226. (D) Although Buddhism never developed a missionary movement, Buddha’s teachings nevertheless spread across the Indian subcontinent and from there throughout Asia. In each culture, Buddhist methods and styles were modified to fit the local mentality without compromising the essential points of wisdom and compassion. When Buddhist traders and merchants visited and settled in different lands, some members of the local population naturally developed an interest in the foreigners’ beliefs. This occurred in the oasis states along the Silk Road in central Asia from about 200 BCE to 200 CE. As local rulers and people learned more about this Indian religion, they invited monks from the merchants’ native regions as advisers or teachers. In this manner, many Asians eventually adopted the Buddhist faith. However, Shinto, Jainism, and Zoroastrianism remained confined mainly to Japan, India, and Persia, respectively. Judaism spread through the various Jewish diasporas.
227. (D) Broomyard millet is a kind of grain that grows wild in Asia. Hunters and gatherers in Neolithic China probably ate millet, and the first signs of its cultivation date to 7500 BCE in northern China. The domestication of rice in the Yangtze River valley may have taken place at the same time, but the first signs of agriculture date to about 5000 BCE. Wet-field cultivation of rice in paddies probably became popular in the first millennium BCE. In India, rice is first mentioned in the Yajurveda, probably written between 1400 and 1000 BCE. Rice paddies are perfectly suited for the seasonal monsoons of the Indian sub-continent. Spices grew wild but were soon cultivated as preservatives and curatives. Bananas and plantains were first domesticated in southeast Asia, while yams may have originated in both Asia and Africa. (Poi is not a plant, but a Polynesian staple food made from the bulbous root of the taro plant.)
228. (A) Chandragupta Maurya (c. 340–298 BCE) was the founder of the Maurya Empire (321–c. 180 BCE). He conquered most of the Indian subcontinent and is considered the first genuine emperor of India. After his conquests, the Maurya Empire extended from Bengal to Assam in the east to Afghanistan in the west and from Kashmir and Nepal in the north to the Deccan Plateau in the south. Chandragupta Maurya’s government was supported by taxes on agriculture, while standardized coinage throughout the empire helped trade. The government’s control of manufacturing, mining, and shipbuilding strengthened the state. Chandragupta Maurya’s powerful army consisted of infantry, cavalry, chariots, and war elephants. He did not, however, favor one religion over another. He gave up his throne toward the end of his life and became a follower of a Jain saint.
229. (A) A monsoon is traditionally defined as a seasonal reversing wind accompanied by corresponding changes in precipitation. Usually, the term refers to the rainy phase of a changing seasonal pattern, but there is also a dry phase. The prevailing summer winds of the Indian subcontinent—summer monsoons—blow northeastward off the Indian Ocean and deposit considerable rain. The mountain barriers capture the rain and drain it into three major river systems: the Brahmaputra, Ganges, and Indus. The winter monsoons, on the other hand, blow southward across the dry Asian interior. These winds are cooler and very dry. Because India’s rainfall is uneven, it has had a decisive influence on life in the region. Agriculture in the three river valleys revolves around the summer monsoons, which may account for as much as 80 percent of the rainfall in India. An insufficient seasonal accumulation of rain can cause drought and famine, while too much rain can cause flooding and destruction.
230. (A) The position of women declined under the Gupta. Under the increasingly strict Hindu law, women were considered minors, subject first to their fathers, then to their husbands, and finally to their sons. They were not allowed to own or inherit property, and they could not participate in sacred rituals or study religion. Marriages were usually arranged, and child marriage became more common during this era. Female infants were often seen as economic liabilities, and female infanticide was occasionally practiced. Widows with sons were not permitted to remarry. Finally, the custom of sati—a widow’s self-immolation after her husband’s death—began to grow in popularity in the Gupta Empire.
231. (B) The Manusmriti (laws of Manu) provides detailed rules, presumably directed to Brahman priests, governing ritual and daily life. The text consists of a speech given by Manu, a mythical “first man” who was transformed into a king by Brahma because of his ability to protect the people. A group of seers begs Manu to tell them the law of all the social classes. The rest is an encyclopedic representation of human life and how it should be lived, made up of 2,684 verses divided into 12 chapters. The text covers such wide-ranging topics as the social obligations and duties of the various castes, the proper way for a righteous king to rule, relations between men and women, birth, death, taxes, karma, rebirth, and ritual. The Manusmriti especially tries to validate and preserve the high caste position of the Brah-mans. It forbids the lowest castes to participate in the Brahmin rituals and subjects them to severe punishments. Women are considered inept and sensual, and they are restrained from learning the Vedic texts or participating in important functions. Although it was probably written by many Brahmin priests, Hindu tradition claims that the Manusmriti records the words of Brahma, giving the text supernatural authority. It was probably composed between 200 BCE and 200 CE, after the Mauryan Empire (and its Buddhist influence) but before the Gupta Empire.
232. (E) The Gupta Empire was noted for its achievements in mathematics and science. Gupta mathematicians accurately calculated the value of pi and the circumference of the earth. Indian numerals also seem to have originated in Gupta India. The mathematician-astronomer Aryabhata (476–550 CE) correctly insisted that the earth rotates about its axis daily and that the apparent movement of the stars is actually caused by the rotation of the earth. He also discovered that the moon and planets shine by reflected sunlight. The Sushruta Samhita (c. 650 CE) is a famous Sanskrit medical text that includes chapters on surgery; the ancient Sanskrit Kama Sutra, written by Vatsyayana, is a standard work on human sexual behavior. It is also likely that the game of chess originated during this time. Many of the discoveries made by Indians during this period diffused throughout the world via trade. (The earliest clear illustrations of the spinning wheel come from 13th-century Baghdad, China, and Europe.)
233. (C) The quotation is from the Bhagavad Gita, a classic book of Hinduism since it was first composed in about the first century CE. In the second teaching, the god Krishna (sometimes considered an avatar of Vishnu) explains the doctrine of reincarnation to the warrior Arjuna. In many Indian religious traditions (Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism), the soul (atman) is immortal, while the body is subject to birth and death. Reincarnation occurs when, after the death of the body, the soul comes back to life in a new form such as another animal or any other living thing. According to the Hindu sage Adi Shankara (c. 800 CE), the world as it is ordinarily understood is like a dream. People are trapped in samsara (the cycle of birth and death), because they are ignorant of the true nature of existence. After many births, some people experience dissatisfaction and begin to seek higher forms of happiness through spiritual experience. Eventually, they realize that the true self is the immortal soul rather than the body or the ego. When this happens, all desires for the pleasures of the world vanish. When all desire is gone, they will not be born again; they will have attained liberation (moksha).
234. (A) The composition of the Mahabharata and the Ramayana took place between about the sixth and first centuries BCE. Although it is disputed, the two epics were probably first transmitted orally and evolved through several centuries before achieving their final form in the Gupta period (about the fourth century CE). The Mahabharata is one of the longest poems in the world; it has about 100,000 verses and many long prose passages—about 1.8 million total words. It is roughly 10 times the length of The Iliad and The Odyssey combined, and about 4 times the length of the Ramayana (which is about 50,000 lines). The Mahabharata concerns the conflict between two families for control of an Indian city, but it also contains long digressions into Hindu mythology and philosophy; the Bhagavad Gita is only a small part of the Mahabharata. The Ramayana deals with the exile of Prince Rama, the abduction of his wife by the demon-king Ravana, and the Lankan war. Like the Mahabharata, the Ramayana has several layers of substories, including tales of Hanuman, the monkeylike general/god.
235. (C) The classifications mentioned in the passage are terms for the various Hindu castes. The Indian caste system is a method of social stratification and restriction in which communities are defined by their hereditary groups. These are grouped under four well-known categories: Brahmins (scholars, teachers, and fire priests); Vaishyas (farmers, cattle raisers, traders, and bankers); Kshatriyas (kings, warriors, law enforcers, and administrators); and Sudras (artisans, craftsmen, and service providers). Each of these categories contains the actual jatis (castes) within which people are born, marry, and die. Theoretically, everyone has a place in society and accepts that place to keep society from disintegrating into chaos. Certain groups of people such as foreigners, nomads, and the chandalas (who disposed of the dead) were excluded and treated as untouchables (harijan). This meant that orthodox upper-caste families would not even touch them or invite them to their homes. The Rigveda mantras (hymns) are the oldest and most philosophical of the Vedas and one of the oldest surviving texts in any Indo-European language. They were probably composed in the northwestern region of the Indian subcontinent between 1700 and 1100 BCE. The Rigveda also contains several mythological and poetical accounts of the origin of the world, as well as ancient prayers for life and prosperity.
236. (D) Jainism is a religion that teaches pacifism and nonviolence toward all living things. Its practice emphasizes the importance of self-effort to move the soul to divine consciousness and liberation. Any soul that has conquered its own inner enemies and achieved the state of supreme being is called a jina (conqueror). Jains trace their origins to a succession of 24 jinas in ancient eastern India. The last jina was Vardhamana, also known as Mahavira (“The Great Hero”). Around 550 BCE, Mahavira established what are today considered to be the central beliefs of the religion. Jains hold that every living thing has a soul that is potentially divine; therefore, they try not to harm any living beings. They follow a strictly vegetarian diet. At the heart of right conduct lie the five great vows: nonviolence (ahimsa), truthfulness (satya), avoidance of stealing (asteya), celibacy (brahmacharya), and nonattachment (aparigraha). Every day most Jains bow and say their universal prayer, the Namokara Mantra. In the modern world, Jains are a small but influential religious minority with more than four million followers in India. There are growing immigrant communities all over the world.
237. (B) The Gupta Empire was an ancient Indian empire from about 320 to 550 CE that covered much of the Indian subcontinent. Like the Han and Roman Empires, it suffered from repeated foreign attacks along its border areas. Perhaps the last great Gupta king was Skanda Gupta, who ascended the throne about 455 CE. After that, inefficient leaders led to the weakening of the central government, and a number of feudal chiefs in the northwestern region became independent rulers. The Guptas successfully resisted the northwestern kingdoms until the arrival of the Huns, who led raids across the Himalayas into northern India. The Huns excelled in horsemanship and may have used iron stirrups. They were established in Afghanistan, with their capital at Bamiyan by the first half of the fifth century CE. Efforts by the Gupta to repel the Huns led to a serious drain on the treasury. Hun inroads destroyed the ports and markets of western India and ruined the Guptas’ rich trade with Rome. By 530, the empire was overrun by further invasions and broke up into many smaller local governments; however, much of the Deccan Plateau and southern India seem to have been unaffected by these events in the north.
