Page 208 - Encyclopedia Of World History Vol III

islam 1027

I worry that, especially as the Millennium edges nearer, pseudo-science and
superstition will seem year by year more tempting, the siren song of
unreason more sonorous and attractive. • Carl Sagan (1934 – 1996)

nis believed that the historic caliphate was Islamically tional paths became an increasingly important part of
legitimate, whereas the Shiites insisted that the only Islamic societies.The devotional paths emerged as broth-
legitimate ruler would be the divinely designated imam erhood organizations that were instrumental in the
(an Islamic leader) who would be a descendant of Islamization of societies in central and southeastern Asia
Muhammad. Most Shiites are called “Ithna Ashari” or and sub-Saharan Africa.
“Twelvers” because they believe that the twelfth imam in
the series was taken into divine seclusion and will return Expanding Community
at some future time to establish God’s rule. and the Great Sultans
The ulama during Abbasid times developed a frame- The Islamic world virtually doubled in size between the
work of legal concepts and precedents that provides the tenth and the eighteenth centuries. Great trade networks
foundation for the legal and normative structures of the brought Islamic merchants to most regions of the East-
sharia (Islamic law). No single system of canon law de- ern Hemisphere. Islamic scholars and Sufi teachers fol-
veloped. Instead, among the Sunni majority, four schools lowed, and dynamically growing communities of believ-
of legal thought, each identified with a major early scholar ers developed as interactions with local people set in
—Hanafi (Abu Hanifa, d. 767), Maliki (Malik ibn Anas, motion activities that resulted in the gradual Islamization
d. 796), Shafi’i (Muhammad Shafi’i, d. 819), and Hanbali of societies.
(Ahmad ibn Hanbal, d. 855)—were accepted as author- By the sixteenth century the great central states of the
itative. Among the Shiites most recognized the legal Islamic world represented a commanding dynamism. In
thought of Jafar al-Sadiq (d. 765). In these schools the the eastern Mediterranean the Ottoman empire began dur-
fundamental sources of the sharia were agreed to be the ing the thirteenth century in the Aegean area, conquered
Quran and the traditions or Sunnah of Muhammad. Dif- Constantinople (modern Istanbul,Turkey) in 1453, and,
ferences arose regarding analogical reasoning and con- by the eighteenth century, controlled much of the Balkan
sensus of the community. Use of independent informed Peninsula, the Arab world, and North Africa. In southern
judgment in analysis was called “ijtihad.” In later cen- Asia the smaller Islamic sultanates of medieval times
turies Sunnis limited its scope more than did Shiites. were replaced by the Mughal empire, which dominated
The content of this legal structure emphasized the uni- virtually all of the Indian subcontinent by the seventeenth
versality of law based on God’s revelation and the equal- century. In western Africa a series of increasingly Islam-
ity of all believers. It was not strictly speaking a code of ized states beginning with medieval Ghana and Mali and
law; it was rather a framework for a just and virtuous ending during the sixteenth century with the Songhai
society. The sharia defined both the duties to God and empire established Islam as a major historic force in the
social responsibilities. It covered commercial practices, region. Similar developments took place in southeastern
family life, and criminal behavior. This vision of society and central Asia.
did not depend upon a particular state structure and could A dramatic change occurred in the Persian-Iranian
be presented by scholars rather than rulers and soldiers. heartland. Iran had long been an important part of the
The faith of the majority of the population was also Sunni world, with some Shia minority groups. However,
shaped by popular preachers and teachers whose devo- around 1500 a militant popular religious group called
tional life was an inspiration.The development of special the “Safavids” conquered much of modern-day Iran and
devotional paths or tariqahs is associated with what beyond. During the next century the Safavid rulers
came to be called “Sufism,” the mystical piety of early declared Ithna Ashari Shiism to be the religion of the
inspirational teachers. By the eleventh and twelfth cen- state, and most Iranians converted. Shiite scholars came
turies CE social organizations associated with these devo- to the Safavid empire, especially from the Arab world,