I have been grading my online class post-unit quizzes for unit 9, which is on the beginnings of Islam. During the grading, I found that one of the questions that I asked (chosen randomly by the CMS) was particularly effective, eliciting some above-average responses from students. Even the best students outperformed themselves on this question. I have to figure out whether this has to do with interest, or the nature of the question.
The question: Discuss how the Qur’an defined honor and how the Islamic class system evolved during the caliphates.
This seemed to me like a pretty complex and difficult question. But here are the answers I received:
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The honor of the Qur’an lies within the Five Pillars of Truth, which set the basis for understanding and practicing the teachings of Islam. The Qur’an entails muslims to follow a strict code of moral behavior. Muslims must first learn to distinguish that they are to worship one holy god, “Allah”, and not the prophet Muhammad. This is achieved by “reciting the profession of faith in god and muhammad as prophet”. Other practices of the five pillars of truth related to giving praise, is that five times a day Muslims are required to pray to Allah, and also that Muslims must once in their life time make a pilgrimage to Mecca, the roots of Islamic heritage and the home of Muhammad. The Qur’an also defined honor by your ability to be disciplined enough to resist worldly and lifelike temptations like gambling, drinking alcohol, and following a strict sexual code. Discipline and honor were also displayed by fasting and preying for the 2nd month of Ramadan. Lastly, Muslims expressed their honor of the Qur’an by showing compassion, fairness, and caring for others. The last of the five pillars of truth not yet mentioned is that Muslims are required to give back to the poor or less privileged within their umma or community. Its also common practice of Islam to conduct fair business and not take advantage of others, any breaking of these laws did not differentiate between genders either, as punishment were the same for both males and females.
The Islamic Class system evolved quite a bit during the caliphates rule, first starting with Abu Bakr who was elected caliph after the death of Muhammad. The job of the caliph was to obey god’s law and he was only their to oversee and enforce god’s law. Calphites were selected over the next 3 successors; Ali, Umar, and Uthman. Uthman was the next successor and was assisanted for giving favors to his family, contradicting the umma. Ali was next in line but he too was assassinated as the Ummayad Family refused to honor Ali as caliph. Mu’awiya of the Ummayad family was the next caliph, he had a new agenda in mind tho regarding the caliph and decided that the caliph would no longer be elected but rather hereditery as the Ummayad’s ruled for the next 2 dynasties creating the Ummayad Dynasty. During the Ummayad Dynasty their was a split in Islamic beliefs creating 2 different belief systems, the Shi’a who supported Ali, and the Sunnis who accepted Mu’awiya as caliph. In 747, Abu Al Abbas finally put an end to the Ummayad Dynasty and became recognized as caliph, as did his next 3 successors. The Abbasid dynsasty established a more citizenship oriented basis of rule by creating a more worldly, humanly, and Islamic way of life as compared to the Ummayad dynasty. Throughout the rule of caliphs, imperial systems within the government were created. Obviously beginning with the caliph, then Arab Emirs or governors, then there was the shari’a who acted as enforcers of the law. There was also the Vizier, the caliphs chief assistant or right hand man who oversaw all of the caliph’s duties as well. ]
[The Qur’an emphasized the Five Pillars of Islam. A Muslim must profess that God is God and Muhammad is his prophet. Muslims must also pray five times a day, make a pilgremage to Mecca, fast and pray during the sacred month and give to the poor. The Qur’an also called for Muslims to take up arms if need be in order to spread the “truth.” This belief drove Arabs to conquer surrounding lands and convert followers to Islam. The conquered lands soon grew to be so big that Muslims had to find a way to govern these peoples and thus the caliphate system was born. The first Caliph was Abu Bakr and he took up the responsibility of enforcing the law of god. Under his successors, however a class system evolved. After the assasination of Ali, Mu’awiya gained the title of caliph and this is where Islam divided; followers of Ali came to be known as Shi’a, while followers of Mu’awiya came to be known as Sunnis. The Abbasid clan further divided the muslim community when they took over the caliphate. Under the Abbasids, society turned from tribal to provincial. Caliphs adopted Persian styles of rule and soon became completely seperate from “normal people.” Commercialism also took off, distinguishing merchants, slaves, and scholars.]
[According to the Qur’an, honor was achieved through spiritual and religious devotion rather than bloodline. Although equality amongst Muslims was promoted, many full-blooded Arabs still considered themselves superior. These ideals continued in the Umayyad period. The ruling Arab Muslims descended from Bedouin tribes people and were the ruling class. Converts made up the second class and eventually through intermarriage united people of various backgrounds. Jews and Christians made up the third class. Because of their monistic religion they were accepted, however they had to recognize Muslim political leadership and pay a tax.]
[The Qur’an defines honor in the reading as definining acceptable and required behaviors. There are many strict standards to be followed such as the “five pillars of islam”. Be the Qur’an they are required to make the pilgrimage to Mecca, give to the poor, and restrain from certain behaviors such as drinking alcohol or eating certain foods.
Under the rule of caliphates it seems as though the Muslims changed form a religion based society to a scholarly based society. The caliphates also manipulated the government in their favor to ensure that everyone was dependent on their power and believed that living in seperate tribes than unified as a large nation was more favorable.]
[Although Qur’an taught that a bloodline does not matter and only criterion was piety for honor, Muslim society was distinctly hierachical during Umayyad period. On top was caliph’s household and the ruling Arab Muslims composed of warriors, veterans, governing officials, and town settlers. Second was converts to Islam composed of merchants, traders, teachers, doctors, artists and interpreters. Below that was dhimmis – Jews, Christians, and Zoroastrians – being considered as “protected people” because they worshipped only one God, they were allowed to practice their religion freely with small tax and recognition of Muslim spremacy. Slaves were allowed but Qur’an encouraged owners to free their slaves.
Most dramatic changes that happened, I understand, was the treatment of women. The hadith depicts women in terms of moral virtue, domesticity, saintly ideals, and some political. Women were treated more equally in the beginning, but the understanding of Qur’an changed. With a marriage seen as a sefeguard of virtue, girls married husbands much older than them at early age, while girls were still virgins. Later on, women were started to be thought as possetions of men, so the rich men were allowed to have up to four wives. Women are restricted from public affairs, but they were provided well and treated well. Personally, that does not sound too bad.
Muslims and Islam were interesting. I didn’t know anything about them other than 9-11 related matters. I am thinking of reading Qur’an one day.]
These answers vary in quality and in structure, of course, but what struck me about all of them was their concreteness, and the willingness of students to analyze the information they received from the textbook and lecture, and come up with their own understandings. These answers seem to me to be evidence of students internalizing their lessons. I was very pleased. The question remains – did the lecture and textbook present these ideas better than usual? Did the lecture (I emphasize these points in my lectures and notes) complement the text well, or was this a result of student interest? Given the small sample, it may also have to do with a random student sample that was of a generally high quality.
It seems worth trying to correlate this with other questions that get high quality responses to try to find out.