238. (B) The Tamil people are an ethnic group native to Tamil Nadu (a state in southern India) and the northeastern region of present-day Sri Lanka (Ceylon). One estimate in 2010 placed the number of Tamils at about 77 million, with more than 60 million living in southern India. Most Tamils speak Tamil; like the other languages of southern India, it is Dravidian and unrelated to the Indo-European languages of northern India. Tamil culture developed in about the third century BCE, when increased trade led to urbanization along the western and eastern coast of present-day Kerala and Tamil Nadu. Three large Tamil states (Chera, Chola, and Pandya) developed, as did several small, warring principalities. Large quantities of Roman coins have been discovered at the sites of several ancient Tamil cities. Tamil art is famous for its unique temple architecture and images of deities in stone and bronze; Chola bronzes have become a virtual symbol of Hinduism. Many present-day Tamils practice a sort of folk Hinduism, venerating an assortment of local village deities. A sizeable minority of Tamils are Christians, Muslims, and Jains.
239. (E) It is ironic that Buddhism dominated southeastern Asia but died out in the land of its origin. In India, Buddhist monks had become more preoccupied with philosophy than with serving the needs of the common people. In addition, changes in Hinduism favored a personal relationship with major deities like Shiva and Vishnu. More temples were built to house statues of the gods, and even untouchables and women were allowed to practice this new form of Hinduism. At first, the Buddhist disapproval of the caste system benefited many artisans and merchants who supported Indian monasteries. However, the fall of the Han Dynasty in China caused a decline in trade and weakened merchant support and endowments for Buddhist monasteries. The Upanishads acquired new prominence, as they were partially interpreted to mirror Buddhist beliefs that the ultimate purpose of the soul was to merge with the divine essence and that the world itself was an illusion. By the time of the Gupta Dynasty, Hinduism had again become the main religion in India, and its reinforcement of the caste system meant that Indian social structures became very rigid.
240. (A) Kalidasa was a famous classical writer who is usually considered the greatest poet and dramatist in the Sanskrit language. Nothing certain is known about him other than his works, but scholars believe he lived during the third century CE. His plays and poetry are primarily based on Hindu Puranas and philosophy. Kalidasa wrote three plays, of which Abhijnanasakuntalam (Of Shakuntala Recognized by a Token) is considered his masterpiece. It tells the story of King Dushyanta; his wife, Shakuntala; and a magic ring. The play was the first Indian drama to be translated into a Western language (1789), and by 1900, there were at least 46 translations in 12 European languages.
241. (E) Ashoka the Great (c. 304–232 BCE) was an Indian emperor of the Mauryan Dynasty who conquered and ruled most of the Indian subcontinent from about 269 to 232 BCE. Ashoka converted from Hinduism to Buddhism after witnessing the slaughter resulting from one of his wars of conquest in eastern India. He helped spread Buddhism to present-day Sri Lanka, the Himalayan regions, and the grasslands of central Asia. He also established monuments marking several significant sites in the life of the Buddha. Because of his religious beliefs, Ashoka promoted vegetarianism to reduce the slaughter of animals, especially cattle. His attempts to build a centralized state with an efficient government led to frequent clashes with the Brahmins whose power he threatened. Ashoka publicized his Buddhist program by engraving his decisions on large rocks and sandstone pillars that he had scattered throughout his empire. He is considered one of India’s greatest rulers; the emblem of modern India is an adaptation of the Lion Capital of Ashoka. (The dissemination of Indian numerals is associated with the Gupta Empire.)
242. (D) Ashoka ruled for about 40 years. After his death in 232 BCE, the Mauryan Dynasty lasted only 50 years more. Its decline was caused by economic problems and pressure from attacks in the northeast. By 180 BCE, India had fragmented into small warring states. The situation continued for almost 600 years as waves of invaders—Bactrians, Scythians, Kushians, and Parthians—entered the region. India’s history during this period was chaotic until the rise of the Gupta Empire in the fourth century CE. Animal sacrifices, musical festivals, and dances that had been prohibited under Ashoka and his heirs then returned. The Guptas performed Vedic sacrifices to legitimize their rule, but they also patronized Buddhism, which continued to provide an alternative to Hindu orthodoxy. Buddhism did not disappear in India until after the 13th century CE.
243. (D) Theravada (the Ancient Teaching) is the oldest surviving Buddhist school of thought. It is relatively conservative compared to Mahayana Buddhism and considered closer to early Buddhism. For many centuries, it has been the main religion of Sri Lanka and most of continental southeastern Asia (Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, and Thailand). Today, Theravada Buddhists number more than 100 million worldwide. Theravada’s main scriptures are in Pali, a Middle Indo-Aryan language. Mahayana (Great Vehicle) is the other (and larger) main branch of Buddhism. It emerged in the first century CE as a more liberal and accessible interpretation of Buddhism. It spread quickly to China, Japan, Vietnam, Korea, Singapore, Nepal, Tibet, and Mongolia. Mahayana is a path available to people from all walks of life, not just monks and ascetics. Various subdivisions of the Mahayana tradition—Zen, Nichiren, and Pure Land—promote different ways of achieving enlightenment, but all agree that it can be attained in a single lifetime by a dedicated layperson. Theravada discourages the use of ritual, while Mahayana often includes the veneration of celestial beings, buddhas, and bodhisattvas; religious rituals and magical rites; and the use of icons, images, and other sacred objects.
244. (D) Sati (also called suttee) was a traditional Indian religious funeral practice in which a recently widowed woman, either voluntarily or by coercion, would immolate herself on her husband’s funeral pyre. There are numerous hypotheses for the origins of this custom. Although it was theoretically voluntary, there was extreme community pressure in some places to perform the act. Aristobulus of Cassandreia, a Greek historian who traveled to India with Alexander the Great, recorded the practice of sati in the city of Taxila. However, the practice was little known before the Gupta Empire and appears to be part of the general decline in the position of women during that period. In the later years of the empire, memorial stones known as devli were erected to honor instances of sati. In some cases, they became shrines to the dead women, who were treated as objects of reverence. By about the 10th century CE, sati was known across much of the subcontinent, although it was never common. The practice has been outlawed in India since 1829; nonetheless, there have still been several known cases in the 21st century.
245. (E) The Four Noble Truths are an important principle of Buddhism. They are derived directly from teachings of the Buddha, although the exact wording may differ depending on the source. They are as follows: (1) suffering exists; (2) suffering comes from attachment to desires; (3) suffering ceases when attachment to desires ceases; and (4) the attachment to desires only ceases by practicing the Buddha’s Eightfold Path.
246. (D) The Indus, Brahmaputra, and Ganges are all among the top 30 longest rivers in the world. The Indus River, from which the name India is derived, is now almost entirely within Pakistan. Both the Ganges and Brahmaputra flow through northwestern India and empty into the Bay of Bengal. The Ganges is the most sacred river to Hindus; millions of Indians live along its banks. As of 2011, it is also one of the most polluted rivers in the world. The Syr Dar’ya is a river in central Asia, sometimes known as the Jaxartes or Yaxartes from its ancient Greek name. It’s almost 2,000 miles long and flows through Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan.
247. (C) The classical empires of the Han, Romans, and Gupta all experienced economic weakness and internal political weakness before their downfall. All three empires had to deal with foreign tribes threatening the stability of their borders. After their fall, all three empires broke up into smaller local governments. However, political conflicts with religious authorities were not significant in any of these empires. Although all three endured religious controversies (Christian versus pagan, Buddhist versus Hindu, Confucian versus Taoist), they could not be considered major conflicts between political and religious authorities.
248. (E) The Indus Valley culture was a Bronze Age culture that thrived from about 2600 to 1700 BCE. It was located in northwestern India around the Indus River and was one of the world’s earliest urban cultures. Inhabitants developed new techniques in handicraft and metallurgy, producing copper, bronze, lead, and tin. The culture is noted for its cities built of brick, roadside drainage system, and multistoried houses. The main phase of this culture is known as the Harappan; it was named after Harappa, one of its first cities to be excavated (in the 1920s in what was at the time the Punjab province of British India, now Pakistan). The city is believed to have been quite large for its time, perhaps with more than 20,000 residents. More than 1,000 cities and settlements of Indus Valley culture have been found, including Lothal, Kalibanga, and Mohenjo-daro (a UNESCO World Heritage site).
249. (D) The Aryan invasion myth first developed in the late 1800s. The original version viewed the Indo-Aryan migration as the invasion of a highly developed, light-skinned culture that conquered a primitive, dark-skinned aboriginal culture. However, the discovery in the 1920s of urban ruins and a sophisticated culture in the Indus Valley stood the theory on its head. In the more recent version, the Aryans became a tribe of Indo-European-speaking, horse-riding nomads living on the Eurasian steppes. About 1700 BCE (the date can vary considerably), they invaded the ancient urban cultures of the Indus Valley and destroyed that more advanced Dravidian culture. However, the Aryans borrowed from (or plundered, depending on one’s viewpoint) the older culture to create what later became Hinduism. The war between the powers of light and darkness, a recurring theme in Vedic scriptures, was interpreted to refer to a war between light- and dark-skinned peoples. In the late 20th century, historians basically refuted this theory. Archaeological evidence suggests that the Indus Valley culture broke down because of droughts and floods, not warfare. There are no references to an invasion in the Vedas and no biological or archaeological evidence of a massive intrusion of people of a different race. DNA samples imply that there was no “demographic disruption” in northwestern India at any time between 4500 and 800 BCE. This would eliminate the possibility of any massive invasion during that period. Nonetheless, the old theory still has many defenders.
250. (D) The Puranas, Sanskrit for “of ancient times,” are a type of religious writing not included in the Vedas. They usually tell the story of the births and deeds of Hindu gods and the creation, destruction, or re-creation of the universe. Puranas also include encyclopedic genealogies of kings, heroes, sages, and demigods, as well as descriptions of Hindu cosmology, philosophy, and geography. They were written almost entirely in the same flowing style as the Mahabharata and Ramayana. There are traditionally 18 Puranas, but there are several different lists of the 18. The earliest Puranas were written between 350 and 750 CE and the latest between 1000 and 1500. The stories usually feature one particular god, and many teach that submission to the whim of the gods is the best choice. There are also Puranas in Jainism and Buddhism.
