Islam

                          Islam is monotheistic religion and it follows the teaching of the prophet Muhammad, born in
Mecca, Saudi Arabia, in 570 C.E. Muhammad is seen only as a prophet, not as a divine being, and he is believed
to be the messenger of Allah (God), who is divine. The followers of Islam, whose U.S. population is projected to
double in the next twenty years (Pew Research Forum 2011), are called Muslims.

                          Islam means “peace” and “submission.” The sacred text for Muslims is the Qur’an (or Koran). As
with Christianity’s Old Testament, many of the Qur’an stories are shared with the Jewish faith. Divisions exist
within Islam, but all Muslims are guided by five beliefs or practices, often called “pillars”: 1) Allah is the only god,
and Muhammad is his prophet, 2) daily prayer, 3) helping those in poverty, 4) fasting as a spiritual practice, and
5) pilgrimage to the holy center of Mecca.

The Islamic Empire and British power in India

  Muhammad was born in or around the year 570 CE to the Banu Hashim clan of the Quraysh tribe, one of
Mecca ‘s prominent families.
 Muhammad was orphaned at an early age and brought up under the care of his paternal uncle Abu Talib.
 Muhammad worked mostly as a merchant, as well as a shepherd, and married Khadijah, a 40-year-old
widow, in 595 CE when he was twenty-five.
 In 605 CE, Muhammad honored all the Meccan clan leaders and set the Black Stone back into the correct
spot in the Ka’aba.
  Muhammad first received revelations in 609 CE in a cave on Mount Hira, near Mecca.
 Muslims regard the Quran as the most important miracle of Muhammad, the proof of his prophethood,
and the culmination of a series of divine messages revealed by the angel Gabriel from 609–632 CE.
  The key themes of the early Quranic verses included the responsibility of man towards his creator; the
resurrection of the dead, God’s final judgment followed by vivid descriptions of the tortures in Hell and
pleasures in Paradise; and the signs of God in all aspects of life. Religious duties included belief in God,
asking for forgiveness of sins, offering frequent prayers, assisting others particularly those in need,
rejecting cheating and the love of wealth, being chaste, and not killing newborn girls.
 Muhammad’s immediate family were the first to believe he was a prophet, followed by three main groups
of early converts to Islam: younger brothers and sons of great merchants, people who had fallen out of the
first rank in their tribe or failed to attain it, and unprotected foreigners.
 Muslims believe the Quran to be both the unaltered and the final revelation of God. Religious concepts and
practices include the five pillars of Islam, which are obligatory acts of worship, and following Islamic law,
which touches on virtually every aspect of life and society, from banking and welfare to the status of
women and the environment.

