Board Notes for Islam

Muhammad's Life

• religious precursors
• Mecca and the Kabah
• revelation
• Yathrib
• return to Mecca

Essentials of Islam

• 'Islam': 'surrender'
• God (Allah)
• prayer
• prophets
• Abraham

The Five Pillars

• Creed (Shahadah)
• Prayer (Salat)
• Charity (Zakat)
• Fasting during Ramadan (Sawm)
• Pilgrimage to Mecca (Hajj)

Festivals and Holy Days

Additional Practices

• dietary restrictions
• prohibition against usury and gambling
• circumcision
• marriage
• female roles
• death rituals

The Qur'an

Historical Development

• problems of succession
• spread to Spain
• Damascus Caliphate (661-750)
• Baghdad Caliphate (750-1258)
• Egypt
• Ottoman Empire (1453-1921)

Shiite and Sunni Division

• Shiite (15%)
• • faction of Ali
  • 12 Imams
• Sunni (tradition)
• • accepted orthodox caliphs
  • caliphs, Qur'an and hadiths, schools and scholarly debate

Sufism

• beliefs
• • direct experience of God
  • influences
  • fana
• Al-Ghazali and Sufi Brotherhoods (most famous Maulawiya)
• Sufi Practice and Poetry
• • spiritual techniques (dhikr)
  • poetry

Islamic Law

• Qur'an and hadiths
• sharia
• religious and secular
• Jews and Christians
• jihad

Philosophy and Theology

• faith and reason
• liberal (Ibn Sina and Ibn Rushd) versus conservative (al Ghazali and al-Arabi)

Islam and Arts

• Architecture
• • mosque (mihrab)
  • negative space and balance
• Fine Art
• • prohibition against human/animal images
  • paradise
  • words of Qur'an
  • exceptions to image-making prohibition

Modern World

• spread of Western culture
• secularism and responses
• spread to west and new forms