Catalog Search Results
Pub. Date
2016.
Language
English
Description
Under the Abbasid Caliph al-Ma’mun, Baghdad thrived as both a center of trade and manufacturing and a world city of scholarship. Consider al-Ma’mun’s lavish patronage of learning, his promotion of translation and scholarly missions, and his extraordinary influence in three areas: literature, the sciences, and Islamic theology.
Pub. Date
2016.
Language
English
Description
History’s richest human being was reputedly the African emperor Mansa Musa. Trace the events of Musa’s legendary hajj to Mecca, where his lavish spending destabilized the economy of Egypt. Learn about his subsequent creation of a university and library that remain among the most important repositories of ancient wisdom in the world.
Pub. Date
2016.
Language
English
Description
This lecture narrates the calamity that befell the world’s largest, most prosperous, and most celebrated city. First trace the rise of the Mongols, a fierce and most destructive ancient empire. Then follow their conquest of the Abbasids of Baghdad, culminating in the horrific siege that effectively ended the Islamic Golden Age.
Pub. Date
2016.
Language
English
Description
The Egyptian viceroy Muhammad Ali is widely referred to as the Father of Modern Egypt. Learn about his bloody ascension to power, ending 600 years of intermittent Mamluk rule. Trace Ali’s 43-year reign, during which he introduced a modern, European-style army, modern education, a professional civil service, and thriving industrial development.
Pub. Date
2016.
Language
English
Description
Consider the geographical region we call the Greater Middle East, and explore the range of nations and cultures that define it. Preview some of the remarkable historical turning points you’ll witness, encompassing conquests, political alliances, invasions, and the rise of Islam, as well as social, intellectual, and economic flowering of numerous kinds.
Pub. Date
2016.
Language
English
Description
Encounter the remarkable Kingdom of Sicily under the enlightened and tolerant rule of the Norman king Roger II. Grasp how Norman invaders established a kingdom in southern Italy, and learn about the unique features of life there, including extraordinary legal, economic, and architectural achievements. Consider Roger’s legacy and why it remains relevant today.
Pub. Date
2016.
Language
English
Description
The theologian and philosopher Abu Hamid Muhammad al-Ghazali has been called the most influential Muslim after Muhammad. Witness al-Ghazali’s rise to become a renowned Islamic legal scholar, and reflect on the profound impact of his diverse writings. Investigate his passionate challenge to Neo-Platonism in Islamic theology, and assess the continuing legacy of his work.
Pub. Date
2016.
Language
English
Description
Study the events surrounding the incursion of Berber-Arab armies into the Iberian peninsula in 711, leading to Muslim domination of the region that would last 800 years. Witness the fateful Battle of Guadalete and the Arabs’ advance north, and consider both the immediate legacy of the invasion and its overall impact on European history.
Pub. Date
2016.
Language
English
Description
The seventh-century Arab invasion of North Africa brought profound and permanent change to the entire region. Follow the Arab armies of the newly created Islamic empire in their conquest of the territories of Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, and Morocco, and take account of the lasting Arabization and Islamization that resulted.
Pub. Date
2016.
Language
English
Description
Study the complex motives and competing interests that launched the Christian crusade to take Jerusalem from its Muslim occupiers. Follow the events of the Pope’s dramatic call to arms and the bloody assault against the Holy City, and take account of its aftermath as well as its long-term effects on history.
Pub. Date
2016.
Language
English
Description
No other single factor has impacted the economy, politics, and social life of the Middle East as profoundly as oil. Trace the 20th-century discovery of petroleum across the region by foreign oil companies, and observe the ensuing geopolitical conflicts with local governments. Consider what became known as the Middle East’s "oil curse.”
Pub. Date
2016.
Language
English
Description
Here, learn how a little-known 18th-century alliance in the Middle East came to have profound reverberations in our contemporary world. Study the pact between a desert ruler and a religious reformer that initiated a structure of political and religious power that continues to dominate the modern kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
Pub. Date
2016.
Language
English
Description
Much media coverage, however, is incomplete at best, failing to take account of either the complexities or the historical background of this pivotal region. For most of us, the real story of the Middle East remains untold. What made this crucial geopolitical area what it is today? What forces and factors underlie what we read in the news, and what drives the current challenges the Middle East both faces and poses? In coming to terms with the present...
Pub. Date
2016.
Language
English
Description
The establishment of the Umayyad caliphate’s capital in Damascus was the most important political turning point in early Muslim history. Trace the Umayyads’ achievements, and investigate their reasons for locating the empire’s capital away from the Arabian peninsula, reflecting the shift from a religiously inspired Islamic empire to a politically oriented imperial power.
Pub. Date
2016.
Language
English
Description
Discover the golden age of Cordoba as a global center of education and culture. Learn how the displaced Umayyad caliphate established a kingdom in exile in Cordoba, whose rulers oversaw remarkable advancements in lifestyle and manners, magnificent architecture and urban development, and the cultivation of the best available Muslim, Christian, and Jewish scholarship.
Pub. Date
2016.
Language
English
Description
Examine the motives of France and of Napoleon for the massive invasion of Egypt in 1798, and witness the two primary military engagements that ensued. Take account of the impacts of the French occupation, and of the phenomenal work of scholarship under Napoleon that gave birth to the field of Egyptology.
Pub. Date
2016.
Language
English
Description
Grasp why the storied city of Constantinople had great strategic importance to the burgeoning Ottoman Empire. Witness the fiercely contested siege of the city, revealing the Ottoman offensive by both land and sea. Take account of how the city’s fall arguably marked the end of both the Roman Empire and the Middle Ages.
Pub. Date
2016.
Language
English
Description
The world’s first university was founded by a visionary Muslim woman in the city of Fes, Morocco. Learn how this groundbreaking institution made advanced education available to all. Assess its influence in the Middle East, discover its unrivalled impact on European learning, and examine the life and work of one of its most celebrated alumni.
19) Selim the Grim
Pub. Date
2016.
Language
English
Description
Investigate the achievements of this most fearsome and pivotal of Ottoman rulers. Learn how Selim vanquished the threatening Safavid Empire after violently wresting power from his father. Track his dramatic expansionist policy, tripling the Ottoman territories in less than a decade, and his defeat of the Egyptian Mamluks, becoming the first Ottoman Caliph.
Pub. Date
2016.
Language
English
Description
Take the measure of the sultan Suleiman’s extraordinary vision, through which he expanded and consolidated the Ottoman Empire, engendered a bureaucratic system and a unified legislative code, and commissioned monumental architecture. Learn also of his great love for his favorite wife, Roxelana, perhaps the most influential female political figure in Ottoman history.
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