What is civilization?
• The word "civilization" comes from the Latin root civ-.
Seen in such Latin words as civis (citizen) and civitas (city). Thus, cities appear crucial to our sense of what civilization is.
• The Greek vocabulary is similarly revealing. Polis (city) gives us our words for politics and po
• To be "civilized" essentially meant being a
– townsman,
– governed by the constitution and
– legal statutes of that community
Elements of Civilisation
• There are five key elements that make a society advanced enough to be considered a civilization.
• 1. Centralized Government
• 2. Organized Religion
• 3. Job Specialization and Social Classes
• 4. Arts, Architecture, and Infrastructure
• 5. Writing
The rise of civilization
• Civilization is defined as: highly organized society marked by
– advanced knowledge of trade, – government,
– arts, science and – written language
• Another definitions: the overall manifestations of financial, scientific, artistic, literary, and social development in a society or in similar
societies.
The Parthenon in Athens is an example of classical Greek Civilization.
The ruins of
Machu Picchu, "the Lost City of the Incas," has become the most recognizable symbol of the Inca civilization.
The Earliest Civilisations
• The earliest known civilizations (as defined in the traditional sense) arose in Mesopotamia between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in modern-day Iraq, Persia in modern-day Iran, the Nile valley of Egypt.
• The inhabitants of these areas built cities, created
writing systems, learned to make pottery and use
metals, domesticated animals, and created complex
social structures with class systems.
Hadhara
• The Arabic word ةراضحح ḥaḍāra (from which "Hadhari" is derived) refers to both "civilization" and "settled life" or "sedentariness"
(i.e. not being nomadic), so that the term Islam Hadhari implicitly contrasts itself with the Islam of nomads or bedouin.
• The word “hadhara” is the opposite of the word “bedouinism” or, respectively, savageness and barbarism. Thus, urban life stands against Bedouin life and vice versa.
