1 00:00:00,680 --> 00:00:03,859 Hi there, I'm John Green, this is Crash Course World History, and today we're going to talk 2 00:00:03,859 --> 00:00:08,599 about Islam, which like Christianity and Judaism, grew up on the east coast of the Mediterranean. 3 00:00:08,599 --> 00:00:12,919 But unlike Christianity and Judaism, it's not terribly well understood in the West. 4 00:00:12,919 --> 00:00:16,800 For instance, you probably know what this is and what this is. 5 00:00:16,800 --> 00:00:19,399 You probably don't know what that is. 6 00:00:19,399 --> 00:00:20,399 Google it. 7 00:00:20,399 --> 00:00:24,079 Mr. Green, Mr. Green, why do you think people know so little about Islamic history? 8 00:00:24,079 --> 00:00:27,719 Did you just ask an interesting, non-annoying question me from the past? 9 00:00:27,719 --> 00:00:32,140 I think we don't know much about early Islamic history because we don't learn about it. 10 00:00:32,140 --> 00:00:36,420 Because we're taught that our history is the story of Christianity in Europe, when 11 00:00:36,420 --> 00:00:41,759 in fact our history is the story of people on the planet. 12 00:00:41,759 --> 00:00:52,119 So let's try to learn something today. 13 00:00:52,119 --> 00:00:56,859 So in less than 200 years, Islam went from not existing to being the religious and political 14 00:00:56,859 --> 00:01:00,619 organizing principle of one of the largest empires in the world. 15 00:01:00,619 --> 00:01:05,079 And that story begins in the 7th century CE, when the angel Gabriel appeared to Muhammad 16 00:01:05,079 --> 00:01:10,019 a 40-ish guy who made his living as a caravan trader, and told him to begin reciting the 17 00:01:10,019 --> 00:01:14,060 word of God. Initially, this freaked Muhammad out, as, you know, it would, but then his 18 00:01:14,060 --> 00:01:18,200 wife and a couple other people encouraged him, and slowly he came to accept the mantle 19 00:01:18,200 --> 00:01:18,959 of prophet. 20 00:01:18,959 --> 00:01:22,959 A few things to know about the world Islam entered. First, Muhammad's society was intensely 21 00:01:22,959 --> 00:01:28,260 tribal. He was a member of the Quraysh tribe living in Mecca, and tribal ties were extremely 22 00:01:28,260 --> 00:01:32,459 important. Also, at the time, the Arabian Peninsula was like this crazy religious melting 23 00:01:32,459 --> 00:01:37,579 pot, like most tribal Arabs worshipped gods very similar to the Mesopotamian gods you'll 24 00:01:37,579 --> 00:01:41,939 remember from episode 3. And by the time of Muhammad, cult statues of many of those gods 25 00:01:41,939 --> 00:01:47,019 had been collected in his hometown of Mecca in this temple-like structure called the Kaaba. 26 00:01:47,019 --> 00:01:50,739 But Arabia was also home to monotheisms like Christianity and Judaism and even a bit of 27 00:01:50,739 --> 00:01:56,519 Zoroastrianism, so the message that there was only one god wouldn't have been as surprising 28 00:01:56,519 --> 00:02:00,739 to Muhammad as it was, for instance, to Abraham. Also, and this will become very important, 29 00:02:00,739 --> 00:02:04,799 The northern part of Arabia was sandwiched between the Byzantine Empire and the Persian 30 00:02:04,799 --> 00:02:09,379 Sasanian Empire, and you'll remember, those guys were always fighting. 31 00:02:09,379 --> 00:02:14,659 They were like snowboarders and skiers, or like the Westboro Baptist Church and everyone 32 00:02:14,659 --> 00:02:15,659 else. 33 00:02:15,659 --> 00:02:18,199 At its core, Islam is what we call a radical reforming religion. 