Spread of Islam Unit Test
Chapters 6-8
1. Which of the following areas was NOT affected by Islam in the millennium after 600 A.D.?
A) Africa D) South America
B) Europe E) China
C) Asia
2. What clan was responsible for the foundation of Mecca?
A) Umayyad D) Almoravid
B) Abbasid E) Turks
C) Aghlabid
3. Which of the following statements most accurately describes the status of women in bedouin society prior to Islam?
A) Women were regarded as little more than property with neither rights nor status.
B) Descent in the bedouin tribes was strictly patrilineal.
C) Women were the equal of males in the rugged society of the desert bedouin.
D) Women in pre-Islamic bedouin culture enjoyed greater freedom and higher status than those of the Byzantine and Persian Empires.
E) Women were permitted to take more than one husband.
4. What was the nature of pre-Islamic bedouin religion?
A) Most of the bedouin were Christians.
B) Most of the bedouin were Jews.
C) Bedouin religion for most clans was a blend of animism and polytheism focusing on the worship of nature spirits.
D) The bedouin were strictly monotheists who worshipped Allah.
E) the Bedouins had no religions beliefs.
5. What was the initial response of the Umayyads to Muhammad’s new faith?
A) They regarded him as a threat to their wealth and power as he questioned the traditional gods of the Ka’ba.
B) They sought to protect him from a plot on his life by the Banu Hashim.
C) The Umayyads immediately accepted Muhammad as their religious and political leader and the chief power in Mecca.
D) The Umayyads simply ignored Muhammad as an insignificant member of a powerless clan.
E) They sought him as an ally against the Christians.
6. What was Muhammad’s teaching with respect to the revelations of other monotheistic religions?
A) Muhammad accepted the earlier Christian revelations, but rejected completely any influence from Judaism.
B) Muhammad accepted the earlier Judaic revelations, but rejected completely any influences from Christianity.
C) Muhammad accepted the validity of earlier Christian and Judaic revelations and taught that his own revelations were a final refinement and reformation of earlier ones.
D) Muhammad stressed that only his own revelations had merit and others were works of the devil.
E) Muhammad taught that monotheistic religion was compatible with polytheism.
7. Which of the following was NOT a reason for the early expansion of Islam beyond Arabia?
A) the desire for booty
B) the sense of common cause and united strength
C) the desire to convert new populations to Islam
D) a means to release the energies of the bedouin tribes against others than themselves
E) the weakness of their adversaries
8. The political and theological faction within Islam that recognized only Ali and the descendants of the family of Muhammad as rightful rulers was called
A) Shi’is.
B) Sunnis.
C) Kharij.
D) Fiqhs.
E) Sufis.
9. Why did the Arab warriors not want to convert large numbers of people to Islam?
A) Muhammad specifically stated that Islam could only be spread among the Arabs.
B) They would have had to share their booty and would have lost tax revenues.
C) They lacked the political organization to govern them and feared insurrection by non-Arabs.
D) Conversion would have slowed down the process of conquest.
E) They wanted to keep high religious offices among themselves.
10. What was the Umayyad attitude to other religions?
A) The Umayyads suppressed all religions within their territories other than Islam.
B) The Umayyads converted to Christianity, but continued to permit the open worship of Islam.
C) The Umayyads displayed tolerance towards the religions of dhimmi peoples.
D) Christianity and Judaism were suppressed as heresies, but other communities were permitted to retain their religions.
E) Zoroastrians and Hindus were never accepted.
11. What was the most significant of the transformations brought about by the Abbasids’ rise to power?
A) the final defeat of the Byzantine Empire
B) the admission of the mawali as full members of the Islamic community
C) the destruction of absolutism within Islamic government
D) the destruction of Sunni influences within Islam
E) victory in the Crusades.
12. What was the nature of the Abbasid government?
A) The Abbasids abandoned the formality and absolutism of the Umayyads and established an open and representative government.
B) The Abbasids outdid the Umayyads in establishing an absolutist government symbolized by the growing powers of the wazirs and the sinister presence of the executioner.
C) The Abbasid government represented a return to the principles of government in the first days of the Orthodox Caliphate.
D) The Abbasids continued the policies of the Umayyads virtually without change, including the maintenance of an exclusively Arabic elite.
E) The Abbasid government was extremely efficient.
