Islamic Culture &

Civilization
M. TALHA KHAN AHMED KHAN
RAFEY SADIQ SYED MUHAMMAD ALI KAZMI
MOHSIN AFTAB M. NOAH ISMAIL SIDDIQUI
 What do we mean by Islamic
Culture and Civilization?
 Islamic Culture: Refer to cultural practices common to historically
Islamic people
 The early forms of Muslim culture, from the Rashidun Caliphate to
early Umayyad perioud, were
predominantly Arab, Byzantine, Persian and Levantine.
 With expansion, Islamic culture influenced and assimilated
from Persian, Egyptian, Caucasian, Turkic, Mongol, South
Asian, Malay, Somali, Berber, Indonesian, and Moro cultures.
 Islamic Civilization: The Islamic community (Ummah), consisting of all
those who adhere to the religion of Islam,[1] or to societies where Islam
is practiced.
 The history of the Muslim world spans about 1400 years.
 Socio-political developments, as well as advances in the arts, science,
philosophy, and technology, particularly during the Islamic Golden
Age (8th to the 14th century).
 Further developments in Islamic Art, Islamic literature, Islamic
architecture, Persian Literature, Arabic calligraphy, etc.
 Brief Introduction of Islamic History
Derived from both Judaism and Christianity, Islam was a
religion that claimed prophets from both religions (Adam,
Noah, Abraham, Moses, & Jesus), and saw itself as sharing
the same God with these two religions, with Muhammad
being the last prophet. The Muslims saw themselves as
descendants of Abraham, the ancestor of the Jews, and
in particular, the descendants of Ismael, Abraham's elder
son by his Egyptian bondmaid.
While Islam adopts the Judeo-Christian idea of the fall,
humanity is in general glorified in foundational and later
Islam. Despite the Fall, humanity has the power to discern
the unity of God and the reflection of the nature of God
in creation. At the core of the Islamic message is that it is
possible for human beings to live a perfect life in
relationship to God.
Islam is world-affirming. As a corollary to the generally
optimistic view that Islam takes towards humanity, it also
construes the created world as fundamentally a good
place that was designed for the use and enjoyment of
humanity. Thus marriages for priests and interest in (the
pagan) Greek and Roman science and technology.
 Development and Spread of Islamic Culture
5
Development Spread
 Islamic history and culture can be traced through the  WTH THE DEATH of Muhammad, the Muslim community
written records: Pre-Islamic, early Islamic, Umayyad, the found itself without a leader. While as the ‘seal of the
first and second Abbasid, the Hispano-Arabic, the Persian
and the modern periods. The various influences of these prophets’ he could have no successor, as a political guide
different periods can be readily perceived, as can traces Muhammad was succeeded by the so-called al Khulafa' al
of the Greek, the Indian, and the Pre-Islamic Persian Rashidun, the four ‘rightly-guided caliphs’ who were chosen
cultures. Throughout the first four centuries of Islam, one from his most loyal companions. It was during the leadership
does not witness the synthesis or homogenization of of these caliphs ( 632 – 56 ), and particularly under the
different cultures but rather their transmittal through, and
second caliph and great statesman ‘Umar ibn al Khattab
at times their absorption into, the Islamic framework of
values. Islam has been a conduit for Western civilization (634–44), that the conquest of territories outside Arabia
of cultural forms which might otherwise have died out. began. Influenced by the political systems of these
Pre-Islamic poetry and prose, which was transmitted conquered areas, the leadership became hereditary, and
orally, was recorded mostly during the Umayyad period the Umayyad dynasty ( 661 – 750 ) emerged out of the
(661-750 A.D.) when the Arab way of life began shifting aristocracy of the Quraysh. While the Rashidun caliphs were
from the simple nomadic life prevalent in the peninsula to
an urban and sophisticated one. Contacts with Greece based at Mecca and Medina, the Umayyads moved the
and Persia gave a greater impulse to music, which seat of power to Damascus. Their successors, the ‘Abbasids
frequently accompanied the recitation of prose and ( 750 – 1258 ), who were less Arab-centered, built a new
poetry. By the mid-800's in the Baghdad capital of capital, Baghdad, in a fertile area on the main routes
Abbassids under Harun al-Rashid and al-Ma'mun, Islamic between Iraq, Iran and Syria.
culture as well as commerce and contacts with many
other parts of the world flourished.
East meets West: Spread of
Islam
6
 Islam in the Contemporary World
 Studies of Islam in the contemporary world usually concentrate on various types of modernism or so-
called fundamentalism, whereas the majority of Muslims continue to live in the world of tradition
despite all the attacks on the traditional point of view in modern times.
 To understand Islam today, it is first of all important to realize that the histories of different religions do
not all follow the same trajectory. Christianity had the Protestant Reformation in the sixteenth century
and aggiornamento in the Catholic Church in the 1960s. Judaism has also witnessed the rise of both
the Reform and the Conservative schools, at least in the West. Islam, however, has not undergone, nor
is it likely to undergo in any appreciable degree, the same kinds of transformation either juridically or
theologically.
 Moreover, the traditional Islamic sciences of Quranic commentary, Hadith , jurisprudence, and the like
continue as they have done over the centuries despite the devastations brought on the traditional
Islamic education system (the madrasahs ) in many lands. The ‘ ulema ,’ or religious scholars, continue
to wield their authority in the realm of religion and in some lands over political life as well.
 To understand Islam fully in the contemporary world, it is first necessary to comprehend the living nature
of traditional Islam, to consider the powerful hold of the worldview of the Quran on the souls and minds
of the vast majority of Muslims, and to grasp the truth that the vast majority still believe in the
immutability of the Quran as the Word of God, in the reality of the perfect model of the Prophet to be
emulated in one’s life, in the validity of the Shariah , and, for those who follow the path of inwardness,
in the efficacy of the permanent and ever renewed teachings of the Tarīqah , or Sufism.