34 00:02:18,199 --> 00:02:23,080 Just as Jesus and Moses sought to restore Abrahamic monotheism after what they perceived 35 00:02:23,080 --> 00:02:25,439 as straying, so too did Muhammad. 36 00:02:25,439 --> 00:02:29,120 Muslims believe that God sent Muhammad as the final prophet to bring people back to 37 00:02:29,120 --> 00:02:34,939 the one true religion, which involves the worship of and submission to a single and 38 00:02:34,939 --> 00:02:36,300 all-powerful God. 39 00:02:36,300 --> 00:02:40,060 The Qur'an also acknowledges Abraham and Moses and Jesus among others as prophets, 40 00:02:40,060 --> 00:02:42,360 but it's very different from the Hebrew and Christian Bibles. 41 00:02:42,360 --> 00:02:45,439 For one thing, it's much less narrative, but also it's the written record of the 42 00:02:45,439 --> 00:02:48,840 revelations Muhammad received, which means it's not written from the point of view 43 00:02:48,840 --> 00:02:49,840 of people. 44 00:02:49,840 --> 00:02:52,500 It is seen as the actual word of God. 45 00:02:52,500 --> 00:02:55,680 The Qur'an is a really broad-ranging text, but it returns again and again to a couple 46 00:02:55,680 --> 00:02:56,680 themes. 47 00:02:56,680 --> 00:03:02,139 strict monotheism, and the other is the importance of taking care of those less fortunate than 48 00:03:02,139 --> 00:03:04,060 you. The Qur'an says of the good person, 49 00:03:04,060 --> 00:03:08,539 "... spends his substance, however much he himself may cherish it, upon his near of kin, 50 00:03:08,539 --> 00:03:13,520 and the orphans, and the needy, and the wayfarer, and the beggars, and for the freeing of human 51 00:03:13,520 --> 00:03:14,960 beings from bondage." 52 00:03:14,960 --> 00:03:18,699 These revelations also radically increase the rights of women and orphans, which is 53 00:03:18,699 --> 00:03:22,759 one of the reasons that Muhammad's tribal leaders weren't that psyched about them. 54 00:03:22,759 --> 00:03:25,219 To talk more about Islamic faith and practice, let's go to the Thought Bubble. 55 00:03:25,219 --> 00:03:29,740 The five pillars of Islam are the basic acts considered obligatory, at least by Sunni Muslims. 56 00:03:29,740 --> 00:03:32,400 First is the shahada, or the profession of faith. 57 00:03:32,400 --> 00:03:37,120 There is no god but God, and Muhammad is God's prophet, which is sometimes translated as 58 00:03:37,120 --> 00:03:41,159 there is no god but Allah, and Muhammad is Allah's prophet, which tries to make Muslims 59 00:03:41,159 --> 00:03:44,979 sound other and ignores the fact that the Arabic word for God, whether you're Christian 60 00:03:44,979 --> 00:03:47,259 or Jewish or Muslim, is Allah. 61 00:03:47,259 --> 00:03:53,699 Second, salah, or ritual prayer five times a day at dawn, noon, afternoon, sunset, and 62 00:03:53,699 --> 00:03:58,379 late evening, which are obligatory unless you haven't hit puberty, are too sick, or 63 00:03:58,379 --> 00:04:01,199 are menstruating. Keep it PG, Thought Bubble. 64 00:04:01,199 --> 00:04:05,259 Third, Saum, the month-long fast during the month of Ramadan in which Muslims do not eat 65 00:04:05,259 --> 00:04:10,180 or drink or smoke cigarettes during daylight hours. Since Ramadan is a lunar calendar month, 66 00:04:10,180 --> 00:04:14,219 it moves around the seasons, and obviously it's most fun during the winter, when the 67 00:04:14,219 --> 00:04:18,740 days are shorter, and least fun during the summer, when days are both long and hot. 68 00:04:18,740 --> 00:04:23,579 Fourth is Zakat, or almsgiving, in which non-poor Muslims are required to give a percentage 69 00:04:23,579 --> 00:04:28,879 of their income to the poor. And lastly, Hajj, the pilgrimage to Mecca that Muslims must 70 00:04:28,879 --> 00:04:33,000 try to fulfill at least once in their lives, provided they are healthy and have enough 71 00:04:33,000 --> 00:04:34,000 money. 