| A | B |
|---|
| Bedouins | nomadic herders who moved through deserts to find pasture for their herds of goats and camels |
| Muhammad | the Holy Prophet of Islam, born around 570 C.E. in Mecca |
| Mecca | the center of the Islamic world; a bustling market town in the time of the Prophet |
| Yathrib | Arabian city renamed Medina in the time of Muhammad |
| Medina | formerly Yathrib; the city of the Prophets |
| Quran | the sacred text of Islam |
| mosque | house of worship for Muslims |
| muezzein | calls the faithful to prayer |
| hajj | pilgrimage to Mecca |
| jihad | struggle in God's service |
| People of the Book | Christians and Jews, according to Muslims |
| Sharia | body of Islamic law based on Quran, tradition, and behavior of the Prophet |
| Abu Bakr | Muhammad's father-in-law and and early convert to Islam |
| caliph | successor to Muhammad |
| Ali | Muhammad's son-in-law; husband to Fatima |
| Sunni | believe that any pious Muslim from Muhammad's tribe could be caliph |
| Shiite | believe that only descendants of Ali should be caliph |
| Sufis | Muslim mystics; sought communion with God through meditation, fasting, and ritual |
| Umayyad | dynasty of Sunni caliphs who ruled the Muslim empire until 750 |
| Abbasid dynasty | Muslim dynasty ruled from 750-1258; experienced a golden age |
| Baghdad | the capital city of the Abbasid caliphate |
| minaret | towers around a mosque |
| sultan | Turkish title for the monarch |
| social mobility | the ability to move up in social class |
| Firdawsi | poet who wrote Persian in Arabic script; wrote the Book of Kings |
| Omar Khayyam | Persian poet who wrote the Rubaiyat; most famous poet in the Muslim world |
| calligraphy | the art of beautiful handwriting; Arabic script is often used as artwork |
| Ibn Rush | Known in Europe as Averroes; preserved the writings of Aristotle; relied on reason |
| Ibn Khaldun | Arab thinker who set standards for the systematic study of history; wrote about the reliability of sources |
| al-Khwarizmi | mathematician who wrote about algebra |
| Muhammad al-Razi | head physician at Baghdad's main hospital; wrote books on medicine and the study of diseases like measles and smallpox |
| Ibn Sina | Called Avicenna in Europe; wrote the Canon on Medicine, an encyclopedia of medical knowledge |