251. (E) Constantinople’s location on the European side of the Bosporus Strait placed it at the junction of trade routes from several different cultures. The site lay along the land route from Europe to Asia and the sea route from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean. Constantinople’s harbor, the Golden Horn, was deep, spacious, and easy to defend. The city was (re)founded by the Roman emperor Constantine on the site of an existing city—Byzantium—settled in the early days of Greek colonial expansion. Constantine himself may have laid out the general plan of the city in 324 CE, and the construction was quick; the dedication was in 330. Throughout most of the Middle Ages, Constantinople was Europe’s largest and wealthiest city. It was conquered by the Ottoman Turks in 1453 and renamed Istanbul.
252. (E) Iconoclasm is the term for opposition to religious images known as icons. It derives from the Greek words for “image breaking.” From 726 to 843 CE, arguments between supporters (iconodules) and opponents (iconoclasts) of icons dominated the politics of the Byzantine Empire and the theology of the Christian church. Christian icons are sacred images representing Jesus Christ, the Virgin Mary, saints, and Bible scenes. By the seventh century, icons had become an accepted part of Christian belief and church decoration. They were respected, admired, adored, venerated, and even worshipped. The difference between veneration (a feeling of deep respect or reverence for a person or thing) and worship (religious reverence for a divine being or power) troubled some Byzantine Christians. They feared that people might worship the icon rather than God, leading to a restoration of Greek and Roman paganism. Leo III, a valiant soldier who had become emperor in 717, decided that the military misfortunes of the Byzantine Empire were divine punishment for the improper worship of icons. He was probably influenced by Islamic views that forbade the representation of the human form for religious use. Because the main opponents of the iconoclasts were monks, Leo III joined iconoclasm with an attack on the power of the monasteries. After a century of quarreling, the iconodule position was victorious in 843. Today, anyone who attacks a cherished idea or respected institution is called an iconoclast.
253. (C) The Sassanid Empire of Persia was the major force on the border of the eastern Byzantine Empire in the late sixth century CE. The Sassanids collected land taxes from the prosperous farmers of Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq) and turned Persia into a center of trade. At Ctesiphon, the capital of Sassanid Persia, the rulers set up a bureaucracy of scribes and patronized the arts. The Sassanids also reformed the army by paying and arming new warriors drawn from the lower nobility known as dekkans. Dekkans were heavily armored soldiers on horseback, forerunners of the medieval knights. The Sassanid king Chosores II (reigned 591–628) wanted to re-create the Persian Empire of Xerxes and Darius. He invaded the Byzantine Empire in 603, took Damascus and Jerusalem in 613, and conquered Egypt in 619. The Byzantine emperor Heraclius reorganized his army, and by 627, the Byzantines had regained all their lost territory. The 24-year war exhausted both empires and left them open to invasion by the Arabs. The Byzantines also suffered territorial losses in the 600s to the Lombards in Italy and to the Slavs, Avars, and Bulgars in the Balkans.
254. (C) In 1054, the Eastern and Western branches of Christianity split, and they remain split to the present day. The schism occurred over both practical and doctrinal differences. Prior to the schism, five bishops (or patriarchs) representing Alexandria, Antioch, Constantinople, Jerusalem, and Rome were technically supposed to act as an executive committee on church matters. However, the patriarch of Constantinople gained power in the east, because he controlled church matters in the emperor’s seat of residence. Western Europeans, on the other hand, increasingly followed the dictates of the pope in Rome. Western Europeans became uncomfortable with the Bible written in Greek (and Greeks with the Vulgate), a language they did not understand. The use and meaning of icons was also a sore point between the two branches, as was the pope’s insistence on the celibacy of the clergy (which was disputed in Eastern Christianity).
255. (D) The Macedonian renaissance, from about 870 to 1025 CE, takes its name from the Macedonian dynasty that began with Basil I. It is sometimes called the first Byzantine renaissance to differentiate it from the second Byzantine renaissance of the 13th century under the Palaeologan Dynasty. Photios I (c. 810–c. 893) was patriarch of Constantinople and the most important intellectual of the Macedonian renaissance. He helped convert the Slavs to Christianity and also widened the split between the Eastern Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church (although the formal schism did not occur until 1054). Constantine VII (905–959), also known as Porphyrogenitos (the purple-born), was the fourth emperor of the Macedonian dynasty. He was a scholarly emperor, a generous patron of the arts, and a hardworking administrator. Emperor Basil II (958–1025), the “Bulgar Slayer,” launched methodical attacks against Bulgarian territory from 1001 to 1018. His victories resulted in the Byzantine control of Bulgaria and the Bulgars’ adoption of the Byzantine form of Christianity.
256. (E) The word monasticism comes from the Greek word monos, meaning “single” or “solitary.” Coenobitic monasticism is a tradition that stresses community life over isolated asceticism. Christian monasticism began in Egypt during the fourth century CE, when communities of men and women withdrew from everyday society to lead lives of self-denial. They wanted to imitate Jesus’s suffering to demonstrate their complete devotion to God. Monks initially lived alone but then began to form communities to provide mutual support in their quest for holiness and piety. The first community of monks, or coenobitic monastery, was organized by Pachomius in Egypt in about 323. The most isolationist and ascetic monasticism also developed in the eastern part of the empire.
257. (C) The Byzantine emperors, like their predecessors in Rome, sponsored entertainments on a grand scale to rally public support. A hippodrome was a Greek stadium for horse and chariot racing, similar to the Roman circus. The most famous hippodrome was in Constantinople; it is estimated to have been about 400 feet wide and 1,500 feet long, with stands that held 100,000 spectators. The hippodrome was the center of the city’s social life, and huge amounts were bet on chariot races. Constantinople’s residents divided themselves into competitive factions called Blues and Greens after the racing colors of their favorite charioteers. The team associations became a focus for social and political issues for which most Byzantine people lacked any other form of outlet. The teams combined aspects of street gangs and political parties, often taking positions on theological problems or supporting rival claimants to the throne. The groups frequently brawled with each other over politics and theology, as well as race results. The most severe riot was the Nika revolt of 532 (against the rule of Justinian), in which an estimated 30,000 people were killed. By 1453, the hippodrome had fallen into ruin.
258. (B) Because Christian theologians generally went beyond Roman tradition in restricting sexuality, some limitations on women increased. Women in the Byzantine Empire had few legal rights and limited contact with men outside their family group. As in many pre-industrial cultures, they were subject to the authority of their fathers and husbands, divorce became more difficult to obtain, remarriage was discouraged (even for widows), and stricter legal penalties for sexual offenses became common. Women veiled their heads, but not their faces, to show modesty. Female prostitution remained legal, but Byzantine emperors raised the penalties for those who forcibly made prostitutes of women under their control, such as children or slaves.
259. (D) Pronoia refers to a system of land grants in the Byzantine Empire. Emperor Alexius I gave his soldiers pronoia in return for military service. The distribution of such grants to nobles gradually brought an end to the theme system, under which peasant soldiers had settled on imperial lands. The pronoia system partially converted the Byzantine Empire into a feudal kingdom, where great lords received fiefs in return for loyalty. However, the land could not initially be inherited or divided up among the holders. This way, the Byzantine emperor had more direct authority over society than most rulers in western Europe. The pronoia system had the added benefit (from the emperor’s viewpoint) of removing nobles from Constantinople, making it harder for them to challenge the emperor’s authority directly or usurp the throne.
260. (D) Hagia Sophia is the masterpiece of Byzantine architecture, famous for its massive dome and stunning mosaics. It was the largest cathedral in the world for almost a thousand years; the diameter of its central dome remained unsurpassed until the Italian Renaissance. The building was originally constructed as a church between 532 and 537 CE on the orders of Justinian and designed by the Greek scientists Isidore of Miletus and Anthemius of Tralles. The enormous central dome, 102 feet in diameter and 184 feet high, is carried on pendentives, an architectural feature that had never been used on this scale before. The pendentives support the dome on a square framework of four huge, equal arches that rest on huge piers. Forty windows underneath the dome flood the building with a sort of mystical light that makes the dome seem very light. The interior is completely free of any sense of the enormous weight of the structure, and the dome seems to hover weightlessly over the nave. All the interior surfaces, including the pillars, were originally covered with polychrome marbles and gold mosaic. Hagia Sophia was so richly decorated that Justinian famously proclaimed, “Solomon, I have outdone thee!” The building was sacked in the Fourth Crusade but not destroyed. When the Ottoman Turks conquered Constantinople in 1453, Hagia Sophia became a mosque; the former church served as model for several great Turkish mosques in the city. The building is now a Turkish museum.
261. (B) The Byzantine Empire was ruled by the Palaeologan Dynasty from the restoration of Greek rule in Constantinople (1261 CE) to the fall of Constantinople at the hands of the Ottoman Empire (1453). The Palaeologoi were the last ruling dynasty of the Byzantine Empire. The first of the line, Michael VIII Palaeologus (reigned 1261–1282), was probably the most successful. He rebuilt Constantinople to some extent after its destruction in the Fourth Crusade, although these attempts were costly and resulted in high taxes. He also partially restored Byzantine prestige through the clever use of diplomacy. However, the power of Byzantium’s enemies and constant civil wars undermined the state. Nonetheless, the Palaeologan period saw art and literature flourish, in what has sometimes been called the Palaeologan renaissance. Gregory Choniades and Theodore Metochites studied astronomy, mathematics, and philosophy, and they also became officials in the Greek Orthodox Church. The migration of Byzantine scholars to the West, even before 1453, helped spark the rebirth of classical learning in Italy.
