| A | B |
|---|
| Sheikh | chief of a bedouin tribe |
| revelation | a vision of divine truth, which according to Islamic tradition was experienced by Muhammad in A.D. 610 |
| shari'ah | Islamic code of law that covers all the moral rules for private and public life |
| imam | a prayer led in a mosque |
| hajj | Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca that every able-bodied Muslim is expected to make at last once in a lifetime involving 3 days of prayer, ceremony and sacrifice |
| caliph | Muslim supreme leader; successor of Muhammad, khalifah |
| jihad | Muslim struggle to introduce Islam to other lands |
| madrasa | Muslim theological school |
| arabesque | geometric designs entwined with plant stems, leaves, flowers, and stars used by Islamic artists to decorate books, swords, rugs, and entire walls |
| chronicle | an oral or written account in which events are arranged in the order they occur |
| Muhammad | Prophet and founder of Islam |
| Muslims | any member of the Nation of Islam, "one who surrenders to God" |
| Abu Bakr | the 1st caliph, he was Muhammad's father-in-law and close friend |
| Ali | Muhammad's son-in-law, the 4th caliph; powerful rival of Mu'awiyah |
| the Rightly Guided Caliphs | the firt 4 caliphs who closely followed Muhammad's example, kept in close touch with the people, and asked for advice from Muslim leaders |
| Mu'awiyah | powerful rival of Ali, he was the governor of Syria, nephew to the 3rd caliph Uthman, and he sought revenge for Uthman's murder |
| Husayn | Ali's son and claimed caliph in Madinah by Shiites |
| Umayyads | caliphate dynasty (661 - 750)started by Mu'awiyah when he resisted Ali's authority and took over Egypt, Iraq and eventually the caliphate |
| Abbasids | anti-Umayyad Arabs and Muslims from Iraq and Persia fought the Umayyads and began a new caliphate dynasty (750 - 1258), centered in Baghdad |
| al-Razi | renowned chemist and physician (865 - 925) classsified substances as animal, vegetable or mineral and wrote over 200 medical works including an encyclopedia identifying the origins and symptoms of disease |
| Ibn Sina | a doctor who produced the Canon of Medicine in an attempt to summarize all medical knowledge of that time; as well as 68 books on logic and theology |
| Moses Maimonides | a Spanish Jew born in 1135, he fled to Morocco then Egypt to avoid persecution and became a leader in the Jewish community and a doctor to the Egytian ruler, and he authored Mishne Torah, a 14 volume Hebrew work on Jewish law and tradition |
| Ibn Khaldun | a North African diplomat and Muslim historian who looked for laws and cause and effect relationships to explain historical events and human behavior |
| the Arabian Penninsula | the land bounded by the Red Sea, Arabian Sea, Persian Gulf, Caspian and Black Seas, and the Mediterranean Sea |
| Makkah | a crossroads of commerce about 50 miles inland from the Red Sea, site of the Kaaba and the Black Stone of the angel Gabriel, birthplace of Muhammad |
| Mahdinah | Muhammad sent 60 Muslim families to Yathrib from Makkah, and these families accepted Muhammad as the messenger of God and ruler of this city |
| the Islamic state | ruled by the Abbasids from A.D. 750 - 1258, with the capital at Baghdad |
| Damascus | the capital after Madinah, established by the Umayyads |
| Baghdad | The new capital after Damascus, established by the Abbasids |
| Cordoba | the Umayyad capital in Spain, had more than 70 libraries and more than 1/2 million books |
