Native American, also called American Indian, Amerindian, Amerind, Indian, aboriginal American, or First Nation person, member of any of the aboriginal peoples of the Western Hemisphere, although the term often connotes only those groups whose original territories were in present-day Canada and the United States.
Pre-Columbian Americans used technology and material culture that included fire and the fire drill; the domesticated dog; stone implements of many kinds; the spear-thrower (atlatl), harpoon, and bow and arrow; and cordage, netting, basketry, and, in some places, pottery. Many indigenous American groups were hunting-and-gathering cultures, while others were agricultural peoples. American Indians domesticated a variety of plants and animals, including corn (maize), beans, squash, potatoes and other tubers, turkeys, llamas, and alpacas, as well as a variety of semidomesticated species of nut- and seed-bearing plants. These and other resources were used to support communities ranging from small hamlets to cities such as Cahokia, with an estimated population of 10,000 to 20,000 individuals, and Teotihuacán, with some 125,000 to 200,000 residents.
At the dawn of the 16th century ce, as the European conquest of the Americas began, indigenous peoples resided throughout the Western Hemisphere. They were soon decimated by the effects of epidemic disease, military conquest, and enslavement, and, as with other colonized peoples, they were subject to discriminatory political and legal policies well into the 20th, and even the 21st, century. Nonetheless, they have been among the most active and successful native peoples in effecting political change and regaining their autonomy in areas such as education, land ownership, religious freedom, the law, and the revitalization of traditional culture.
Culturally, the indigenous peoples of the Americas are usually recognized as constituting two broad groupings, American Indians and Arctic peoples. American Indians are often further grouped by area of residence: Northern America (present-day United States and Canada), Middle America (present-day Mexico and Central America; sometimes called Mesoamerica), and South America. This article is a survey of the culture areas, prehistories, histories, and recent developments of the indigenous peoples and cultures of the United States and Canada. Some of the terminology used in reference to indigenous Americans is explained in Sidebar: Tribal Nomenclature: American Indian, Native American, and First Nation; Sidebar: The Difference Between a Tribe and a Band; and Sidebar: Native American Self-Names. An overview of all the indigenous peoples of the Americas is presented in American Indian; discussions of various aspects of indigenous American cultures may also be found in the articles pre-Columbian civilizations; Middle American Indian; South American Indian; Arctic: The people; American Indian languages; Native American religions; and Native American arts.
Native American culture areas
Comparative studies are an essential component of all scholarly analyses, whether the topic under study is human society, fine art, paleontology, or chemistry; the similarities and differences found in the entities under consideration help to organize and direct research programs and exegeses. The comparative study of cultures falls largely in the domain of anthropology, which often uses a typology known as the culture area approach to organize comparisons across cultures.
The culture area approach was delineated at the turn of the 20th century and continued to frame discussions of peoples and cultures into the 21st century. A culture area is a geographic region where certain cultural traits have generally co-occurred; for instance, in North America between the 16th and 19th centuries, the Northwest Coast culture area was characterized by traits such as salmon fishing, woodworking, large villages or towns, and hierarchical social organization.
The specific number of culture areas delineated for Native America has been somewhat variable because regions are sometimes subdivided or conjoined. The 10 culture areas discussed below are among the most commonly used—the Arctic, the Subarctic, the Northeast, the Southeast, the Plains, the Southwest, the Great Basin, California, the Northwest Coast, and the Plateau. Notably, some scholars prefer to combine the Northeast and Southeast into one Eastern Woodlands culture area or the Plateau and Great Basin into a single Intermontane culture area. Each section below considers the location, climate, environment, languages, tribes, and common cultural characteristics of the area before it was heavily colonized. Prehistoric and post-Columbian Native American cultures are discussed in subsequent sections of this article. A discussion of the indigenous peoples of the Americas as a whole is found in American Indian.
This region lies near and above the Arctic Circle and includes the northernmost parts of present-day Alaska and Canada. The topography is relatively flat, and the climate is characterized by very cold temperatures for most of the year. The region’s extreme northerly location alters the diurnal cycle; on winter days the sun may peek above the horizon for only an hour or two, while the proportion of night to day is reversed during the summer months (see midnight sun).
The indigenous peoples of the North American Arctic include the Eskimo (Inuit and Yupik/Yupiit) and Aleut; their traditional languages are in the Eskimo-Aleut family. Many Alaskan groups prefer to be called Native Alaskans rather than Native Americans; Canada’s Arctic peoples generally prefer the referent Inuit.
The Arctic peoples of North America relied upon hunting and gathering. Winters were harsh, but the long hours of summer sunlight supported an explosion of vegetation that in turn drew large herds of caribou and other animals to the inland North. On the coasts, sea mammals and fish formed the bulk of the diet. Small mobile bands were the predominant form of social organization; band membership was generally based on kinship and marriage (see also Sidebar: The Difference Between a Tribe and a Band). Dome-shaped houses were common; they were sometimes made of snow and other times of timber covered with earth. Fur clothing, dog sleds, and vivid folklore, mythology, and storytelling traditions were also important aspects of Arctic cultures. See also Arctic: The people.
This region lies south of the Arctic and encompasses most of present-day Alaska and most of Canada, excluding the Maritime Provinces (New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island), which are part of the Northeast culture area. The topography is relatively flat, the climate is cool, and the ecosystem is characterized by a swampy and coniferous boreal forest (taiga) ecosystem.
Prominent tribes include the Innu (Montagnais and Naskapi), Cree, Ojibwa, Chipewyan, Beaver, Slave, Carrier, Gwich’in, Tanaina, and Deg Xinag (Ingalik). Their traditional languages are in the Athabaskan and Algonquian families.
Small kin-based bands were the predominant form of social organization, although seasonal gatherings of larger groups occurred at favoured fishing locales. Moose, caribou, beavers, waterfowl, and fish were taken, and plant foods such as berries, roots, and sap were gathered. In winter people generally resided in snug semisubterranean houses built to withstand extreme weather; summer allowed for more mobility and the use of tents or lean-tos. Snowshoes, toboggans, and fur clothing were other common forms of material culture. See also American Subarctic peoples.
This culture area reaches from the present-day Canadian provinces of Quebec, Ontario, and the Maritimes (New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island) south to the Ohio River valley (inland) and to North Carolina (on the Atlantic Coast). The topography is generally rolling, although the Appalachian Mountains include some relatively steep slopes. The climate is temperate, precipitation is moderate, and the predominant ecosystem is the deciduous forest. There is also extensive coastline and an abundance of rivers and lakes.
Prominent tribes include the Algonquin, Iroquois, Huron, Wampanoag, Mohican, Mohegan, Ojibwa, Ho-chunk (Winnebago), Sauk, Fox, and Illinois. The traditional languages of the Northeast are largely of the Iroquoian and Algonquian language families.
Most Northeastern peoples engaged in agriculture, and for them the village of a few dozen to a few hundred persons was the most important social and economic unit in daily life. Groups that had access to reliably plentiful wild foods such as wild rice, salmon, or shellfish generally preferred to live in dispersed hamlets of extended families. Several villages or hamlets formed a tribe, and groups of tribes sometimes organized into powerful confederacies. These alliances were often very complex political organizations and generally took their name from the most powerful member tribe, as with the Iroquois Confederacy.
Cultivated corn (maize), beans, squash, and weedy seed-bearing plants such as Chenopodium formed the economic base for farming groups. All northeastern peoples took animals including deer, elk, moose, waterfowl, turkeys, and fish. Houses were wickiups (wigwams) or longhouses; both house types were constructed of a sapling framework that was covered with rush matting or sheets of bark. Other common aspects of culture included dugouts made of the trunks of whole trees, birchbark canoes, clothing made of pelts and deerskins, and a variety of medicine societies. See also Northeast Indian.
This region reaches from the southern edge of the Northeast culture area to the Gulf of Mexico; from east to west it stretches from the Atlantic Ocean to somewhat west of the Mississippi valley. The climate is warm temperate in the north and grades to subtropical in the south. The topography includes coastal plains, rolling uplands known as the Piedmont, and a portion of the Appalachian Mountains; of these, the Piedmont was most densely populated. The predominant ecosystems were coastal scrub, wetlands, and deciduous forests.
Perhaps the best-known indigenous peoples originally from this region are the Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Creek, and Seminole, sometimes referred to as the Five Civilized Tribes. Other prominent tribes included the Natchez, Caddo, Apalachee, Timucua, and Guale. Traditionally, most tribes in the Southeast spoke Muskogean languages; there were also some Siouan language speakers and one Iroquoian-speaking group, the Cherokee.
