Ausar
Joined: 05 Mar 2004
Posts: 468
Location: The wrong side of the tracks
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| Posted: Sun Jun 12, 2005 1:38 am Post subject: Caliph Walid 705-715 made Arabic offical language of caliph |
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It was also al-Walid that coupled islamicization with arabicization. Conversion was not forced on conquered peoples; however, since non-believers had to pay an extra tax and were not technically citizens, many people did convert for religious and non-religious reasons. This created several problems, particularly since Islam was so closely connected with being Arab?being Arab, of course, was more than an ethnic identity, it was a tribal identity based on kinship and descent. As more and more Muslims were non-Arabs, the status of Arabs and their culture became threatened. In particular, large numbers of Coptic-speaking (Egypt) and Persian-speaking Muslims threatened the primacy of the very language that Islam is based on. In part to alleviate that threat, al-Walid instituted Arabic as the only official language of the empire. He decreed that all administration was to be done only in Arabic. It was this move that would cement the primacy of Arabic language and culture in the Islamic world.
http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~dee/ISLAM/UMAY.HTM |
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