Deck 10: The Formation of Islamic Civilization, 622-1000

Question 1

In Islam the umma is best defined as

A)own property.
B)hold political office.
C)receive equal inheritance.
D)wear a veil at all times.

Answer 1

own property.

Question 2

The Qur'an states that Abraham was

A)Middle East,north Africa,and Spain.
B)Near East,north Africa,and Italy.
C)Far East,north Africa,and Spain.
D)Middle East,east Africa,and Italy.

Answer 2

Middle East,north Africa,and Spain.

Question 3

Islam can best be described as

A)Moses
B)Abraham
C)Augustine
D)Jesus

Answer 3

Augustine

Question 4

Which of the following is NOT a prophet recognized by the Qur'an as having come before Muhammad?

A)Social justice and obedient worship are demanded of every human.
B)Reject idolatrous worship of false gods.
C)Submit oneself completely to God's will.
D)All of these answers are correct.

Question 5

All of the following are part of pillars of Islam except:

A)successor of Muhammad.
B)holy pilgrim.
C)servant of Allah.
D)none of the answers are correct.

Question 6

Before Muhammad,Arabia was

A)bodily resurrection.
B)hellfire and paradise.
C)baptism.
D)monotheism.

Question 7

In Islam the term caliph means

A)Christian.
B)Jewish.
C)Muslim.
D)pagan.

Question 8

Jihad is considered by some to be one of the pillars of Islam; it is best defined as

A)sacred book.
B)community of faithful.
C)holy war.
D)arrival in paradise.

Question 9

According to the Qur'an,women have the right to

A)hajj (pilgrimage to Mecca).
B)chador (modest clothing).
C)zakat (charity).
D)salat (form of prayer or worship).

Question 10

What is the main message of the Qur'an?

A)incorporated each regional Islamic cultural and religious tradition into one.
B)marked the start of succession struggle between Shiites and Sunni Muslims.
C)transformed Islam into a political as well as religious movement.
D)galvanized diverse,polytheistic and monotheistic Arabs into a new unity-the umma..

Question 11

The Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem is built on a site holy to

A)Mu'awiya and the Abbasid.
B)ulama and the Umayyad.
C)Abbasid and the Umayyad.
D)Mu'awiya and the Umayyad.

Question 12

The Muslim believes in all of the following except:

A)Judaism.
B)Hinduism.
C)Christianity.
D)Zoroastrianism.

Question 13

Around 800 C.E.,the Abbasids and Tang shared all of the following characteristics except:

A)Medina.
B)Khadija.
C)Mecca.
D)Jerusalem.

Question 14

Religious experts who administered law and settled public and private disputes were known as

A)Umayyads.
B)Abbasids.
C)Seleucids.
D)Sufis.

Question 15

Before 600 C.E.,the Arab people were united primarily by

A)already united under a monarch claiming divine ancestry.
B)part of the Byzantine Empire.
C)inhabited by settled farmers and merchants alongside nomadic herdsmen.
D)the most important agricultural region of the Persian Empire.

Question 16

The Muslim rulers who made the office of caliph hereditary thus founding the first dynastic caliphate.

A)Christians only.
B)both Muslims and Christians.
C)Jews only.
D)both Jews and Muslims.

Question 17

The city to which Muslims aspire to make a pilgrimage (hajj)is

A)adherence to the same polytheistic faith.
B)a shared language and poetic idiom.
C)membership in the same centralized empire.
D)All of these answers are correct.

Question 18

The Prophet Muhammad's proclamation of the Qur'an

A)an act of judgment.
B)a just and holy war.
C)a holy pilgrimage.
D)a formal prayer.

Question 19

The faith that had the least influence on Islam was

A)a polytheistic nature religion with little ethical content.
B)a desert religion focused on Muhammad as the son of God.
C)an urban religion that first flourished in an agricultural oasis.
D)None of these answers are correct.

Question 20

As shown in Map 10-1,by 750 C.E.,Islam had spread to the

A)caliphs.
B)imams.
C)sufis.
D)ulama.