 As Islam spread in Mecca, the ruling tribes began to oppose Muhammad ‘s preaching and his
condemnation of idolatry.
  The Quraysh tribe controlled the Kaaba and drew their religious and political power  from its polytheistic
shrines, so they began to persecute the Muslims and many of Muhammad’s followers became martyrs.
 When Muhammad’s wife Khadijah and uncle Abu Talib both died in 619 CE, Abu Lahab assumed leadership
of the Banu Hashim clan and withdrew the clan’s protection from Muhammad.
 In 622 CE, Muhammad and his followers migrated to Yathrib in the Hijra to escape persecution, renaming
the city Medina in honor of the prophet.
 Among the first things Muhammad did to ease the longstanding grievances among the tribes of Medina
was draft a document known as the Constitution of Medina.
  Muhammad created the first Islamic state when he wrote the Constitution of Medina, a formal agreement
between Muhammad and all of the significant tribes and families of Medina, including Muslims, Jews,
Christians, and pagans.
 The Battle of Badr was a key battle in the early days of Islam and a turning point in Muhammad’s struggle
with his opponents among the Quraysh in Mecca.
 The Battle of Uḥud in 625 CE was the second military encounter between the Meccans and the Muslims,
but the Muslims suffered defeat and withdrew.
 After eight years of fighting with the Meccan tribes, Muhammad gathered an army of 10,000 followers and
conquered the city of Mecca, destroying the pagan idols in the Kaaba.
 By the time of Muhammad’s unexpected death in 632 CE, he had united Arabia into a single Muslim
religious polity.
 After Muhammad ‘s death in 632 CE, his friend Abu Bakr was named caliph and ruler of the Islamic
community, or Ummah.
 Sunni Muslims believe that Abu Bakr was the proper successor, while Shi’a Muslims believe that Ali should
have succeed Muhammad as caliph.
 After Muhammad’s death and the rebellion of several tribes, Abu Bakr initiated several military
campaigns to bring Arabia under Islam and into the caliphate.
 The Rashidun Caliphate (632–661) was led by Abu Bakr, then by Umar ibn Khattab as the second caliph,
Uthman Ibn Affan as the third caliph, and Ali as the fourth caliph.
 Muslim armies conquered most of Arabia by 633, followed by north Africa, Mesopotamia, and Persia,
significantly shaping the history of the world through the spread of Islam.
 The Umayyad Caliphate, which emerged after the Rashidun Caliphate collapsed, was characterized by
hereditary elections and territory expansion.
 The Umayyad Caliphate became one of the largest unitary states in history and one of the few states to
ever extend direct rule over three continents.
  When the Abbasid dynasty revolted against the Umayyads and killed many of their ruling family
members, a few Umayyads escaped to the Iberian peninsula and founded the Cordoba Caliphate,
characterized by peaceful diplomacy, religious tolerance, and cultural flourishing.
 The expansion of the Arab Empire in the years following the Prophet Muhammad ‘s death led to the
creation of caliphates, who occupied a vast geographical area and sought converts to Islamic faith.
 The people of the Islamic world created numerous sophisticated centers of culture and science with
far-reaching mercantile networks, travelers, scientists, hunters, mathematicians, doctors, and
philosophers.
 Historians distinguish between two separate strands of converts of the time. One is animists and
polytheists of tribal societies of the Arabian Peninsula and the Fertile crescent; the other is the
monotheistic populations of the Middle Eastern agrarian and urbanized societies.
  The Arab conquerors generally respected the traditional middle-Eastern pattern of religious pluralism
with regard to the conquered populations, respecting the practice of other faiths in Arab territory,
although widespread conversions to Islam came about as a result of the breakdown of historically
religiously organized societies.
 The Abbasids overthrew the Umayyad dynasty in 750 CE, supporting the mawali, or non-Arab Muslims,
by moving the capital to Baghdad in 762 CE.
 The Persian bureaucracy slowly replaced the old Arab aristocracy as the Abbasids established the new
positions of vizier and emir to delegate their central authority.
 The Abbasids maintained an unbroken line of caliphs for over three centuries, consolidating Islamic
rule and cultivating great intellectual and cultural developments in the Middle East in the Golden Age
of Islam.
 The Fatimid dynasty broke from the Abbasids in 909 and created separate line of caliphs in Morocco,
Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, and Palestine until 1171 CE.
  Abbasid control eventually disintegrated, and the edges of the empire declared local autonomy.
 Though lacking in political power, the dynasty continued to claim authority in religious matters until
after the Ottoman conquest of Egypt in 1517.
 The expansion of the Arab Empire in the years following the Prophet Muhammad’s death led to the
creation of caliphates, who occupied a vast geographical area and sought converts to Islamic faith.
 The people of the Islamic world created numerous sophisticated centers of culture and science with
far-reaching mercantile networks, travelers, scientists, hunters, mathematicians, doctors, and
philosophers.
 Historians distinguish between two separate strands of converts of the time. One is animists and
polytheists of tribal societies of the Arabian Peninsula and the Fertile crescent; the other is the
monotheistic populations of the Middle Eastern agrarian and urbanized societies.
 The Arab conquerors generally respected the traditional middle-Eastern pattern of religious pluralism
with regard to the conquered populations, respecting the practice of other faiths in Arab territory,
although widespread conversions to Islam came about as a result of the breakdown of historically
religiously organized societies.
 The Islamic Golden Age started with the rise of Islam and establishment of the first Islamic state in 622.
 The introduction of paper in the 10th century enabled Islamic scholars to easily write manuscripts;
Arab scholars also saved classic works of antiquity by translating them into various languages.
 The Arabs assimilated the scientific knowledge of the civilizations they had overrun, including the
ancient Greek, Roman, Persian, Chinese, Indian, Egyptian, and Phoenician civilizations.
 Scientists advanced the fields of algebra, calculus, geometry, chemistry, biology, medicine, and
astronomy.
 Many forms of art flourished during the Islamic Golden Age, including ceramics, metalwork, textiles,
illuminated manuscripts, woodwork, and calligraphy.