72 00:04:34,000 --> 00:04:37,160 And there's also more to understanding Islam than just knowing the Quran. Like Judaism, 73 00:04:37,160 --> 00:04:41,959 with its Talmud, and Christianity, with its lives of saints and writings of church fathers, 74 00:04:41,959 --> 00:04:46,860 Islam has supplementary sacred texts, chief among which is the Hadith, a collection of 75 00:04:46,860 --> 00:04:49,420 sayings and stories about the Prophet. 76 00:04:49,420 --> 00:04:55,740 Thanks, Thought Bubble. Oh, it's time for the open letter? Magic! 77 00:04:55,740 --> 00:04:57,500 An open letter to the 72 virgins. 78 00:04:57,500 --> 00:05:00,040 Oh, but first, let's check what's in the secret compartment. 79 00:05:00,040 --> 00:05:02,699 Oh, it's Andre the Giant! 80 00:05:02,699 --> 00:05:05,759 Did you know that Andre the Giant died a virgin? 81 00:05:05,759 --> 00:05:06,980 Is a fact that I made up? 82 00:05:06,980 --> 00:05:08,980 Dear 72 virgins, hey there. 83 00:05:08,980 --> 00:05:10,199 It's me, John Green. 84 00:05:10,199 --> 00:05:12,620 Did you know that not all hadiths were created equal? 85 00:05:12,620 --> 00:05:14,879 Some sayings of the prophet are really well sourced. 86 00:05:14,879 --> 00:05:19,420 Like for instance, a good friend or a relative heard the prophet say something, and then 87 00:05:19,420 --> 00:05:20,639 it ended up as a hadith. 88 00:05:20,639 --> 00:05:21,899 But some hadiths are terribly sourced. 89 00:05:21,899 --> 00:05:24,819 Like not to be irreverent, but some of it is like middle school gossip. 90 00:05:24,819 --> 00:05:30,639 Like, Rachel told Rebecca that her sister's brother's friend kissed Justin Bieber on the face. 91 00:05:30,639 --> 00:05:34,160 And the vast majority of Muslims don't treat terribly sourced hadiths as scripture. 92 00:05:34,160 --> 00:05:37,720 And the idea that you go to heaven and get 72 virgins is not in the Quran. 93 00:05:37,720 --> 00:05:39,300 It's in a terribly sourced hadith. 94 00:05:39,300 --> 00:05:45,699 So it is my great regret to inform you, 72 virgins, that in the eyes of almost all Muslims, 95 00:05:45,699 --> 00:05:47,120 you do not exist. 96 00:05:47,120 --> 00:05:48,779 Best wishes, John Green. 97 00:05:48,779 --> 00:05:49,980 One more thing about Islam. 98 00:05:49,980 --> 00:05:53,139 Like Christianity and Judaism, it has a body of law. 99 00:05:53,139 --> 00:05:54,139 You might have heard of it. 100 00:05:54,139 --> 00:05:58,519 called Sharia. Although we tend to think of Sharia as a single set of laws that all Muslims 101 00:05:58,519 --> 00:06:03,240 follow, that's ridiculous. There are numerous competing ideas about Sharia, just as there 102 00:06:03,240 --> 00:06:07,379 are within any legal tradition. So people who embraced this worldview were called Muslims 103 00:06:07,379 --> 00:06:11,939 because they submitted to the will of God, and they became part of the Ummah, or community 104 00:06:11,939 --> 00:06:15,720 of believers. This would be a good moment for an Uma Thurman joke, but sadly, she is 105 00:06:15,720 --> 00:06:20,180 no longer famous. I'm sorry if you're watching this, Uma Thurman. Being part of the Ummah 106 00:06:20,180 --> 00:06:24,899 umma trumped all other ties, including tribal ties, which got Muhammad into some trouble 107 00:06:24,899 --> 00:06:27,500 and brings us, at last, back to history. 