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Ancient Africa
Part II: African civilization and the spread of Islam
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| What was the Pre-Islamic Africa like? | Extremely diverse soci. development |
| What was the political unity like? | It was difficult bc of terrain |
| What is the primary lan. spoken? | Bantu |
| What are the oral traditions like? | Very few written records |
| Most communities are what ? | Preliterate which means lacking a writing system |
| What was their religion(s)? | they were animistic and polythesitic |
| List some of the things that they do or believed of / for their religion? | Dancing/ drumming/ divination/ and sacrifice witchcraft/ cosmology power of natural forces; ritual and worship ancestors called upon |
| What 2 things were located in N. Africa : Islamic ? | trade routes and Meditteranean trade |
| What was the agriculture like in the Sub-Saharan? | ironworking; tribes and herders |
| What did African's exchange for manufactured goods | They sold abundant raw materials like esp. salt |
| The Sahara is the world's largest desert and acted as a what? | As a barrier to separate N Africa and Sub- Saharan Africa |
| What 2 Mediterranean cultures influenced N Africa | Phoenicians and Romans |
| What year was North Africans part of the Islamic empire? | 750 AD |
| North Africa was a part of the Islamic Empire and what did they convert to and what culture did they adopt? | Converted to Islam and adopted Arabic culture |
| African societies south of the Sahara were what ? | isolated |
| What did they miss on bc they were isolated? | They missed out on the cultural diffusion of the Classical Era |
| What happened between 670 and 700? | Rapid conversions by Berbers (Saharan nomads) Spreads along pre-existing caravan routes |
| What two people grow in power? | Almoravids and Almohads who are ultra- conservitives |
| Reformers launched jihad against who? | "lax" Muslims |
| What is a jihad? | A war to spread and protect faith |
| Who won the war? | Almohads defeat Almoravids |
| Almohad Caliphate was defeated by what? | defeated in 1212 by an alliance of Christian kings (4) |
| What are they essential for? | essential to spread Islam throughout Africa |
| Why is Islam attractive? | Egalitarian; reinforced king's authority equal footing politically/ religiously/ economicly with Arabs |
| What are the characteristics of Sub-Saharan Africa? | Most soci. lived in farming villages in family based clans Few soci. had written language histories were shared orally by storytellers (griots) made iron tools |
| What was their religion ? | polytheistic |
| what other religion did they practice? | Animism of which spirits exist in nature |
| What are the three ways that many small African communities are politically organized in this way? | There are authoritarian and centralized empires lack of concentration of power and authority weakness of stateless soci. |
| What was the lack of concentration of power and authority like? | Authority and power normally exercised by a ruler and court is held by a council or families or community |
| Did the soci. have good jobs? | Not a full- time job |
| one of the weaknesses of the stateless soci. was that there was no organization to collect what? | Taxes |
| What was wrong with the military? | It wasn't effective |
| What was the other problems with the soci.? | 1. no consensus 2. No undertaking of large building projects |
| Because of no consensus, what was the probelm? | It was the fact it was difficult to resist external pressures |
| What was the internal probelm? | Internally: problems would be resolved by allowing dissidents to leave and establish new villages |
| what happened over the course of 4,000 years of the Bantu people? | The bantu people of central Africa migrated south in search of farmland |
| What was the effect of the migration? | Help to spread 1. New farming 2. ironworking techniques |
| The kingdom of Aksum traded with who? | 1. Persia 2. India 3. Rome 4. Arabia |
| What happened bc of the trade with these 4 places? | The Aksum became a wealthy (very) kingdom |
| The soci. of East African participated in what? | Indian Ocean trade network They were also shaped by cultural diffusion |
| Where was along the coast by the 13th c. ? | Islamized trading ports |
| Most merchants converted bc of ? | financial motivation |
| Who was Iban Battuta | was a Islamic scholar/writer |
| What did Iban do? | He visited these cities |
| How does Iban refer to these cities? | refers them as Muslim cities |
| What is Swahili ? | Swahili is a language that was formed by Bantu and Arabic which emerged in urbanized trading ports |
| What is Syncretism ? | It is the merging of different cultures |
| Describe the Swahili civilization | it is a set of commercial city -states stretching along the E African coast |
| Kilwa, Mogadishu and Mombasa are all three related, how? | All three are large city-state that are trading centers located along the coast |
| Each city - state was politically what? | It was politically independent with its own king |
| Sharp class distinction in each city -state: what was it? | there was big gap between the merchant elite class and the commoners |
| who introduced Islam to the East African trade cities? | Arab Merchants |
| What did the mix fo African and Arabs cultures do? | Led to the new Swahili language. |
| Towns had what? | Mosques and were ruled by a Muslim sultan |
| many people kept what? | Their traditional religious beliefs |
| Tell three things about Kilwa? | 1. Located on East African Coast 2. Independent City-state (Not part of a kingdom) 3. Monopolized (Controlled) gold trade with interior |