The region’s economy was primarily agricultural and often supported social stratification; as chiefdoms, most cultures were structured around hereditary classes of elites and commoners, although some groups used hierarchical systems that had additional status levels. Most people were commoners and lived in hamlets located along waterways. Each hamlet was home to an extended family and typically included a few houses and auxiliary structures such as granaries and summer kitchens; these were surrounded by agricultural plots or fields. Hamlets were usually associated with a town that served as the area’s ceremonial and market centre. Towns often included large earthen mounds on which religious structures and the homes of the ruling classes or families were placed. Together, each town and its associated hamlets constituted an autonomous political entity. In times of need these could unite into confederacies, such as those of the Creek and Choctaw.
People grew corn, beans, squash, tobacco, and other crops; they also gathered wild plant foods and shellfish, hunted deer and other animals, and fished. House forms varied extensively across the region, including wickiups (wigwams), earth-berm dwellings, and, in the 19th century, chickees (thatched roofs with open walls). The Southeast was also known for its religious iconography, which often included bird themes, and for the use of the “black drink,” an emetic used in ritual contexts. See also Southeast Indian.
The Plains lie in the centre of the continent, spanning the area between the western mountains and the Mississippi River valley and from the southern edge of the Subarctic to the Rio Grande in present-day Texas. The climate is of the continental type, with warm summers and cold winters. Relatively flat short-grass prairies with little precipitation are found west of the Missouri River and rolling tallgrass prairies with more moisture are found to its east. Tree-lined river valleys form a series of linear oases throughout the region.
The indigenous peoples of the Plains include speakers of Siouan, Algonquian, Uto-Aztecan, Caddoan, Athabaskan, Kiowa-Tanoan, and Michif languages. Plains peoples also invented a sign language to represent common objects or concepts such as “buffalo” or “exchange.”
Earth-lodge villages were the only settlements on the Plains until the late 16th century; they were found along major waterways that provided fertile soil for growing corn, beans, squash, sunflowers, and tobacco. The groups who built these communities divided their time between village-based crop production and hunting expeditions, which often lasted for several weeks and involved travel over a considerable area. Plains villagers include the Mandan, Hidatsa, Omaha, Pawnee, and Arikara.
By 1750 horses from the Spanish colonies in present-day New Mexico had become common in the Plains and had revolutionized the hunting of bison. This new economic opportunity caused some local villagers to become dedicated nomads, as with the Crow (who retained close ties with their Hidatsa kin), and also drew agricultural tribes from surrounding areas into a nomadic lifestyle, including the Sioux, Blackfoot, Cheyenne, Comanche, Arapaho, and Kiowa.
Groups throughout the region had in common several forms of material culture, including the tepee, tailored leather clothing, a variety of battle regalia (such as feathered headdresses), and large drums used in ritual contexts. The Sun Dance, a ritual that demanded a high degree of piety and self-sacrifice from its participants, was also found throughout most of the Plains.
The Plains is perhaps the culture area in which tribal and band classifications were most conflated. Depictions of indigenous Americans in popular culture have often been loosely based on Plains peoples, encouraging many to view them as the “typical” American Indians. See also Plains Indian.
This culture area lies between the Rocky Mountains and the Mexican Sierra Madre, mostly in present-day Arizona and New Mexico. The topography includes plateaus, basins, and ranges. The climate on the Colorado Plateau is temperate, while it is semitropical in most of the basin and range systems; there is little precipitation and the major ecosystem is desert. The landscape includes several major river systems, notably those of the Colorado and the Rio Grande, that create linear oases in the region.
The Southwest is home to speakers of Hokan, Uto-Aztecan, Tanoan, Keresan, Kiowa-Tanoan, Penutian, and Athabaskan languages. The region was the home of both agricultural and hunting and gathering peoples, although the most common lifeway combined these two economic strategies. Best known among the agriculturists are the Pueblo Indians, including the Zuni and Hopi. The Yumans, Pima, and Tohono O’odham (Papago) engaged in both farming and foraging, relying on each to the extent the environment would allow. The Navajo and the many Apache groups usually engaged in some combination of agriculture, foraging, and the raiding of other groups.
The major agricultural products were corn, beans, squash, and cotton. Wild plant foods, deer, other game, and fish (for those groups living near rivers) were the primary foraged foods. The Pueblo peoples built architecturally remarkable apartment houses of adobe and stone masonry (see pueblo architecture) and were known for their complex kinship structures, kachina (katsina) dances and dolls, and fine pottery, textiles, and kiva and sand paintings. The Navajo built round houses (“hogans”) and were known for their complex clan system, healing rituals, and fine textiles and jewelry. The Apaches, Yumans, Pima, and Tohono O’odham generally built thatched houses or brush shelters and focused their expressive culture on oral traditions. Stone channels and check dams (low walls that slowed the runoff from the sporadic but heavy rains) were common throughout the Southwest, as were basketry and digging sticks. See also Southwest Indian.
The Great Basin
The Great Basin culture area is centred in the intermontane deserts of present-day Nevada and includes adjacent areas in California, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, and Arizona. It is so named because the surrounding mountains create a bowl-like landscape that prevented water from flowing out of the region. The most common topographic features are basin and range systems; these gradually transition to high intermontane plateaus in the north. The climate is temperate in the north and becomes subtropical to the south. Higher elevations tend to receive ample moisture but other areas average as little as 2 inches (50 mm) per year. Much of the region’s surface water, such as the Great Salt Lake, is brackish. The predominant ecosystem is desert.
The Great Basin is home to the Washoe, speakers of a Hokan language, and a number of tribes speaking Numic languages (a division of the Uto-Aztecan language family). These include the Mono, Paiute, Bannock, Shoshone, Ute, and Gosiute.
The peoples of this region were hunters and gatherers and generally organized themselves in mobile, kin-based bands. Seeds, piñon nuts, and small game formed the bulk of the diet for most groups, although those occupying northern and eastern locales readily adopted horses and equestrian bison hunting after Spanish mounts became available. Some of these latter groups also replaced wickiups and brush shelters, the common house forms until that time, with Plains-style tepees; peoples in the west and south, however, continued to use traditional house forms well into the 19th century. Other common forms of material culture included digging sticks, nets, basketry, grinding stones for processing seeds, and rock art. See also Great Basin Indian.
This culture area approximates the present states of California (U.S.) and northern Baja (Mexico). Other than the Pacific coast, the region’s dominant topographic features are the Coast Range and the Sierra Nevada; these north-south ranges are interspersed with high plateaus and basins. An extraordinary diversity of local conditions created microenvironments such as coasts, tidewaters, coastal redwood forests, grasslands, wetlands, high deserts, and mountains.
California includes representatives of some 20 language families, including Uto-Aztecan, Penutian, Yokutsan, and Athabaskan; American linguist Edward Sapir described California’s languages as being more diverse than those found in all of Europe. Prominent tribes, many with a language named for them, include the Hupa, Yurok, Pomo, Yuki, Wintun, Maidu, and Yana.
Many California peoples eschewed centralized political structures and instead organized themselves into tribelets, groups of a few hundred to a few thousand people that recognized cultural ties with others but maintained their political independence. Some tribelets comprised just one village and others included several villages; in the latter cases, one village was usually recognized as more important than the others. The relatively few groups that lived in areas with sparse natural resources preferred to live in small mobile bands.
Agriculture was practiced only along the Colorado River; elsewhere hunting and gathering provided a relatively easy living. Acorns were the most important of the wild food sources; California peoples devised a method of leaching the toxins from acorn pulp and converting it into flour, thus ensuring abundant and constant food. Fishing, hunting, and gathering shellfish and other wild foods were also highly productive. Housing varied from wood-framed single-family dwellings to communal apartment-style buildings; ceremonial structures were very important and could often hold several hundred people. The California peoples were also known for their fine basketry, ritualized trade fairs, and the Kuksu and Toloache religions. See also California Indian.
The Northwest Coast
This culture area is bounded on the west by the Pacific Ocean and on the east by the Coast Range, the Sierra Nevada, and the Rocky Mountains; it reaches from the area around Yakutat Bay in the north to the Klamath River area in the south. It includes the coasts of present-day Oregon, Washington, British Columbia, much of southern Alaska, and a small area of northern California. The topography is steep and in many places the coastal hills or mountains fall abruptly to a beach or riverbank. There is an abundance of precipitation—in many areas more than 160 inches (406 cm) annually, but rarely less than 30 inches (76 cm). The predominant ecosystems are temperate rainforests, intertidal zones, and the ocean.
This culture area is home to peoples speaking Athabaskan, Tshimshianic, Salishan, and other languages. Prominent tribes include the Tlingit, Haida, Tsimshian, Kwakiutl, Bella Coola, Nuu-chah-nulth (Nootka), Coast Salish, and Chinook.
The peoples of the Northwest Coast had abundant and reliable supplies of salmon and other fish, sea mammals, shellfish, birds, and a variety of wild food plants. The resource base was so rich that they are unique among nonagricultural peoples in having created highly stratified societies of hereditary elites, commoners, and slaves. Tribes often organized themselves into corporate “houses”—groups of a few dozen to 100 or more related people that held in common the rights to particular resources. As with the house societies of medieval Japan and Europe, social stratification operated at every level of many Northwest Coast societies; villages, houses, and house members each had their designated rank, which was reflected in nearly every social interaction.