13. What accounts for the disruption of the agricultural economy of the Abbasid Empire?
A) The decline of the cities led to a fall in the demand for food supplies and consequently drops in agricultural prices.
B) Progressive desiccation of the region led to a diminution of the land available for agriculture.
C) Spiraling taxation, the destruction of the irrigation works, and pillaging by mercenary armies led to destruction and abandonment of many villages.
D) The government ordered regions of the empire populated by Shi’as abandoned.
E) Cropping patterns were abandoned.
14. What was the innovation of the Abbasid court with respect to women?
A) the establishment of the harem
B) the legislation of multiple marriages for women
C) the creation of Islamic nunneries
D) legislation against concubinage and prostitution
E) more equality of rights
15. What was the impact of the Seljuk conquest of Baghdad on the Abbasid Empire?
A) The Empire continued to crumble as a result of the military successes of Fatimid Egypt and the Byzantine Empire.
B) The imposition of a Christian government in the name of the Abbasid Caliphs temporarily restored order.
C) The Seljuks abandoned the Middle East for further conquests in the Indian subcontinent.
D) It actually restored the ability of the empire to meet the challenges of Egypt and the Byzantine Empire.
E) It left them unprepared to deal with the Mongols.
16. What accounts for the success of the First Crusade?
A) the overwhelming military superiority of western military technology
B) the contemporary emergence of the Christian Seljuk Turks in Baghdad
C) Muslim political fragmentation and the element of surprise
D) the support and cooperation of the Jewish community of the Holy Land
E) the power of the Byzantine Empire
17. What was the impact of the Crusades of the Christian West?
A) Christians adopted military techniques, words, scientific learning, and Arabic numerals among other things.
B) Christians rejected most Muslim influence, although they did gain a taste for Muslim wines and liquors.
C) There was no Muslim influence on the Christian West.
D) The Crusades interrupted the trade of the Mediterranean and cut off the West from Islam until 1293.
E) The crusades led to an extension of Feudalism.
18. What was the level of trade in the Abbasid Empire?
A) Long-distance trade with Africa, the Mediterranean, India, and China continued to flourish despite periodic interruption.
B) Trade with the East grew, but the Crusades eliminated the western trade routes.
C) Trade with Africa and the Mediterranean continued to expand, but the wars in India disrupted the eastern trade routes.
D) As a whole, long-distance trade along the traditional caravan routes virtually ceased during the Abbasid Empire.
E) The Abbasids decreased trade activity from all previous areas.
19. Which of the following statements concerning the Sufi movement within Islam is most accurate?
A) The Sufi movement stressed an increasingly restrictive conservatism within Islam.
B) The Sufi movement stressed withdrawal from other believers and isolation into monastic communities.
C) The Sufi movement incorporated mysticism with a trend toward evangelism.
D) The Sufi questioned the Islamic interest in the Greek traditions in science.
E) Sufism was a rationalistic movement.
20. What was the difference between the Islamic invasions of India and previous incursions of the subcontinent?
A) With the Muslims, the peoples of India encountered for the first time a large-scale influx of invaders with a civilization as sophisticated as their own.
B) With the Muslims, the peoples of India encountered for the first time an invasion from the west rather than the east.
C) The Muslims were rapidly able to unify all of India into a single empire.
D) The Muslims, unlike previous invaders, bypassed the Gangetic plain in preference for southern India.
E) Islam had no lasting effect on India.
21. How did Islam and Hinduism differ?
A) Hinduism stressed the egalitarianism of all believers, while Islam was more rigid in terms of orthodox belief.
B) Islam stressed the egalitarianism of all believers, while Hinduism was more rigid in terms of orthodox belief.
C) Islam stressed the egalitarianism of all believers, while Hinduism embraced a caste-based social system.
D) Hinduism stressed the egalitarianism of all believers, while Islam embraced a caste-based social system.
E) Hinduism was monotheistic, while Islam was polytheistic.
22. What groups in India were most likely to convert to Islam?
A) brahmins and merchants
B) raja and warriors
C) members of the administrative machinery of the Islamic kingdoms
D) Buddhists and low caste Hindus
E) Sikhs and sultans
23. How did Hinduism respond to the challenge of Islam?
A) Hindus abandoned their emphasis on many deities in favor of monotheism in the person of Shiva.
