Relationship between Byzantium and Islam - Essay Example

BYZANTIUM AND ISLAM After the fall of Roman Empire, three civilizations begun based on religion - Byzantium and Islam. These two were adaptions of the previous roman system which was based on Christianity. As barbarian invaders ripped the western empire to shreds, the East subsisted as Byzantium and Constantinople as its capital.  As trade, urban life, and knowledge declined in the Western empire, Byzantium developed a vital economy, refined and intellectual artistic life, and a robust administrative government that braced the Eastern Church.  Administrative and doctrinal differences caused the Eastern and Western churches to divide in 1054, ending a centuries-long partition between Greek and Latin Christendom.  Byzantium attained its political height through Justinian, who re-conquered the old Western empire parts.  Successive attacks from various peoples, including Latin Christians, made Byzantium weak, finally falling to the Ottoman Turks (1454) (Perry, Chase, Jacob, & Jacob, 2008 pg. 29). As the 7th century began, vast territories that extended from Egypt to Syria and across North African territories were under the rule of Byzantine Empire from Constantinople (modern Istanbul), its capital. Critical to the power and wealth of the empire, these southern territories long influenced by the Greco-Roman traditions held Orthodox, Syriac and Coptic, Christians, Jewish communities, among other many religions (Ratliff & Evans, 2012 pg. 36). Great pilgrimage centers engrossed the faithful followers from as far away as Scandinavia in the west and Yemen in the east. Major trade routes extended down the Red Sea to eastward past Jordan to Indian lands in the south, bringing ivories and silks to the imperial territories. Key cities made wealthy by commerce protracted along inland trade routes Constantinople north and along the coastline of Mediterranean sea. Commerce carried ideas and images freely through the region. In the same 7th century, the newly founded faith of Islam began from Medina and Mecca along the Red Sea trade way and reached westward to the Byzantium Empire’s southern provinces. Religious and political authority was conveyed from the long conventional Christian Byzantine to the newly founded Umayyad and well along Abbasid Muslim dynasties. These new powers capitalized on the advantage of existing region traditions in developing their compelling religious and secular visual identities. This exhibition shadows the Byzantine Empire southern provinces artistic traditions from the 7th century to the 9th, as they were changed from being fundamental to the Byzantine tradition and beliefs to being a critical Islamic world part (Ratliff & Evans, 2012 pg. 61). Byzantium preserved key foundations of the Greco-Roman practices and tradition.  Under Justinian's order, Byzantine scholars collected and organized Roman law in the Corpus Juris Civilis, which had four parts.  Influenced by the Greek historians, Byzantines including Anna Comnena, Procopius, and Michael Psellus offered rational, comprehensible, if not always objective, versions of historical occasions.  Byzantine religious philosophers studied Greek philosophy but they subordinated philosophical activity to theology enterprise. Byzantium developed a rich architectural, artistic, and musical tradition influenced by some pre-existing ones.  Drawing from Hebrew and Greco-Roman practice and theory, Byzantine musicians formed a tonal system that greatly influenced the Western music course, and Kontakion hymnody derivative of early Christianity models.  Byzantine art largely concerned itself with exalting the empire and serving spiritual purposes.  The iconoclastic controversy made artists to find new methods of approaching the issue of representing the human nature, but despite that, Byzantine artists never reconnoitered realism in deep as their Western complements did.  Ravenna became the focus of much early artistic engagements.  Buildings such as Theodoric's church of St. Apollinare, Galla Placidia's mausoleum, and San Vitale represent disparities on both centralized plans and the basilica and include notable mosaics or paintings depicting Christian themes (Ozigboh, 1988 pg. 13).  Also San Vitale includes mosaics worshiping Justinian and Theodora, and St Apollinare in Classe has an important depiction of Christ Pantocrator.  The bi biggest Byzantine monument is Justinian's re-constructed Hagia Sophia, an exclusive mixture of centralized styles and the basilica that Ottoman conquerors changed into a mosque. As the Byzantium flourished, Islam began from the Arabia.  Centered on the religious involvement of Prophet Muhammad, Islam raised in opposition to previous Arab polytheism and to Christianity and Judaism.  After a retro of persecution, Prophet Muhammad and his followers subjugated Arabia with the aid of Bedouin converts.  After the death of Muhammad, the newly cohesive Muslim Arabs launched jihad, ultimately conquering a vast empire stretching from India to Spain (Grunebaum, 2005 pg. 48).  Integrated many cultural behaviors, Muslim civilization reached its full height under Abbasid caliphs who administrated from Baghdad.  Waves of attackers from Central Asia made the Arab empire weak until falling to the Ottoman Turks, with its armies pushed far on Eastern Europe. Being a monotheistic religion, Islam portrayed itself as the Judaism and Christianity fulfillment. Though not considered celestial, Muhammad was considered as the last, highest prophet in a line which included Jesus and Abraham.  