Most groups built villages near waterways or the coast; each village also had rights to an upland territory from which the residents could obtain terrestrial foods. Dwellings were rectilinear structures built of timbers or planks and were usually quite large, as the members of a corporate “house” typically lived together in one building. Northwest Coast cultures are known for their fine wood and stone carvings, large and seaworthy watercraft, memorial or totem poles, and basketry. The potlatch, a feast associated with the bestowal of lavish gifts, was also characteristic of this culture area. See also Northwest Coast Indian.
Lying at the crossroads of five culture areas (the Subarctic, Plains, Great Basin, California, and Northwest Coast), the Plateau is surrounded by mountains and drained by two great river systems, the Fraser and the Columbia. It is located in present-day Montana, Idaho, Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia. Topographically, the area is characterized by rolling hills, high flatlands, gorges, and mountain slopes. The climate is temperate, although milder than the adjacent Plains because the surrounding mountain systems provide protection from continental air masses. The mountains also create a substantial rain shadow; most precipitation in this region falls at higher elevations, leaving other areas rather dry. The predominant ecosystems are grassland and high desert, although substantial forested areas are found at altitude.
Most of the languages spoken in this culture area belong to the Salishan, Sahaptin, Kutenai, and Modoc and Klamath families. Tribes include the Salish, Flathead, Nez Percé, Yakama, Kutenai, Modoc and Klamath, Spokan, Kalispel, Pend d’Oreille, Coeur d’Alene, Walla Walla, and Umatilla. “Flathead” is incorrectly used in some early works to denote all Salishan-speaking peoples, only some of whom molded infants’ heads so as to achieve a uniform slope from brow to crown; notably, the people presently referred to as the Flathead did not engage in this practice (see head flattening).
The primary political unit was the village; among some groups a sense of larger tribal and cultural unity led to the creation of representative governments, tribal chieftainships, and confederations of tribes. This was possible in part because the Columbia and Fraser rivers provided enough salmon and other fish to support a relatively dense population; however, this region was never as heavily populated or as rigidly stratified as the Northwest Coast.
Efficient hunters and gatherers, Plateau groups supplemented fish with terrestrial animals and wild plant foods, especially certain varieties of camas (Camassia). Most groups resided in permanent riverside villages and traveled to upland locales during fair-weather foraging excursions; however, horses were readily adopted once available and some groups subsequently shifted to nomadic buffalo hunting. These groups quickly adopted tepees and many other Plains cultural forms; they became particularly respected for their equine breeding programs and fine herds (see Appaloosa). Plateau fishing villages were characterized by their multifamily A-frame dwellings, while smaller conical structures were used in the uplands; both house forms were covered with grass, although canvas became a popular covering once available. In terms of portable culture, the Plateau peoples were most characterized by the wide variety of substances and technologies they used; continuously exposed to new items and ideas through trade with surrounding culture areas, they excelled at material innovation and at adapting others’ technologies to their own purposes. See also Plateau Indian.
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Islamic culture and Muslim culture refer to cultural practices common to historically Islamic people. The early forms of Muslim culture, from the Rashidun Caliphate to early Umayyad perioud, were predominantly Arab, Byzantine, Persian and Levantine. With the rapid expansion of the Islamic empires, Muslim culture has influenced and assimilated much from the Persian, Egyptian, Caucasian, Turkic, Mongol, South Asian, Malay, Somali, Berber, Indonesian, and Moro cultures.
Islamic culture generally includes all the practices which have developed around the religion of Islam. There are variations in the application of Islamic beliefs in different cultures and traditions.
- 1 Language and literature
- 2 Art
- 3 Architecture
- 4 Theatre
- 5 Dance
- 6 Music
- 7 Family life
- 8 Etiquette and diet
- 9 Martial arts in Muslim countries/cultures
- 10 See also
- 11 Notes and references
- 12 Further reading
- 13 External links
Language and literature
Arabic literature (Arabic: الأدب العربي / ALA-LC: al-Adab al-‘Arabī) is the writing, both prose and poetry, produced by writers in the Arabic language. The Arabic word used for literature is "Adab", which is derived from a meaning of etiquette, and which implies politeness, culture and enrichment.
Arabic literature emerged in the 5th century with only fragments of the written language appearing before then. The Qur'an, widely regarded by people as the finest piece of literature in the Arabic language, would have the greatest lasting effect on Arabic culture and its literature. Arabic literature flourished during the Islamic Golden Age, but has remained vibrant to the present day, with poets and prose-writers across the Arab world, as well as rest of the world, achieving increasing success.
Persian literature comprises oral compositions and written texts in the Persian language and it is one of the world's oldest literatures. It spans over two-and-a-half millennia. Its sources have been within Greater Iran including present-day Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, the Caucasus, and Turkey, regions of Central Asia (such as Tajikistan) and South Asia where the Persian language has historically been either the native or official language. For instance, Rumi, one of best-loved Persian poets born in Balkh (in what is now the modern-day Afghanistan) or Vakhsh (in what is now the modern-day Tajikistan), wrote in Persian and lived in Konya, then the capital of the Seljuks in Anatolia. The Ghaznavids conquered large territories in Central and South Asia and adopted Persian as their court language. There is thus Persian literature from Iran, Mesopotamia, Azerbaijan, the wider Caucasus, Turkey, western parts of Pakistan, India, Tajikistan and other parts of Central Asia. Not all Persian literature is written in Persian, as some consider works written by ethnic Persians in other languages, such as Greek and Arabic, to be included. At the same time, not all literature written in Persian is written by ethnic Persians or Iranians, as Turkic, Caucasian, and Indic poets and writers have also used the Persian language in the environment of Persianate cultures.
Described as one of the great literatures of humanity, including Goethe's assessment of it as one of the four main bodies of world literature, Persian literature has its roots in surviving works of Middle Persian and Old Persian, the latter of which date back as far as 522 BCE, the date of the earliest surviving Achaemenid inscription, the Behistun Inscription. The bulk of surviving Persian literature, however, comes from the times following the Arab conquest of Persia c. 650 CE. After the Abbasids came to power (750 CE), the Iranians became the scribes and bureaucrats of the Arab empire and, increasingly, also its writers and poets. The New Persian language literature arose and flourished in Khorasan and Transoxiana because of political reasons, early Iranian dynasties such as the Tahirids and Samanids being based in Khorasan.
Perso-Indian and Indian
For a thousand years, since the invasion of India by the Ghaznavids, the Persian-Islamic culture of the eastern half of the Islamic world started to dominate the Indian culture. Persian was the official language of most Indian empires such as the Ghaznavids, the Delhi Sultanate, the Bengal Sultanate, the Deccan Sultanates (such as the Qutb Shahi dynasty) and the Mughal Empire. Persian artistic forms in literature and poetry such as ghazals have come to significantly affect Urdu and other Indian literature. More Persian literature was produced in India than in the Iranian world. As late as the 20th century, Allama Iqbal chose Persian for some of his major poetic works. The first Persian language newspaper was also published in India, given that printing machines were first implemented in India.
During the early 14th century, the liberal poet Kazi Nazrul Islam espoused intense spiritual rebellion against oppression, fascism and religious fundamentalism; and also wrote a highly acclaimed collection of Bengali ghazals. Sultana's Dream by Begum Rokeya, an Islamic feminist, is one earliest works of feminist science fiction.
From the 11th century, there was a growing body of Islamic literature in the Turkic languages. However, for centuries to come the official language in Turkish-speaking areas would remain Persian. In Anatolia, with the advent of the Seljuks, the practise and usage of Persian in the region would be strongly revived. A branch of the Seljuks, the Sultanate of Rum, took Russian language, art and letters to Anatolia. They adopted Persian language as the official language of the empire. The Ottomans, which can "roughly" be seen as their eventual successors, took this tradition over. Persian was the official court language of the empire, and for some time, the official language of the empire, though the lingua franca amongst common people from the 15th/16th century would become Turkish as well as having laid an active "foundation" for the Turkic language as early as the 4th century (see Turkification). After a period of several centuries, Ottoman Turkish (which was highly Arabo-Persianised itself) had developed towards a fully accepted language of literature, which was even able to satisfy the demands of a scientific presentation. However, the number of Persian and Arabic loanwords contained in those works increased at times up to 88%. However, Turkish was proclaimed the official language of the Karamanids in the 17th century, though it didn't manage to become the official language in a wider area or larger empire until the advent of the Ottomans. With the establishment of the Ottoman Empire, Ottoman Turkish (a highly Arabo-Persianised version of Oghuz Turkic) grew in importance in both poetry and prose becoming, by the beginning of the 18th century, the official language of the Empire. Unlike India, where Persian remained the official and principal literary language of both Muslim and Hindu states until the 19th century.