108 00:06:27,500 --> 00:06:31,100 So as Muhammad's falling in Mecca grew, the umma aroused the suspicion of the most 109 00:06:31,100 --> 00:06:32,939 powerful tribe in Mecca, the Quraysh. 110 00:06:32,939 --> 00:06:36,379 And it didn't matter that Muhammad himself was born into the Quraysh tribe, because 111 00:06:36,379 --> 00:06:40,680 he wouldn't shut up about how there was only one god, which was really bad news to 112 00:06:40,680 --> 00:06:44,959 the Quraysh tribe, because they managed the pilgrimage trade in Mecca. 113 00:06:44,959 --> 00:06:49,300 And if all those gods were false, it would be a disaster economically. 114 00:06:49,300 --> 00:06:53,180 So come to think of it, in the end, the Meccan pilgrimage business turned out just fine. 115 00:06:53,180 --> 00:06:58,240 So the Quraysh forced Muhammad and his followers out of Mecca in 622 CE, and they headed to 116 00:06:58,240 --> 00:07:00,439 Yathrab, also known as Medina. 117 00:07:00,439 --> 00:07:04,560 This journey, also known as the Hijrah, is so important that it marks year zero in the 118 00:07:04,560 --> 00:07:05,560 Islamic calendar. 119 00:07:05,560 --> 00:07:09,740 In Medina, Muhammad severed the religion's ties to Judaism, turning the focus of prayer 120 00:07:09,740 --> 00:07:12,100 away from Jerusalem to Mecca. 121 00:07:12,100 --> 00:07:16,319 Also in Medina, the Islamic community started to look a lot more like a small empire than 122 00:07:16,319 --> 00:07:17,319 like a church. 123 00:07:17,319 --> 00:07:21,319 Like, Jesus never had a country to run, but Muhammad did almost from the beginning. 124 00:07:21,319 --> 00:07:24,540 And in addition to being an important prophet, he was a good general. 125 00:07:24,540 --> 00:07:27,899 And in 630, the Islamic community took back Mecca. 126 00:07:27,899 --> 00:07:31,879 They destroyed all those idols in the Kaaba, and soon Islam was as powerful a political 127 00:07:31,879 --> 00:07:34,139 force in the region as it was a religious one. 128 00:07:34,139 --> 00:07:37,319 And it's because the political and religious coexisted from the beginning that there's 129 00:07:37,319 --> 00:07:42,199 no separate tradition of civic and religious law like there is in Christianity and Judaism. 130 00:07:42,199 --> 00:07:46,819 So then when Muhammad died in 632 CE, there wasn't a religious vacuum left behind. 131 00:07:46,819 --> 00:07:52,060 Muhammad was the final prophet, the revelation of the Quran would continue to guide the Ummah 132 00:07:52,060 --> 00:07:53,439 throughout their lives. 133 00:07:53,439 --> 00:07:58,800 But the community did need a political leader, a caliph, and the first caliph was Abu Bakr, 134 00:07:58,800 --> 00:08:01,720 Muhammad's father-in-law, who was not without his opponents. 135 00:08:01,720 --> 00:08:05,339 Many people wanted Ali, Muhammad's son-in-law, to lead the community, and although he did 136 00:08:05,339 --> 00:08:10,339 become the fourth caliph, that initial disagreement, to radically oversimplify because we only 137 00:08:10,339 --> 00:08:16,040 have ten minutes, began the divide between the two major sects of Islam, Sunni and Shia. 138 00:08:16,040 --> 00:08:19,920 And even today, Sunni Muslims believe Abu Bakr was rightly elected the first caliph, 139 00:08:19,920 --> 00:08:22,360 and Shia Muslims believe it should have been Ali. 140 00:08:22,360 --> 00:08:27,319 To Sunnis, the first four caliphs, Abu Bakr, Umar, Uthman, and Ali, are known as the rightly 141 00:08:27,319 --> 00:08:32,120 guided caliphs, and many of the conservative movements in the Islamic world today are all 142 00:08:32,120 --> 00:08:38,100 about trying to restore the Islamic world to those glory days, which, like most glory 143 00:08:38,100 --> 00:08:40,600 days, were not unambiguously glorious. 