| A | B |
|---|
| Justinian | Byzantine empire's greatest leader |
| Mosaics | Byzantine art form using tiles of dyed glass to make a picture |
| Icons | religious pictures or statues found in churches and used for worship |
| St. Cyril | famous Christian missionary who spread Orthodox christianity to the slavs by creating a new alphabet (cyrillic) |
| Cyrillic | The Alphabet created by Cyril to teach Christianity to the slavs |
| Slavs | people in E. Europe and Russia who adopted many aspects of Byzantine culture |
| Hagia Sophia | Famous domed church in Constantinople constructed by Justinian and later turned into a mosque and then a museum |
| Orthodox Christianity | Form of christianity practiced in the Eastern Roman empire |
| The Schism | term for the division of the Christian Religion into the Catholic and Orthodox Churches |
| Catholic Christianity | form of christianity practiced in the Western Empire |
| The Ottoman Turks | group who conquered Constantinople in 1400s AD changing the city to a center for Islam |
| Allah | Arabic word for god |
| Muhammed | founder of Islam, considered by muslims to be Allah's most important prophet |
| The Koran | Holy book for Islam |
| 5 pillars of Islam | key beliefs and duties of the followers of Islam |
| Arabic | official language of Islam |
| Mecca | holy city for Islam, it is the home to the Kaaba |
| The House of Wisdom | famous Islamic University in Baghdad |
| The Dome of the Rock | famous Islamic mosque in Jerusalem it is the greatest example of Islamic architecture |
| The Battle of Tours | famous battle that ended Islamic expansion into Western Europe. |
| Axum | Christian Kingdom, located near the Ethippian highlands |
| Zimbabwe | Kingdom known for its stone fortresses, located in between the Zambezi and Limpopo Rivers |
| Nubia | Kingdom just south of Egypt on the Nile that traded to become wealthy |
| The Qu'ran | The Muslim Holy Book |
| Gold and Salt | The two most important trade items in West Africa |
| Timbuktu | The great city in West Africa that was a center for learning and worship |
| Animism | The belief that all living things have a soul, led many kingdoms to believe in ancestor worship |
| Ghana, Mali, Songhai | The famous empires of West Africa |
| The Sahara Desert, Arabian Desert, and Cataracts of the Nile | Physical barriers that helped protect Egypt |
| Medina | 1st city to adopt Islam |
| Caliph | the title for the leader of the Muslim community |
| Ali | Caliph who was the nephew of Muhammad and whose death caused the Sunni-Shia split |
| Baghdad | New capital for the Islamic empire it was the home to the House of Wisdom |
| Mongols | group from Central Asia that conquered and devastated the Muslim empire |
| Calligraphy | decorative text used in Muslim worship in place of pictures |
| Swahili | trade language in East Africa that blended bantu and arabic |
| Mansa Musa | famous Mali king who built numerous mosques and schools across Africa |
| Anansi | the West African "trickster" god that often was the form of a spider |
| Bedouins | the nomadic Arab traders |
| King Ezana | King of Axum that converted the area to Christianity |