Public Islamic art is traditionally non-representational, except for the widespread use of plant forms, usually in varieties of the spiralling arabesque. These are often combined with Islamic calligraphy, geometric patterns in styles that are typically found in a wide variety of media, from small objects in ceramic or metalwork to large decorative schemes in tiling on the outside and inside of large buildings, including mosques. However, there is a long tradition in Islamic art of the depiction of human and animal figures, especially in painting and small anonymous relief figures as part of a decorative scheme. Almost all Persian miniatures (as opposed to decorative illuminations) include figures, often in large numbers, as do their equivalents in Arab, Mughal and Ottoman miniatures. But miniatures in books or muraqqa albums were private works owned by the elite. Larger figures in monumental sculpture are exceptionally rare until recent times, and portraiture showing realistic representations of individuals (and animals) did not develop until the late 16th century in miniature painting, especially Mughal miniatures. Manuscripts of the Qur'an and other sacred texts have always been strictly kept free of such figures, but there is a long tradition of the depiction of Muhammad and other religious figures in books of history and poetry; since the 20th century Muhammad has mostly been shown as though wearing a veil hiding his face, and many earlier miniatures were overpainted to use this convention.
Depiction of animate beings
Some interpretations of Islam include a ban of depiction of animate beings, also known as aniconism. Islamic aniconism stems in part from the prohibition of idolatry and in part from the belief that creation of living forms is God's prerogative. Although the Quran does not explicitly prohibit visual representation of any living being, it uses the word musawwir (maker of forms, artist) as an epithet of God. The corpus of hadith (sayings attributed to the Islamic prophet Muhammad) contains more explicit prohibitions of images of living beings, challenging painters to "breathe life" into their images and threatening them with punishment on the Day of Judgment. Muslims have interpreted these prohibitions in different ways in different times and places. Religious Islamic art has been typically characterized by the absence of figures and extensive use of calligraphic, geometric and abstract floral patterns. However, representations of Muhammad (in some cases, with his face concealed) and other religious figures are found in some manuscripts from lands to the east of Anatolia, such as Persia and India. These pictures were meant to illustrate the story and not to infringe on the Islamic prohibition of idolatry, but many Muslims regard such images as forbidden. In secular art of the Muslim world, representations of human and animal forms historically flourished in nearly all Islamic cultures, although, partly because of opposing religious sentiments, figures in paintings were often stylized, giving rise to a variety of decorative figural designs.
Islamic calligraphy is the artistic practice of handwriting and calligraphy, based upon the alphabet in the lands sharing a common Islamic cultural heritage. It includes Arabic Calligraphy, Ottoman, and Persian calligraphy. It is known in Arabic as khatt Islami (خط اسلامي), meaning Islamic line, design, or construction.
The development of Islamic calligraphy is strongly tied to the Qur'an; chapters and excerpts from the Qur'an are a common and almost universal text upon which Islamic calligraphy is based. However, Islamic calligraphy is not limited to strictly religious subjects, objects, or spaces. Like all Islamic art, it encompasses a diverse array of works created in a wide variety of contexts. The prevalence of calligraphy in Islamic art is not directly related to its non-figural tradition; rather, it reflects the centrality of the notion of writing and written text in Islam. It is noteworthy, for instance, that the Prophet Muhammad is related to have said: "The first thing God created was the pen."
Islamic calligraphy developed from two major styles: Kufic and Naskh. There are several variations of each, as well as regionally specific styles. Islamic calligraphy has also been incorporated into modern art beginning with the post-colonial period in the Middle East, as well as the more recent style of calligraffiti.
Islamic architecture is the range of architectural styles of buildings associated with Islam. It encompasses both secular and religious styles from the early history of Islam to the present day. Early Islamic architecture was influenced by Roman, Byzantine, Persian and all other lands which the Muslims conquered in the 7th and 8th centuries. Further east, it was also influenced by Chinese and Indian architecture as Islam spread to the Southeast Asia. Later it developed distinct characteristics in the form of buildings, and the decoration of surfaces with Islamic calligraphy and geometric and interlace patterned ornament. The principal Islamic architectural types for large or public buildings are: the Mosque, the Tomb, the Palace and the Fort. From these four types, the vocabulary of Islamic architecture is derived and used for other buildings such as public baths, fountains and domestic architecture.
The fortress-palace of Alhambra, built in the 11th century, is a large monument and a popular tourist attraction.
Elements of Islamic style
Islamic architecture may be identified with the following design elements, which were inherited from the first mosque built by Muhammad in Medina, as well as from other pre-Islamic features adapted from churches and synagogues.
- Large courtyards often merged with a central prayer hall (originally a feature of the Masjid al-Nabawi).
- Minarets or towers (which were originally used as torch-lit watchtowers for example in the Great Mosque of Damascus; hence the derivation of the word from the Arabic nur, meaning "light"). The oldest standing minaret in the world is the minaret of the Great Mosque of Kairouan (in Tunisia); erected between the 2nd and the 3rd century, it is a majestic square tower consisting of three superimposed tiers of gradual size and decor.
- A mihrab or niche on an inside wall indicating the direction to Mecca. This may have been derived from previous uses of niches for the setting of the torah scrolls in Jewish synagogues or Mehrab (Persian: مِهراب) of Persian Mitraism culture or the wikt:haikal of Coptic churches.
- Domes (the earliest Islamic use of which was in the 8th-century mosque of Medina).
- Use of iwans to intermediate between different sections.
- Use of geometric shapes and repetitive art (arabesque).
- Use of decorative Arabic calligraphy.
- Use of symmetry.
- Ablution fountains.
- Use of bright colour.
- Focus on the interior space of a building rather than the exterior.
The most popular forms of theatre in the medieval Islamic world were puppet theatre (which included hand puppets, shadow plays and marionette productions) and live passion plays known as ta'ziya, where actors re-enact episodes from Muslim history. In particular, Shia Islamic plays revolved around the shaheed (martyrdom) of Ali's sons Hasan ibn Ali and Husayn ibn Ali. Live secular plays were known as akhraja, recorded in medieval adab literature, though they were less common than puppetry and ta'zieh theatre.
One of the oldest, and most enduring, forms of puppet theatre is the Wayang of Indonesia. Although it narrates primarily pre-Islamic legends, it is also an important stage for Islamic epics such as the adventures of Amir Hamzah (pictured). Islamic Wayang is known as Wayang Sadat or Wayang Menak.
Karagoz, the Turkish Shadow Theatre has influenced puppetry widely in the region. It is thought to have passed from China by way of India. Later it was taken by the Mongols from the Chinese and transmitted to the Turkish peoples of Central Russia. Thus the art of Shadow Theatre was brought to Anatolia by the Turkish people emigrating from Central Asia. Other scholars claim that shadow theatre came to Anatolia in the 16th century from Egypt. The advocates of this view claim that when Yavuz Sultan Selim conquered Egypt in 1517, he saw shadow theatre performed during an extacy party put on in his honour. Yavuz Sultan Selim was so impressed with it that he took the puppeteer back to his palace in Istanbul. There his 47-year-old son, later Sultan Suleyman the Magnificent, developed an interest in the plays and watched them a great deal. Thus shadow theatre found its way into the Ottoman palaces.
In other areas the style of shadow puppetry known as khayal al-zill – an intentionally metaphorical term whose meaning is best translated as ‘shadows of the imagination’ or ‘shadow of fancy' survives. This is a shadow play with live music ..”the accompaniment of drums, tambourines and flutes...also...“special effects” – smoke, fire, thunder, rattles, squeaks, thumps, and whatever else might elicit a laugh or a shudder from his audience"
In Iran puppets are known to have existed much earlier than 1000, but initially only glove and string puppets were popular in Iran. Other genres of puppetry emerged during the Qajar era (18th–19th century) as influences from Turkey spread to the region. Kheimeh Shab-Bazi is a Persian traditional puppet show which is performed in a small chamber by a musical performer and a storyteller called a morshed or naghal. These shows often take place alongside storytelling in traditional tea and coffee-houses (Ghahve-Khave). The dialogue takes place between the morshed and the puppets. Puppetry remains very popular in Iran, the touring opera Rostam and Sohrab puppet opera being a recent example.
Many forms of dancing arts are practised in Muslim cultures, both in religious and secular contexts (such as folk and tribal dances, court dances, dances of celebration during weddings and festivals, belly dancing, etc.).
Some scholars of Islamic fiqh pronounced gender based rulings on dance, making it permissible for women within a female only environment, as is often performed at celebrations, but discouraging men to engage in it. Other classical authorities including Al-Ghazzali and Al-Nawawi allow it without this distinction, but criticised dancing which is "languid" or excites carnal lusts.
