The Islamic 'middle Ages': Law, Science, Religion, Empire, Mysticism

The Islamic 'Middle Ages': Law, Science, Religion, Empire, Mysticism

Below are two essays on classical, or 'medieval' Islam.

For essay 1, do NOT read the text in YELLOW (you can but it is optional). And do NOT answer the questions in YELLOW, only questions 6-8.

For essay 2, read the whole text and answer ALL the questions

ESSAY 1

Summary of intellectual trends in early Islam. (Questions at the end)

        Islam took about 150 years to solidify into a new ‘orthodox’ system of belief. During that time it absorbed different trends in the Middle Eastern and Central Asian areas that its adherents came to rule, including Christian, Jewish, Greek, Zoroastrian and even Buddhist elements. For the first 80 years or so, the Arab Muslims remained close to their desert roots, and to the basic Qur’anic revelation. But then converts, first among the Persians, began to outnumber native Arab Muslims and they brought with them new ways of philosophy, law, administration, dress, theology, and so on. Politically, the tight Medinan and Meccan communities of Muslims that had grown up round the Prophet were now replaced by an imperial system: first there is the Umayyad empire based in Damascus (661-750) and then there is the Abassid empire, based in Baghdad (750-850). Thus mainstream orthodox Sunni (traditional) Islam came to be associated with an imperial system, headed by the Caliph, which differed little from the Byzantine and former Persian empires that early Muslims had seen as being degenerate religiously and politically.

The only Muslims who retained a critical stance towards empire were the Shi’ites and the Kharijites. The Shi’ites believed that Muhammad’s cousin, Ali, should have become leader of the community. Islam would then have been led by truly religious figures, imams, rather than worldly political figures and it would not have sunk into compromise. The Kharijites were purists of a different sort: they were literalists regarding the Qur’an’s interpretation and radical democrats: for them there should be a Caliph, a leader of Islam: but that Caliph must be chosen due to his piety, not his blood relation to the Prophet (as the Shi’ites believed), nor for his secular skills in conquest and administration (the Umayyad reality). The Kharijites are sometimes compared to modern day Islamic radicals in that they believed that a person who did not exactly observed the Islamic laws was not a Muslim, and was thus a kafir (heretic) who should be fought against and killed.

In a sense, then, mainstream Islam after Muhammad was a compromise between Shi’ites and Kharijites. Like other religious traditions (Buddhism, Christianity), it was the compromise position that won the most followers, as most people are not religious purists. In Sunni Islam, therefore, serious Islamic scholarship and study began to be practiced by a distinct clerical class, the ulema (scholars; singular: alim), while secular rule was done by the Caliph and his court. The Shi’ites were attacked first by the Umayyads and then (after initial support) by the Abassids. Ali, Hussein, and Hassan, the Prophet’s cousin and grandchildren, were killed by Sunni forces in battle; after that Shi’ites began to conceive of the perfect Islamic realm as something more utopian, more in their imaginations: this world is bloody and unjust; the true order has been crushed by violent force; the real leaders (the descendants of Muhammad) rule only in heaven; one day they will return and bring justice to earth; but meanwhile, the true Muslim community is more spiritual, it derives its sustenance from its religious leaders (imams, ayatollahs = men who are signs of God), and as for the caliphal political order here on earth: well, one must accept it, but one can never say that it is God’s true will for what Islam on earth must look like.