chapter 9

The world we know today as the "middle-east" has a one group of people who believe in one religion, but view that one religion in two different ways. The people who who believe in Islam are called Muslim. People who are Muslim either are Shia or Sunni, their differences in Islam have grown further and further apart. The Sunni Muslims believe "the  caliphs were rightful political and military leaders, selected by the Islamic community." the Shia Muslims believe "leadership in the Islamic world should derive from the line of Ali and his son Husayn, blood relatives of Muhammad". It seems very childish for people to have different beliefs based on who should have power. Caliphs are the people who say things about the religion for people to believe in, they are monarchs in their empire. Today this religion turned out to be a huge mistake and its unfortunate that children of believers are born into the religion and it is practiced from such an early age that it becomes ingrained in them; when a person from the opposition of the religion speaks, it creates arguments and it has now led to many many wars.

#9

China may have experienced a period in time where it can be similar to a renaissance, however, it wasn't. China experienced a reform, and some good ideas and inventions came out of it. It is completely different than the renaissance Europe experienced and cannot be compared. In a system such as china, there were inventions born during their so called renaissance period and are great inventions that are still used even to this day. The Renaissance in Europe, for its time, extraordinarily exceeded expectations ranging from its philosophers and seminal thinkers, to its sculptors and artists. Europe has a lot to show for its work during its time. China had seminal thinkers, but didn't show anything outstanding besides a couple of its inventions. Since china never had a period of time considered today as a renaissance, then how could there even be a comparison?

Africa, the birth place of human kind, has had civilizations that have been neglected of being taught in the American education system that I have grown up in. It is now that I have been fortunate enough to learn about some of these civilizations. The hub of these civilizations were sustained by rivers which made trade a valuable revenue source as well as the sustainability that trees could provide. A city in Africa derived from a civilization called Nubia, was called Meroe. Meroe flourished between 300 B.C.E and 100 C.E. it was governed by a monarch, which consisted of prodominantly woman. The power given to woman during this time on earth makes this civilization very unique in terms of gender equality; however, it isn't unique in the fact that there is inequality through a hierarchy system of government. Meroe was located along the Nile River, and used Egypt as a trading partner, but they fought on numerous occasions and at one point, well for nearly a century, Meroe,the Nubian based civilization over threw  Egypt. Meroe was a city where people practiced economic specialties; "producing merchants, weavers, potters, and masons, as well as servants, laborers, and slaves"; while the surrounding "rural areas were populated by peoples who practiced some combination of herding and farming and paid tribute to the ruler". Meroe even though was strong and successful, had declined due to the lack of one very incumbent resource, trees; the trees were used for "wood to make charcoal for smelting iron".while this City was declining, another one was merging not so for away from each other, called Axum. Axum had very similar cultural traditions and it seems to have been differentiated from Meroe by its improvement of agricultural farming system. Axum was the civilization that taxed the people it traded with, allowing for additional wealth which would then benefit the civilization as a whole; this helped it become very successful in that area of reason. The Axum people had large monumental buildings and a huge cemetary for cherishing its people who have passed away. They adopted christianity as their religion, which later deteriorated due to the teachings of islam and there, islam became its new religion. This civilization is a well established one, leaving a mark as one that is going to be remember by people of the Ethiopia for a long time. There were many other civilizations in Africa, some that were small and not ruled by a centralized hierarchical system of government, similar to the indus valley civilization, which doesn't show any remnants of that in their society. These African civilizations weren't too different from others, at the same period of time, around the world. However there was a mass influx of differentials of different societies at the time, located around eurasia, due to the massive population which it housed, but in terms of areas with a similar population size as Africa, they were similar.