What kind of Muslims were in Central Asia before the Soviet Union? Were they integrated in the Muslim world or were they on the sidelines of the mainstream events? How much did they contribute to Muslim heritage? How hard was it for the soviet houses of culture to influence the Muslims of Central Asia? This paper attempts to explore these questions and these aspects of the history of Central Asia.
I begin by very briefly going over the history of Islamic expansion into Central Asia. The expansion in my view can be separated into two periods, the pre-Abbasid period and the Abbasid and post-Abbasid period. Pre-Abbasid period is the period before the Abbasid Empire took hold of expansion in Asia, and it can be characterized by fluctuation. Fluctuation in terms of which lands the Muslims had expanded into; many times the Muslims will defeat an army, the defeated armies regroup attack the Muslims and so on. The Post-Abbasid Empire period is characterized by stability and fruitfulness; the period after which turmoil had settled in the area and the people and land got a chance to flourish under the ruling of Islam. And while the beginnings of these effects does start in the Umayyad Empire before, the full results of Islam’s rule over Central Asia can be most clearly seen during the Abbasid era.
Expansion into Central Asia begins as early as the year 637 during the time of the Muslim Caliph Omar Ibn Al-Khattab. At the time, the Muslim army leader Al-Ahnaf Ibn Qays (1) in the battles with the Persian empire had pushed the last king of the Sasanian Empire Yazdegerd III all the way back to Amu River near Balkh at the Battle of Oxus River (4). The Amu River is in todays’ Turkmenistan and so is in the western side of Central Asia. The expans...
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Part One, “The Formation of Eurasian States” introduces the three major powers in central Eurasia, China, Russia, and the Zunghar State. Perdue describes central Eurasia as an “unbounded” land stretching from “the Ukrainian steppes in the west to the shores of the Pacific in the east, from the southern edge of the Siberian forests to the Tibetan plateau” populated by nomadic tribes who had no clearly defined national boundaries . Historical sources concerning Central Asia people in Central Eurasia are scares due to the lack of writing ability in the vast majority of the nomadic population. Writers from the “civilized” world such as China described these people as exclusively nomadic and “universally greedy, primitive, and poor” . Despite the lack of historical records in the area, the area has historically played an important role in linking the eastern civilizations to the western civilizations, which played a major part in global trade up until the sixteenth century . Although the nomads of the steppes in Central Eurasia has long been accused of constant raiding of “civilized” settlements such as in north western parts of China, Sechin Jagchid argues that peace was possible if the nomad’s needs were satisfied by trade, so that the they did not have to take supplies by force in order...
Unlike most “victimized” cultures of Western European domination, the Ottoman Empire was considerably successful and powerful for many years, particularly in the sixteenth and early seventeenth century under the rule of Sulayman the Magnificent (Haberman, 132). By 1520, the Ottoman Empire had secured much of the Arab Middle East, Belgrade and most of Hungary (Haberman, 132...
14?Narli, Nilufer. ?The Rise of the Islamist Movement in Turkey.? Middle East Review of International
Spielvogel, Jackson J. "The Muslim Empires: The Ottoman Empire.” Glencoe World History. New York, NY: Glencoe/McGraw-Hill, 2005. p.484-489. Print.
Hilāl, ʻAlī Al-Dīn. Islamic Resurgence in the Arab World. New York, NY: Praeger, 1982. Print.
Burns, Thomas J. "Islam." Religion and Society. OU Campus' Dale Hall, Norman. 14 Apr. 2014. Lecture.
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For hundreds of years before European intervention, the Ottoman Empire had controlled or annexed most of the Arabic people. However; few states did exist, mostly on the Saudi Arabian peninsula, they possessed minimal forms of government and rule, existing in small tribal states. Despite the immense territorial possessions of the Ottoman Empire, it began to decline with a series of military defeats beginning in the 16th century. Most of their fleet was wiped with a loss of 210 ships and 30,000 men killed1, and the event is often cited by Historians as the ‘end of Turkish supremacy in the Mediterranean’2, and the turning point of Ottoman conquest and rule. It wasn’t until the end of the 19th century that the Ottoman Empire became the ‘sick man’ of Europe. The dynasty had long suffered from corruption, inflation, and its territorial possessions began to reject Ottoman rule. One area where this is most relevant is in the Arabic peninsula. Following nationalist trends in Europe, and especially the Ottoman Empire, Arab nationalism grew in the beginning of the 20th century. The ideology believed ‘that nations from Morocco to the Arabian Peninsula are united by their common linguistic, cultural and historical heritage.’3 The growing anti-Ottoman rule sentiment grew,
The Middle Eastern country of Afghanistan has been the center of a long history of heartless violence and political strife for quite sometime now. Russia’s interest in taking over the country and converting it into another member of it’s Communist entity was one very trying obstacle that Afghanistan has had...
Hosseini, D. (2005, December 11). The Effects of the Mongol Empire on Russia. In School of Russian and Asian Studies. Retrieved December 12, 2013
From the 18th century through the beginning of the 19th century, European influence was a significant force in various aspects of the Ottoman Empire, Egypt, and Iran. Although the reforms, coined primarily by Gelvin as “defensive developmentalism,” were initially intended to centralize governmental control and strengthen the military, the actual effects were much broader. Based on varying pre-existing conditions and unique approaches to governorship, this process of modernization affected each region differently. This essay will explore the manners in which European influence shaped each territory, the primary areas of civilization, politics and culture that experienced reform, and the degree to which that influence was significant, or in the case of Iran, insignificant.
The Ottoman Empire had humble roots. Beginning as an Ottoman state, it progressively rose to power to become an empire. As a state, the Ottoman state started as a small state in current-day western Turkey. Based on Muslim beliefs and rule, the Ottoman State began to dissolve surrounding Muslim states, which were absorbed into the future empire. This move thereby ended all the other Turkish dynasties. The Ottoman Empire was marked as one of the largest, longest lasting empires. The Ottoman Empire lasted from the late 13th century to 1923. Throughout it’s time, the Ottoman Empire was remarked as highly successful and progressive. But like all empires, the Ottoman Empire had to make its end. The Ottoman Empire, like all dynasties, went through its rise, peak, and falling periods. This essay assesses each period in the Ottoman Empire's history.
In 1250 the Mamluk rebellion overthrew the Ayyubid house for control of Egypt and named Aybeg, one of the Mamluk regimental leaders, as Sultan. The Mamluks, being a military slave society, were able to defend Syria against the Mongols in 1260 and also subsume the remaining Syria principalities and expel the Crusaders by 1291.1 The unity between Egypy and Syria that the Mamluks were able to achieve was reason that the Mamluk state was the largest Islamic states between the time of the Abbasids and the Ottoman empire.2 Moreover, t...
In this paper I will discuss the relationship between the Byzantine Empire and the Islamic civilization. I will do this by giving you a brief history of both the Byzantine Empire and the Islamic Caliph. Then I show you how the two cultures developed and influenced one another throughout their history. Let’s start with the Byzantine Empire.
Islamic nation. As examples given earlier about modernization which includes nations such as Turkey and on the other side of the spectrum the practice of Islamic Shariah. As a final note, my main objective from this book review is to see Islam from the eye of Muslims and Non-Muslims alike.