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World History 1

<OpenstaxParagraph>
	Anxieties about spiritual redemption and conflicting doctrinal interpretations generated many transformations in religious life across Afro-Eurasia in the fourteenth century. While some religions splintered into subdivisions focused on reinforcing their own doctrinal purity and conformity of belief, others expanded in the face of adversity. In the wake of the plague and the demoralizing collapse of the Mongol Empire, for example, <OpenstaxTerm>Islam</OpenstaxTerm>ic traditions in much of North Africa and central Asia did not deteriorate but increasingly solidified into institutional forms that helped develop a sense of common identity across a broad territory (<a href="#fig-00001">Figure 16.16</a>). To maintain this sense of community, Muslim scholars routinely corresponded with each other and traveled to <OpenstaxTerm>Mecca</OpenstaxTerm> to keep up with the latest theological teachings.
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<OpenstaxFigure id="fig-00001" src="https://openstax.org/apps/archive/20240226.174525/resources/6d44a8c9e091cd07cc6b21a55e0c60f149b62086" alt="A large mass of land is shown in white and water is indicated in blue. Blue is seen along the west and in the southeast. Bodies of water are also seen in the middle. Areas are highlighted gold and labelled. An area in the west is labelled Mali Empire, and in the middle of the map, from north to south, areas in gold are: Golden Horde, Ottomans, Timurid Empire, Mamluk Sultanate, and Delhi Sultanate." mediaType="image/jpg" width="1300" height="700" />
<OpenstaxFigureText width="1300">
	<strong>Figure 16.16</strong> The shaded areas in this map depict the extent of the largest Islamic states at end of the fourteenth century. Despite the challenges of the Black Death and the Mongols’ conquest and decline, Islam’s scope and influence continued to expand into Africa and Asia in the fifteenth century. (credit: modification of work “TNM Download (v2.0)” by National Land Cover Database (NLCD)/United States Geological Survey (USGS)/U.S. Department of the Interior, Public Domain)
</OpenstaxFigureText>
<OpenstaxParagraph>
	The Quran and the Hadith (the recorded actions and sayings of Muhammed) remained central components of all varieties of Islam, but different interpretations of ritual and the role of the mystical experience increasingly defined the contours of its myriad branches. In particular, <OpenstaxTerm>Sufism</OpenstaxTerm>, a mystical form of Islam that had first emerged in the eighth century, became increasingly integrated into everyday religious life. Although it could be expressed in a variety of ways, Sufism’s emphasis on inner personal contemplation and the believer’s connection with the divine became especially compelling during the period of instability and uncertainty following the collapse of the Il-Khanate.
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	By the end of the fourteenth century, the majority of the population from North Africa to eastern Persia was Muslim. This community of the faithful was increasingly defined by its diversity of languages and cultures. But allegiance to a shared historical tradition and set of core beliefs provided unity and coherence, as did believers’ social networks, schools, and mosques. This cohesion and continued growth enabled Islam to expand into sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia, setting the stage for Muslim ascendancy in the fifteenth century.
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	While Islam spread across central and southern Asia, <OpenstaxTerm>China</OpenstaxTerm> focused on recovering its religious and philosophical traditions after years of Mongol rule. Thus, the <OpenstaxTerm>Ming</OpenstaxTerm> era represented a period of introspection and isolation. <OpenstaxTerm>Zhu Di</OpenstaxTerm> took the imperial title of Yongle emperor and ruled from 1402 to 1424 as the third emperor of the Ming dynasty. He reinstated Confucian-based rituals and learning by sponsoring the compilation of a massive encyclopedia that incorporated writing from thousands of Confucian scholars. Although <OpenstaxTerm>Confucianism</OpenstaxTerm> coexisted with <OpenstaxTerm>Buddhism</OpenstaxTerm> and <OpenstaxTerm>Daoism</OpenstaxTerm> in Ming China, it effectively complemented these traditions rather than competing with them.
</OpenstaxParagraph>
<OpenstaxParagraph>
	Meanwhile, western Europe was grappling with emerging cracks in the foundations of <OpenstaxTerm>Christianity</OpenstaxTerm>, its principal religious tradition. By the end of the fourteenth century, leadership crises associated with the <OpenstaxTerm>Avignon papacy</OpenstaxTerm> and the <OpenstaxTerm>Great Western Schism</OpenstaxTerm> had badly damaged the papacy’s reputation and led many to question the church’s piety and integrity. After the conclusion of the Great Schism, some attempts were made to resolve such doubts and misgivings by granting more authority to councils of clergy rather than popes through the conciliar movement. Although this movement offered some hope that the church could be reformed from within, it met with severe resistance from popes who insisted on absolute papal supremacy.
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	Beyond their larger misgivings about the integrity of church leadership, however, many Christians who survived the trauma of the Black Death were primarily concerned with their own salvation and the church’s inability to appease God’s anger or mitigate the plague’s devastation. As a result, new forms of mystical and individualistic spiritual practices emerged that emphasized <OpenstaxEm>asceticism</OpenstaxEm>, a tradition of strict self-discipline and the denial of worldly goods, and that encouraged the rise of anticlerical groups such as the Spiritual Franciscans in Italy and the Lollards in England. Through their critiques of clerical wealth and corruption, these groups posed significant challenges to the authority of the church. Although the leaders of many anticlerical organizations were deemed heretics and suppressed by church leaders, they nevertheless laid the groundwork for the sixteenth-century religious revolution known as the Protestant Reformation. Born in central Europe, the Reformation came to emphatically divide the Christian Church.
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16.4.2 Religious Changes