Most of the religious orders (tariqa) which dominate traditional Muslim religious life practice ritualised forms of dance in the context of dhikr ceremonies. Dhikr, "recollection" (of God) is a meditative form of worship different from ritual prayer where the seeker focuses all of his senses and thoughts on God in the hope of attaining maarifat (experiential knowledge of God) and triggering mystic states within him- or herself. Dhikr can be performed individually or with like-minded followers under the direction of a sheikh, and can involve silent meditation or repetition and visualisation of sacred words such as the 99 names of God or Quranic phrases, and may be done at rest or with rhythmic movements and controlling one's breath. Traditional Islamic orders have developed varied dhikr exercises including sometimes highly elaborate ritual dances accompanied by Sufi poetry and classical music.
Al-Ghazzali discussed the use of music and dancing in dhikr and the mystical states it induces in worshippers, as well as regulating the etiquette attached to these ceremonies, in his short treatise on Islamic spirituality The Alchemy of Happiness and in his highly influential work The Revival of the Religious Sciences. Al-Ghazzali emphasized how the practices of music and dance are beneficial to religious seekers, as long as their hearts are pure before engaging in these practices.
Notable examples include the Mevlevi Order founded by Jalaluddin Rumi, which was the main Sunni order of the Ottoman empire, and its sama ritual (known in the West as "the whirling dervishes"). The Mevlevi order, its rituals and Ottoman classical music has been banned in Turkey through much of the 20th century as part of the country's drive towards secular "modernisation", and the order's properties have been expropriated and the country's mosques put out of its control, which has radically diminished its influence in modern Turkey. In 2008, UNESCO confirmed the "Mevlevi Sama Ceremony" of Turkey as one of the Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity, and the practice is now regaining interest.
The Chishti order, traditionally the dominant Islamic institution in Afghanistan and the Indian subcontinent and the most ancient of the major Sufi orders, also practices forms of sama similar to the Mevlevis, as well as other forms of devotional dance such as dhamaal. The order is strongly associated with the development of Hindustani classical music and semi-classical devotional genres such as qawwali through famed pioneer figures such as Amir Khusrow. The Chishti order remains one of the largest and strongest Muslim religious orders in the world by far, retaining a vast influence on the spirituality and culture of around 500 million Muslims living in the Indian subcontinent.
Other examples of devotional dance are found in the Maghreb where it is associated with gnawa music, as well as Sub-Saharan Africa and South-East Asia. The Naqshbandi order, predominant among Iran's Sunni minority, is a notable exception in that they do not use music and dancing in the context of dhikr.
In addition to these strictly religious forms of dance, colourful dancing processions traditionally take place in Muslim communities during weddings and public celebrations such as Mawlid, Eid el-Adha, and so on. Many Islamic cultures have also developed classical forms of dance in the context for instance of Mughal, Ottoman, Persian and Javanese court cultures, as well as innumerable local folk and tribal dances (for instance amongst Bedouin, Tuareg and Pashto peoples), and other forms of dance used for entertainment or sometimes healing such as belly dancing (principally associated with Egyptian culture).
Although tariqas and their rituals have been an omnipresent part of Muslim life for most of Islam's history and were largely responsible for the spread of Islam throughout the world, their following and influence has sharply declined since the late 19th century, having been vigorously opposed and combated in turns by the French and British colonial administrations and by Muslim modernists and secularists like Kemal Ataturk, and in recent decades have been the target of vocal opposition by the fundamentalist Wahhabi sect promoted by Saudi Arabia (where most of the heritage associated with Sufism and tariqa was physically destroyed by the state in the 1930s). Wahhabi militant groups such as ISIS and the Taliban are repeatedly targeting dhikr ceremonies in terrorist attacks, notably in Egypt and Pakistan.
Many Muslims are very familiar to listening to music. The classic heartland of Islam is Arabia as well as other parts of the Middle East, North Africa and Central Asia. Because Islam is a multicultural religion, the musical expression of its adherents is diverse.
The Seljuk Turks, a nomadic tribe that converted to Islam, conquered Anatolia (now Turkey), and held the Caliphate as the Ottoman Empire, also had a strong influence on Islamic music. See Turkish classical music.
Sub-Saharan Africa, India, and the Malay Archipelago also have large Muslim populations, but these areas have had less influence than the heartland on the various traditions of Islamic music. For South India, see: Mappila Songs, Duff Muttu.
All these regions were connected by trade long before the Islamic conquests of the 7th century and later, and it is likely that musical styles travelled the same routes as trade goods. However, lacking recordings, we can only speculate as to the pre-Islamic music of these areas. Islam must have had a great influence on music, as it united vast areas under the first caliphs, and facilitated trade between distant lands. Certainly the Sufis, brotherhoods of Muslim mystics, spread their music far and wide.
In a Muslim family, the birth of a child is attended with some religious ceremonies. Immediately after the birth, the words of Adhan is pronounced in the right ear of the child. In the seventh day, the aquiqa ceremony is performed, in which an animal is sacrificed and its meat is distributed among the poor. The head of the child is also shaved, and an amount of money equaling the weight of the child's hair is donated to the poor. Apart from fulfilling the basic needs of food, shelter, and education, the parents or the elderly members of family also undertake the task of teaching moral qualities, religious knowledge, and religious practices to the children. Marriage, which serves as the foundation of a Muslim family, is a civil contract which consists of an offer and acceptance between two qualified parties in the presence of two witnesses. The groom is required to pay a bridal gift (mahr) to the bride, as stipulated in the contract. With Muslims coming from diverse backgrounds including 49 Muslim-majority countries, plus a strong presence as large minorities throughout the world there are many variations on Muslim weddings. Generally in a Muslim family, a woman's sphere of operation is the home and a man's corresponding sphere is the outside world. However, in practice, this separation is not as rigid as it appears.
Certain religious rites are performed during and after the death of a Muslim. Those near a dying man encourage him to pronounce the Shahada as Muslims want their last word to be their profession of faith. After the death, the body is appropriately bathed by the members of the same gender and then enshrouded in a threefold white garment called kafan. Placing the body on a bier, it is first taken to a mosque where funeral prayer is offered for the dead person, and then to the graveyard for burial.
Etiquette and diet
Many practices fall in the category of adab, or Islamic etiquette. This includes greeting others with "as-salamu 'alaykum" ("peace be unto you"), saying bismillah ("in the name of God") before meals, and using only the right hand for eating and drinking. Islamic hygienic practices mainly fall into the category of personal cleanliness and health. Circumcision of male offspring is also practiced in Islam. Islamic burial rituals include saying the Salat al-Janazah ("funeral prayer") over the bathed and enshrouded dead body, and burying it in a grave. Muslims are restricted in their diet. Prohibited foods include pork products, blood, carrion, and alcohol. All meat must come from a herbivorous animal slaughtered in the name of God by a Muslim, Jew, or Christian, with the exception of game that one has hunted or fished for oneself. Food permissible for Muslims is known as halal food.
Martial arts in Muslim countries/cultures
- Pahlavani – Turkey
- Yağlı güreş – Turkey
- Kurash – Central Asia
- Istunka – Somalia
- Nuba fighting – Sudan
- Tahtib – Egypt
- Laamb Wrestling – Senegal
- Dambe – Nigeria
- Boli Khela – Bangladesh
- Lathi Khela – Bangladesh
- Sqay – Pakistan
- Pencak silat – Indonesia
- Bakti Negara – Indonesia
- Perisai Diri – Indonesia
- Kuntao – Indonesia
- Tarung Derajat – Indonesia
- Silat – Indonesia
- Silat Melayu – Malaysia
- Seni Gayung Fatani – Malaysia
- Seni Gayong – Malaysia
- Tomoi – Malaysia
- Lian padukan – Malaysia
- Furusiyya – West Asian
Notes and references
- "Minds unmade" – via The Economist.
- Jones, p. ix.
- Spooner, Brian (1994). "Dari, Farsi, and Tojiki". In Marashi, Mehdi (ed.). Persian Studies in North America: Studies in Honor of Mohammad Ali Jazayery. Leiden: Brill. pp. 177–178.
- Spooner, Brian (2012). "Dari, Farsi, and Tojiki". In Schiffman, Harold (ed.). Language policy and language conflict in Afghanistan and its neighbors: the changing politics of language choice. Leiden: Brill. p. 94.
- Campbell, George L.; King, Gareth, eds. (2013). "Persian". Compendium of the World's Languages (3rd ed.). Routledge. p. 1339.
- Arthur John Arberry, The Legacy of Persia, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1953, ISBN 0-19-821905-9, p. 200.
- Von David Levinson; Karen Christensen, Encyclopedia of Modern Asia, Charles Scribner's Sons. 2002, vol. 4, p. 480
- Frye, R. N., "Darī", The Encyclopaedia of Islam, Brill Publications, CD version.
