Islamic History: Dark Ages

Muhammad’s father-in-law Abu Bakr took over leadership of the umma as the successor (caliph) of Muhammad. Abu Bakr faced two main tasks: standardization of the Islamic religion and consolidation of the Islamic state. Abu Bakr successfully re-established Muslim authority over the Arabs and oversaw the compilation and organization of the Quran in book form.

In the part of the world that Islam would later control, there were many “world class cities” such as Bagdad, while London and Paris “were still little more than towns” (101 Q&A).

William Shakespeare enhances his play, Macbeth, by including a variety of motifs. “In a literary work, a motif can be seen as an image, sound, action or other figures that have a symbolic significance and contributes toward the development of theme,” (Literarydevices.net). In Macbeth, Shakespeare uses sleep, blood, hallucination, darkness and many other motifs to show importance in the play. Beginning with the battle between the Scots and the Norwegian invaders, blood is one of the most significant motifs that are presented in Macbeth. Shakespeare uses blood to symbolize power, courage and heroism as well as, death, cruelty and guilt.

In the play Macbeth by William Shakespeare, imagery is used to set the tone of a passage, provide contrast and irony to scenes, and help to display character. Shakespeare applies the imagery of clothing, darkness, and blood in an exceptional manner to describe his play. Each one of these is an important symbol used throughout the play. They add to a complete understanding of a passage or the play as a whole.

In William Shakespeare’s Macbeth, there are many impressive literary devices that he so brilliantly uses. Symbolism as one of the major literary devices that can reveal another or deeper meaning of an object, person or situation is used frequently in the play for certain. During numerous symbols, there are three important groups that are used most regularly. These are blood, hand and animals, which all have different representations. Those three symbols together add a certain value to the work and enrich the play considerably.

I choose to do the artwork option for my project and I have created a 3D model of a witch’s hat and a crown with a unique background. The witch’s hat symbolizes the three witches in Macbeth of which we get to know the most. The hat represents a bigger meaning of which that one of the themes in the play is supernatural and faith. This relates to the witches because the witches told Macbeth and Banquo their three visions and gave Macbeth the chance to see his three aspirations. In the play, these three visions and aspirations start to come true and it moves the ploy forward to the end, of which Macbeth gets killed. I put a major quotation about the witches onto the witch’s hat to enforce that witches and supernatural is a major theme and part of the play. On the witch's hat, I painted three tiny canvas of which put together spells ‘Macbeth’. I painted the word ‘Macbeth’ on three separate canvas to represent how Macbeth is later ‘broken’ and killed. It represents how Macbeth’s life starts to get out of control with his killing spree due to his ambition. It represents and foreshadows that something unpleasant is going to happen to Macbeth, death.

His scenes, backgrounds and costumes all connect strongly with the ideal images that Shakespeare gave us through his writing. By having an opposite approach to the story of Macbeth, they both have a variety of different powerful scenes within their different approaches and use a range of different film conventions in their own ways. There is a diversity between the symbols

Consequently, In Macbeth, William Shakespeare each time used many reoccurring and subtle symbols which support and help the theme develop. These symbols such as witches, hallucinations, darkness, sleep, water, prophecies, weather, the dagger and blood are used to create the theme of guilt which takes big roles in the theme of the play. Some of the symbols are used for foreshadowing but also they lead to the theme of guilt. All symbols are important and repeated throughout the

A ladder is often used for support and to link one’s steps to reach what is at the top. Like the ladder, motifs are often used to support and lead to themes within a piece of writing. This can be seen in William Shakespeare’s play, Macbeth. Shakespeare tends to use motifs to consistently highlight the messages in his play. Specifically, the motif of prophecies and hallucinations is used to repeatedly show that often times when circumstances are shown to be in favour of oneself, one becomes blinded from reality.

The one that was used the most was the blood/bloodshed, I showed how the blood amount of blood and killing kept growing at an unbelievably fast rate throughout the play and how killing became more and more sane throughout the play, until the end. As Lady Macbeth and Macbeth kill the king, Macbeth cannot believe the act of treason that he has just committed, but Lady Macbeth has a completely different view on the murder. Lady Macbeth says “A little water clears us of this deed”, which ends up becoming a very ironic statement because in scene five, where she has completely gone crazy, she tries washing nonexistent blood off of her hands, but is unable to; she ends up contradicting herself and looking at all the killings that cannot be undone from a different point of view (Act II, Scene 2, line 64). As for the death motif in my project, I incorporated a blood dagger to show what was used the kill the mighty King Duncan. This idea came to me from Macbeth’s hallucination with the dagger before the murder.

The Middle Ages had one dominant religion, Christianity, until Islam began. It is the Muslim religion. Islam is based on the claims of a man named Mohammed. When Mohammed died, his teachings were gathered into a book called the Koran (Quran). His intrepid successor Abu Bakr with a vast victorious army conquered cities and forced the people to convert to Islam. This is how Islam widely spread through out the Middle East. Islam is now a major world religion. This is the story Muslims tell today.

The Golden Age of Islam, also known as Islamic Renaissance was a period where engineers, academics, and traders of the Islamic world contributed immensely in aspects such as the arts, agriculture, economy, industry, literature, navigation, philosophy, science, and technology, preserving and improving the classical legacy on the one hand, and adding new inventions and innovations own. Thanks to historical circunstnces, philosophers, poets, artists, scientists, businessmen, and Muslim artisans created a unique culture that has influenced societies in all continents.

During the pre-Islamic Arabian society with limited of resources, they formed tribes to maintain resource and to have social orders. In this society, it will be ideal to live here. Even though, there’s limited of resources, people in the community have a duty to encourage, protect and help each other when needed.

The golden age of Islamic (and/or Muslim) art lasted from 750 to the 16th century, when ceramics, glass, metalwork, textiles, illuminated manuscripts, and woodwork flourished. Lustrous glazing was an Islamic contribution to ceramics. Islamic luster-painted ceramics were imitated by Italian potters during the Renaissance. Manuscript illumination developed into an important and greatly respected art, and portrait miniature painting flourished in Persia. Calligraphy, an essential aspect of written Arabic, developed in manuscripts and architectural decoration. This paper will examine the Islamic literature, music and philosophers.

Shakespeare plays carry a lot of references to how things were in his time. The characters, the plot, the settings, the play as a whole played a great role in showcasing the society of that day it’s culture and traditions. Those traditions and culture are weird or odd to people in some regions nowadays. However, some other cultures feel quite close to the traditions and customs in other regions. The Arab world is famous for holding on to it’s traditions and customs. The Arab culture affects all the individuals living in it, even the non-Arabs. Even individuals from different religions or family backgrounds living in one community in the Arab World can also share the same traditions and cultures. This paper will talk about the traditions, customs and culture of the Arab World –mainly the Gulf Arab, Kuwait—and how it is related to the themes and events of some of Shakespeare’s plays