Religions - AP World History: Modern

Jihad refers to "struggle" while for some it means a struggle for purity and faith, others interpret it as a duty to protect the Islam faith by destroying threats (including non believers). The other terms refer to pillars of Islam such as charity, prayer, fasting, and pilgrimage.

The Abbasid Caliphate was founded by descendants of the Prophet Muhammad's uncle, al-Abbas and overthrew the Umayyad Caliphate.

The Ottoman Empire was filled with believers of Judaism, Orthodox Christianity, and Islam, all monotheistic religions. The Mughal Empire was characterized by the peaceful co-existence of Muslim and Hindu believers. Ancient Greece was characterized by a polytheistic religious belief system, as were Ancient Greece and Egypt, as well as the Aztec Empire.

While all of the governments listed above justified their rule with religion, the Zhou dynasty was the first dynasty to claim that Tien, or heaven, had abandoned a previous ruling order (the Shang) to take over.

Mansa Musa was a devout Muslim; pilgrimage to Mecca is considered a holy commandment by many devout Muslims. Devout Christians and Jews view Jerusalem as the holiest city and the most important pilgrimage site. Mali has never had a large Hindu or Buddhist community, nor have they ever had a ruler practice either of those religions.

The use of Icons to depict saints, the messiah, and Mary became synonymous with the orthodox churches of the Byzantine and Russian Empires. Quakerism, Puritanism, and Calvinism are all branches of Protestantism that admonished the Catholic traditions of iconography that they claim broke the commandment against idol worship.

Sikhism emerged from the spread of Islamic powers into the Indian Sub-Continent. Because of its geo-political beginnings, Sikhism remains strongest in the southern part of Pakistan and Northern India where the two cultures clashed.

Constantine the Great became the first Christian Emperor being baptized in 337AD. After leading a series of successful military campaigns to reclaim Roman frontier land lost in the previous century, Constantine rose to the rank of emperor. After a series of gold coin reforms to curb inflation, he allowed the Edict of Milan in 313, which claimed tolerance of Christianity throughout the empire. He oversaw First Council of Nicaea in 325 and moved the capital to Constantinople in Byzantium. He was baptized on his deathbed, as was tradition in the day for practicing Christians.

Prior to the Muslim conquest of Persia, the primary religion in the area was Zoroastrianism.

Siddhartha Gautama is the founding figure of Buddhism. He lived in the sixth and fifth centuries BCE, making him a contemporary of the famous Greek politician Pericles. He was born into wealth and nobility, which he promptly rejected and then subsequently dedicated his life to finding an end to human suffering.

Confucianism and Daoism both originated in China, and would therefore most likely be found there. Hinduism and Buddhism would be more likely to be found in India. Zoroastrianism, Judaism, or Christianity would more likely be found in Persia. Lastly, Greek rationalism or potentially Christianity would be more likely found in Greece.

Constantine was the emperor that drafted the Edict and moved the capitol to Byzantium, and he was the first Roman emperor to have any sort of tolerant position for Christians. Julius and Augustus lived before the birth of Christ, and both Nero and Caligula lived centuries before the Edict was passed, so none of the others could have possibly drafted the Edict.

The Protestant Reformation began in 1517 when the reformer Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses to the door of a church in Wittenberg. Luther was concerned with abuses of the clergy, namely the sale of indulgences; the practice of simony; and nepotism. Originally Luther intended to reform the church and contribute to a discussion within the framework of church authority, but eventually his movement evolved into a widespread reformation.

Matteo Ricci is famous for his missionary work in China, on behalf of the Catholic Church, in the late sixteenth century. Ricci is responsible for many of the early in-roads made by Christianity in east Asia and is also one of the first Europeans to be able to read, write, and speak traditional Chinese.

Luther himself created a vernacular translation of scripture. He was against sacerdotalism and encouraged all to communicate directly with God. The other practices listed are emblematic of the corruption he sought to purge from the Catholic Church. In order to answer this question, you could have either known of Luther's vernacular translation, or known about his points of contention with the church.

Henry VIII of England famously separated from the Catholic Church in order to obtain a Divorce from Catherine of Aragon. He subsequently formed the Church of England with himself as the head. Mary I was staunchly Catholic, and is infamous for executing protestant sympathizers. Similarly, Isabella I of Spain held the title of Servant of God, and began the Spanish Inquisition (for religious purity). Louis XIV of France remained staunchly Catholic until being executed by the French Revolution, and Charlemagne was the first Holy Roman Emperor.

Martin Luther began the reform movement that would become known as Protestantism by penning his 95 Theses. There is no historical evidence that he posted them publicly on the door of Castle Church in Wittenberg, but instead included them in a letter to Archbishop Albert of Mainz.

The opening years of the Renaissance coincided with a period in which the Catholic Church progressively fell from the position of near-absolute dominance which it had long exercised over much of Western Europe. This trend first emerged as a result of several events that occurred in the late Middle Ages – as the memory of the Black Death’s devastation receded, and was replaced with the horrific ravages of Europe’s many wars (especially the destruction wrought by the Hundred Years’ War), many individuals began to see the Church as less of a mainstay. Rather, the growing influence of national armies and international and/or inter-regional conflict promoted the birth of nationalist sentiment among the population. Increasingly, citizens from all societal classes came to view national loyalty and pride as a quite natural and important expression of allegiance, which in turn caused loyalty to the Church to correspondingly decline. After all, the Church taken sides throughout many of these wars as well, which many individuals regarded as unnecessary clerical meddling at best or even unwarranted papal posturing at worst. The deep transformations wrought by the Renaissance furthered this trend, as humanist scholars guided their students away from Church teachings in favor of more secularized and widely varied courses of study. These humanist students and scholars helped engender an entirely new breed of intellectuals, who began to serve as government administrators and officials, increasingly replacing the members of the clergy who once had filled these posts.

The Edict of Nantes was issued by King Henry IV of France in 1598. It was primarily concerned with religious tolerance in France. It extended freedom of worship to French Calvinists (known as Huguenots) in what was, at the time, an officially and exclusively Catholic nation.

Historians have been able to pinpoint regions of the country known today as Germany as the starting location for the Protestant Reformation. Especially conducive to the Reformation’s outbreak were the imperial cities located throughout the Germanic region, such as Saxony. At the time, there existed sixty-five imperial cities in total, each operating as a free and independent body, answerable only to itself. As a result of such freedoms, the residents of these cities were already accustomed to governing their own political, economic, and social affairs, and so religious changes were received by many of the citizens as similarly natural – in other words, just another matter to assess and alter if required. Naturally (given their propensity for freedom), not all of these cities remained Protestant – many reverted back to versions of Catholicism, while others adopted a denominationally diverse lifestyle, with some residents living as Protestants and others as practicing Catholics. Most towns quickly came to adopt a culture of religious toleration, in which public preaching, argumentation, and attempts at conversion were deeply discouraged; this helped to keep the public peace in a great many cases.