Byzantium and Islam

This is Unit Nine of Western Civilization One, part one of two: Byzantium, the Roman Empire that did not fall, from Justinian to fourteen fifty-three, and the origins of Islam through the life of Muhammad. Unit eight closed on the West as Germanic kingdoms and the Church standing. Carry one idea through this unit. The exam files Byzantium and Islam together under medieval history, and the anchor's two chapters explain why: each inherited a piece of the ancient world and carried it while the West lost its own. Byzantium inherited the Roman state, the emperor, the city, the coin and the law, and its people called themselves Romans to the end. Islam, in part two, inherited the Greek learning and the Persian administration. This part takes Byzantium through its survival, its golden age and its decline, and then turns to Arabia, where a merchant of the Quraysh received, the tradition holds, a call from the one God of Abraham. By the end you will be able to say why the East survived. To describe Justinian's reign. To explain how Heraclius and the themes saved the core. To tell why kings converted and what Constantinople was like. To describe iconoclasm, the Schism, the golden age and the decline. And to state why Islam is in this course and tell Muhammad's life.

Two entries on the Romans who survived: a people who never called themselves Byzantine, and the anchor's four reasons the East lasted.

Romans, by their own name, for a thousand years.

WC1 0801 Romans Who Never Called Themselves Byzantine

The eastern Empire lasted a thousand years past four seventy-six, and its people called themselves Romans, never Byzantines, with Germanic kings as its formal vassals into the seventh century. The anchor finds it under-remembered because it was absorbed into the Ottoman world and cut off from the Western tradition. The exam files Byzantium under medieval history; its own view was Roman continuity.

City, gold, identity, luck.

WC1 0802 Why the East Survived: City, Gold, Identity, Luck

The anchor gives four reasons the East survived: Constantinople, impregnable with about five hundred thousand people; revenue the anchor puts at two hundred seventy thousand pounds of gold a year against the West's twenty thousand; stronger Roman identity; and luck, since the barbarians went west. Toulouse, the Gothic capital, stood at fifteen thousand. The figures are the anchor's, attributed, and the comparison is the point.

Four entries on Justinian: an emperor over Church and state with a code of law, Theodora and the riot, Belisarius's reconquest and the plague, and the church of Holy Wisdom.

Church and state under one man, and the law purged.

WC1 0803 Justinian, 527 to 565: Emperor Over Church and State, and the Code

Justinian ruled Church and state together, the eastern tradition against Rome's claims, persecuted heretics and pagans, and closed Plato's Academy about five twenty-nine. His Corpus Juris Civilis weeded contradictions out of Roman law, and the anchor calls it the direct textual ancestor of most European law. Emperor over church is the East's rule, and the pope will contest it.

The empress who would not flee.

WC1 0804 Theodora and the Nika Riot, 532

Theodora, a former actress, freed prostitutes, expanded women's rights and protected children from infanticide, in a marriage the anchor calls one of affection and intellect. In five thirty-two the Nika riot, a witness name, nearly drove Justinian from the city, and she stopped him fleeing. The riot's name comes from the witness; the anchor tells it unnamed.

Africa in a year, Italy in twenty, then plague.

WC1 0805 Belisarius, the Reconquest, and the Plague of 542

Belisarius took Vandal Africa in five thirty-three. Italy took twenty years and was devastated, and the anchor's thesis is that this invasion, not four seventy-six, crippled Italy. In five forty-two plague killed half of Constantinople, the anchor's figure; trade between East and West was severed, and peace was bought from Persia yearly. The thesis and figure are attributed, and the reconquests were re-lost after Justinian.

The dome that modeled every Orthodox church.

WC1 0806 Hagia Sophia

Justinian built Hagia Sophia, the church of Holy Wisdom, in Constantinople, its vast dome the largest of its age and the model for Orthodox churches. It stood as the empire's spiritual center until fourteen fifty-three, when the Ottomans made it a mosque. This entry rests on the witness texts, which name it thirty-nine times; the anchor never names the building.

Three entries on saving the core: Heraclius against Persia, the theme system's self-armed farmers, and the exarchates and Greek fire that held the sieges.

Persia beaten, the Cross returned, then the Arabs.

