid period?

A) It was a period of general prosperity typified by urban growth and the restoration of the Afro-Eurasian trade axis.
B) There was a general crisis in the agricultural economy resulting from the constant warfare of the period.
C) The economic downturn of the era was typified by the breakdown in the trade between the Middle East and China.
D) Although commerce was generally resuscitated during the Abbasid period, artisan production dropped off significantly.

Question 46

Who were the ayan?

A) Abbasid bureaucrats
B) African slaves
C) Free artisans
D) A rural landholding elite

Question 47

What was the status of artisans in Abbasid cities?

A) Handicraft industries were staffed by slave labor exclusively.
B) The number of artisans decreased along with the economic crisis of the Abbasid period.
C) Artisans were free men who owned their own tools and who formed guildlike organizations to negotiate wages.
D) Artisans were able to utilize their guildlike organizations to seize political control of most Abbasid towns.

Question 48

What was the nature of slavery within the Abbasid social system?

A) According to the Qur?an, slavery could not exist in Islam, and the Abbasid freed all former slaves.
B) Slavery was limited to the non-Arab converts to Islam, and died out during the period of the Abbasid empire.
C) Because most unskilled labor was left to the unfree, slaves could be found in both the towns and countryside of the Abbasid empire.
D) Slavery was known in Abbasid cities, but was virtually unknown in the countryside where most labor was performed by a free peasantry.

Question 49

What was the primary cultural contribution of the Muslims during the Abbasid period?

A) The Muslims were able to recover and preserve the works of the ancient philosophers as well as transmit from one civilization to another.
B) The Muslims became extraordinarily adept at portraiture, focusing on depictions of Muhammad and the early Caliphs.
C) Although the material culture of the Abbasid period remained poor, Muslims were able to make some advances in music.
D) Islamic learning was necessarily unique, as they had no access to the ancient traditions of philosophy and science.

Question 50

By the ninth century, what happened to the Abbasid control of the empire?

A) The Abbasids continued to develop absolutism in such a fashion that they controlled a large portion of Eurasia.
B) Non-Arab peoples, particularly the Turks who had converted to Islam, increasingly dominated political life.
C) Successive defeats of the Abbasids by the Byzantine empire led to the collapse of the dynasty and the emergence of a Greek hegemony.
D) Eventually the Persian influence in the Abbasid empire resulted in the removal of the capital to Merv and the rise of a purely Persian dynasty.

Question 51

Describe the social organization of the Arabs prior to the introduction of Islam.

Question 52

Compare and contrast the status of women in Islam during the pre -Islamic period and the Umayyad empire.

Question 53

Why was Islam able to appeal to people of so many different cultures?

Question 54

What was the essential dispute within Islam over the succession of the Prophet?

Question 55

What was the difference between the Abbasid empire and the Umayyad empire?