262. (B) Between 570 and 750 CE, the Byzantine Empire fought against invaders on almost all fronts. In the seventh century, either Emperor Heraclius (reigned 610–641) or Constans II (reigned 641–668) divided the empire into military districts called themes. In each theme, control over all civil matters was given to one general (a strategos). Men joined the army because they were promised land with low taxes. They often fought alongside local farmers who provided their own weapons and horses. The strategoi led the local troops into battle, served as the emperor’s regional tax collectors, and became the leaders of a new rural elite. In general, the reorganization of the military worked to the local peasant’s advantage. It also strengthened the Byzantine Empire against invaders, especially Muslims, in the ninth and tenth centuries. The old Byzantine army had relied heavily on foreign mercenaries; the new army depended on native farmer-soldiers living on state-leased military estates. However, some scholars dispute this interpretation, claiming that the themes were not a major break with the past and that they had only a small direct social impact.
263. (A) Justinian I (sometimes known as Justinian the Great) was the most famous early Byzantine emperor, ruling from 527 to 565 CE. During his reign, he nearly bankrupted the treasury in order to reconquer the lost western half of the classical Roman Empire. His desire to project imperial glory led him to embellish Constantinople with magnificent architecture, including the construction of Hagia Sophia. Justinian took his Christianity very seriously and zealously enforced laws against polytheists, compelling them to be baptized or forfeit their lands and official positions. In pursuit of sexual purity, his laws made male homosexual relations illegal for the first time in Roman history; previous emperors had only taxed male prostitutes. Justinian’s wife, Empress Theodora (c. 500–548), was arguably the most influential woman in the history of the Byzantine Empire. When Justinian prepared to flee Constantinople during the Nika revolt, Theodora shamed him into remaining and fighting.
264. (E) Justinian compelled polytheists to be baptized or forfeit their lands and official positions. To guarantee the empire’s religious purity, he closed the famous Athenian Academy that had been founded 900 years earlier by Plato; it never reopened. Many of its scholars had already fled to Persia to escape harsher restrictions on polytheists. The Academy lacked supporters because the Athenian elite, its traditional patrons, were increasingly Christian. Justinian’s closing of the Academy has become one of the symbols of the end of antiquity and the beginning of the Middle Ages.
265. (C) Ravenna is a city in northern Italy on the Adriatic Sea. In 404 CE, Emperor Honorius transferred the capital of the Western Roman Empire from Milan to Ravenna for defensive purposes; Ravenna was surrounded by swamps and marshes, and Byzantine forces could easily reach it by sea. It was later the capital of the Ostrogothic kingdom in the fifth century. In 535, Justinian’s general Belisarius invaded Italy and conquered Ravenna (540). It then became the seat of Byzantine government in Italy until 751, when the last exarch was killed by the Lombards. Ravenna has a unique collection of early Christian mosaics and monuments that brilliantly blend Greco-Roman tradition, Christian iconography, Byzantine influence, and European styles. Ravenna is sometimes called the “mosaic city” for the stunning examples adorning the walls of its churches and monuments.
266. (C) The Fourth Crusade (1202–1204) was led by the Venetians, already an economic power in the Mediterranean. The crusade was originally intended to conquer Muslim-controlled Jerusalem through an invasion of Egypt. However, the Venetians were less interested in reconquering the Holy Land than they were in weakening the economic power of the Byzantine Empire. A complicated dispute over politics and payments led the Crusaders to attack Constantinople in 1204. The western Europeans burned down a great part of the city; slaughtered many inhabitants; and wantonly destroyed monuments, statues, paintings, and manuscripts accumulated over a thousand years. The Crusaders never went on to Jerusalem. However, they did take piles of captured jewels, gold, and relics back to western Europe. The Byzantines did not regain control of the empire until 1261.
267. (E) The so-called “Plague of Justinian” was a pandemic that affected the Byzantine Empire (among other places) from 541 to 542 CE during Justinian’s reign. It was one of the greatest plagues in history. It may have been some form of outbreak of bubonic plague, which was later linked to the Black Death of 1348. The epidemic probably killed about one-third of the empire’s inhabitants; the actual number of deaths is uncertain. The loss of so many people created a shortage of army recruits in Byzantium and required the hiring of expensive mercenaries. Many farms were left vacant, and this greatly reduced tax revenues. Some scholars estimate that the plague killed more than 200,000 people in Constantinople alone, 40 to 50 percent of the city’s population. New waves of the plague continued to strike until the eighth century. One estimate places the worldwide death toll from the Plague of Justinian as high as 25 million people.
268. (D) Justinian was the first Byzantine emperor to try to codify Roman law. The result was a law code known as the Corpus Iuris Civilis, or Justinian’s Code. The Corpus Iuris Civilis was issued between 529 and 534 CE, and it reduced the confusing number of legal decisions made by earlier emperors. The work as planned had three parts: the Code was a compilation of imperial enactments to that date; the Digest was an encyclopedia of mostly short extracts from the writings of Roman jurists; and the Institutes was a student textbook introducing the Code. All three parts, even the textbook, were supposed to have the force of law and be the only law. However, Justinian soon had to make more laws, and these New Laws are considered a fourth part of the Corpus. Justinian’s Code, written in Latin, shaped church and commercial law and influenced legal scholars for centuries.
269. (A) Monophysite means “single-nature believer.” The term refers to a Christian theological position that disputed the orthodox doctrine that Jesus’s divine and human natures were equal but distinct. Monophysites believed that Jesus’s divine nature took precedence over his human side, giving him essentially a single nature. The position was first popularly presented by Eutyches (380–c. 456 CE), who declared that Christ was “a fusion of human and divine elements.” Eutyches and his doctrine were condemned at the Council of Chalcedon in 451. However, the Monophysites split off from the orthodox church to found independent churches in Egypt, Ethiopia, Armenia, and Syria. The theological debate between Monophysitism and the orthodox church was a continuous problem in achieving religious unity in the early Byzantine Empire. Varying degrees of the Monophysite position can still be found in the Syriac Orthodox Church, the Coptic Orthodox Church, and the Armenian Apostolic Church.
270. (A) Emperor Leo III put an end to a period of instability, successfully defended the empire against the invading Umayyads, and forbade the veneration of icons. He was a valiant soldier who, in 717 CE, led the Byzantine armies to victory in the Muslim siege of Constantinople. The emperor then seems to have decided that the misfortunes of the Byzantine Empire were punishments from God for the improper worship of icons. Leo was probably influenced by the Muslim view that forbids the representation of the human form for religious use. His civil law code, the Ecloga (Selection), written in Greek rather than Latin, was a handbook that influenced Byzantine law. Leo left a revived empire to his son, Constantine V. The Isaurian Dynasty ruled the Byzantine Empire until 802. (After the battle of Kleidion in 1014, the Byzantine emperor Basil II divided the defeated Bulgarian prisoners into groups of 100, blinded 99 men in each group, and left one man in each group with one eye to lead the others home.)
271. (A) Foreign merchants traded in the Byzantine Empire either at Constantinople or in border cities. The Byzantine government issued special privileges to certain nations and people—such as Venetians, Russians, Jews, and Syrians—regulating the fees they had to pay and the services they had to give. Foreign merchants from each nation lived in the city at state expense for about three months to complete their trading activities. The Venetians especially helped Byzantine trade with Latin Europe, and they received several specific benefits. For example, at the end of the 10th century, they bargained to reduce their customs duties per ship from 30 solidi to 2 solidi in exchange for the promise to transport Byzantine soldiers to Italy whenever the emperor commanded. Venetian traders were common after the First Crusade (1099) and had “factories” on the north side of the Golden Horn. Large numbers of western Europeans lived in Constantinople in the 12th century; one estimate placed the number of foreigners in the city in the 1170s at about 70,000 out of a total population of about 400,000.
272. (D) John Chrysostom (c. 349–407) was archbishop of Constantinople and an important early Christian theologian. He was famous for his eloquence, his attacks on the abuse of authority by church and political leaders, and his support of asceticism. He is often considered the greatest preacher in the early church, and after his death, he was given the Greek name Chrysostomos, meaning “golden mouthed.” One of his regular topics was continued paganism in the Byzantine culture, and he often thundered against the theater, horse races, and the revelry surrounding holidays. He frequently attacked the “pitiable and miserable” Jewish people; some consider him a founder of Christian anti-Semitism. John Chrysostom is considered a “doctor of the church” and among the greatest of the Greek fathers.
273. (A) Kievan Rus was a medieval Slavic state, based in the city of Kiev, that included most of present-day Ukraine and Belarus and part of northwestern Russia. The state was situated at the center of interactions between the Vikings, Byzantines, Slavs, and Islamic Turks. Kievan power and influence grew steadily through the 10th and 11th centuries CE, but it was later weakened by civil wars and the state fell to the Mongols in 1237–1240. Vladimir I (reigned 980–1015) introduced Christianity to Kievan Rus, and the people adopted Greek Orthodoxy from the Byzantines. The reign of Vladimir’s son, Yaroslav the Wise, represented the high point of Kievan Rus (1019–1054). The economy of the state was based on agriculture and on extensive trade with Byzantium, Asia, and Scandinavia. The Kievan people traded fur, animal hides, slaves, burlap, hemp, and hops for Byzantine wine, silk, steel blades, religious art, and horses. Kievan Rus also was connected to Byzantium through culture (especially architecture) and a shared religion.
274. (E) Stylites (from the Greek stylos meaning “pillar”) were a type of Christian ascetics. In the early days of the Byzantine Empire, stylites stood on pillars preaching, fasting, and praying. They believed that the extraordinary privation and punishment they inflicted on their bodies was a form of self-crucifixion that would help ensure the salvation of their souls. The first stylite was probably Simeon Stylites the Elder, who climbed onto a pillar in Syria in 423 CE and remained there until his death 37 years later. Two other extremely famous stylites were Daniel the Stylite (409–493) and Saint Alypius (d. 640). There were stylites in the Byzantine Empire until the 12th century and in the Russian Orthodox Church until 1461. Some pillar hermits softened the extreme austerity by building a tiny hut on top of the column as a shelter against the sun and rain.
275. (C) Anna Comnena (1083–1153) was a Byzantine princess and scholar and one of the world’s first female historians. She was the daughter of the Byzantine emperor Alexius I Comnena and Irene Doukaina. Although there is some dispute, it appears she plotted against her brother John II in order to make her husband (Nicephorus Bryennius) emperor. She was unsuccessful, and when her husband died, she retired to a convent, where she wrote The Alexiad (finished 1148). It is a historical account of her father’s reign, including the First Crusade. In it, Anna criticized the western European Crusaders, who she thought were barbarians.
