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Damascus
- In 705, it was teh capital of a vast, expanding Muslim Empire
- Great Mosque of Damascus
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Hippodrome
- Where the games and chariot reaces that were the obsession ofthe city's population took place
- also known as "the Circus"
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Justinian
- Known as "the emperor who never slept"
- wife was Theodora
- In 532 checked the power of the Circus factions
- restored for one last moment some of the geographic unity of the old empire
- Justinian code was written and is the foundation for most of Europe's legal system
- left the empire bankrupt
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Theodora
Ambitious wife of Justinian
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Hagia Sophia
- Church of the Holy Wisdom
- one of the largest and most innovative churches ever constructed
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John of Cappadocia
- as spectacular but not as well appreciated as Justinian
- squeezed the empire's population for the taxes to pay for the conquests and reforms
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Tribonian
- Justinian's brilliant jurist
- he revised and organized the existing codes of Roman law into the Justinian Code
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Heraclius
- emperor 610-641
- turned back the tide and crushed the Sassanids
- but it was too late...Islam had emerged in the deserts of Arabia
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Sassanids
- East of the Byzantine Empire
- In 602 Sassanid empire captured Egypt, Palestine and Syria
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Irene
- Ruled as Regent for her son Contantine VI
- then when he came of age had him blinded and depposed of
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Themes
- Byzantine empire devided into 25 provinces - known as themes
- the soldiers were also farmers
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Stragegoi
military commandors that governed the themes
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Orthodox Christianity
the official "right-teaching" faith of Constantinople as opposed to the heterodox peoples on the margins of the Byzantine Empire.
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Cyril
- Orthodox Christian missionary
- sent by Michael III
- from Thessalonica
- brother of Methodius
- created a Slavonic alphabet that was used to translat the Scripture
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Methodius
- Orthodox Christian missionary
- sent by Michael III
- from Thessalonica
- brother of Cyril
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Bulgars
- an amalgam of south Slavic groups under the leadership of a Turkic elite
- agreed to make Christianity the official religion when they needed help against the Serbians
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Icons
religious images used in meditating in worship
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Iconoclasts
Breakers of icons; opponents of the mediating use of icons (religious images) in worship. Most emperors supported this faction in eighth- and early ninth-century Byzantium
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Iconodules
Venrators of icons; the ecclesiastical faction that resisted the iconoclasts. Most of the people and lesser clergy were iconodules
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Muhammad
- united the tribes of the Arabin Peninsula and propelled them on an unprecedented mission of conquest
- father of Islam
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Islam
- means "submission to the will of God"
- prophet Muhammad
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Bedouins
- nomadic tribes that roamed the peninsula in search of pasturage for their flocks
- desert dwellers
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Harams
- sanctuary which often borders between tribal areas
- set up as a neutral ground with no violence
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Quraysh
- became the leading commercial organization in norther Arabia
- established Mecca as a haram
- the tribe of Muhammad
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Qusayy
- Muhammad was a descendent
- established Mecca as a haram
- muslim holy man
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Mecca
- established as a haram
- grew into an important center
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The Qur'an
- Koran
- the exact and complete revelation of God
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Hijra
In early Islam, the journey undertaken by Muhammad from Mecca to Medina on 622 in order to govern Medina and calm its internal political dissension
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Umma
The community of all believers in the Islamic faith. Initially, it was both a political and religious supertribe of Arabs
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Jihads
holy wars waged by Muslims against their religious enemies
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Caliph
The successors of Muhammad who served as political and religious leaders of the Islamic world
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Abu Bakr
- the successor of the prophet Muhammad
- launched a war of reconversion to convert the followers of Muhammad that fell away after his death
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Khalid ibn al-Walid
- the greatest of the early Islamic general
- Abu Bakr's general, Muslim expansion covered all of Arabia
- defeated tribe after tribe and brought them back into the Umma
- used the desert to hide after attacking
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Haram al-Sharif
Dome of the Rock
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'Umar
- under his command, Islam conquered Iran, Iraq, Syria and Egypt
- divided the spoils of war between two groups: the earliest followers of the Prophet and the conquerors themselves
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'Uthman
- successor of 'Umar
- member of the Umayyad clan of Mecca
- attempted to consolidate control over Islam by the Quraysh elite and began reducing the privilages of the early converts
- was murdered while reading the Koran
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'Ali
- 4th Caliph
- son-in-law and nephew of Muhammad
- was suspected in the murder of 'Uthman
- moved the caliphate from Arabia to Iraq
- stressed equality among all believers
- murdered by supporters of the Umayyad
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Shi'ites
Muslims who follow the tradition that legitimate leadership of Islam can only come through the descendents of 'Ali, whom they regard as the last orthodox caliph
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Umayyad
- established at Damascus a caliphate that lasted a century
- ruled as secular leaders
- attempted to unite the Islamic Empire through an appeal of Arab unity
- they extended the Islamic Empire to its farthest reaches
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Tariq ibn Ziyad
- Islamic general
- crossed the Strait of Gibralter (Tariq's mountain)
- conquered the entire penisula
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'Abbasid
- followers under the black banners of the descendants of Muhammad's paternal uncle 'Abbas
- overthrew the Umayyads
- attempted to govern according to religious principles
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Sunnis
The majority tradition of Islam that accepts that political succession should be based on consensus, the existing political order, and a leader's merit.
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'Ubayd Allah the Fatimid
- Shi'ite
- launched revolts against the Sunnis
- supported by North African Berbers
- declared himself caliph
- established Cairo as the capital of the caliphate
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Omar Khayyam
- Muslim mathmetician
- developed mathematical concepts not surpassed until the 19th century
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Moses Maimonides
- Jewish physician
- wrote texts in Arabic and Hebrew on Jewish law
- wrote the Guide to the Perplexed
- attempted to reconcile Aristotlian and Neoplatonic philosophy to Scripture
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Emir
local military commanders who took control of provincial administration in the Islamic world at the expense of the caliphs by the 10th century
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Robert Guiscard
Norman commander conquered Byzantine Bari and southern Italy
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Manzikert
- the place that Emperor Romanus IV was defeated by the Seljuk Turks
- this defeat sealed the fate of teh empire
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The Crusades
Western Christians led expeditions
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Chingis Khan
- Mongol prince
- known as Temujin or Genghis Khan
- Universal Ruler
- led his conquering army into Persia from central Asia
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The Ottoman Empire
- after the Mongol empire they began to expand at the expense of both the byzantine and the Mongol-Seljuk empires
- Conquered Constantinople
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