B) Hindus placed greater emphasis on the devotional or bhaktic cults of gods or goddesses such as Shiva and Vishnu.
C) Hindus converted to Islam in increasing numbers, until Muslims outnumbered Hindus in the subcontinent.
D) The Brahmins accepted Islam as a variety of orthodox Hindu belief, while anticipating the incorporation of the Muslim immigrants into the Indian caste system.
E) Hindus created a new warrior class.
24. What was the nature of Islamic religion that developed in Southeast Asia?
A) Because most of the missionaries were ulama from Arabia, the religion most closely resembled Islam as practiced in the first generations after Muhammad.
B) Because Islam came to Southeast Asia from India and was spread by Sufi holy men, it developed a mystical nature that incorporated much of the indigenous religion.
C) Because Islam was carried to Southeast Asia from China, it bore many of the characteristics of Buddhism.
D) Because Islam was carried by conquering warriors from India, it rejected the native Buddhism and Hinduism in preference for more conservative Islamic orthodoxy.
E) It was based on Islamic science and rationalism.
25. What was one of the major differences between African civilizations and other post-classical societies?
A) African civilizations were built somewhat less clearly on prior precedent than was the case in other post-classical societies.
B) African civilization was almost entirely dependent on cultural importations from Islam and the Arabic world.
C) Prior to 800, African civilizations had no prior contacts with civilizations outside of the African continent.
D) There were no civilizations in Africa until the post-classical period.
E) African civilizations were based on European models.
26. Which of the following statements concerning political and religious universality in Africa is most accurate?
A) Although a universal empire did not develop in Africa, Islam provided a principle of universality in the continent.
B) During the post-classical period, Africa was politically united under a single government but remained religiously diverse.
C) Universal religions found no adherents in Africa – a fact that helps to account for the failure of a universal political system to develop.
D) Neither universal states nor universal religion characterized Africa, but both Christianity and Islam did find adherents in Africa.
E) There were no similarities in the various African religious beliefs.
27. Which of the following statements best describes the indigenous religion of much of sub-Saharan Africa?
A) Much of sub-Saharan Africa was Christian.
B) Animistic religion – belief in the power of natural forces personified as deities – characterized much of Africa.
C) African religion prior to the arrival of the Muslims was typified by an independent formof monotheism characterized by worship in monumental temple complexes.
D) Uniquely, African societies lacked religious principles prior to the arrival of the Christians and Muslims.
E) Sub-Saharan groups were influenced by Hindu beliefs.
28. What was the major drawback to African trade with other civilizations?
A) Such trade was entirely in the hands of foreign merchants.
B) International trade resulted in the conquest of all of Africa by the Muslims.
C) Africa tended to exchange raw materials for manufactured products and failed to develop an industrial technology.
D) Despite the significance of international trade, Africa failed to urbanize.
E) Trade was not handled by professional merchants.
29. What was the most important Christian kingdom in Africa?
A) Mali D) Ethiopia
B) Songhay E) Egypt
C) Kongo
30. Which of the following statements concerning the Sudanic states of Mali and Songhay is most accurate?
A) Although powerful, the Sudanic states never reached the level of empires.
B) Sudanic states had territorial core areas in which the people were of the same ethnic background, but their power extended over subordinate communities.
C) What provided the cultural unity necessary for the establishment of states in the Sudan was the conversion of many people to Christianity.
D) The Sudanic states were distinguished from other African civilizations by the peculiar lack of family or clan lineages as an organizing principle of society.
E) All the Sudanic populations converted to Islam.
31. Why was Islam so readily adopted by rulers within the Sudan?
A) They were all conquered by overwhelming Muslim armies and forcibly converted to Islam.
B) The Muslim concept of a ruler who united civil and religious authority reinforced traditional ideas of kingship.
C) The Muslim concept of religious equality allowed rulers to dispose of the traditional clans and lineages of Africa.
D) As a monotheistic religion, Islam was much like the traditional religions of Africa.
E) Their conversion had been prophesied for many years by the griots.
32. How did contact with the Muslim world affect the African slave trade?
A) Because of the Muslim emphasis on equality of all believers, early Muslim rulers suppressed the slave trade.
B) Slavery was unknown in African society until the Muslims introduced it.
C) With the Muslim conquests of North Africa and commercial penetration to the south, slavery became a more widely diffused phenomenon and the slave trade developed rapidly.