276. (D) Eunuchs were castrated men who held privileged positions in the Byzantine imperial court. They worked as civil servants, palace officials, or high-ranking army officials. Popular Byzantine opinion held that eunuchs were unfit for imperial power. Because eunuchs could not have children of their own, Byzantine emperors did not consider them a threat. By surrounding themselves with eunuchs, emperors tried to limit the possibility of revolutions and usurpations. The parakoimomenos (the one who sleeps beside the emperor’s chamber) was an important Byzantine ministerial position usually reserved for eunuchs. Under Justinian in the sixth century CE, the eunuch Narses was a successful general in several campaigns. Basil Lekapenos, the out-of-wedlock son of the emperor Romanos I, was castrated when young. He served as chief administrator of the Byzantine Empire from 945 to 985, wielding great power and patronizing the arts. Romanos I also had his son Theophylact (917–956) castrated and made him patriarch of Constantinople in 933, a position he held until his death in 956.
277. (E) The battle of Manzikert was fought between the Byzantine Empire and Seljuk Turks in 1071 CE near present-day Malazgirt in eastern Turkey. The Seljuk Turks, under Alp Arslan, decisively defeated the Byzantines and captured Emperor Romanos IV Diogenes. This defeat essentially ended Byzantine authority in Anatolia and Armenia and allowed the Turks to populate Anatolia. The emperor had been unable to muster Byzantine troops because the strategoi were too busy defending their own districts. Instead, he relied on a mercenary army of Normans, Franks, Slavs, and even Turks. The result was a disaster for the empire; the Byzantines lost control over Anatolia, the heart of the empire and the major recruiting ground for soldiers. This weakened the empire’s ability to defend its borders. As a result, it was limited to the area immediately around Constantinople and was never again a major military force. Historians are unanimous in dating the decline of Byzantine fortunes to this battle.
278. (B) Byzantine literature and art is almost entirely concerned with religious expression. According to one estimate, of the approximately 2,000 to 3,000 volumes of Byzantine literature that survive, only 330 consist of secular poetry, history, and science. The remaining volumes are sermons, liturgical books, theology, and devotional treatises. While some secular literature was produced between the ninth and twelfth centuries CE, the output is generally small. The only genuine heroic Byzantine epic is the Digenis Acritas, the most famous of the Acritic songs. These were heroic or epic poetry that emerged in about the ninth century to celebrate the exploits of the Acrites, the guards defending the eastern frontier of the Byzantine Empire.
279. (A) Procopius of Caesarea (c. 500–c. 565 CE) was a famous Byzantine historian from the time of Justinian. He accompanied the general Belisarius as his secretary in Justinian’s wars and is considered the main historian of the sixth century. He wrote The Wars of Justinian, The Buildings of Justinian, and The Secret History. The Secret History covers the same years as the first seven books of The Wars of Justinian but was written later and never published. Procopius filled the scandalous Secret History with anecdotes and gossip regarding the private lives of Justinian and Theodora. The other answer choices are all Byzantine historians of a later date and lesser fame.
280. (D) Manuel I Comnenus (1118–1180 CE) was a Byzantine emperor who was eager to restore the empire to its past glories and so followed an extremely ambitious foreign policy. At one time or another, he made alliances with the pope, invaded Italy, and meddled in European diplomacy. Manuel allied Byzantium with the Second Crusade, supported and then controlled the Crusader states, and invaded Fatimid Egypt. He also placed the kingdom of Hungary under Byzantine control and attacked his neighbors in the west and the east. However, toward the end of his reign, Manuel suffered a serious defeat when the Seljuk Turks crushed his army at Myriocephalon. He liked western Europeans and gave them high positions in the Byzantine Empire. During his reign, the Genoese, Pisan, and Venetian merchant colonies in Constantinople grew dramatically. Byzantine power catastrophically declined after Manuel’s death; some historians believe the causes can be found in his reign.
281. (E) The Jews deny that Jesus is the promised Messiah. In the Koran, Jesus is a respected prophet, but Muslims are fiercely monotheistic. They base their faith on the worship of Allah, the one God. Muhammad (c. 570–632) saw himself as God’s last prophet and the person charged with receiving and preaching God’s final words to humans. Islam grew out of the traditions of Bedouin tribal society. It has different worship practices from Judaism, such as the feast of Ramadan, the salat (formal prayer), and the hajj (a pilgrimage to the holy city of Mecca). The other answer choices are basic principles of both Judaism and Islam.
282. (A) Islam is the Arabic word for submission. It was a religious movement begun by Muhammad during the seventh century on the Arabian peninsula. The religion depends entirely on individual faith and adherence to the Koran, because Muslims do not have priests, liturgies, or any intermediaries between God and humans. Muslim, the word for a follower of Islam, is the active participle of the same verb of which Islam is the infinitive. Islam means “voluntary submission to God”; believers demonstrate submission by worshipping God, following his commands, and rejecting polytheism. The word appears numerous times in the Koran (which means “recitation” in Arabic).
283. (A) Baghdad is located along the Tigris River; the city was commissioned by Caliph Al Mansur (714–775) in 762 to be the capital of the Abbasid Caliphate. The city’s location gave it control over strategic and trade routes along the Tigris. Baghdad quickly eclipsed Ctesiphon (the capital of the Persian Empire), located about 20 miles to the southeast, and became an important cultural and commercial center of the Islamic world. The so-called House of Wisdom was a library and translation institution that played a crucial role in preserving and translating texts from the ancient Greek into Arabic. From the ninth to the thirteenth centuries, the Abbasids encouraged scholars to come to Baghdad and share in formation, ideas, and culture. In the Middle Ages, Baghdad may have been the largest city in the world, with an estimated population of a million people. The city is reflected at the height of its glory in the Thousand and One Nights. The Mongols destroyed Baghdad and massacred the population in 1258, beginning a long decline.
284. (D) Islam grew out of the loosely organized tribal society of the Arabian peninsula. Bedouin society formed few cities and had little political organization. Its members herded sheep or camels and traded or raided for other goods. Traditions and values were transmitted primarily through oral poetry and storytelling. The clan was the main social institution, and clans grouped together in tribes. Outsiders were typically viewed as rivals, and tribes constantly fought with one another. Bedouin male culture emphasized bravery in battle and generosity afterward; warriors often gave away the booty they acquired in combat. Women were sometimes part of this booty, and men frequently had more than one wife (polygyny). Mecca, a major desert oasis near the Red Sea, was an important commercial center. Meccan caravans sold Bedouin products, such as leather goods and raisins, to more urbanized areas in the north. Mecca also played an important religious role, because it contained a polytheistic shrine known as the Kaaba. The Quraysh tribe controlled the shrine and benefited by taxing pilgrims as well as selling them food and drink.
285. (D) The Fatimid Caliphate Dynasty was a Shiite dynasty that ruled North Africa and Egypt from 909 to 1171. It was the only major Shiite caliphate in Islam. The Fatimids named themselves after Fatima, the wife of Ali and Muhammad’s only surviving daughter. They initially allied themselves with North African Berbers and established a state in 909 in present-day Tunisia. The founder of the dynasty, Ubayd Allah, controversially claimed to be the Mahdi (divinely guided messiah). In 969, the Fatimids conquered Egypt and, for the next hundred years, tried to take Damascus from the Abbasids. The Fatimids generally tolerated non-Shiite sects of Islam as well as Jews and Christians. The caliphate reached its apex in the 11th century, controlling northern Africa, Arabia, and even parts of Syria. However, internal anarchy, economic crises, and famines led to a decline. Saladin abolished the dynasty in 1171.
286. (B) The Seljuk Turks ruled parts of central Asia and the Middle East from the 11th to the 14th centuries. The Seljuks were originally one of a number of bands of Turkish nomads from the central Asian steppes. Tughril Beg (c. 993–1063), the grandson of the semi-legendary Seljuk, is usually considered the founder of the Seljuk Dynasty. He entered Baghdad in 1055 and was proclaimed sultan. The Seljuks, led by Alp Arslan, crushed the Byzantine army at Manzikert (1071) and occupied Anatolia. They also captured Jerusalem in 1071 and Antioch in 1085; this Seljuk expansion was the direct cause of the First Crusade (1096–1099). Alp Arslan’s son, Malik Shah (reigned 1072–1092), ably administered this huge empire. In Persia, the Seljuks adopted the culture and made Persian the official language of the government. Around 1100, the Seljuk Empire began to fall apart; the attacks of the Turco-Mongols led to the final collapse in 1157.
287. (C) The Mughal Empire ruled much of the subcontinent of India from 1526 to 1827. The dynasty was founded by Babur (1483–1530), a Turkish chieftain who was a descendant of Tamerlane (Timur). In 1504, Babur captured Kabul and established a kingdom in Afghanistan. After failing to conquer Samarkand in 1512, he began southward raids into India. In 1526, he defeated the sultan of Delhi at a crucial battle at Panipat. He then captured Agra and Delhi and eventually nearly all of northern India. At its height, from about 1650 to 1725, the Mughal Empire extended from Bengal in the east to Baluchistan in the west and from Kashmir in the north to the Kaveri basin in the south—more than a million square miles in total. (Badr al-Jamali was an Armenian general under the Fatimids; Baibars was a Mamluk sultan of Egypt; Bayezid I was an Ottoman sultan; and Barkyaruq was a Seljuk sultan.)
288. (C) Sufism is a general term for several ascetic and mystical movements within Islam. Two central Sufi concepts are tawakkul (total reliance on God) and dhikr (perpetual remembrance of God). Sufism originally gained followers in opposition to the worldliness of the Umayyad Caliphate; the word Sufi first appears in the eighth century. An important early figure was Rabia al-Adawiyya (717–801), a woman who rejected heaven and hell and insisted instead that the love of God was the only valid form of worship. Sufi devotional practices vary widely. Many early Sufis lived in a cell in a mosque and taught a small band of disciples. Sufis believed that by self-discipline, asceticism, and concentration on God, it was possible to achieve a union with the divine. They often served as missionaries for Islam and helped spread the religion in Africa and Asia. Sufism particularly thrived between the 13th and 16th centuries; Rumi (1207–1273) was a noted Islamic poet and Sufi mystic. His followers founded the Mevlevi Order in 1273 in present-day Turkey and are known as whirling dervishes because of their famous practice of whirling as a form of dhikr. (Dervish is a common term for an initiate of the Sufi path.) Sufism has often faced opposition from orthodox clerics. However, a statement by leading Islamic scholars in 2005 specifically recognized Sufism as a part of Islam.
