Download or read book Muslim Fortresses in the Levant written by Kate Raphael and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2010-09-13 with total page 439 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During much of the twelfth century the Crusaders dominated the military scene in the Levant. The unification of Egypt and Syria by Saladin gradually changed the balance of power, which slowly begun to tilt in favour of the Muslims. This book examines the development and role of Muslim fortresses in the Levant at the time of the Crusaders and the Mongol invasion, situating the study within a broad historical, political and military context. Exploring the unification of Egypt with a large part of Syria and its effect on the balance of power in the region, Raphael gives a historical overview of the resulting military strategies and construction of fortresses. A detailed architectural analysis is based on a survey of four Ayyubid and eight Mamluk fortresses situated in what are today the modern states of Jordan, Israel, Southern Turkey and Egypt (the Sinai Peninsula). The author then explores the connection between strongholds or military architecture, and the development of siege warfare and technology, and examines the influence of architecture and methods of rule on the concept of defence and the development of fortifications. Drawing upon excavation reports, field surveys and contemporary Arabic sources, the book provides the Arabic architectural terminology and touches on the difficulties of reading the sources. Detailed maps of the fortresses in the region, the Mongol invasion routs, plans of sites and photographs assist the reader throughout the book, providing an important addition to existing literature in the areas of Medieval Archaeology, Medieval military history and Middle Eastern studies.
Download or read book Muslim Military Architecture in Greater Syria written by Hugh Kennedy and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2006-01-01 with total page 425 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book investigates the Muslim castles of greater Syria from c.700 to c.1700 from archaeological and historical perspectives.
Download or read book Crusader Landscapes in the Medieval Levant written by and published by University of Wales Press. This book was released on 2016-08-20 with total page 534 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Written to celebrate the prestigious career of Professor Denys Pringle, this collection of articles produced by many of the leading archaeologists and historians in the field of crusades studies offers a compilation of pioneering scholarship on recent studies on the Latin East. The geographical breadth of topics discussed in each chapter reflects both Pringle’s international collaborations and research interests, and the wide development of scholarly interest in the subject. With a concentration on the areas corresponding to the crusader states during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, the articles also offer research into the neighbouring areas of Cyprus, Anatolia, Greece and the West, and the legacy of the crusader period there, with results from recent archaeological fieldwork in the Middle East.
Download or read book Muslims and Crusaders written by Niall Christie and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-06-27 with total page 247 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Muslims and Crusaders supplements and counterbalances the numerous books that tell the story of the crusading period from the European point of view, enabling readers to achieve a broader and more complete perspective on the period. It presents the Crusades from the perspective of those against whom they were waged, the Muslim peoples of the Levant. The book introduces the reader to the most significant issues that affected their responses to the European crusaders, and their descendants who would go on to live in the Latin Christian states that were created in the region. This book combines chronological narrative, discussion of important areas of scholarly enquiry and evidence from primary sources to give a well-rounded survey of the period. It considers not only the military meetings between Muslims and the Crusaders, but also the personal, political, diplomatic and trade interactions that took place between Muslims and Franks away from the battlefield. Through the use of a wide range of translated primary source documents, including chronicles, dynastic histories, religious and legal texts and poetry, the people of the time are able to speak to us in their own voices.
Download or read book The Crusader States and their Neighbours written by Nicholas Morton and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2020-04-24 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Crusader States and their Neighbours explores the military history of the Medieval Near East, piecing together the fault-lines of conflict which entangled this much-contested region. This was an area where ethnic, religious, dynastic, and commercial interests collided and the causes of war could be numerous. Conflicts persisted for decades and were fought out between many groups including Kurds, Turks, Armenians, Arabs, and the crusaders themselves. Nicholas Morton recreates this world, exploring how each faction sought to advance its own interests by any means possible, adapting its warcraft to better respond to the threats posed by their rivals. Strategies and tactics employed by the pastoral societies of the Central Asian Steppe were pitted against the armies of the agricultural societies of Western Christendom, Byzantium, and the Islamic World, galvanising commanders to adapt their practices in response to their foes. Today, we are generally encouraged to think of this era as a time of religious conflict, and yet this vastly over-simplifies a complex region where violence could take place for many reasons and peoples of different faiths could easily find themselves fighting side-by-side.
Download or read book The Historian of Islam at Work written by and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2022-10-17 with total page 694 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Historian of Islam at Work is a volume in honor of Hugh N. Kennedy. It offers thirty contributions by three generations of prominent scholars in the field of pre-modern Middle Eastern studies, covering the many areas of Islamic historical inquiry in which Hugh Kennedy has been active throughout his career. Grouped around four major themes - Caliphate and power, economy and society, Abbasids, and frontiers and the others - the contributions deal with the history, archaeology, architecture and literature of the Middle East, North Africa and beyond, from the time of the Prophet until the fifteenth century.
