Dhimmī or muʿāhid (معاهد) is a historical term for non-Muslims living in an Islamic state with legal protection. The word literally means "protected person", referring to the state's obligation under sharia to protect the individual's life, property, as well as freedom of religion, in exchange for loyalty to the state and payment of the jizya tax, in contrast to the zakat, or obligatory alms, paid by the Muslim subjects. Dhimmi were exempt from military service and other duties assigned specifically to Muslims if they paid the poll tax (jizya) but were otherwise equal under the laws of property, contract, and obligation.
The history of Islam is believed by most historians to have originated with Muhammad's mission in Mecca and Medina at the start of the 7th century CE, although Muslims regard this time as a return to the original faith passed down by the Abrahamic prophets, such as Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, David, Solomon, and Jesus, with the submission to the will of God.
Jihad is an Arabic word that means "exerting", "striving", or "struggling", particularly with a praiseworthy aim. In an Islamic context, it encompasses almost any effort to make personal and social life conform with God's guidance, such as an internal struggle against evil in oneself, efforts to build a good Muslim community (ummah), and struggle to defend Islam. Literally meaning 'struggle', the term is most frequently associated with warfare.
Sunni Islam is the largest branch of Islam, followed by 85–90% of the world's Muslims, and simultaneously the largest religious denomination in the world. Its name comes from the word Sunnah, referring to the tradition of Muhammad. The differences between Sunni and Shia Muslims arose from a disagreement over the succession to Muhammad and subsequently acquired broader political significance, as well as theological and juridical dimensions. According to Sunni traditions, Muhammad left no successor and the participants of the Saqifah event appointed Abu Bakr as the next-in-line. This contrasts with the Shia view, which holds that Muhammad appointed his son-in-law and cousin Ali ibn Abi Talib as his successor.
Ummah is an Arabic word meaning Muslim identity, nation, religious community, or the concept of a Commonwealth of the Muslim Believers. It is a synonym for ummat al-Islām ; it is commonly used to mean the collective community of Muslim people. In the Quran, the ummah typically refers to a single group that shares common religious beliefs, specifically those that are the objects of a divine plan of salvation. The word ummah means nation in Arabic. For example, the Arabic term for the United Nations is الأمم المتحدة al-Umam al-Muttaḥidah, and the term الأمة العربية al-Ummah al-ʻArabiyyah is used to refer to "the Arab Nation".
A caliphate is an institution or public office under the leadership of an Islamic steward with the title of caliph, a person considered a political–religious successor to the Islamic prophet Muhammad and a leader of the entire Muslim world (ummah). Historically, the caliphates were polities based on Islam which developed into multi-ethnic trans-national empires.
Greater Khorasan is a historical eastern region in the Iranian Plateau in West and Central Asia that encompasses western and northern Afghanistan, northeastern Iran, the eastern halves of Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, western Tajikistan, and portions of Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan.
A ghazi is an individual who participated in ghazw, meaning military expeditions or raids. The latter term was applied in early Islamic literature to expeditions led by the Islamic prophet Muhammad, and later taken up by Turkic military leaders to describe their wars of conquest.
An Islamic state has a form of government based on sharia. As a term, it has been used to describe various historical polities and theories of governance in the Islamic world. As a translation of the Arabic term dawlah islāmiyyah it refers to a modern notion associated with political Islam (Islamism). Notable examples of historical Islamic states include the state of Medina, established by the Islamic prophet Muhammad, and the Arab caliphates which continued under his successors, such as the Rashidun and Umayyads.
Marshall Goodwin Simms Hodgson was an American historian and scholar of Islamic studies best known for his pioneering work on Islamic civilization and his contributions to world history. He was a professor at the University of Chicago, where he developed a yearlong course on Islamic civilizations and served as chairman of the interdisciplinary Committee on Social Thought.
Between the 9th and 14th centuries, the Muslim world developed many advanced economic concepts, techniques and usages. These ranged from areas of production, investment, finance, economic development, taxation, property use such as Hawala: an early informal value transfer system, Islamic trusts, known as waqf, systems of contract relied upon by merchants, a widely circulated common currency, cheques, promissory notes, early contracts, bills of exchange, and forms of commercial partnership such as mufawada.
Abu Tahir Sulayman al-Jannabi was a Persian warlord and the ruler of the Qarmatian state in Bahrayn. He became leader of the state in 923, after ousting his older brother Abu'l-Qasim Sa'id. He immediately began an expansionist phase, raiding Basra that year. He raided Kufa in 927, defeating an Abbasid army in the process, and threatened the Abbasid capital Baghdad in 928 before pillaging much of Iraq when he could not gain entry to the city.
Michael Gregory Morony has been a professor of history at UCLA since 1974, with interests in the history of Ancient and Islamic Near East.
Christian influences in Islam can be traced back to Eastern Christianity, which surrounded the origins of Islam. Islam, emerging in the context of the Middle East that was largely Christian, was first seen as a Christological heresy known as the "heresy of the Ishmaelites", described as such in Concerning Heresy by Saint John of Damascus, a Syriac scholar.
Atharism is a school of theology in Sunni Islam which developed from circles of the Ahl al-Hadith, a group that rejected rationalistic theology in favor of strict textualism in interpretation the Quran and the hadith.
The Islamic Golden Age was a period of scientific, economic and cultural flourishing in the history of Islam, traditionally dated from the 8th century to the 13th century.
Al-Mustansir Bi'llah, was the Caliph of the Abbasid dynasty from 1226 to 1242. He succeeded Caliph Az-Zahir in the year 1226 and was the penultimate caliph to rule from Baghdad.
Nūr al-Dīn Muḥammad II or ʾAʿlā Muḥammad was the Nizari Isma'ili Imām of Alamūt who reigned the longest period out of any lord (Khudawand) of Alamut, forty-four years. He affirmed the policies of his father, Hassan Ala Dhikrihi's Salam, who had been stabbed to death a year after proclaiming Qiyāma, or Resurrection.
The barīd was the state-run courier service of the Umayyad and later Abbasid Caliphates. A major institution in the early Islamic states, the barid was not only responsible for the overland delivery of official correspondence throughout the empire, but it additionally functioned as a domestic intelligence agency, which informed the caliphs on events in the provinces and the activities of government officials.
The Sunni Revival was a period in Islamic history marked by the revival of the political fortunes of Sunni Islam, a renewed interest in Sunni law and theology and the spread of new styles in art and architecture. Conventionally, the revival lasted from 1055 until 1258.