1 Understanding the Past

1.1 Developing a Global Perspective

1.1.1 World History as Preparation for Life after College

1.1.2 World History and Global Citizenship

1.1.3 Features of This Textbook

1.2 Primary Sources

1.2.1 Learning to Evaluate Documents and Images

1.2.2 Documentary Sources: Competing Narratives

1.2.3 Textual Sources: The Importance of Language

1.2.4 Hidden in History

1.3 Causation and Interpretation in History

1.3.1 Levels of Causation

1.3.2 Interpretation in History

2 Early Humans

2.1 Early Human Evolution and Migration

2.1.1 Human Evolution

2.1.2 Why Did Humans Move and Where Did They Go?

2.1.3 Early Human Technologies

2.2 People in the Paleolithic Age

2.2.1 Ice, Ice, and More Ice

2.2.2 Life in the Paleolithic Age

2.2.3 Diverse Paleolithic Peoples

2.3 The Neolithic Revolution

2.3.1 The Development of Agriculture

2.3.2 How Farming Changed the Human Experience

2.3.3 Neolithic Peoples

3 Early Civilizations and Urban Societies

3.1 Early Civilizations

3.1.1 Attributes of Early Civilizations

3.1.2 The First Urban Societies

3.2 Ancient Mesopotamia

3.2.1 The Rise and Eclipse of Sumer

3.2.2 The Rise of the World’s First Empire

3.2.3 Later Empires in Mesopotamia

3.2.4 Society and Religion in Ancient Mesopotamia

3.3 Ancient Egypt

3.3.1 The Origins of Ancient Egypt

3.3.2 The Age of Pyramid Building

3.3.3 A Second Age of Egyptian Greatness

3.4 The Indus Valley Civilization

3.4.1 The Origins of the Indus Valley Civilization

3.4.2 Trade, Writing, and Religion

3.4.3 The Era of Decline

4 The Near East

4.1 From Old Babylon to the Medes

4.1.1 Power Politics in the Near East

4.1.2 Foreign Affairs and Trade

4.1.3 Daily Life and the Family in the Near East

4.2 Egypt’s New Kingdom

4.2.1 The Hyksos in Egypt

4.2.2 The Pharaohs of the New Kingdom

4.2.3 Egypt’s Foreign Policy

4.3 The Persian Empire

4.3.1 The Rise of Persia

4.3.2 Darius I and the Reorganization of the Empire

4.3.3 Persian Culture and Daily Life

4.4 The Hebrews

4.4.1 The History of the Hebrews

4.4.2 The Culture of the Hebrews

5 Asia in Ancient Times

5.1 Ancient China

5.1.1 Prehistoric China

5.1.2 Early Dynastic China

5.1.3 The Zhou Dynasty

5.1.4 The Warring States Era and Qin Unification

5.2 The Steppes

5.2.1 The Nomadic Culture of the Steppes

5.2.2 Tribes, Confederations, and Settled Neighbors

5.3 Korea, Japan, and Southeast Asia

5.3.1 Ancient Korea

5.3.2 Ancient Japan

5.4 Vedic India to the Fall of the Maurya Empire

5.4.1 Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro

5.4.2 The Aryans and Brahmanism

5.4.3 Buddhism

5.4.4 The Mauryan Empire

5.4.5 The Gupta Dynasty

6 Mediterranean Peoples

6.1 Early Mediterranean Peoples

6.1.1 The Late Bronze Age World

6.1.2 Phoenicians, Greeks, and Etruscans

6.2 Ancient Greece

6.2.1 Archaic Greece

6.2.2 Sparta and Athens

6.2.3 Classical Greece

6.3 The Hellenistic Era

6.3.1 The Kingdom of Macedon

6.3.2 Hellenistic Culture

6.4 The Roman Republic

6.4.1 The Foundation and Function of the Roman Republic

6.4.2 The Expansion of the Roman Republic

6.5 The Age of Augustus

6.5.1 The First Triumvirate

6.5.2 From Republic to Principate

7 Experiencing the Roman Empire

7.1 The Daily Life of a Roman Family

7.1.1 The Structure of Roman Families

7.1.2 A Day in the Life of a Roman Family

7.1.3 What Family Meant in Rome