India under British Rule and Western Powers in East Asia

  After 1588, London merchants presented a petition to Queen Elizabeth I for permission to sail to the
Indian Ocean. Permission was granted to several ships, but in 1600 a group of merchants known as the
 Adventurers succeeded at gaining a Royal Charter under the name Governor and Company of Merchants
of London trading with the East Indies. For 15 years, the charter awarded the newly formed company a
monopoly on trade with all countries east of the Cape of Good Hope and west of the Straits of Magellan.
 English traders frequently engaged in hostilities with their Dutch and Portuguese counterparts in the
Indian Ocean. The Company decided to gain a territorial foothold in mainland India with official sanction
from both Britain and the Mughal Empire. The requested diplomatic mission launched by James I in 1612
arranged for a commercial treaty that would give the Company exclusive rights to reside and establish
factories in Surat and other areas. While Portuguese and Spanish influences in the region were soon
eliminated, competition against the Dutch resulted in the Anglo-Dutch Wars of the 17th and 18th centuries.
  In an act aimed at strengthening the power of the EIC, King Charles II granted the EIC (in a series of five
acts around 1670) the rights to autonomously acquire territory, mint money, command fortresses and
troops and form alliances, make war and peace, and exercise both civil and criminal jurisdiction over the
acquired areas. These decisions would eventually turn the EIC from a trading company into de facto  an
administrative agent with wide powers granted by the British government.
 In 1698, a new “parallel” EIC was established. The two companies wrestled with each other for some
time but it quickly became evident that in practice, the original company faced scarcely any
measurable competition. The companies merged in 1708 by a tripartite indenture involving both
companies and the state. With the advent of the Industrial Revolution, the EIC became the single
largest player on the British global market. With the backing of its own private army, it was able to
assert its interests in new regions in India without further obstacles from other colonial powers.
  In the hundred years from the Battle of Plassey in 1757 to the Indian Rebellion of 1857, the EIC began
to function more as an administrator and less as a trading concern. The proliferation of the Company’s
power chiefly took two forms: the outright annexation of Indian states and subsequent direct
governance of the underlying regions, or asserting powe  through treaties in which Indian rulers
acknowledged the Company’s hegemony in return for limited internal autonomy.
  In the aftermath of the Indian Rebellion of 1857, under the provisions of the Government of India Act
1858, the British government nationalized the EIC. The Crown took over its Indian possessions, its
administrative powers and machinery, and its armed forces. The EIC was officially dissolved in 1858
and the rebellion also led the British to reorganize the army, the financial system, and the
administration in India. The country was thereafter directly governed by the Crown as the new British
Raj.
 The mission civilisatrice, a French term that translates literally into English as civilising mission, is a
rationale for intervention or colonization, purporting to contribute to the spread of civilization and
used mostly in relation to the colonization and Westernization of indigenous peoples in the 19th and
20th centuries. Its advocates postulated a duty of Europeans to help “backwards” peoples “civilize.”
 In India, the British ” civilising mission ” focused largely on educational reforms designed to speed up
modernization and reduce administrative charges. Colonial authorities fervently debated the question
of the best policy. The orientalists believed that education should happen in Indian languages while the
utilitarians (also called anglicists) strongly believed that traditional India had nothing to teach regarding
modern skills and the best education would happen in English.
 One of the most influential reformers was Thomas Babington Macaulay, who in 1835 authored “Minute
on Indian Education.” In it, he urged the Governor-General to reform secondaryeducation on utilitarian
lines to deliver “useful learning,” which to Macaulay was synonymous with Western culture. He argued
 that Sanskrit and Persian were no more accessible than English to the speakers of the Indian
vernacular languages and existing Sanskrit and Persian texts were of little use for “useful learning.”
  Macaulay’s text largely coincided with Governor-General William Bentinck’s views and Bentinck’s
English Education Act 1835 closely matched Macaulay’s recommendations. Under Macaulay, thousands
of elementary and secondary schools were opened, typically with all-male student bodies. However,
Macaulay’s views enjoyed little support in London and subsequent Governors-General took a more