- C. A. (Charles Ambrose) Storey and Franço de Blois (2004), "Persian Literature - A Biobibliographical Survey: Volume V Poetry of the Pre-Mongol Period", RoutledgeCurzon; 2nd revised edition (June 21, 2004). p. 363: "Nizami Ganja’i, whose personal name was Ilyas, is the most celebrated native poet of the Persians after Firdausi. His nisbah designates him as a native of Ganja (Elizavetpol, Kirovabad) in Azerbaijan, then still a country with an Iranian population, and he spent the whole of his life in Transcaucasia; the verse in some of his poetic works which makes him a native of the hinterland of Qom is a spurious interpolation."
- Franklin Lewis, Rumi Past and Present, East and West, Oneworld Publications, 2000. How is it that a Persian boy born almost eight hundred years ago in Khorasan, the northeastern province of greater Iran, in a region that we identify today as Central Asia, but was considered in those days as part of the Greater Persian cultural sphere, wound up in Central Anatolia on the receding edge of the Byzantine cultural sphere, in which is now Turkey, some 1500 miles to the west? (p. 9)
- Sigfried J. de Laet. History of Humanity: From the seventh to the sixteenth century UNESCO, 1994. ISBN 9231028138 p 734
- Ga ́bor A ́goston, Bruce Alan Masters. Encyclopedia of the Ottoman Empire Infobase Publishing, 1 jan. 2009 ISBN 1438110251 p 322
- Doris Wastl-Walter. The Ashgate Research Companion to Border Studies Ashgate Publishing, Ltd., 2011 ISBN 0754674061 p 409
- Bertold Spuler. Persian Historiography & Geography Pustaka Nasional Pte Ltd ISBN 9971774887 p 69
- Sheila R. Canby (2005). Islamic Art in Detail. Harvard University Press. pp. 26–. ISBN 978-0-674-02390-1.
- Esposito, John L. (2011). What Everyone Needs to Know about Islam (2nd ed.). Oxford University Press. p. 14-15.
- "Figural Representation in Islamic Art". The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
- Blair, Sheila S.; Bloom, Jonathan M. (1995). The art and architecture of Islam : 1250–1800 (Reprinted with corrections ed.). New Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN 0-300-06465-9.
- Chapman, Caroline (2012). Encyclopedia of Islamic Art and Architecture, ISBN 978-979-099-631-1
- Julia Kaestle (10 July 2010). "Arabic calligraphy as a typographic exercise".
- Blair, Sheila S. (Spring 2003). "The Mirage of Islamic Art: Reflections on the Study of an Unwieldy Field". The Art Bulletin. 85: 152–184 – via JSTOR.
- Allen, Terry (1988). Five Essays on Islamic Art. Sebastopol, CA: Solipsist Press. pp. 17–37. ISBN 0944940005.
- Roxburgh, David J. (2008). ""The Eye is Favored for Seeing the Writing's Form": On the Sensual and the Sensuous in Islamic Calligraphy". Muqarnas. 25: 275–298 – via JSTOR.
- Krautheimer, Richard. Early Christian and Byzantine Architecture Yale University Press Pelican History of Art, Penguin Books Ltd., 1965, p. 285.
- Fletcher, Banister A History of Architecture on the Comparative Method 4th Edition, London, p. 476.
- Copplestone, p.149
- "A Tour of Architecture in Islamic Cities". Archived from the original on 2007-03-17. Retrieved 2018-12-10.
- Hans Kng (2006). Tracing The Way: Spiritual Dimensions of the World Religions. A&C Black. p. 248. ISBN 978-0-8264-9423-8.
- "Kairouan Capital of Political Power and Learning in the Ifriqiya". Muslim Heritage. Retrieved 2014-03-16.
- Titus Burckhardt, ''Art of Islam, Language and Meaning : Commemorative Edition''. World Wisdom. 2009. p. 128. Books.google.fr. Retrieved 2014-03-16.
- Linda Kay Davidson and David Martin Gitlitz, ''Pilgrimage: from the Ganges to Graceland : an encyclopedia'', Volume 1. ABC-CLIO. 2002. p. 302. Books.google.fr. Retrieved 2014-03-16.
- Meri, Josef W.; Bacharach, Jere L. (2006). Medieval Islamic Civilization: An Encyclopedia. Taylor & Francis. p. 807. ISBN 0-415-96691-4.
- Moreh, Shmuel (1986), "Live Theatre in Medieval Islam", in David Ayalon, Moshe Sharon (ed.), Studies in Islamic History and Civilization, Brill Publishers, pp. 565–601, ISBN 965-264-014-X
- Tradition Folk The Site by Hayali Mustafa Mutlu
- Article Saudi Aramco World 1999/John Feeney
- The History of Theatre in Iran: Willem Floor:ISBN 0-934211-29-9: Mage 2005
- Glassé, Cyril (2001). The New Encyclopedia of Islam. Rowman Altamira. p. 403. ISBN 0-7591-0190-6.
- Mack, Beverly B. (2004). Muslim Women Sing: Hausa Popular Song. Indiana University Press. p. 4. ISBN 0-253-21729-6.
- Cahill, Lisa Sowle; Farley, Margaret A. (1995). Embodiment, Morality, and Medicine. Springer. p. 43. ISBN 0-7923-3342-X.
- Al-Ghazzali. The Alchemy of Happiness (Chapter 5: Concerning Music and Dancing as Aids to the Religious Life).
- Reliance of the Traveller (Umdat ul-Salik); Section r40.4 on "Dancing", p. 794 (PDF).
- Ghazzālī, and Claud Field. The Alchemy of Happiness. Armonk, N.Y.: M.E. Sharpe, 1991.
- Friedlander, Shems; Uzel, Nezih (1992). The Whirling Dervishes. SUNY Press. ISBN 0-7914-1155-9.
- The Mevlevi Sama Ceremony UNESCO.
- Juan E. Campo, ed. (2009). "Encyclopedia of Islam". Encyclopedia of Islam. Facts on File. p. 106. ISBN 978-0-8160-5454-1.
- Nigosian, S.A. (2004). Islam: Its History, Teaching, and Practices. Indiana: Indiana University Press. p. 120. ISBN 978-0-253-21627-4.
- Juan E. Campo, ed. (2009). "Encyclopedia of Islam". Encyclopedia of Islam. Facts on File. p. 136. ISBN 978-0-8160-5454-1.
- Eaton, Gai (2000). Remembering God: Reflections on Islam. Cambridge: The Islamic Texts Society. pp. 92–93. ISBN 978-0946621842.
- Matt Stefon, ed. (2010). Islamic Beliefs and Practices. New York City: Britannica Educational Publishing. p. 83. ISBN 978-1-61530-060-0.
- Quran 5:5
- Curtis (2005, p. 164)
- Esposito (2002b, p. 111)
- Ghamidi (2001): Customs and Behavioral Laws Archived 2013-09-23 at the Wayback Machine
- Ghamidi (2001): The Dietary Laws Archived 2007-05-02 at the Wayback Machine
- Ghamidi (2001): Various types of the prayer Archived 2013-09-23 at the Wayback Machine
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- Rosenthal, Franz (1977). The Classical Heritage in Islam, in series, Arabic Thought and Culture. Trans. from the German by Emilie and Jenny Marmorstein. [Pbk. ed.]. London: Routledge, 1992. xx, 298 p., sparsely ill. N.B.: "First published in English in 1975 by Routledge & Kegan, Paul" in the hardcover ed. ISBN 0-415-07693-5
- Media related to Muslim culture at Wikimedia Commons


Grade Level: Spanish II or higher with modification
Subject Areas: Spanish
Time Required: 6 weeks (or 4 weeks if not including Extended Learning component)
Prepared by: Kate Hoin; Troy, Michigan
Keywords: History, historia, Oral History, historias orales, Braceros, Detroit, Spanish Language, El español, Advanced Spanish, Intermediate Spanish, Texas History (Spanish), la historia de Tejas, Preterite/Imperfect tense, Past Tense, el pasado
Kate Hoin is from Troy, Michigan, and teaches Spanish at various levels in high school as well as community college and for adult learners. After attending the University of Michigan, she studied in Sevilla, Spain, for one year, lived in Texas for seven years, received her MA in Spanish Language and Linguistics from the University of Houston/University of Salamanca, and travels as often as possible to Spanish-speaking countries. Katie is an avid reader, aspiring writer, chef-in-training, and sometimes-actress.
In Lisa Loomer’s play “Bocón”, the title character Miguel, a child migrant from Central America, is told on page 25 by the Voice Keeper when his voice is taken away that “No, no hermano! You don’t want your voice. They’re nothing but trouble!” And it seems in this play, Miguel’s voice is in fact trouble - questioning, crying out, demanding a space to be heard in this world. And in fact, that is what our entire NEH institute on “Tales of the Chihuahuan Desert” has been about - that our voices make up the stories which make up the histories of this borderland, and they deserve to be heard.
In the course of this institute we have heard from Border Patrol Agents to residents from the oldest barrio in El Paso to scholars and community activists of the Ciudad Juárez/El Paso Metroplex and we have learned that everyone has a story to tell, and that in the long run these stories will define the course of our history as a nation, or as binational, bilingual neighboring nations.
