Western Civilization I / Unit 9 WC1 0836 worked example, 60 to 90 seconds
Reading a Map of the Arab Conquests
The idea
The exam's map shades the Islamic world at a date and asks what it shows or where a limit lay. The method is three rings dated: Arabia and the Middle East heartland by six fifty, North Africa and Spain by seven eleven, the Central Asian frontier by seven fifty-one. Beyond the rings lie four limits: Constantinople in seven eighteen, Tours in seven thirty-two, Nubia by treaty, and Talas.
In practice
Four questions. A map shading Syria, Persia and Egypt but not Africa west of Egypt: the first ring, before seven hundred. A map shading Spain: after seven eleven. A line across central France where the shading stops: Tours, seven thirty-two. A marked city that held out twice against sieges from the sea: Constantinople, seven eighteen. A fifth: a map with Cordoba shaded one color and Baghdad another is after seven fifty, when the surviving Umayyad made Spain a separate state, and a map with Egypt in a third color is after the Fatimids.
Where people slip
The map's colors show political division, not religious. Muslims under the Umayyads were about ten percent of the population, so a shaded province was ruled by Muslims, not populated by them, for generations.
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