WC1 0807 Heraclius Saves the Core, 610 to 641

Heraclius took the throne in six ten as Persia seized Syria, Egypt and the True Cross. He recruited free peasants over mercenaries, made Anatolia the breadbasket, beat Persia in six twenty-eight, the witness's date where the anchor gives both six twenty-seven and six twenty-eight, and returned the Cross in six thirty. In his lifetime the Arabs took Syria and Egypt.

Soldiers the treasury never paid.

WC1 0808 The Theme System

A theme was a territory under one general, manned by its own men, granted land and buying their own arms, so the treasury paid nothing, the anchor's three hundred thousand men at the height. The anchor calls it a return to the Republic's self-armed citizen, and loyalty preserved the empire. By the mid-seventh century Byzantium was really a Greek kingdom, the anchor says.

Lost provinces, defensible borders.

WC1 0809 Exarchates, Greek Fire, and Leo III's Sieges

Exarchs, military-civil governors, held Africa and Italy until the Lombards took Italy in seven fifty-one. Leo the Third, seven seventeen to seven forty-one, repelled Arab sieges with theme soldiers and Greek fire, an incendiary whose formula is lost, and a state that could not afford wars used spies, bribes and assassinations. The losses gave defensible borders, a blessing in disguise in the anchor's phrase.

Four entries on the north, the city and the learning: why Bulgar kings converted, Kiev's choice, silk, guilds and coin, and piety that kept Greek thought without using it.

Conversion as diplomacy.

WC1 0810 Avars, Bulgars, Cyril, and Why Barbarian Kings Converted

The Avars and then the Bulgars raided; Krum drank from an emperor's skull about eight ten, and Boris converted fifty years later to enter the civilized network of trade and recognition. Cyril's alphabet and Slavonic liturgy made Orthodoxy's common culture, shared by the Greek, Russian, Ukrainian and Serbian churches. Conversion was diplomacy as much as faith.

Vikings over Slavs, choosing Orthodoxy.

WC1 0811 Vladimir, Kiev, and the Rus

The Rus were Vikings ruling Slavic towns. Vladimir the Great of Kiev converted to Orthodoxy about nine eighty-eight, the witness's date and the conventional one where the anchor says about nine eighty, and banned the Norse gods, taking legitimacy from Rome's prestige as Byzantium embodied it. Russia's church descends from this choice.

A silk monopoly, trusted coin, and rank in cloth.

WC1 0812 Constantinople: Silk, Guilds, Coin, Court

Silkworms smuggled from China about five fifty gave the emperor a silk monopoly. Guilds were regulated for steady taxes, coinage was trusted as far as England, and rank-coded court dress made power visible to the illiterate. The anchor's million people in the late eighth century, against no western city above fifteen thousand, is its figure, attributed.

Kept, not used.

WC1 0813 Piety Against Learning: Where Greek Thought Was Kept

Constantinople's holiness, its relics and the Virgin as intercessor, made it a New Jerusalem, but piety undermined secular study. Greek learning stayed with a small elite and, the anchor says, was largely analyzed and recopied in the Arab kingdoms; Latin was lost by the ninth century, and Justinian's code was read in Greek summary. Preservation without progress is the anchor's verdict, attributed.

Four entries on icons, schism, golden age and decline: the ban on images, the mutual excommunication of ten fifty-four, the Macedonian reconquest, and the road from Manzikert to fourteen fifty-three.

An eruption read as a sign against images.

WC1 0814 Iconoclasm, 726 to 843

Icons, images of Christ and the saints, focused worship for the illiterate, and Leo the Third read the Santorini eruption of seven twenty-six as a sign against them. Riots and revolts followed, Pope Gregory the Second excommunicated Leo, and Leo stripped the pope of authority over Byzantine Italy. The ban was lifted in eight forty-three. Trivial in hindsight, enormous at the time, the anchor says.

Two churches from one date.

WC1 0815 The Great Schism, 1054

In ten fifty-four Pope Leo the Ninth and Patriarch Michael the First excommunicated each other over Rome's claim to pre-eminence: the Great Schism between Catholic and Orthodox, the exam's two churches from here. Politics had divided them for centuries, and iconoclasm made it permanent. The Schism was a process, not one event; ten fifty-four is the date the exam uses.

Reconquest, renaissance, and the Republic's problem again.