This unit, “Somos nuestros cuentos: Leyendas, historias orales, e historias personales que forman nuestra identidad en el mundo” speaks to this purpose. In studying the voices and the stories of the border, we can come closer to understanding this fluid, blended, intertwined region, and hopefully come to understand that its story, its history is a complex one, not so easily explained away in legislature, or defined by Washington rhetoric.
In Yolanda Levya’s testimony regarding her recent fight to save to the Duranguito neighborhood of El Paso, she states that a protestor commented “When you see maps, I see people” and indeed, in this lesson I invite you and your students to see the people behind the maps. In each of the digital “ThingLink” maps, you are connected to stories, histories, places, songs, videos, photographs that I hope will make you question these arbitrary borders that surround our country.
I hope that you will study these stories, and that you and your students will read and empathize with the children migrants in the final part of the lesson to think about what it means to come to this country with no one to help you, and with a voice that is silenced at every turn. These voices and stories deserve to be heard, for more than our standardized political history, they make up our collective personal history. And that it is a history that is more than black and white, right or wrong; it is one that deserves to be preserved and remembered and told.
1. How do stories make us who we are?
2. How does history shape our stories?
3. How do maps, movements, borders, and places shape our stories?
4. How do official laws and policies affect our personal stories?
5. How do our stories shape history?
6. How does immigration affect children and families?
7. What are the motivations for crossing borders and migrating?
8. How are children migrants affected by the U.S.-Mexico border? How is their experience different than that of adults?
9. What borders exist in our own communities?
10. How have my family’s stories shaped history?
*Behind history, policies and laws are people and stories that should be considered in all of their complexity.
*Borders, places, movements, and spaces shape our personal stories.
*Our collective stories are a part of official history, and they matter.
*My personal story and the story of my family has shaped history, places, and left its mark on the world.
By the end of the study, students will be able to read, listen to, interpret, and analyze a variety of historical texts in the target language, as well as personal stories and narratives. Students will study legends, stories, and histories from the border region in a variety of time periods. In addition, students will study the border today as it relates to child migrants through an interactive wall that contains the stories and experiences of child migrants.
Students will read selections from the children’s book Caminos de luces y sombras: Historias de niños, niñas y adolescentes migrantes. From their readings and presentations, students will write short memory vignettes from the perspective of a child migrant, to later be turned into a class play to be performed in Spanish for the school community.
If time allows, students will interview a native or heritage language Spanish speaker in the local area, and then as a class create an oral history map that synthesizes these stories and a collective history together of the region. Finally, students will interview a family member/family friend on his/her experience on moving to his/her current city (in this case, Detroit, MI), and then write this story in the target language using the past tense. Students will read their story aloud, or create a multimedia presentation of the story, of their family’s arrival to Detroit. Students will be able to conjugate and use appropriately the past tense in the target language.
- I can read, annotate, summarize, interpret and analyze a variety of Mexican legends and folktales in the target language
- I can describe people, places and things in the stories I read
- I can compare legends and stories that I read
- I can summarize and narrate events, activities, and stories in the past
- I can describe early civilizations and their activities
- I can read, annotate, interpret and analyze historical texts in the past in the target language
- I can read, annotate, interpret, and analyze stories from the border between Mexico and the United States
- I can read, analyze and interpret maps in the target language
- I can describe the layout of a city from both the present day and the past
- I can describe continuing actions in the past
- I can use the past tense in the target language
- I can compare movements and borders at various points in history
- I can compare a variety of oral histories from various moments throughout the history of the US/Mexico border
- I can analyze the borders or border-like spaces that exist in my own community
- I can interview a person from the local community with a connection to the history of that community in the target language
- I can analyze how personal stories are shaped by government policy and legislation
- I can write and present a story from my community in the past tense of the target language
For this unit, students will need the following:
- Notebook/paper/writing utensil
- Access to a device - laptop or tablet preferred
Teachers should provide access to the following links:
Teachers will need to purchase the following literature:
- “La Llorona” - 2-3 versions of the legend
Part One: Leyendas mexicanas
Time: One week
Actividad 1: Una leyenda mazateca: El fuego y el tlacuache (1-2 days)
Have students read, annotate, and summarize as a class the Mazateca legend of the origin of fire. Have students create a timeline of events using the past tense as a class. Point out the use of past tenses, and have students notice which verbs are in the past tense.
Actividad 2 (1-2 days):Using the interactive “Pueblos Map,” have students in groups of three choose an indigenous group in Mexico, and read/listen to their legend. While reading students should annotate and create a timeline of events. Students should listen/watch the legend 2-3 times. Find another group of three, and retell what happened in the legend using the created timeline. Have students create a brief poster with their annotations, summary, and timeline to present briefly to the class. Have students make note of the verbs in the past tense. Students present and share their stories. https://www.thinglink.com/scene/945534646525886467
Actividad 3 (1-2 days): As a class read the legend of the Iztaccíhuatl and Popocatépetl. Have students individually annotate, retell, and create a timeline of events in the story. Individually have students pick out the verbs in the past tense, and then share out as a class. As the teacher, model the two types of past tenses, and sort them accordingly.
Additional lessons should cover the two types of past tenses and their conjugations, using the story as a mentor text. Finally, ask students “What do these stories tell us about Mexico and Mexico’s history? What do these stories reveal about the Mexican culture? What are their values and beliefs? What do these stories teach us about the border, and the relationship between Mexico and the US today?”
Actividad 4 (1-2 days): As a class, read la leyenda “La Llorona”. Assign different versions of the story to groups of two/three students. Have students read, annotate, retell and create a timeline of events in the story. As an assessment, have students individually identify the verbs in the preterite and the imperfect, and write a summary of the text. Have students meet with a partner that read a different version of the legend, and create a Venn Diagram with the similarities and differences between the retellings of the story. Have students share out/present. Ask students to respond individually (and then as a whole class) to the questions: “What do these stories tell us about Mexico and Mexico’s history? Why are there different versions of the same legend? What does this reveal about Mexican culture, or stories in general? What are the values and beliefs present in these stories? What do these stories teach us about the border, and the relationship between Mexico and the US today?”
Part Two: Las historias de la frontera de hoy y de ayer
Time: One week
Actividad 1 (Day 1): Diversas historias fronterizas
Have students navigate to the “Diversas historias fronterizas map” on Thinglink. Have students first look at the map itself, and have them complete a See/Think/Wonder as a class, asking them in the target language:
- What do you see on this map?
- What does it make you think?
- What do you wonder or ask yourselves?
Have students turn and talk to a partner and share what they see/think/wonder in regard to the map (using “changing perspectives” technique). Have students share out with the class.
Ask students: what don’t you see on the map? What parts are missing? Who/what else is present here that is not seen? (Stories, people, animals, images of human life, the human element, answers will vary). Share out responses.
Actividad 2 (1-2 days, begin on Day 1): Invite students to explore the “Diversas historias fronterizas” map with a partner. Using the Ver/Pensar/Preguntarse worksheet, have students work with a partner and choose five different points on the map to explore (a mixture of photos, historical vignettes, videos, songs from various time periods in the border). Students should select one of the points on the border, and then write/describe what they see/read, think, and what they wonder. Students may concentrate on one area of the map (alike items are clustered together), or choose from a variety of the items. As students interact with the readings/audios/videos/images, they should write on their chart the items that they found interesting, important, or insightful.
After students have researched, each group of two should join with another group of two and share one of their findings, two minutes each group. Ask students to share out what they learned about the history of the border as a whole class.
Extension: Have students write a reflection about how the policies of the border have affected individual stories/lives.
Actividad 3 (1 day): After sharing out, ask students to work individually to create a visual of their idea of the border. Have students do the Visible Thinking Routine (Appendix B) “Color/Symbol/Image”. They should: choose a color, a symbol, and an image that they feel best represents or captures the essence of the US/Mexico border.
Have students share with a partner their color, symbol and image and explain what part of the border/which stories it represents. Put up their Color/Symbol/Image poster around the room, and have all the students do a gallery walk of the posters. Share out as a whole class, using the following questions as a guide:
- What kinds of stories, histories, laws, policies, situations, songs and other artifacts have come out of the border?
- What effect has the border had on people and their lives and/or stories?
- What words, images, colors and symbols reflect this variety of history on the border and why?
***Optional: Model with students one of the items on the map and complete a See/Think/Wonder, and Color/Symbol/Image worksheet for this item.
***Optional (if time allows; good for students that have not grasped the past tense as well): Complete the process with Juan Loza’s interview as a bracero. Help students read, listen to, take notes, and create a timeline. Have students listen again to the interview, and read the transcript along with it, as they annotate and add to their timeline. Have students write a brief summary (3-5 sentences) of Loza’s journey in the target language in the past tense. Students may do this in a group of three as well. Consider using a map of the United States and Mexico to trace his travels as a Bracero, and sharing it through a short presentation.
