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The lecture provides an overview of the history and foundational principles of Islam, emphasizing its emergence in the 7th century through the revelations received by the Prophet Muhammad. Key aspects discussed include the Five Pillars of Islam, the significance of the Quran and Hadith, and the unification of the Arabian Peninsula under Muhammad's leadership. The lecture also covers the expansion of Islam through the caliphates, the cultural and intellectual achievements during the Islamic Golden Age, and the challenges faced by the Muslim world, including the Crusades and colonialism. The discussion highlights the enduring impact of these historical events on contemporary Islamic identity.
Transcript
0:08 Islam is the youngest of the world's three great monotheistic
0:11 religions,
0:12 and today it is the second largest religion in the world with more than one and a half billion followers.
0:18 It was promulgated by Muhammad in Arabia in the seventh century.
0:22 The word Islam means surrender in Arabic. In this case, surrender to the one and only God, Allah.
0:29 Muslims follow the five principles of Islam. Shahada to declare one's faith in the one and only God and belief in Muhammad as his messenger,
0:38 Salat to pray five times a day, Zakat to give to those in need, Saum to fast one month per year in Ramadan, and Hajj to make a pilgrimage in Mecca.
0:49 The two major sources of Islam are the Quran, sacred scriptures considered to be the words of Allah revealed orally to his messenger Muhammad through the archangel Gabriel.
1:01 Secondly, the hadith,
1:02 which the majority of Muslims believe to be a record of the words and actions of Muhammad.
1:07 Islam originated when the prophet Muhammad received divine revelations from Allah, namely submission to God, the expectation that there would be a day of last judgment,
1:18 and the importance of caring for the poor and needy.
1:22 Muslims believe Muhammad was the last in a line of prophets, including many mentioned in the Old and New Testament, and that he taught their original and authentic faith.
1:31 Muhammad began to preach these revelations gaining followers but also enemies
1:36 who forced him to flee to Yathrib, modern Medina, where he had allies.
1:41 He built an Islamic community and base there and then led multiple military campaigns, many of them against his original Meccan tribe, Quraysh,
1:50 before he was ultimately able to return to Mecca and conquer it.
1:56 By his death in 06/1932,
1:58 Muhammad had managed to unite most of the Arabian Peninsula, laying the foundation for the subsequent Islamic expansion under a series of successors known as caliphs,
2:09 who would quickly spread Islam through warfare and trade.
2:13 The first four caliphs consisted of Muhammad's relations, and there was some debate about who were officially accepted.
2:20 Sunni Muslims who represent 85 to 90% of Muslims today accept all four caliphs,
2:27 while Shia Muslims only recognize caliph Ali.
2:31 Sunni and Shia
2:32 form the two main denominations of Islam today, although smaller ones also exist.
2:39 Caliph Usman is perhaps best known for leading the production of copies of the Quran based on text that had been gathered separately on different parchment and bones during the lifetime of Muhammad
2:49 and also on a copy of the Quran that had been collated by Abu Bakr.
2:54 Under the Rashidun,
2:55 Umayyad, and then Abbasid caliphates,
2:58 holy wars called jihad were fought to expand Muslim territory into the bordering Persian and Byzantine empires as well as into Egypt and North Africa.
3:07 An increase in trade also helped spread Islam into East Asia, including the Indian Subcontinent,
3:13 China, as well as Indonesia.
3:15 From North Africa, Muslims were invited to invade Spain by the Christian leader Julian who needed help subjugating the Visigoth leader Roderick.
3:24 They conquered the Iberian Peninsula easily due to its fragmented nature and their generous surrender terms such as reduced taxes.
3:33 They established a presence there that would last about eight centuries and produced for some time a golden age of literature,
3:40 learning, culture,
3:41 and peace between Muslims, Christians, and Jews.
3:45 Around the same period in the East, also a five long Islamic golden age started during the reign of Abbasid Caliph Harun al Rashid in Baghdad, which was the largest city in the world.
3:58 Muslim rule from the Iberian Peninsula all the way to the Indian Subcontinent
4:02 would see the gathering and translation of the world's ancient classical knowledge into Arabic,
4:07 as well as the rise of many Islamic polymaths,
4:10 astronomers,
4:11 mathematicians,
4:12 physicians,
4:13 and philosophers.
4:15 In the eleventh century Middle East, the Seljuk Turks also rose to power and conquered vast territories including Jerusalem.
4:24 Their strict control over the holy city was one of the factors that led to the Crusades,
4:29 a series of holy wars between Muslims and Catholics that lasted for almost two hundred years.
4:35 These series of wars eventually ended with Muslim victory in the Middle East.
4:40 Notable leader Saladin led the Muslims during the third crusade.
4:44 He founded the Ayyubid dynasty in Egypt, transforming it into a Sunni political and military power.
4:51 Islam's power was weakened by the thirteenth century due to Mongol invasions.
4:56 The Mongols sacked the Abbasid capital, Baghdad, marking the end of the Islamic golden age. Although Muslims were later able to block their advances at the battle of Ain Jalut.
5:06 Other reasons include Tamerlane's invasion from Central Asia along with a population loss due to the black death.
5:14 Although these destroyed the traditional Islamic powers such as the Ayyubids and Seljuks,
5:19 they also gave way to the rise of Timurid Renaissance,
5:22 the Mali Empire,
5:24 and the Bengal Sultanate,
5:25 which were major economic powers.
5:28 In the December,
5:30 another group of Muslim Turks known as the Ottomans also became very powerful and created the Ottoman Empire.
5:37 They conquered the Orthodox Byzantine Empire and claimed the Muslim caliphate
5:41 as they gained control over the Islamic holy sites of Mecca and Medina.
5:46 The Ottomans ruled large territories for hundreds of years until Turkey was made the republic after World War one.
5:54 An important turning point in the history of Islam was in the sixteenth century as Ismail one of Persia, an enemy of the Ottoman Empire, founded the Safavid dynasty
6:04 and led its conversion from Sunni to Shia Islam to give Iran a cohesive and distinct identity as compared to the Sunni Ottomans.
6:13 In the West, Muslims who had been in Spain for several hundreds of years became less united and were finally expelled from Iberia in 1492
6:22 by rising Christian powers.
6:25 Later in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Islam was substantially weakened by western powers, which colonized Muslim nations for the purpose of trade.
6:34 Over the past century, important events that shaped the Muslim world included the fall of the Ottoman Empire, the creation of the Arab Gulf states, including Saudi Arabia, home to the holiest Muslim cities of Mecca and Medina,
6:49 the partition of British India into India and Muslim majority Pakistan before their independence,
6:55 The establishment of the Jewish state of Israel in The Middle East and the ensuing Arab Israeli conflicts,
7:01 the Islamic revolution of Iran, and the fight of many Muslim nations around the world to regain independence from Western powers.
7:09 Today, some extreme incidents led some to link Islam to terrorism,
7:14 although the faith historically advocates for peace and represents a huge diversity of peoples and cultures.