144 00:08:40,600 --> 00:08:44,659 Abu Bakr stabilized the community after Muhammad's death and began the process of recording the 145 00:08:44,659 --> 00:08:48,820 Quran in writing, and started the military campaigns against the Byzantine and Sasanian 146 00:08:48,820 --> 00:08:55,720 empires that, within 116 years, would allow the Islamic empire to go from this to this. 147 00:08:55,720 --> 00:09:00,019 His successor, Umar, was both an uncommonly good general and a brilliant administrator, 148 00:09:00,019 --> 00:09:04,960 but like so many other great men, he proved terrible at avoiding assassination. 149 00:09:04,960 --> 00:09:08,460 Which led to the Caliphate of Uthman, who standardized the Quran and continued both 150 00:09:08,460 --> 00:09:13,679 his predecessor's tradition of conquest and his predecessor's tradition of getting assassinated. 151 00:09:13,679 --> 00:09:17,620 Then Ali finally got his turn as caliph, but his ascension was very controversial and it 152 00:09:17,620 --> 00:09:19,240 ultimately led to a civil war. 153 00:09:19,240 --> 00:09:23,019 Which eventually led to the emergence of Uthman's tribe, the Umayyads, as the dynasty that would 154 00:09:23,019 --> 00:09:26,740 rule over an ever-expanding Islamic empire for more than a hundred years. 155 00:09:26,740 --> 00:09:30,139 It's common to hear that in these early years Islam, quote, spread by the sword. 156 00:09:30,139 --> 00:09:35,159 And that's partly true, unless you are, wait for it, the Mongols. 157 00:09:35,159 --> 00:09:39,259 Actually, as usual, the truth is more complicated. 158 00:09:39,259 --> 00:09:43,220 Many people, including the Mongols, but also including lots of people in Central and East 159 00:09:43,220 --> 00:09:46,720 Asia embraced Islam without any military campaigns. 160 00:09:46,720 --> 00:09:50,100 And in fact, the Quran says that religion must not be an act of compulsion. 161 00:09:50,100 --> 00:09:51,100 But this much is true. 162 00:09:51,100 --> 00:09:55,120 The early Islamic Empire was really good at winning wars. 163 00:09:55,120 --> 00:09:59,820 And situated as they were between two very wealthy empires, the Byzantines and the Sasanians, 164 00:09:59,820 --> 00:10:01,059 there was plenty to fight for. 165 00:10:01,059 --> 00:10:05,519 The first of all were the Sasanians, the last non-Muslim successor to the Persian Empire. 166 00:10:05,519 --> 00:10:09,039 They were relatively easy pickings because they'd been fighting the Byzantines for 167 00:10:09,039 --> 00:10:12,740 like 300 years and they were super tired. 168 00:10:12,740 --> 00:10:16,500 they had recently been struck by plague. Plague, man, I'm telling you, it's like the red 169 00:10:16,500 --> 00:10:22,159 tortoise shell of history. But in those early days they did pry away some valuable territory 170 00:10:22,159 --> 00:10:26,519 like Egypt and the Holy Land and then eventually they got into Spain, where various Muslim 171 00:10:26,519 --> 00:10:30,820 dynasties would entrench themselves until being expelled in 1492. But as good as they 172 00:10:30,820 --> 00:10:35,340 were at making war, it's still tempting to chalk up the Arab success to, you know, 173 00:10:35,340 --> 00:10:39,279 the will of God. And certainly a lot of the people they conquered felt that way. Wars 174 00:10:39,279 --> 00:10:43,860 in