289. (E) The relative early freedom for women in Islam was severely curtailed by the Abbasid Caliphate. The male elite in Abbasid society believed that women possessed insatiable lust; therefore, men needed to be segregated from all women except those of their family. The Abbasids introduced the custom of the harem and the veil. A harem (from the Arabic for “forbidden place”) refers to the sphere of women in a polygynous household. Wives and concubines (who were often slaves) of the Abbasid caliphs were confined to secluded quarters in the palaces that were forbidden to men. Women gradually disappeared from public records and events, as the ideal of secluding women became important for men who wanted to demonstrate their power. Urban women who appeared in public went accompanied by servants or chaperones and used a veil to discourage the attention of men. The use of the veil by Muslim women was customary only after the exposure of Islamic culture to Persian and Byzantine culture. Eventually, the practice of veiling (hijab) spread from upper-class women to urban and rural women of all classes. (Women in Islam were subject to their husbands, but they were not considered chattels.)
290. (D) A madrasa was a Muslim school for professors and their students, often attached to a mosque and funded by donations from the ruling elite. All-male classes interpreted the Koran and studied other literary and legal texts. Although most students paid fees to attend classes, some received scholarships. Visiting scholars attracted audiences by engaging in intellectual sparring with the professors. These institutions of higher learning in the Islamic world predated the creation of universities in Europe by several hundred years and are still common today.
291. (B) After Muhammad’s victory at the battle of Badr (624), he gained new followers and consolidated his position in Medina. He had originally seen the Jews of Medina as allies. He referred to Jews (as well as Christians) as “people of the Book” who shared the core principles of his teachings. Muhammad anticipated the support of the Jews, but they did not convert to Islam as he expected. After the battle, he accused them of supporting hostile tribes. He eventually expelled, executed, or enslaved the Jewish population of Medina. However, the Koran states that the Jews were specially chosen by God, who raised many prophets among them, blessed them, granted them favors, and held them over all other nations.
292. (D) In seventh-century Arabia before Islam, women were traditionally viewed as the property of men. In some ways, women benefited from the expansion of Islam. In the early days of Islamic rule, women could receive an education, engage in business activities, and participate in public life. The Koran provided for the care of widows and orphans, outlawed female infanticide, gave women the right of inheritance, and proclaimed that as believers, men and women were equal. At first, Muslim women even joined men during the five prayer periods. However, both the Koran and the sharia (Islamic law) established a patriarchal society. Islamic law recognized patriarchal inheritance; to ensure the legitimacy of heirs, women were subjected to control by male members of their household. Both the Koran and the sharia allowed Muslim men to follow the example of Muhammad and acquire up to four wives (although a man was obliged to support them and treat them equally); women were permitted only one husband. A woman’s testimony in court was given only half the weight of a man’s. Beginning in the eighth century, women began to pray separately from men. Islam, like Judaism and Christianity, retained the practices of a patriarchal society in which women’s participation was extremely circumscribed.
293. (A) Janissaries were elite infantry soldiers in the Ottoman Empire. The corps was formed in the 14th century and consisted mostly of war captives and Christian boys levied through the devshirme system. All recruits were converted to Islam and trained under the strictest discipline. They became the first Ottoman standing army, partially replacing tribal warriors (ghazis) whose loyalty and morale were not always guaranteed. The Janissary corps was distinctive because the soldiers wore unique uniforms, received salaries for their service, marched to music, and lived in barracks. In return for their loyalty, they received booty during wartime and enjoyed a high living standard and respected social status. Ottoman military bands, primarily composed of Janissaries, are some of the oldest military marching bands in the world. Ottoman mehter music, which for centuries accompanied the Ottoman army into battle, is noted for its powerful percussion and shrill winds combining kos (giant timpani), davul (bass drum), zurna (a loud shawm), trumpets, bells, and cymbals. The Janissaries constituted the backbone of the Ottoman army and soon acquired the power to make and unmake sultans.
294. (A) Koran means “recitation” in Arabic and is the name of the holy book of Islam. In 610, Muhammad began hearing a voice that he identified as that of God, or Allah. The voice ordered him to preach and live by God’s words and to convert other people. Muslims believe the Koran is God’s verbatim revelation as told to Muhammad by the angel Gabriel and then recited by Muhammad to others until his death in 632. Shortly after his death, the Koran was compiled into a single book by order of Abu Bakr, the first caliph. The earliest revelations emphasize the mercy and goodness of God, but eventually, the revelations covered all of human existence. The Koran is divided into 114 chapters of unequal length called suras. The suras are usually classified as either Meccan or Medinan, depending on the place and time of revelation. The chapter arrangement is not connected to the sequence of revelation; longer chapters appear earlier in the Koran while shorter ones appear later. For Muslims, the Koran contains the legal and moral code by which they should live. The Koran’s revelations stress the importance of a personal relationship with God, the obligations of the rich to the poor, and the certainty of either reward or punishment on Judgment Day. The Koran assumes familiarity with the stories in Jewish and Christian scriptures. It summarizes some of these stories, covers others at length, and presents entirely different accounts and interpretations of others.
295. (C) The Umayyad Caliphate was the second of the four major Arab caliphates (the first was the Rashidun from 632 to 661). Under Abd al-Malik (646–705), the Umayyad Caliph ate reached its peak, and Damascus became the capital of the Muslim world. Muslim armies overran most of Spain, invaded parts of India, and expanded to Samarkand and Tashkent in central Asia. At its greatest extent, the caliphate covered more than five million square miles, making it one of the largest empires in world history. Arabic became the official state language, and documents and currency were issued in that language. Thus, the Umayyads brought together areas that had not been linguistically united. They constructed famous buildings such as the Dome of the Rock at Jerusalem and the Umayyad Mosque at Damascus. They also essentially transformed the caliphate from a religious institution to a secular, dynastic one. Decline began in the early eighth century with some military setbacks, a financial crisis, and recurring revolts and civil war. The Muslim advance into France was halted at Poitiers (732), and Arab forces in Anatolia were destroyed (740). When the Abbasids overthrew the caliphate in 750, they tried to kill all members of the Umayyad house. However, one survivor, Abd ar-Rahman, escaped and established himself as a Muslim ruler in Spain (756), founding the dynasty of the Umayyads of Cordoba, which lasted until 1031.
296. (C) The Ottomans were one of several Turkish tribal confederations in central Asia that emerged during the breakdown of the Seljuk Empire. As converts to Islam, the Ottomans raided Byzantine territory and gradually reduced the Byzantine Empire to the city of Constantinople. Bursa fell in 1326 and Adrianople (present-day Edirne) in 1361; each in turn became the capital of the expanding Ottoman Empire. In the Balkans, the Ottomans took advantage of Christian disunity, allying with the Bulgarians and even some Serbian princes to win the battle of Kosovo in 1389 and destroying the last Christian resistance in the region. They secured almost complete control of southeastern Europe in 1396 when they crushed a crusading army sent by Pope Boniface IX at Nicopolis. In 1453, they finally succeeded in conquering Constantinople. Within a century, the Ottomans had changed from an obscure nomadic tribe to the heirs of the oldest surviving European empire. Their superior military organization aided their rapid success, but they also benefited from the weakness and disunity of their foes. Ottoman expansion reached its peak in the 16th century under Selim I (1467–1520) and Suleiman I (the Magnificent), who reigned from 1520 to 1566.
297. (D) Although the regions of the Islamic world were politically and culturally diverse, they maintained a measure of unity through trade networks and language. The principle bond was Arabic, the language of the Koran and of poetry. Arabic was also the language of commerce and government from Baghdad to Cordoba. Despite political differences, borders were usually open. With few regulations and no national barriers to trade, merchants often dealt in exotic goods across widespread trade networks.
298. (E) Muslims are required to make the hajj to Mecca (not Medina) if they are healthy and have the financial resources to do so. The hajj is a demonstration of the solidarity of the Muslim people and their submission to Allah. The other answer choices are requirements of the Five Pillars of Islam that every Muslim is expected to obey.
299. (A) Omar Khayyam (1048–1131) was a multitalented Persian poet who lived at times in Nishapur (in present-day Iran), Samarkand, and Bukhara (in present-day Uzbekistan). He was one of the most famous astronomers of medieval Islam and also wrote an important book on algebra that includes a geometric method for solving cubic equations. However, he is best known for his poetry, especially through the very loose translations of Edward Fitzgerald (1809–1883). Fitzgerald made Omar Khayyam the most famous “Oriental” poet in England and the United States in the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. This famous excerpt (quatrain 12) from Fitzgerald’s third through fifth editions is the most well-known quatrain (rubaiyaas), but it is not a direct translation. There are many 20th-century translations, and each renders this quatrain differently.
300. (B) Despite political differences, Muslims were free to trade across the entire Muslim world with no national barriers and few regulations. Muslim merchants bought tin from England, salt and gold from Timbuktu, amber and copper from Russia, and slaves from every region. They also developed letters of credit (sukuk or sakk) that were the predecessors of modern checks. However, double-entry bookkeeping (in which every transaction or event changes at least two different ledger accounts and the entries are usually labeled credit and debit) was invented in Italy in the late Middle Ages. The earliest example is from a Florentine merchant at the end of the 13th century. It was widely used by Italian banks by the 15th century and was an important part of the commercial expansion of Europe.
301. (B) Mamluks were Turkish slaves or freedmen who were trained as professional mounted soldiers and famous for their horsemanship and courage. In the late ninth century, the Abbasid caliphs came to depend on independent military commanders who led armies of Mamluks. These soldiers were paid to maintain their mounts and arms, and many gained fame and high positions at the courts of regional rulers. The Mamluks, unlike the Byzantine strategoi, were highly mobile. They were not tied to specific estates but instead were paid from rents collected by the local government. They were organized into tightly knit companies bound by devotion to a specific general and by strong camaraderie. For these reasons, they easily moved from ruler to ruler for higher pay. They achieved their greatest success in Egypt in the 13th century, where they resisted the crusade launched by King Louis IX of France. In 1254, they established their own dynasty in Egypt, expanded eastward to defeat the Mongols at Ayn Jalut (1261), took control of Syria, and drove the Crusaders out of the Outremer (1302). The Mamluks retained power in Egypt into the 19th century.
