narrated by Chris Gratien featuring Mohamad Ballan, Joshua White, Zoe Griffith, Aslıhan Gürbüzel, Neelam Khoja, Fahad Bishara, Jeannie Miller, and Maryam Patton | Across the 14th to 17th centuries, significant political transformation occurred in the Islamic world. Muslim al-Andalus was conquered and largely erased by the Christian kingdoms of Iberia, and the Byzantine Empire was absorbed and conquered by the Ottoman Empire. By the beginning of the 17th century, much of the Islamic world was con...
Jan 17, 2021
narrated by Chris Gratien featuring Wendell Marsh, Rabiat Akande, and Ann McDougall | From the 10th century onward, Islamic polities emerged in West Africa. Centered on the southern edge of the desert, these states built empires that benefited from the brisk Saharan trade. With time, they also built centers of Islamic learning as the wider population of West Africa began to embrace Islam. In this episode, we study what Islam meant for West Africa and what West Africa means for the history of Isl...
Jan 12, 2021
narrated by Chris Gratien featuring Joshua White, Zoe Griffith, Amina Elbendary, and Kristina Richardson | Military slavery was critical to the function of most imperial states in the medieval Islamic world. But in a moment of crisis during the 13th century, the cadre of enslaved military personnel or mamluks employed by the Ayyubid dynasty in Egypt overthrew that dynasty, establishing their own sultanate that governed Egypt, Syria, and the Hijaz for more than two centuries. In this episode, we'...
Jan 03, 2021
narrated by Chris Gratien featuring Joshua White, Zoe Griffith, Sara Nur Yıldız, and Neelam Khoja | The Mongol conquests of the 13th century were an unprecedented event. Not since the Islamic conquests of the 7th and 8th centuries had such a rapid political rise occurred. For a time, Mongol successor states controlled most of Asia. And though many of these dynasties would not last, the lasting consequences of the Mongol Empire would be many. In this episode, we study the consequences of the Mong...
Dec 28, 2020
narrated by Chris Gratien featuring Joshua White, Maryam Patton, Zoe Griffith, and Gary Leiser | The Crusades loom large in the Western imagination of medieval history and Christendom's relationship with the Islamic world. But what did these wars of the 11th-13th centuries mean for Muslims at the time? In this episode, we explore the history of the Crusades and their impact on the Islamic world. While the wars of the Crusades were bloody, they were not necessarily the main event of Islamic histo...
Dec 22, 2020
narrated by Chris Gratien featuring Fahad Bishara, Jeannie Miller, and Mohamad Ballan | During the early 8th century, less than a century after the creation of the first Muslim communities, Islamic armies crossed the Strait of Gibraltar and quickly conquered most of modern-day Spain and Portugal. Muslim life in what became known as "al-Andalus" would last about eight centuries, reshaping the politics, culture, and landscapes of the Iberian Peninsula in numerous ways. In this episode, we're explo...
Dec 18, 2020
narrated by Chris Gratien featuring Marina Rustow, Neelam Khoja, Zoe Griffith, and Fahad Bishara | For brief period of history, the Fatimid Caliphate based in Egypt presided over arguably the most powerful empire in the Mediterranean. Yet because the legacy of this Ismaili dynasty was erased or downplayed by its Sunni rivals and successors, the Fatimids are often misunderstood. As we show in this installment of "The Making of the Islamic World," the Fatimid period and the sources that survive fr...
Dec 13, 2020
narrated by Chris Gratien featuring Joshua White, Neelam Khoja, Aslıhan Gürbüzel, and Maryam Patton | The political expansion of the Umayyad and Abbasid periods brought a wide range of territories into the Islamic fold. By the end of the 9th century, the Abbasid Empire could no longer exert central authority over its vast caliphate. Semi-autonomous governors throughout the Islamic world would gradually form their own dynasties. In the eastern portion of the Islamic world, this resulted in the ri...
Dec 10, 2020
narrated by Chris Gratien featuring Hugh Kennedy, Joshua White, Fahad Bishara, Maryam Patton, and Jeannie Miller | The first decades of Islam were characterized by a rapid territorial expansion accompanied by conflicts over leadership following the death of the Prophet Muhammad. Despite opposition from the supporters of Ali ibn Abi Talib, Muawiya Ibn Abi Sufyan would become Caliph and establish a dynasty for his clan: the Banu Umayyah. The next centuries of Islamic history would be defined by th...
Dec 07, 2020
narrated by Chris Gratien featuring Saadia Yacoob, Intisar Rabb, Joshua White, Fahad Bishara, and Joel Blecher | Islamic legal traditions rest on the revelations of the Qur'an and precedents attributed to the Prophet Muhammad and the early Muslim community. But they also rest on over a millennium of interpretation and debate. In our first episode of this series on "The Making of the Islamic World," we're exploring the history of Islamic legal traditions and the ways in which scholarship on the p...
Dec 04, 2020
