Developments in Dar al-Islam
Driving Question: How did the expansion of Dar al-Islam shape political systems, cultural exchanges, and technological advancements?
Dar al-Islam, a term that translates to “World of Islam” or “Abode of Islam”, describes much more than a geographic region in which Islam held influence. Stretching from North Africa, through the Middle East, all the way out to the East Indies, Dar al-Islam encompasses a vast array of cultures, languages, and traditions, all intertwined by their shared belief in Islam.
Learning Objectives:
- Explain how systems of belief and their practices affected various societies in the period from c. 1200 to c. 1450.
- Explain the causes and effects of the rise of different Islamic states over time.
- Explain the effects of intellectual innovation in Dar al-Islam.
- Learn about strategies to help you respond to short-answer questions (SAQs) on the AP® World History exam.
Vocab Terms:
What do you think the defining characteristics of belief systems are? Connect these with what you have learned and with the frame narratives.
As students watch The Emergence of Islam video, help them engage critically with the material by providing a note-taking strategy or a graphic organizer, or have them answer the guiding questions and pause the video to check for understanding. Providing them with something to do while watching helps activate thinking and makes connections to prior knowledge.
Help your students visualize the spread of Islam by showing them the Spread of Islam Thematic Map. Use the deep zoom feature (click on the + sign in the magnifying glass in the upper-right corner) to see how Islam spread across Asia and Africa.
Islam is one of the world’s largest religions. Almost a quarter of the world’s population identifies as Muslim. How did Islam grow to become one of the world’s biggest religions?
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Guiding Questions
Graphic biographies are short and fun, but they’re also packed with information. Share this tool with your students to help them break down the elements of graphic bios.
The Islamic world was expansive—when Ibn Battuta made his journeys, it stretched from West Africa to Southeast Asia. The shared cultural system of Islam allowed people to move relatively freely across political borders. Ibn Battuta’s story and the cultural connections forged by the Crusades can help students complexify their preexisting ideas about Islam and its relationship with other parts of the world.
Empires come and go, but belief systems can last much longer. This is most certainly the case with Islam, one of the largest and oldest belief systems in the world.
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Guiding Questions
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Guiding Questions
Fun fact: Women of all classes accompanied the crusaders on their march to the Holy Land. Merchants and servants supplied the crusaders with goods and services. Wives traveled with—and in some cases fought alongside—their crusader husbands, including Eleanor of Aquitaine and Shajar al-Durr, wife of the Sultan of Egypt, who later became the first female sultan. To learn more about women’s roles in the Crusades, see Helen J. Nicholson’s 2023 history, Women and the Crusades, from Oxford University Press.
How did centuries-long wars between Christians and Muslims lead to productive cultural and scientific exchanges? It doesn’t seem like war would be great for intellectual exchange, but stranger things have happened!
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Guiding Questions
Conflict and connections. It sounds like a board game, but it’s also a great way to describe history.
OER Project AP teachers give SAQs as formative assessments once or twice per week to help students improve their historical writing skills. Check out this community conversation, which is packed with SAQ ideas.
You will be an ACE at answering the SAQ portion of the AP® World History: Modern exam if you remember to Answer, Cite, and Explain!
