What’s the Significance?
Quran, 415–16
umma, 416
Pillars of Islam, 416
hijra, 417
sharia, 418
jizya, 420
ulama, 423, 437
Umayyad caliphate, 423–24
Abbasid caliphate, 424
Sufism, 424–25
al-Ghazali, 425
Sikhism, 430
Ibn Battuta, 432–33
Timbuktu, 433
Mansa Musa, 434–35
al-Andalus, 434–36
madrassas, 437
House of Wisdom, 440
Ibn Sina, 440–41
Big Picture Questions
Next Steps: For Further Study
Reza Aslan, No God but God (2005). A well-written and popular history of Islam by an Iranian immigrant to the United States.
Fred M. Donner, Muhammad and the Believers (2010). An innovative account of the first century of Islam by a leading scholar of that era.
Richard Eaton, Islamic History as Global History (1990). A short account by a major scholar that examines Islam in a global framework.
John Esposito, ed., The Oxford History of Islam (1999). Up-to-date essays on various periods and themes in Islamic history. Beautifully illustrated.
Francis Robinson, ed., Cambridge Illustrated History of the Islamic World (1996). A series of essays by major scholars, with lovely pictures and maps.
Judith Tucker, Gender and Islamic History (1994). A brief overview of the changing lives of Islamic women.
“The Travels of Ibn Battuta: A Virtual Tour with the Fourteenth Century Traveler,” http://fms-sfusd-ca.schoolloop.com/Battuta. A beautifully illustrated journey across the Islamic world in the early 1300s.