this part of the world didn't just pit people against each other, they also pitted 175 00:10:43,860 --> 00:10:48,019 their gods against each other. So while the Islamic Empire didn't require its subjects 176 00:10:48,019 --> 00:10:52,620 to convert to Islam, their stunning successes certainly convinced a lot of people that this 177 00:10:52,620 --> 00:10:59,039 monotheism thing was legit. Once again, John Green proving super hip to the slang of today's 178 00:10:59,039 --> 00:11:03,779 youngins. Also, you paid lower taxes if you converted, and just as taxes on cigarettes 179 00:11:03,779 --> 00:11:08,620 lead to people not wanting to smoke, taxes on worshipping your idols lead to people not 180 00:11:08,620 --> 00:11:10,200 wanting to worship them anymore. 181 00:11:10,200 --> 00:11:14,379 So in a period of time that was, historically speaking, both remarkably recent and remarkably 182 00:11:14,379 --> 00:11:19,299 short, a small group of people from an area of the world with no natural resources managed 183 00:11:19,299 --> 00:11:23,940 to create one of the great empires of the world and also one of its great religions. 184 00:11:23,940 --> 00:11:28,360 And that very fact may be why people of Western European descent remain largely ignorant about 185 00:11:28,360 --> 00:11:29,360 this period. 186 00:11:29,360 --> 00:11:32,899 Not only were the Muslims great conquerors, they spawned an explosion of trade and learning 187 00:11:32,899 --> 00:11:34,659 that lasted hundreds of years. 188 00:11:34,659 --> 00:11:38,120 They saved many of the classic texts that formed the basis of the so-called Western 189 00:11:38,120 --> 00:11:42,159 Canon while Europe was ignoring them, and they paved the way for the Renaissance. 190 00:11:42,159 --> 00:11:45,480 While it's important to remember that much of the world between Spain and the Indus River 191 00:11:45,480 --> 00:11:50,679 wasn't Arabized, most of it was so thoroughly Islamized that these days we can't think 192 00:11:50,679 --> 00:11:54,700 of the world we now call the Middle East without thinking of it as Islamic. 193 00:11:54,700 --> 00:11:58,299 Like perhaps the greatest testimony to Islam's power to organize people's lives and their 194 00:11:58,299 --> 00:12:04,519 communities is that in Egypt, five times a day, millions of people turn away from the pyramids 195 00:12:04,659 --> 00:12:09,639 and toward Mecca. Egypt, birthplace to one of the longest continuous cultures the world 196 00:12:09,639 --> 00:12:13,460 has ever known, is now the largest Arab country in the world. 197 00:12:13,460 --> 00:12:16,980 Next week we'll talk about the Dark Ages. Spoiler alert, they were darkest in the evening. 198 00:12:16,980 --> 00:12:18,779 Thanks for watching, and we'll see you next time. 199 00:12:18,779 --> 00:12:22,659 Crash Course is produced and directed by Stan Miller. Our script supervisor is Danica Johnson. 200 00:12:22,659 --> 00:12:26,379 The show is written by my high school history teacher, Raoul Meyer, and myself, and our 201 00:12:26,379 --> 00:12:28,019 graphics team is ThoughtBubble. 202 00:12:28,019 --> 00:12:30,899 Last week's Phrase of the Week was, They might be giants. If you want to guess this 203 00:12:30,899 --> 00:12:34,580 week's Phrase of the Week or suggest future ones, you can do so in comments, or you can 204 00:12:34,580 --> 00:12:38,259 also ask questions about today's video that our team of historians will endeavor to answer. 205 00:12:38,259 --> 00:12:42,360 Thank you so much for watching, and as we say in my hometown, don't forget to be awesome.