WC1 0816 The Macedonian Golden Age, 867 to 1056

The Macedonian dynasty from eight sixty-seven reconquered to Mesopotamia, Crete and Cyprus, restored trade, and built and copied, a renaissance of Christianized classical study, with Photius's encyclopedia preserving lost texts, an anchor-only item. Basil the Second died in ten twenty-five without an heir, and decline began. Independent farmers were absorbed by aristocrats, so theme soldiers vanished: the Republic's problem again.

Three dates of decline.

WC1 0817 Seljuks, Manzikert, 1204, 1453: The Long Decline

The Seljuk Turks pressed into Anatolia from about one thousand and beat the emperor at Manzikert in ten seventy-one, a witness name the anchor omits. The Fourth Crusade sacked Constantinople in twelve oh four, where the anchor says eleven ninety-nine. The Ottomans took the city in fourteen fifty-three, which the anchor calls the last vestige of Rome.

Five entries on Islam's origins: the anchor's five points for its place here, Arabia and Mecca before Islam, Muhammad from Mecca to Medina, from Medina back to Mecca, and the faith as the tradition states it.

Five reasons Islam belongs in this story.

WC1 0818 Why Islam Is in This Course: The Anchor's Five Points

The anchor argues Islam belongs to Western civilization on five grounds: born in the Middle East; the same Abrahamic line; empires as advanced as any, preserving Greek learning; enemies of Christian states only sometimes; and trading partners, with Christendom as the Christian counter-identity. The thesis is the anchor's, attributed. The exam files Islam under medieval history, and that placement is consistent with it.

Caravans, clans, and a crossroads with a black stone.

WC1 0819 Pre-Islamic Arabia and Mecca

Arabs were herders and merchants in clans, camel caravans on the spice routes, famed light cavalry, polytheists of oasis gods, with kingdoms in contact with Rome, Persia and Aksum and Yemen as the fertile core. Mecca was a trade crossroads whose Kaaba, with its black stone, drew pilgrims before Islam. Where the anchor dates the Sasanians two thirty-four here, it is two twenty-four.

A merchant, a call, and year one.

WC1 0820 Muhammad: Mecca, the Revelation, the Hijra, 622

Muhammad, born about five seventy to the Quraysh, married Khadija and traded with Christians and Jews. About forty, the tradition holds, the archangel Gabriel called him to the one God of Abraham. Mecca resisted, since exclusivity threatened its pilgrim economy, and in six twenty-two he fled to Medina, the Hijra, year one. The revelation is the tradition's account; the dates are the record.

Mediator at Medina, master of Mecca.

WC1 0821 Medina, Mecca, 630, and Death, 632

Medina welcomed Muhammad as mediator, and there religious and political authority became one. A Muslim force fought Mecca at Badr in six twenty-four, a witness name; in six thirty Mecca submitted and became Islam's center, and missionaries and soldiers were already reaching Byzantium and Persia. He died in six thirty-two with most tribes converted, and no successor was named; part two shows the consequence.

Submission, the Koran, the last prophet.

WC1 0822 Islam: Submission, the Koran, the Last Prophet

Islam means submission. The Koran is held to have one divine origin and to be untranslatable, written from Muhammad's lifetime and definitive after his death; Muhammad is the last prophet, Jesus a major prophet but not divine. The Hadith record Muhammad's sayings, and Sharia law is built from Koran and Hadith. This is stated as the tradition states it; the course reports, and does not adjudicate.

Look at what you can now do. You can say that the East called itself Roman for a thousand years, and give the anchor's four reasons it survived: city, gold, identity, luck. You can describe Justinian over Church and state with a code that purged Roman law, Theodora stopping his flight, Belisarius's reconquest and the plague of five forty-two, and Hagia Sophia. You can explain Heraclius beating Persia and losing Syria and Egypt to the Arabs, the theme's self-armed farmers, and Greek fire at the sieges. You can tell why Boris and Vladimir converted, describe a city of silk, guilds and trusted coin, and say that its piety kept Greek thought without using it. You can describe iconoclasm from seven twenty-six to eight forty-three, the Schism of ten fifty-four, the Macedonian golden age, and Manzikert, twelve oh four and fourteen fifty-three. And you can state the anchor's five points, describe Mecca before Islam, and tell Muhammad from the call to six thirty-two, with the faith reported as the tradition states it. Part two opens on the five pillars, the caliphs who took the Middle East in twenty years, and the two heirs of Rome compared.