Islam teachings on Five Pillars of faith and on various practical questions are collected in the Hadith and Qur'an.  Islam eventually broke into 3 majors sects: Shi'ites and the Sunnites, who divided over orthodoxy and leadership questions, and the Sufis, who overruled rational speculation and instead adopted mystical spiritual experience.  Sufism developed dramatically during the 13th century Mongol attacks, as Muslims sought relief in the face of catastrophes (Grunebaum, 2005 pg. 229).  The Islamic system was theocratic, in which leaders governed according to religious rule.  Although many Arab women developed with Islam, ambiguities in Hadith and Qur'an led to the formation of an Arab- fashion patriarchy in which Muslin women were entirely subservient to men.  Islam rendered special status to Jews and Christians.  Although they endured penalties and restrictions as non-Islam, these "People of the Book" normally lived free of harassment. Islamic thought also conserved the Hellenic tradition and aided pass it onto the West. Muslim physicians, mathematicians, and scientists built upon the Greeks work, expanding their perceptions and often correcting their inaccuracies.  Islamic philosophers used Aristotelian and Platonic ideas to explore Muslim religious concerns. Thinkers including Avicenna and Al-Farabi used Aristotelian and Neoplatonic concepts to prove God’s existence, while Averroës used Aristotle to argue that study of the Quran and the philosophy were compatible. Ibn Khaldun underwrote to historiography through the Universal History, which includes an analytical autobiography and a comprehensive account of civilization (Perry, Chase, Jacob, & Jacob, 2008 pg. 602). Islamic art and literature displays a wide variety of thematic and forms concerns.  Ibn Hazm, poet, wrote a critical analysis about love. Omar Khayyam's verses pervaded expressions of love with a philosophical resignation, while Rumi reconnoitered Sufi mystical experience.  The widely held ‘Thousand and One Arabian Nights’ integrated diverse tales within a cohesive frame story, employing exaggeration to evade the Muslim fiction ban (Grunebaum, 2005 pg. 77). Working within the images of living creatures ban, Islamic art emphasized immaterial ornamental styles.  During the Abbasid and Umayyad dynasties, distinctive architectural styles developed.  Based on Byzantine replicas, shrines like Dome of the Rock used calligraphy to decorate its interiors and convey sacred messages.  Also developed were standard mosque plans drawing attention on Qibla wall and later integrating minarets for muezzin calls.  Amongst the most remarkable mosques are those of Cordoba, Samarra, and Damascus (Ozigboh, 1988 pg. 23).  A significant late work is Alhambra, a Granada palace-complex designed inside to create unearthly effects conducive to reflection. Islamic and Byzantine systems gave crucial heritages to the West.  The Byzantine Orthodoxy formed the religious traditions of most of Slavic Europe, and both systems helped to preserve and convey important elements of Hellenic tradition: Byzantium, the legal practice of Rome and modified Hellenic architectural elegances; Islam, the philosophical and scientific tradition of Greece (Jones, 2007 pg. 86).  Interaction with both systems enabled Latin Christendom to engross the Hellenic legacy through the Middle Ages. These examples clearly indicate that Byzantine and Islam were not unique, but adaption of previous systems. Much recent scholarship various disciplines has expanded scrutiny for how Islamic and Byzantine cultures restructured, and intersected deeply and constantly in diverse means from their original nature, including trade, diplomacy, pilgrimage, and warfare. In the artistic scope, visual languages ran across cultural divides, and art works that participated in these types of dynamism often developed hybrid stylistic as well as iconographic features The Roman Empire was the ancestor of the Byzantine and remarkably blended diversity and unity, the latter being by far the most known since its constituents were among the predominant aspects of Roman civilization. The common coinage, the Latin language, the "international" Roman army legions, the urban network, the Greco-Roman civic culture heritage, and the law loomed largest among those links that Augustus and his heirs hoped would bring peace and unity to a Mediterranean world shattered by centuries of civil and religious wars (Ratliff & Evans, 2012 pg. 229). To strengthen these strengths of imperial civilization, the Byzantine emperor hoped that a spontaneous and lively trade might develop among several provinces. Bibliography Grunebaum, G. V. (2005). Classical Islam: a history, 600-1258. London: Transaction Publishers. Jones, L. (2007). Between Byzantium and Islam: Aght'Amar and the Visual Construction of Medieval Aremenian Rulership. Washington: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd. Ozigboh, I. (1988). An introduction to the religion and history of Islam. Indiana : Fourth Dimension Pub. Co. Perry, M., Chase, M., Jacob, M., & Jacob, J. (2008). Western Civilization: Ideas, Politics, and Society. To 1789. New York: Cengage Learning. Ratliff, B., & Evans, H. (2012). Byzantium and Islam: Age of Transition, 7th-9th Century. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art. Read More