conciliatory approach to existing Indian education.
 Missionaries opened their own schools that taught Christianity and the 3-Rs (reading, writing, and
arithmetic). Universities in Calcutta, Bombay, and Madras were established in 1857. The government
opened 186 universities and colleges of higher education by 1911. All these benefits, however, went to
the Indian elites and middle classes, who were expected to serve as loyal supporters of the British rule
in India.
 The “civilising mission” rhetoric continued, but soon became an alibi for British misrule and racism
without the pretense that Indian progress was ever a goal. Those who advocated actual reforms
became less influential. The British assumed Indians had to be ruled by heavy hand, with democratic
opportunities postponed indefinitely.
 The Indian Rebellion of 1857 resulted from an accumulation of factors over time rather than any single
event. In the military, sepoys had a number of grievances, including losing their perquisites as landed
gentry and the anticipation of increased land-revenue payments that the 1856 annexation of
Oudh might bring about; being convinced that the Company was masterminding mass conversions of
Hindus and Muslims to Christianity; changes in the terms of professional service; and the issue of
promotions based on seniority.
 The final spark was provided by the ammunition for the new Enfield P-53 rifle. To load the rifle, sepoys
had to bite the cartridge open to release the powder, but the grease used on these cartridges was
rumored to include tallow derived from beef, offensive to Hindus, and pork, offensive to Muslims.
While the Company was quick to reverse the effects of the policy to quell the unrest, this convinced
many sepoys that the rumors were true and their fears were justified.
 Civilians developed their own grievances against the Company. The nobility felt it interfered with a
traditional system of inheritance through the Doctrine of Lapse. Rural landlords lost half their landed
estates to peasant farmers as a result of the land reforms in the wake of annexation of Oudh. Some
historians have suggested that heavy land-revenue assessment in some areas resulted in many
landowning families losing their land or going into great debt.
 The rebellion began as a mutiny of sepoys on May 10, 1857, in the cantonment of the town of Meerut,
and soon escalated into other mutinies and civilian rebellions, largely in the upper Gangetic plain and
central India, with the major hostilities confined to present-day Uttar Pradesh, western Bihar, northern
Madhya Pradesh, and the Delhi region. In general, the rebels were disorganized, had differing goals,
were poorly equipped, led, and trained, and had no outside support or funding.
 The rebellion and its aftermath resulted in the deaths of more than 100,000 Indians. The alleged
killings of women and children by the rebels left many British soldiers seeking revenge. Most of the
British press and British public, outraged by the stories of alleged rape and the killings of civilians and
wounded British soldiers, did not advocate clemency of any kind.
 The rebellion saw the end of the East India Company ‘s rule in India. By the Government of India Act
1858, the company was formally dissolved and its ruling powers over India were transferred to the
British Crown. The rebellion also transformed both the native and European armies of British India.
 Both the direct administration of India by the British Crown and the technological change ushered in
by the Industrial Revolution closely intertwined the economies of India and Great Britain. Railways,
roads, canals, and bridges were rapidly built in India and telegraph links established so that raw
materials, most notably cotton, from India’s hinterland could be transported more efficiently to ports
for subsequent export to England. Finished goods from England were transported back just as
efficiently for sale in the burgeoning Indian markets.
 Despite Britain’s position as the global leader of industrial development, India’s industrialization was
limited beyond textiles. Historians have pointed to two causes: relatively low labor costs that
discouraged investment in new labor-saving technologies and British control of trade and exports of
cheap Manchester cotton. Entrepreneur Jamsetji Tata became the symbol of local industrial success,
establishing a company that remains an influential global brand today.
 A plan for a rail system in India was first put forward in 1832. A few short lines were built in the 1830s,
but they did not interconnect. In 1844, Governor-General Lord Hardinge allowed private entrepreneurs
to set up a rail system in India. The colonial government encouraged new railway companies backed by
private investors under a scheme that would provide land and guarantee an annual return of up to five
percent during the initial years of operation. Encouraged by the government guarantees, investment
flowed in and a series of new rail companies were established, leading to rapid expansion of the rail
system in India.