Part 3: El muro hoy
Time: 1.5 weeks
Actividad 1 (1 day): As a class, read the introduction to the “Caminos de luces y sombras: Historias de niños, niñas y adolescentes migrantes”, a children’s book on underage minors and immigration. As a class, read/annotate the text. Have students (as one of their annotations) write questions they might have while reading. After reading, ask students to share their “wonderings” with a partner, and then their table. Share out as a whole group. If further questioning is needed, ask some of the following questions. Ask students:
- What information do we have about child migrants today? What have you heard/seen/read in the news?
- Why do we have so many child migrants? What might be the diverse reasons child migrants cross?
- What might it feel like to be a child migrant crossing the border?
- Why might there be an increase in unaccompanied minor migration?
- Why is there a difference in the number of girls and boys that cross the border?
Have students take one of their questions, or one of the teacher-provided questions and write a short reflection in the target language (paragraph or so).
Actividad 2 (3-4 days): Next, have students explore the “El muro y sus historias de hoy” interactive ThingLink Map with a partner, using the See/Think/Wonder. First, have students look at the digital image of the wall. Ask students to complete a See/Think/Wonder using the image of the wall. Have students share out with a partner, their group and then the whole class.
Ask students: What might this wall look like to a child crossing? What might it feel like?
How would a child migrant feel looking at this wall and knowing he/she had to cross it?
What walls have you had to cross in your life? How did you feel?
Then, ask students to use the See/Think/Wonder worksheet with a partner to explore what it is like for child migrants crossing the border today. Students should choose three elements/links/images/videos/points on the map (or one video in full), and analyze and interpret them using the See/Think/Wonder worksheet. After exploring the map, have students choose one element/image/video/story that seems especially important, insightful or interesting. Have each group create a short mini-poster/presentation on that element to share with the class. The poster should include: their see/think/wonder, a sentence/word/phrase from that source, or the color/symbol/image activity, as well as answer one of the key questions generated at the beginning of the study on child migrants. Students present and share out.
As an intro to the next activity, have the students read “Migra” by José Antonio Rodríguez. In addition, teachers might have English teachers study the same poem with students.
Actividad 3 (Three days): Turn back to the “Caminos de luces y sombras” book. Teacher will choose one story that connects to the whole class. Model for the students reading, annotating and timeline. Pull out the key words, and summarize, and then analyze and connect the story in relationship to the sources from the interactive map. Then, assign (or let students choose) groups of three/four students to one of the individual child migrant stories. In groups, students should read, annotate and create a timeline of events for their story. Students should pull out key words (palabras clave) and make a summary of the story. Have students include a key word/sentence/phrase, and two images that are important to the story in their interaction with the text. Then, have each group of students join with another group of students (who studied a different story), and create a Venn Diagram comparing and contrasting the two migrant children’s stories. Using this work, collaboratively the two groups will create a poster and presentation with this diagram and the similarities/differences between the two stories, as well as two images that represent the children’s stories. Students present their work, and then return to the questions, keeping the stories and their interactions with the interactive map in mind:
- What are some common themes in the stories of migration? What are the similarities and differences in the stories? What are some commonalities in the childhood migrant experience?
- What might it feel like to be a child migrant crossing the border?
- Why might there be an increase in unaccompanied minor migration?
- What are the different challenges that unaccompanied minors face crossing? How is it different to cross as a girl than a boy?
***Optional: If students need more guidance, or practice in the past tense in the target language, choose a story from the “Caminos de luces y sombras” and read/annotate and summarize as a whole class. Model this with them as you read the story, or split into groups to take various parts to complete the practice. Then, assign groups to read the individual stories.
Actividad 4 (2 days): Obra de teatro “Bocón”
Have students read through the play as a whole class, assigning various parts and reading aloud. After, have students break out into groups of three/four and assign various sections of the play to each group. Have students read and analyze what the main characters might be thinking/feeling during that section of the play. The next day, have each group prepare their short scene to share with the class. After the performance, ask students to write a short response in the target language to one of the following questions:
Questions to pose to the class before, during and after the play:
- What are the challenges that face Miguel and his village? Why does he migrate?
- What is the importance of stories in the play? What stories are told? How do they impact Miguel’s journey?
- How does Miguel regain his voice? What does it mean for him that he has his voice back? What does it mean for migrant children?
Have students share with a partner, their table, and as a whole class.
Actividad 5 (1-2 days): Write a memory of one of the child migrants we read about/watched/studied.
Have students choose one of the children migrants we read about/studied from either the stories, presentations, play, or the interactive map. Have students imagine what a memory of this child migrant might be - perhaps something from home, from crossing over, or from their new home. Students should write a short memory narrative from the first person perspective of this student in the target language using the past tense appropriately, about what happened in this memory for the child migrant. Students should use their imaginations, and their empathy to really put themselves in the shoes of the child migrant.
Have students write these in class, and then share out with their partner. Have students then share as a whole group.
Actividad 6 (3 days)
As a final assessment, have students prepare the memory they wrote to be included in a class play about the child migrant experience. Each group should have 3-4 people in it, and they should choose one of the original written memories to enact as a group. Each sketch should be 2-5 minutes in length, and be based on an experience they had learning about children migrants (from the stories, their memories, or any of the images/documents we interacted with). Have students write out their scene in the target language. Students should then practice/rehearse, and stage the performance in class. Hold a performance of the vignettes in class on the third day, and invite other Spanish classes (or any classes). Later, compile the sketches and scenes into a book/play, and put online/publish in a public context.
Additional activities that work nicely with this project would be working in the community to gather oral narratives on the Latino community and their stories (or any immigrant community), in order to create a virtual map of their stories.
Students should interview locals in the Latino community about their immigration experience (with permission of course), and then write these stories in the past tense.
Students could also do this project with their own relatives and family members, and prepare questions on how their own family members came to the area/U.S.A., and then write out their story in the past tense, or create a video that demonstrates how their family came to the community.
- Written summary and/or oral retelling of a legend or folktale using the past tense
- Oral presentation/interpretation of a legend or folktale using the past tense
- Written summary and/or oral retelling of a border story using the preterite/imperfect/past tense appropriately
- (Optional) Create a written/performed legend of your own following the format of legends studied, using the past tense
- Presentation on an important historical event on the US/Mexico border
- Written summary and/or oral retelling of an oral history relating to the US/Mexico border
- Written creative writing “memory” piece of a child migrant
- Class play based on written memories of child migrants to present to other Spanish classes in a multimedia play production
- Interview with a native/heritage speaker of the target language in the local community
- Living Map Project - Placing oral histories from the interviews on a map of the community interviewed
- Interview with a family member/friend in the language most comfortable for the interviewee
- Written family story on arrival to Detroit (or local community)
We will be doing a lot of reading and listening to stories in this unit; as such, students may need extra time or repeated readings of the story, small group/partner group while reading, or individual assistance with the teacher. In order to accommodate these students, repeated readings of the stories, chunking of the text, and picking out keywords from the story would be helpful. Do this as a class, and as many times as necessary with the stories presented.
In addition, it is helpful to model as much as possible reading and annotating the text. Modify the plan by having students spend more time on a story, read multiple stories in groups, or do more as a whole class. For the final writing piece, have students draw out/sketch their memory, and present this to the class with short sentences of writing in the past tense, instead of a fully written piece.
For advanced classes, add on the community and telling our family’s own story of arrival to the community, and give students freedom in choosing how they want to present their final oral history narrative.
Download the College and Career Readiness Standards
Brenes Herrera, Ani. Caminos De Luces y Sombras: Historias De Niños, Niñas y Adolescentes Migrantes. San José, C.R. , Organización Internacional Para Las Migraciones (OIM), www.programamesoamerica.iom.int/sites/default/files/Luces_y_sombras.pdf.
Loomer, Lisa. Bocón!: a Full-Length Play. Woodstock, IL, Dramatic Pub., 1998.
Texas Hispano. Texas Hispano, 2015, www.thc.texas.gov/public/upload/publications/texas-hispano-espanol-guide.pdf.
I will start off by saying that this an ambitious unit. To even get through the first two or three parts of this unit, would be more than enough. I think we owe it to our students today - surrounded by so many outside influences, news sources, social media platforms, and disingenuous representations of life - to teach them about the power of stories. To help them see the human side to every statistic or news story that they browse past on their Twitter feed. To teach them that their voice and the voices of others matter, and that we deserve to hear these stories. That these stories make up our collective history.
I hope that my students and students everywhere that embark on this challenging task of listening to and interpreting these migrant stories from the border take away with them a newfound understanding of empathy for the human experience - one in which we all share when we look for better opportunities, education, or safety in this world we call home. I am inspired by the variety of resources that students have at their disposal in this lesson and online, and I hope that they will be inspired to tell their own stories, or at least listen to others as they build a bridge that unites us, as opposed to more walls that divide us. Happy learning!
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