Questions on

Cities of Light

Video

(1) assignments appear in the syllabus on the day assigned, not the day due

(2) You must submit your written work by blackboard

(3) BE SURE TO FOLLOW THE FILE-NAMING CONVENTIONS FOR THIS COURSE (5% penalty if you do not).

All files should be saved on your computer as: your last name, followed by an underscore ("_"), followed by the first two letters of your first name, followed by an underscore ("_"), followed by the assignment number. So if a student named Saddam Hussein were to submit assignment number 10, the file name would be:

hussein_sa_10.doc

THIS IS ASSIGNMENT 10

 

This assignment consists of 18 short answer questions (should take 1.5 hours to do) and preperation for a quiz next class that will have both map and vocabulary components (and should take 40 minutes to prepare for).

Each question below should take no more than one or two sentences to answer, unless noted otherwise.

1) The narrator says at 8:03, “A third Abrahamic religion is born.” What does the video mean by “Abrahamic”?

2) What role do Adam and Jesus play in Islam?

3) According to the video, in what way are Muslims like the Visigoths (ancestors to both the current residents of Spain and Latinos in the United States)?

4) Who are the Berbers and where do they come from?

5) What was the response of Jewish communities to the Muslim arrival and why?

6) In Spain, what was the Muslim policy on Christians and Jews?

7) To build the great mosque at Cordoba, Abdul-Rahman relies on a craftsperson from Constantinople, the capital of the Byzantine empire. What was the religion of the Byzantine Empire and what can this tell us about Islamic tolerance for other faiths?

8) What sort of culture, according to the video, flourishes around Cordoba in the first century after Abdul-Rahman establishes power?

9) What language do the Christians and Jews of Spain speak in the period of Abdul-Rahman?

10) How and why did al-Andalus’ inter-faith tolerance breakdown and why?

11) What’s significant or revealing about the court of Abdul-Rahman III in ways that help us understand the society of Al-Andalus at this time?

12) Why is Al-Andalus so essential for the transmission of ancient Greek thought to the modern world?

13) What are the causes and consequences of Cordoba’s “green revolution” (be sure you explain what a “hydraulic perspective” means)? (may require three to four sentence to answer this question)

14) What’s a Taifa?

15) What can the respective careers of Samuel ibn Naghrela and Ibn Hazm tell us about the possibilities for upward mobility for religious minorities in Islamic Spain?

16) What happens to Islamic Spain with the arrival of the North African soldiers invited in to defend the Taifa kingdoms against the Christians?

17) What does the video suggests happens to Islam’s tolerance of other faiths and why (think of the different stories of Samuel and Joseph Nagrallah)?

18) What happens to Jewish Spaniards after the conquest of Grenada by Christian forces?

QUIZ PREPERATION

The quiz will consist of 5 vocabulary words from the video and 5 map questions.

VOCAB TERMS

The quiz next week will ask the definition of five of the following words; following the term is the timestamp for when the word appears in the video. You will need to know the meaning of the word as it appears in the video.

Promulgate 6:05
Indigenous 10:34
marginalized 5:18
beleaguered 17:25
faction 15:05, 17:16, 17:36, 47:56, 54:36, 1:00:03
dissident 17:40
emissary 29:57, 31:36, 52:02, 1:40:00,
facilitate 33:03, 1:54:00
taifa (Arabic) 54:11, 41:00, 44:28, 47:18, 51:39, 53:23
efflorescence 40:53
coalescing 59:21, 59:31, 1:23:35
fructify 1:03:57
Iberia 3:20, 10:27, 10:37, 1:18:31
Catalyst 1:16:40
Mudejar 1:30:24
vestige 1:39:13, 1:52:01
façade 1:39:12
Dhimmi (Arabic) 14:00

Map Questions

We will provide you with a copy of this map. On the quiz we will ask you to identify on the map:

1) Tariq ibn Ziad’s conquests; indicate the year and direction of conquest on map (see 11:41 in video)

2) Extent of Muslim presence in Spain 732, indicate on map (see 14:13 in video)

3) Trace Abdul Rahman’s route (and year) on map (see in 16:20 video)

4) Trace on map: Route of Crusades (see 1:05 in video)

5) Trace on map (see 27:07 in video)

A) Middle East Caliphate (aka, “Abbasid Caliphate”)
B) North African Caliphate

6) Locate on Map: Cordoba, Grenada, Mecca, Damascus

EXTRACREDIT
(potentially 1.5 % of semester grade)

In a five paragraph essay, explain why it is accurate or inaccurate to describe Muslims, Jews, and Christians as monolithically squaring off in Medieval Spain.

Be sure your answer:

A) Addresses both “squaring off” and “monolithic”
B) Contains 7 pieces of evidence from the video, including 4 direct quotations
C) Adopts cl/ev/wa in paragraphs containing evidence
D) Contains a clear expression of a thesis in or near your first paragraph and that your thesis explains HOW and WHY your argument is the best way to interpret the evidence