302. (C) Maimonides (1135–1204), also known as Moses ben Maimon, was the most influential Jewish thinker of the Middle Ages. He was born in Cordoba but fled the city for Morocco when the Almohads began persecuting Jews. He lived briefly in Israel before settling in Cairo about 1168 and serving as the official leader (nagid) of Egyptian Jewry. Maimonides was a famous physician, rising to the position of court doctor to the sultan Saladin and the royal family. In his medical writings, he described conditions such as asthma, diabetes, hepatitis, and pneumonia, and he emphasized moderation and a healthy lifestyle. His greatest rabbinic work, the 14-volume Mishneh Torah (1180), was a systematic statement of Jewish law and belief and is still used as a standard compilation of halakha (the collective body of Jewish law observed by orthodox Jews). His greatest philosophical work, Guide for the Perplexed (1190), was written in Arabic and attempted to rationalize Jewish theology by using Aristotle’s principles tinged with Neoplatonist ideas. The book also formulated a proof of the existence of God and tried to clarify baffling religious and philosophical (especially metaphysical) problems.
303. (B) Sunni Muslims ruled al-Andalus, the Arabic name given to the territory in Spain (and Portugal) governed by Muslims between 711 and 1492. Al-Andalus generally consisted of the central and southern part of Spain, but the boundaries underwent constant change because of attacks from Christian kingdoms to the north. The Spanish emirate at Cordoba was created at the beginning of the Abbasid Caliphate in 756 by Abd al-Rahman (731–788), a member of the Umayyad family who fled to Spain. The Muslim rulers in al-Andalus governed a wide range of peoples, including Jews and Christians. Many Christians adopted so much of the new language and culture that they were called Mozarabs (“like the Arabs”). The official Cordoba Caliphate began when Abd al-Rahman III (c. 889–961) took the title of caliph in 929. The caliphate declared that all religious groups in al-Andalus possessed religious freedom of worship and an equal opportunity to rise in the civil service. This openness helped make Cordoba the cultural center of al-Andalus. It was noted for its mosques and as a center of the translation of ancient Greek texts to Arabic, Latin, and Hebrew. Important advances in science, history, geography, and philosophy also occurred during the Cordoba Caliphate. In 1031, the caliphate broke up, as rulers of small, independent regions called taifa took power.
304. (B) The Toledo School of Translators was a group of scholars that worked together in Toledo (in present-day Spain) in the 12th and 13th centuries. These scholars translated many important philosophical and scientific works from Arabic, Greek, and Hebrew into Latin, a language available to every educated person in Europe. Traditionally, Toledo was a center of multilingual culture and important as a hub of learning and translation. The most famous translator was probably Gerard of Cremona (c. 1114–1187), who translated Arabic scientific works found in the abandoned Arab libraries of Toledo. His translated books include Ptolemy’s Almagest; many of the works of Aristotle; and books by Archimedes, Euclid, al-Kindi, al-Farabi, and Rhazes. Other important translators were John of Seville, Michael Scot, Yehuda ben Moshe Cohen, and Dominicus Gundissalinus. The work attracted scholars from all over Europe, who came to Toledo to study books of astronomy, astrology, algebra, medicine, optics, and philosophy that had not been available to Europeans for centuries.
305. (E) The principal medieval Islamic architectural types are the mosque, the tomb, the palace, and the fort. All four types are represented in the answer choices, and all are UNESCO World Heritage sites. The Taj Mahal is a mausoleum located in Agra, India. It was built by the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan from 1632 to 1653 in memory of his wife. It is the finest example of Mughal architecture, a style that combines elements from Persian, Turkish, and Indian architectural styles. The Alhambra is a palace and fort in Granada, Spain. It was constructed in the mid-14th century by the Muslim rulers of the emirate of Granada. The Selimiye Mosque is an Ottoman mosque in Edirne in European Turkey. The mosque was commissioned by Sultan Selim II and built according to plans by the famous architectural genius Mimar Sinan between 1568 and 1574; Sinan considered it his masterpiece. He was the chief Ottoman architect for the sultans Suleiman I, Selim II, and Murad III, and he built more than 300 major structures. Sankore Madrasa is one of three ancient centers of learning located in Timbuktu. Along with three ancient mosques, it makes up the famous medieval University of Timbuktu. (The Cairo Geniza is a collection of more than 250,000 Jewish documents and manuscript fragments found in the geniza (storeroom) of the Ben Ezra Synagogue in Cairo, Egypt.
306. (E) Mecca, in present-day Saudi Arabia, is the holiest city of Islam and the birthplace of Muhammad. It is located in a narrow valley about 45 miles from the Red Sea port of Jidda. Even before Islam, the city was a center of commerce and a place of great sanctity for polytheistic Arab sects. Meccan caravans sold Bedouin products to more urbanized areas in the north. The Kaaba, a religious shrine surrounded by 360 idols, served as a sacred place where violence was prohibited. The Quraysh tribe controlled the shrine and benefited by taxing pilgrims as well as selling them food and drink. Muhammad’s flight (Hijra) from Mecca in 622 began the rise of Islam. In 624, he led an outnumbered force to ambush a huge Meccan caravan. The small battle of Badr had large consequences; Muhammad’s followers killed 49 Meccans, took numerous prisoners, and confiscated rich booty. The battle of Badr was a great triumph for Muhammad, and he consolidated his position in Medina. In 630, he captured Mecca with 10,000 men, assuring the Quraysh of leniency and offering alliances to its leaders. He destroyed the idols and declared Mecca the holiest site in Islam and the center of Muslim pilgrimage. He also declared that no non-Muslim would be allowed inside the city so as to protect it from the influence of polytheism. Although Mecca never lost its sanctity, it declined in commercial importance after its capture by the Umayyads in 692.
307. (D) Henri Pirenne (1862–1935) was a Belgian historian concerned with the socioeconomic history of medieval Europe. The Pirenne thesis tried to date the point of transition from the Roman Empire to the Middle Ages and was spelled out in his posthumous essay titled Mohammed and Charlemagne (1937). Pirenne argued that real change in Europe came with the rise of Islam and not the German invasions. He believed the Roman Empire was mainly a maritime domain oriented around the Mediterranean; the sea provided trade routes, political administration, and military supervision. He hypothesized that the Muslim conquest of northern Africa split the Mediterranean world in two and cut western Europe off from markets in the east. As a result, individual regions in Europe could no longer produce some goods for market and use the proceeds from their sale to buy other needed goods. Instead, each region had to be self-sufficient, and a subsistence economy developed in Europe in the eighth century. Trade and urban life declined, and the Carolingians created a local land-for-service, self-sufficient economy that became the basis for medieval society. Pirenne’s thesis has been widely attacked and partially discredited over 75 years, but it remains an important conceptual tool to envision the impact of the rise of Islam on western Europe.
308. (A) When Muhammad unexpectedly died of an illness in 632, a succession crisis followed. The first caliphs did not come from the traditional elite but from the new circle of men close to Muhammad who had been participants in the Hijra. The first two caliphs ruled peacefully, but the third was not so lucky. Uthman (reigned 644–656) was a member of the Umayyad family and a son-in-law of Muhammad. His reign aroused discontent, and he was accused of favoritism in distributing offices and revenues. His opponents supported Ali, also a son-in-law of Muhammad, a member of the Hashim clan (to which Muhammad had belonged), and the husband of Muhammad’s only surviving child (Fatimah). After a group of soldiers murdered Uthman, a civil war broke out between the two factions. Ali was killed by one of his own followers, and the Umayyad caliphs remained in power until 750. However, the faction supporting Ali (the Shiites) refused to accept the caliphs who were supported by mainstream Muslims (the Sunni). Shiites saw Ali as a symbol of justice and righteousness, and they awaited the arrival of the true leader, the imam, who would only come from the house of Ali. (Eschatology is a part of theology that deals with death, judgment, and the final destiny of the soul and humankind.)
309. (D) A hadith (also plural) is a saying or an act that is ascribed to Muhammad or that had his tacit approval when it was said or done in his presence. Hadith are regarded by traditional Islamic legal schools of thought as important tools for understanding the Koran, and for a thousand years, they have been viewed as second only to the Koran as a source of authority. Modern scholars continue to refer to hadith in matters of Islamic law and history. Hundreds of hadith—too many to be taken seriously—appeared after Muhammad’s death. Abbasid scholars determined which hadith were authentic and should be followed and which hadith were simply composed for political or theological purposes. In the eighth and ninth centuries, Islamic scholars evaluated hadith and gathered them into large collections. They carefully judged the chain of transmission of the hadith, as well as considering the content as a source of religious authority. Hadith exist in two main collections corresponding to the Sunni and Shiite divisions within Islam.
310. (B) The Arab (Oriental) slave trade originated before Islam and lasted more than a thousand years. There were several main sources of slaves. Native Africans might be sent across the Sahara, Red Sea, or Indian Ocean, and non-Muslim prisoners might be captured in jihad. The first Muslims took a practical view of slavery. The Koran did not abolish it; in fact, Muhammad bought, sold, and owned slaves. However, the Koran did preach that slaves must be treated kindly, and later caliphs discouraged the enslavement of free Muslims. However, as Muslim armies swept across India, North Africa, and Spain, rebellious people in the lands they conquered were often enslaved. Arab rulers in Africa sometimes conducted raids to the south and captured slaves by claiming that their raids were jihads. They sold some of these African slaves to Islamic areas such as Persia or Arabia; others were purchased by Christians in present-day Spain, Portugal, and Italy. The Arab slave trade was never as large as the European transatlantic slave trade. However, an average of about 10,000 slaves left Africa across the Sahara, Red Sea, and Indian Ocean every year for centuries. It is impossible to be precise, but most estimates claim that between 8 and 20 million Africans were enslaved by Arab slave traders between 650 and 1800. Arabs also enslaved substantial numbers of Europeans; perhaps as many as a million were captured by North African raiders between 1500 and 1800.