Question 21

The Mamluks were

A)a vibrant,cosmopolitan culture
B)political centralization
C)reliance on Syrian Arab forces
D)economic prosperity

Question 22

The early Spanish Islamic state (7561030 C.E.)was controlled by the

A)Constantinople.
B)Alexandria.
C)Baghdad.
D)Mecca.

Question 23

Non-Arab converts to Islam

A)were forced to pay a head tax.
B)had military obligations during a jihad.
C)could not maintain their own legal systems.
D)All of these answers are correct.

Question 24

The major splits that occurred in Islam in the century after Muhammad's death revolved around the issue(s)of

A)never been a single sect in Islam.
B)taken the most inclusive approach to defining membership in the Muslim community of faith.
C)normally been among the more aggressive Islamic sects in supporting jihad.
D)All of these answers are correct.

Question 25

Christian,Jewish,and Zoroastrian minorities under Islamic rule

A)relatively little bloodshed
B)the adjustment of unequal taxation
C)the development of new administrative systems
D)the appointment of capable governors

Question 26

The Abbasid government had contact with which Chinese Dynasty?

A)that were suppressed under the Abbasids.
B)that advanced thanks in part to Greek and Sanskrit works that were translated into Arabic.
C)that were hampered by religious restrictions under Islamic rule.
D)in which most of the founding texts were originally written in Arabic.

Question 27

Those scholars who acted as judges and guardians of Muslim conscience were known as

A)were considered clients and had a protected place in the diwan.
B)were often persecuted with changes in the caliphate.
C)were given full legal and spiritual equality with Arab Muslims.
D)None of these answers are correct.

Question 28

The Kharijites

A)religious leadership of the Islamic state.
B)Shi'ite vision of the true umma.
C)"guided one" who would usher in a messianic age.
D)"judgment day" when the faithful would be rewarded.

Question 29

The Sunni position advocates all of the following except:

A)Orthodox Greeks
B)Egyptians
C)Persians
D)Mamluks

Question 30

In general,the Sunni branch of Islam has

A)the umma is a theocratic entity.
B)the caliph is the absolute temporal and spiritual leader.
C)a person who professes to be a Muslim by supporting Muslim tenets cannot be excluded from the umma automatically by even a mortal sin.
D)the umma is a state under the authority first of the precedent of the Prophet and Qu'ran and second by the consensus of Muslims.

Question 31

The Qur'an recognizes that a woman

A)slave soldiers,primarily of Turkish origin.
B)administrative officials of the "high caliphate."
C)provincial bureaucrats who broke away from the caliphs.
D)religious teachers.

Question 32

The two primary competing dynasties during the seventh and eighth centuries were the

A)Shari's.
B)ulama.
C)umma.
D)diwan.

Question 33

In 945,the amirs were

A)Qin
B)Han
C)Tang
D)Yuan

Question 34

Astronomy and medicine were among the disciplines

A)the suppression of earlier,non-Muslim forms of knowledge.
B)the spread of Indian styles of art and literature.
C)an emphasis on "practical" forms of science over liberal arts.
D)the preservation and expansion of Greek,Roman,and Indian knowledge.

Question 35

Which of the following did not NOT contribute to the permanence of Islamic conquests?

A)espoused a limited egalitarianism among the faithful.
B)were the most radical idealists among Muslim factions.
C)were willing to maintain members in the umma who had committed no more than three major sins.
D)were supporters of Muhammad's son-in-law,Ali.

Question 36

An important difference between Islam and Christianity is that

A)has no right to inherit,own,or manage property.
B)entering a marriage is an object to be bought and sold.
C)earns the dowry from her husband for the benefit of her male relatives.
D)has the right to contract her own marriage.

Question 37

Which of the following was NOT a trait of the "high caliphate" that existed from approximately 700 to 850 C.E.?

A)Abbasids.
B)Umayyads.
C)Shi'ites.
D)Sunnis.

