UKS2 Topic: Early Islamic Civilisation

Block B: The Rise of Islamic Civilisation

Session 1Resource pack

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Slide 3

This map shows the Persian Empire in 580 BCE under its greatest ruler Darius I. The Persian Empire was founded by Cyrus in 536 BCE, after they succeeded the Babylonian Empire. Under Darius the second Temple of Zerubbabel was completed; and under Xerxes, or Ahasuerus, the events recorded in the Book of Esther in the Bible happened; under Artaxerxes the Jewish state was reformed by Ezra, and the walls of Jerusalem were rebuilt by Nehemiah. The capital of the Persian Empire was Shushan. The Empire lasted about 200 years, and came to an end in 330 BCE. Slide 4

A strong clue that this is the Roman empire lies in the northern extent - stopping at the Scottish border. It shows the empire’s maximum extent in around CE 116. At the beginning of the 5th century, the Roman Empire was starting to fall apart. It was constantly under attack from tribes from northern Europe. In CE 410, a tribe called the Visigoths stormed into the city of Rome, destroying many of the great buildings and killed people as they went. Romulus Augustus, the last Roman Emperor, lost his power in CE 476. From then on, the area that was once the empire was ruled by a collection of kings and princes from outside Italy. Slide 5

The Byzantine Empire (476-1453) never called itself that. That is a name made up by the French 400 years later. The Byzantines called themselves Romans; when Rome fell, in 476, the richer, eastern, Greek part of the Roman empire still stood. It did not fall for good till nearly a thousand years later in 1453. Its glory days were from 500 to 1000. There is no real break between the Roman and Byzantine empires – they are just names. But because the Byzantine empire was Greek and Christian it is hard to see it as the same empire that Augustus had founded. At the heart of the empire stood the city of Constantinople. It was one of the largest cities in the world at the time. Constantine I had founded it in 330 as the “New Rome”. It became the seat of Roman power in the east. Just as the law, religion and ways of Rome form the foundation of the West, so the Byzantine empire forms the foundation of eastern Europe and especially Russia.

Crazy Cartography - Teacher Notes

Slide 6

This is a Muslim map of a large part of the world, drawn in about CE 1154 by Al-Sharif al-Idrisi, a Muslim from Spain. The rich and powerful King Roger II of Sicily paid him to make this map and a large silver globe. Al-Idrisi and the king were very ambitious and wanted to make the best map the world had ever seen. By their skill at astronomy, by conquering new lands and by trading far overseas, Muslims greatly improved the knowledge of geography that they found in old Greek writings.

Slide 7

It begins to look more familiar to us if you turn it upside down as Arab geographers put north at the bottom of their maps (thought to be because many of the communities that first converted to Islam in the seventh and eighth centuries lived directly north of Mecca, leading them to regard south as the correct direction of prayer). Muslims took great care to measure distances and directions accurately, partly so they could always pray towards Mecca; also traders knew that better maps would improve trade, helping to make them wealthy.

Slide 8

This map shows the growth of Early Islamic Civilisation; the focus of this topic block. N.B. The titles read Empire but Civilisation is more accurate.

Slide 9

This map shows the lands that at one time or another had been under Muslim rule, as late as CE 1500.

Label countries on this modern-day map that are completely or partially shaded red - use an atlas to help check or find the country names. These are all lands that were once ruled as part of the Early Islamic Civilisation!

http://www.harpercollege.edu/mhealy/geogres/maps/nwgif/muslmwor.gif

Maps for annotation

• Try to interpret the al-Idrisi map from CE 1154 and annotate it with reference to a modern map.

• Can you find, for example, the River Nile, the Mediterranean Sea, Sicily, the Caspian Sea, the Black sea, Italy, Greece, Egypt, Spain…

http://blog.ung.edu/ungarabiclitproject/wp-content/blogs.dir/45/files/2013/11/TabulaRogeriana.jpg

• Why is Sicily drawn so large?

• What area is at the centre of the map?