The 17th Century Travelogues of Ahmad Bin Qasim and Ilyas Hanna Al-Mawsuli

One of the main reasons Europeans sought to explore the world was to spread Christianity. As far as they knew, the New World had never heard of Christianity, and the Spanish Cardinal Trinlini said that this made them “heathens [who] live a barbarous life”. His motivation for exploring these new lands was to save the natives from their ignorance

In its Golden Age, Islam’s influence reached all the way to Spain, Anatolia, West Africa, and India, among other regions. While these regions were all, in a way, united under a common religion, each of them both altered and were altered by Islam in their own unique ways. Although there were similarities that existed with the spread of Islam to each of those places, many more differences prevailed. Differences and similarities existed in the forms of the role of migration, role of trade, role of cultural exchange, methods of conversion to Islam, and the unique cultural developments in each region.

Religious motives of the ‘Old Land’ of Europe’s exploration can be traced back to the days of the Crusades down to the 11th and 15th century, where the European Christians tried to invade and claim the city of Jerusalem from its Muslim control. The struggle between the Islamic rule and the European Christians planted the ideology of ‘Reconquista’ in the latter’s religion. It influenced the Christian religion with an air of religious intolerance. With the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century, European Catholic’s interests in colonizing newer lands and declare global dominance earned a new momentum. And strong Catholic nations of Spain and Portugal were the

In many places such as Europe, people did not have religious freedom. The new world provided freedom of religion and place where you could spread your beliefs without being punished. People wanted to spread Christianity to the new world to help stop the spread of the Middle Eastern Muslims. After the explorers and settlers arrived in the new world, missionaries were sent to help spread Christianity.

The main characters in “Araby” by James Joyce and “The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien are both at war with fantasy and reality. Both of these characters are ones motivated by their infatuation with woman they hardly know but believe that they love them. Both these stories tell us that their fantasizing and objectification of these women are used to cover up their true feelings. In return this offers the main characters an escape from reality.

Crusading fervor remained a basic part of the Portuguese and Spanish national ideals. The desire to Christianize Muslims and pagan peoples played a central role in European expansion. Queen Isabella of Spain, for example, showed a fantastical zeal for converting the Muslims to Christianity and concentrated her efforts on the Muslims in Granada (Buckler 503). These conquests and mass conversions were done solely to bring Christianity to the world. Crusades and conquests were essentially wars of conversion. As an unnamed scholar wrote about a crusade in China, “While Buddha came to China on white elephants, Christ was borne on cannon balls.” Explorers such as crusaders forced Christianity into places that were home to other religions. But not all explorers who practiced the Christian faith spread their religion through crusading. Christopher Columbus understood Christianity as a missionary religion that should be carried to peoples and places where it did not exist. Although his character certainly included material and secular qualities, first and foremost, as he wrote in 1498, he believed he was a divine agent: “God made me the messenger of the new heaven and the new earth of which he spoke of in the Apocalypse of St. John after having spoken of it through the mouth of the prophet Isaiah; and he showed me the post where to find it.” (Buckler 506)

Once Muslims advanced into European countries (Spain and Balkan regions) with their religion, Christians tried to undo their work

the New World was to convert the locals to Christianity. For example, some important religious figures were Friar Bernardino de

The idea of love is very complex and can be interpreted in a variety of ways. Both “The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien and “Araby” by James Joyce portray the lives of two individuals who are in love. “The Things They Carried” is about a young lieutenant named Jimmy Cross during the Vietnam War. Lieutenant Cross was incapable of focusing on the war because of his constant thoughts of the girl he loved, Martha. “Araby” is about a boy who is infatuated with a girl he has never had a conversation with. Although both protagonists in “The Things They Carried” and “Araby” eventually realize that the girls they loved didn’t feel the same way about them, Lieutenant Cross tried to move on by destroying everything he had that reminded him of

For five weeks in 1964 Malcolm X completed the Hajj, a mandatory Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca. When he returned from this trip, Malcolm had a different outlook and preached not to just African-Americans but to muslims of all races. It changed Malcolm’s world view and gave him hope for a better future.

According to Amin Maalouf, “It seems clear that the Arab East still sees the West as a natural enemy. Against that enemy, any hostile action-be it political, military, or based on oil-is considered no more than legitimate vengeance. And there can be no doubt that the schism between these two worlds dates from the Crusades, deeply felt by the Arabs, even today, as an act of rape” (Amin Maalouf). When reflecting on The Crusades Through Arab Eyes, this quote always sticks out as the most powerful piece of Maalouf’s work. As a growing college student this quote brings harsh reality to the world I live in. I believe as you grow through life, you become more and more aware of the world around you through education. In order to be aware you must

Tell el-‘Amarna, the city built by Heretic Pharaoh Akhenaten was located between Luxor and Cairo along the Nile. The city was occupied during the reign of Akhenaten and abandoned after his death by his son, Pharaoh Tutankhamun. Although the city was along occupied for a short period of time, archaeologists have been able to reconstruct a fairly accurate representation of the city. However, because the city was associated with Aten and the religion of the heretic king, the city was partially destroyed and nearly all evidence of the culture during the reign of Akhenaten was destroyed. Although the Egyptian people attempted to erase this pharaoh from history, the city tells the story of the time through the few pieces of art, the tombs, and the city plans. The articles written by Croker and one of the ones written by Kemp discuss the value of architecture and how it related to status within the society of the time. The other articles written by Ikram, and Kemp, Stevens, Dabbs, Zabecki, and Rose discuss the art, religion, and ritual practices. The city of Amarna was created on the basis of abandoning the old gods in favor of the worship of a single god, Aten. Societies in ancient history were based primarily on religion, and while archaeologists try to use Amarna as a basis for the study of New Kingdom Egypt because the religions changed Amarna should not be used as a template. Akhenaten aimed to abandon the old ways

While the Abbasids seized power on the Arabian Peninsula, the Umayyad leader Abd al-Rahman fled to the Iberian Peninsula and built a magnificent kingdom. When he reached Spain, he made it Al-Andalus, also known as Muslim Spain. He gained power by uniting the factions that were already there and defeating the ruling factions. Al-Andalus became a glorious kingdom in the Muslim empire because they had powerful leaders, a stable government, and effective tactics for expansion. The reasons for their decline will also be mentioned in this essay.

The author, Ibn al-Muqaffa, was one of the original Coptic (a hieroglyphic form of writing) writers. He has been referred to as “the earliest of the great Coptic writers in the Arabic language.”1 In society, Ibn al-Muqaffa began his writing career at an early age working for the Arab Administration as a scribe; and, he has been long revered as one of the greatest historians for his work entitled the History of the Patriarchs of Alexandria.2 The purpose for the Coptic church patriarchs was to compile transcripts of occurrences for the historical recounting of key events, figures; and, biographies from battles, wars and the

Over a thousand years ago, Europe experienced one of its greatest periods of cultural enlightenment.Islam in Spain has had a fundamental presence in the culture and history of the nation. The religion was present inmodern Spanish soil from 711 until 1492 under the rule of the Arabs and Moors of al-Andalus.Islamic Spain was a multi-cultural mix of the people of three great monotheistic religions: Muslims,Christians, and Jews.For more than three centuries in Medieval Spain, Muslims, Jews and Christians lived together and prospered in a thriving multicultural civilization. Here, remarkable individuals of different faiths made lasting contributions in such areas as poetry, art, architecture, music, dining etiquette, science, agriculture,