Question 38

The mahdi is best defined as the

A)whether Muhammad was the last prophet or others would come in the future.
B)whether Mecca or Medina was the holiest city in Islam.
C)whether Christians and Jews should be allowed to practice their religions or be forced to convert.
D)what was the nature of the community of faith and who should lead it.

Question 39

The center and capital of the Abbasid Empire in 900 C.E.,as shown in Map 10-2,was

A)tax collectors of the Abbasid government.
B)court diplomats under the Umayyads.
C)Buyid commanders who dominated the caliphate.
D)regional governors.

Question 40

The move of the Islamic capital to Baghdad under the "high caliphate" brought more political influence to which group?

A)Christians and Muslims have distinctly different religious traditions.
B)Islam is inclusive while Christianity is exclusive.
C)Islam is exclusive while Christianity is inclusive.
D)Christianity has a stricter moral code.

Question 41

What are the major divisions in the Islamic world,and how do they offer different interpretations of the Qur'an? How did these various traditions impact different parts of the Islamic world?

Question 42

What was the importance of the umma to Muslim society? How were religious minorities and non-Arab converts treated? How did the change of the Islamic capital to Baghdad affect the empire?

Question 43

The traditional report,or hadith,became the chief source of

A)the enormous size and diversity of regions in the empire
B)weak and incompetent caliphs
C)civil wars and invasions
D)the collapse of trade and commerce in the empire

Question 44

Describe the main reasons for the decline of the Arab Empire.What was the role of the Mamluks in the process of decline? How important was local control to the decline of empire? What were lasting contributions of the Arab Empire?

Question 45

Discuss the importance of Mecca to the development of Arab unity.What role did Medina play? Was Islam a "religion of the desert"?

Question 46

Which of the following did NOT contribute to the fragmentation of the Muslim world after 800 C.E.?

Question 47

Discuss the classical culture of the Abbasid Dynasty.What role did foreign influence play and what was the importance of grammar to the culture? What was the main artistic and architectural achievement of this period?

Question 48

Compare the political and economic development of Islamic civilization through 800 C.E.to comparable civilizations in Europe,China,and India.Which society exhibited the most vitality? The least? What factor or factors do you think best explains this vitality?

Question 49

What is the position of women in Islam,and how does this differ from or resemble the position of women in other religions,such as Christianity,Judaism,Buddhism,and Hinduism?

Question 50

Discuss the different architectural forms in the major religious buildings of the Muslim faith.How do these compare to religious architecture in the Christian and Chinese world during the Middle Ages? What were the distinctive features and functions of these buildings?

Question 51

In general,Muslims in the Umayyad and Abbasid Dynasties

A)Aristotle
B)Euclid
C)Galen
D)St.Augustine

Question 52

Which of the following would have been least likely to be translated and discussed by Muslim scholars in the 8thand 9th centuries C.E.?

A)legal and religious norms.
B)geographic knowledge.
C)population and taxation data.
D)security information on spies and disloyal commanders.

Question 53

How did geography contribute to the economic and political expansion of the early Islamic world? What limitations did geography place on that expansion?

Question 54

Discuss some of the major obstacles to a universal acceptance of the Islamic faith and state in the conquered areas.Why did it take so long for Syria and Egypt to accept the faith?

Question 55

Discuss the role of the ulama in Muslim society.How did this group receive their education? What was their relation to the caliphs? Why were they the new elite in society?

Question 56

What are the main concepts of the doctrine of Islam? How is this faith different from and/or similar to Christianity? How does it resemble or differ from Judaism? What is the importance of other faiths to this movement?

Question 57

In intellectual and cultural life,the early Abbasid Dynasty was marked by

A)had no knowledge of Greek and Roman philosophy.
B)preserved and expanded Greco-Roman philosophy and science.
C)rejected philosophy as incompatible with Islam.
D)borrowed many philosophical ideas from India but not Greece.

Question 58

What were the different kinds of leadership in the Islamic world,and how did Islamic scholars view the relationship between politics,law,and the Qur'an?

Question 59

How were non-Arabs and converts treated in the Islamic world? What impact did Islam have on the lives of citizens in conquered areas?