311. (C) Ibn Sina (980–1037), known in Europe as Avicenna, wrote books on logic, the natural sciences, and physics. He wrote more than 400 treatises, of which about 240 have survived. Of his surviving works, approximately 150 are philosophical in nature and 40 concentrate on medicine. His Canon of Medicine organized earlier Greek and Arab treatises and reconciled them with his own experiences as a doctor. Avicenna noted the contagious nature of some infectious diseases and discussed how to test new medicines effectively. The Canon of Medicine was translated into Latin and then spread in manuscript and printed form throughout Europe. It remained a standard medical textbook in Europe until the 17th century. Avicenna also wrote The Book of Healing, an encyclopedia of science and philosophy that became another popular textbook in Europe. (Rhazes [865–925] wrote The Comprehensive Book of Medicine, which distinguished between measles and smallpox and was also popular in Europe. Albucasis [936–1013] wrote an encyclopedia of medicine that included descriptions and diagrams of more than 200 surgical instruments, many of which he developed. The surgery section was translated into Latin by Gerard of Cremona in the 1100s and was still being reprinted in the 1770s.)
312. (C) The Macedonian renaissance was a Byzantine intellectual movement that lasted from about 870 to 1025; it takes its name from the imperial dynasty from Macedonia that began with Basil I. The Carolingian renaissance describes the cultural explosion in the empire of Charlemagne and the kingdoms of the Carolingian Dynasty (northern and western Europe) in the ninth century. Political unification during the eighth century preceded the Macedonian, Islamic, and Carolingian renaissances that began in the ninth century. The consolidation of political power and the wealth of rulers in these three regions allowed for the sponsorship of art and scholarship. This trend also created centralized communities of scholars, such as the Great House of Study in Baghdad. The Islamic renaissance was particularly dazzling in urban centers such as Cordoba and Cairo. Compared to the ninth-century Byzantine and European movements, the scholars of the Islamic renaissance were more interested in mathematics. Most of the mathematical knowledge of medieval Europe came from the writings of Al-Khwarizmi and Ibn al-Haytham (Alhazen), who wrote studies on cubic and quadratic equations. So great was Muslim mathematical prestige that the numbers one, two, and three—although they were invented in India—were known as Arabic numbers when they were introduced to western Europe in the 12th century.
313. (E) Rodrigo Diaz (c. 1043–1099), also known as El Cid, was born into the lowest rank of Castilian nobility. In 1081, he was exiled from the court of Alfonso VI of Leon and Castile and signed up with with the Islamic emir of Saragossa. He commanded this Moorish army for several years with great success; there was nothing unusual in such cross-religious alliances until the invasion of the Almoravids. While working for the emir, he received the Arabic title of sayyid (lord), which was Hispanicized as Cid. After the Christian defeat at the battle of Sagrajas (1086), Alfonso VI talked El Cid into commanding a combined Christian and Moorish army against the Almoravids. El Cid used his military and political skills as well as his knowledge of Spanish Muslim politics to create his own fiefdom in the coastal city of Valencia. He managed to fight off the Almoravids and held the city until his death in battle in 1099. El Cid’s military exploits made him a mythic folk hero who has been immortalized in plays, movies, folktales, and songs.
314. (A) At Manzikert (1071), Seljuk Turks under Alp Arslan annihilated Byzantine forces, and Muslims took control of almost all of Anatolia. After Manzikert, the Byzantines were never again a major military force. At Hattin (1187), Saladin crushed King Guy of Jerusalem and ended any European control of the Holy Land. As a direct result of the battle, Islamic forces reconquered Jerusalem; Europeans would not regain it until World War I. At the second battle of Taraori (1192), Muslim Afghans defeated the Rajputs and took control of northern India. The area would be ruled by Muslims until the fall of the Mughal Dynasty in 1857. At Constantinople in 1453, the Ottoman Turks finally destroyed the Byzantine Empire and opened Europe to the spread of Islam. The Ottomans would be the dominant Muslim group until the 20th century. The exception to these victories was Tours (Poitiers) in 732. At this battle, Charles Martel defeated Abd ar-Rahman and ended the Muslim threat to western Europe.
315. (C) Islamic thinkers had a tremendous influence on medieval Europe. Most mathematical knowledge of medieval Europe came from the writings of Al-Khwarizmi. His book on equation theory (written c. 825) became so well known in Europe that the word al-jabr in the title became the English word algebra. Ibn al-Haytham (965–c. 1040), known in Europe as Alhazen, contributed to the principles of optics. His Book of Optics (1021) was famous for his early use of an experiment based on the scientific method. Alhazen rejected Ptolemy’s theory that light was emitted by the eye, insisting instead that light rays entered the eye. The Latin translation of his Book of Optics influenced many later European scientists, including Roger Bacon and Johannes Kepler. Ibn Sina’s (Avicenna’s) Canon of Medicine was the most advanced medical knowledge in Europe until 1500, and Ibn Rushd (Averroes) wrote important commentaries on Aristotle that greatly influenced European philosophy.
316. (D) Jihad is an Arabic word for “striving” or “struggle,” although it is typically translated into English as “holy war.” A person engaged in jihad is called a mujahid (plural, mujahideen). The word jihad appears 41 times in the Koran, usually in an expression meaning “striving in the way of God.” Jihad is a principal religious duty of Muslims, but it is not one of the Five Pillars of Islam. Muslims use the word to refer to three different types of struggles: an internal struggle to maintain faith, the struggle to improve Muslim society, or the struggle to defend Islam. In the last sense, jihad grew out of the traditional Bedouin tribal practice of seizing booty from other peoples. In medieval Islam, Muslims were allowed to enslave non-Muslim prisoners taken in jihad. In 1302, the famed Muslim jurist Ibn Taymiyyah issued the Mardin fatwas in which he declared that jihad against the Mongols was not only permissible but obligatory, even though the Mongols had converted to Sunni Islam. He based this ruling on the grounds that the Mongols were not true Muslims, because they used the Yassa code rather than sharia, so they were living in a state of pre-Islamic pagan ignorance. Historically, Sunni and Shiite Muslims have forbidden acts of suicide, kidnapping, and war against civilians.
317. (A) Ibn Battuta (1304–c. 1369) was a Moroccan Islamic scholar and traveler known for his vast travels, which he wrote about in Rihla (The Journey). His journeys spanned more than 20 years and covered almost the entire known Islamic world. Nearly everything that is known about Ibn Battuta’s life comes from his own writings; he set out from his native Tangier on the hajj to Mecca in 1325 and did not return to Mecca until 1349. According to one estimate, he traveled more than 75,000 miles, a record that may not have been surpassed until the 1800s. His travels reveal the webs of interconnection that stretched across the Muslim world from Spain to China and from Kazakhstan to Tanzania. (Nur ad-Din [1118–1174] was a Muslim leader in Syria who fought against the Crusader kingdoms. Tariq ibn Ziyad was a Berber commander from northern Africa who began the Muslim conquest of Spain in 711. Hasan ibn Sabah [d. 1124] was a leader of the Nizaris, a heterodox Islamic sect. He is credited with organizing and training the Assassins. Hakim [985–1021] was a possibly insane Fatimid caliph famous for his persecution of Christians and Jews.)
318. (D) The Outremer (from the French word for “overseas”) was the name for the Crusader states established after the First Crusade. The last major city of the Outremer was Acre, which had been captured by Christians in 1104 in the First Crusade. The Crusaders turned Acre into their chief port in Palestine, and it became the main port of the eastern Mediterranean. After the battle of Hattin, Saladin conquered Jerusalem and Acre; the Christians did not regain Jerusalem until the 1900s, but they reconquered Acre in the Third Crusade (1191). For the next hundred years, Acre was the Crusader base of operations and the capital of the kingdom of Jerusalem. In 1229, Acre was placed under the control of the Knights Hospitaller. It was the final stronghold of the Crusader states and fell to the Mamluks in 1291 after a bloody, 43-day siege. Although the crusading ideal continued for several more centuries in Europe, the capture of Acre marked the end of further crusades to the Holy Land. The Outremer continued to exist on the island of Cyprus, where the Latin kings schemed to recapture Jerusalem. However, they lacked the necessary money, men, and willpower and never succeeded. One last effort was made by King Peter I in 1365, when he successfully landed in Egypt and sacked Alexandria. Once the city was pillaged, however, the Crusaders speedily returned to Cyprus to divide up their booty.
319. (B) In 622, Muhammad made the Hijra to Medina, an oasis about 200 miles north of Mecca. This journey was crucial to his fledgling movement. At Medina, Muhammad found followers ready to listen to his religious message and to regard him as the leader of their community. (After Muhammad’s death, the year of the Hijra (622) became the first year of the Islamic calendar.) However, if the Muslims wanted to expand, it was essential to take control of Mecca, a revered holy place. The Meccan merchants made considerable money from the pilgrims who came to honor the numerous Arab gods. The fierce rivalry between Mecca’s clans and Medina’s Muslims began to spill over into the rest of the Arabian peninsula as both sides competed to win converts. At the battle of Badr in 624, Muhammad and his outnumbered forces ambushed a Meccan caravan. The success gave him the prestige to convince other clans to convert. In 630, two years before his death, Muhammad and his followers conquered Mecca and created a government dedicated to the worship of the one God, Allah.
320. (B) Ibn Rushd (1121–1189), known in Europe as Averroes, was a Muslim philosopher, physician, and astronomer. He lived in Cordoba (present-day Spain) and Morocco when he was in favor with the caliphs. However, he was banished, probably for heresy. Averroes is most famous for his commentaries on Aristotle; his interpretations remained influential well into the European renaissance. He attempted to separate the domains of faith and reason in Islam, insisting that the two did not conflict. He declared that philosophy was the highest form of inquiry and tried to demonstrate the importance of engaging religion critically to achieve deeper insights and correct understandings of God. Averroes vociferously defended Aristotelian philosophy against claims from Islamic theologians such as al-Ghazili (1058–1111) that philosophy would contradict the teachings of Islam. Ironically, Ibn Rushd was far more influential in European Christian and Jewish circles, where he was known simply as the Commentator. In the University of Paris in the late 1200s, a group of philosophers who identified with the Aristotelian philosophy presented by Ibn Rushd were known as Averroists. These Christian philosophers sparked a controversy in the Christian church about the relationship between philosophy and theology and between reason and faith.