Download or read book From Edessa to Urfa The Fortification of the Citadel written by Cristina Tonghini and published by Archaeopress Publishing Ltd. This book was released on 2021-03-25 with total page 270 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book presents results of an archaeological research project focused on a specific monumental area, the citadel, in the city of Urfa (Turkey), known in ancient times as Edessa. Three seasons of fieldwork were carried out (2014-2016) in order to identify the building sequence of the citadel and establish an absolute chronology of events.
Download or read book The Roman Frontier with Persia in North Eastern Mesopotamia written by Anthony Comfort and published by Archaeopress Publishing Ltd. This book was released on 2023-01-26 with total page 148 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume investigates the Roman city of Singara and the fortifications and roads in the surrounding area. The Rome / Persia frontier has been little studied, in part because of the difficulty of access for scholars, but was of great importance because it separated the two major civilisations of the early first millennium CE.
Download or read book The Mongol Storm written by Nicholas Morton and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2022-11-15 with total page 433 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How the Mongol invasions of the Near East reshaped the balance of world power in the Middle Ages For centuries, the Crusades have been central to the story of the medieval Near East, but these religious wars are only part of the region’s complex history. As The Mongol Storm reveals, during the same era the Near East was utterly remade by another series of wars: the Mongol invasions. In a single generation, the Mongols conquered vast swaths of the Near East and upended the region’s geopolitics. Amid the chaos of the Mongol onslaught, long-standing powers such as the Byzantines, the Seljuk Turks, and the crusaders struggled to survive, while new players such as the Ottomans arose to fight back. The Mongol conquests forever transformed the region, while forging closer ties among societies spread across Eurasia. This is the definitive history of the Mongol assault on the Near East and its enduring global consequences.
Download or read book Artillery in the Era of the Crusades written by Michael S. Fulton and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2018-08-13 with total page 542 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Artillery in the Era of the Crusades, Michael S. Fulton provides a detailed historical and archaeological study of the use and development of trebuchet technology in the Levant through the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.
Download or read book Eastern Rome and the Rise of Islam written by Olof Heilo and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-11-19 with total page 150 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The emergence of Islam in the seventh century AD still polarises scholars who seek to separate religious truth from the historical reality with which it is associated. However, history and prophecy are not solely defined by positive evidence or apocalyptic truth, but by human subjects, who consider them to convey distinct messages and in turn make these messages meaningful to others. These messages are mutually interdependent, and analysed together provide new insights into history. It is by way of this concept that Olof Heilo presents the decline of the Eastern Roman Empire as a key to understanding the rise of Islam; two historical processes often perceived as distinct from one another. Eastern Rome and the Rise of Islam highlights significant convergences between Early Islam and the Late Ancient world. It suggests that Islam’s rise is a feature of a common process during which tensions between imperial ambitions and apocalyptic beliefs in Europe and the Middle East cut straight across today’s theological and political definitions. The conquests of Islam, the emergence of the caliphate, and the transformation of the Roman and Christian world are approached from both prophetic anticipations in the Ancient and Late Ancient world, and from the Medieval and Modern receptions of history. In the shadow of their narratives it becomes possible to trace the outline of a shared history of Christianity and Islam. The "Dark Ages" thus emerge not merely as a tale of sound and fury, but as an era of openness, diversity and unexpected possibilities. Approaching the rise of Islam as a historical phenomenon, this book opens new perspectives in the study of early religion and philosophy, as well as providing a valuable resource for students and scholars of Islamic Studies.
Download or read book The Rise and Fall of a Muslim Regiment written by Amir Mazor and published by V&R unipress GmbH. This book was released on 2015 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book focuses on the Mansuriyya regiment, the mamluks of sultan al-Mansur Qalawun. It traces the lives of these mamluks during the career of their master Qalawun (ca. 1260-1290), the period they ruled the Sultanate of Egypt and Syria de jure or de facto (1290-1310), and their aftermath, during the third reign of sultan al-Nasir Muhammad b. Qalawun (1310-1341). Based on dozens of contemporary Arabic sources, the book traces the political and military events of the turbulent Mansuriyya period, as well as the basic military-political principles and socio-political practices that evolved during this period. It suggests that the Mansuriyya period marks the beginning of the demilitarization, or politicization, of the Mamluk sultanate.
Download or read book The Qur an in Christian Muslim Dialogue written by Corrie Block and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-10-08 with total page 375 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Offering an analysis of Christian-Muslim dialogue across four centuries, this book highlights those voices of ecumenical tone which have more often used the Qur’an for drawing the two faiths together rather than pushing them apart, and amplifies the voice of the Qur’an itself. Finding that there is tremendous ecumenical ground between Christianity and Islam in the voices of their own scholars, this book ranges from a period of declining ecumenism during the first three centuries of Islam, to a period of resurging ecumenism during the most recent century until now. Among the ecumenical voices in the Christian-Muslim dialogue, this book points out that the Qur’an itself is possibly the strongest of those voices. These findings are cause for, and evidence of, hope for the Christian–Muslim relationship: that although agreement may never be reached, dialogue has led at times to very real mutual understanding and appreciation of the religious other. Providing a tool for those pursuing understanding and mutual appreciation between the Islamic and Christian faiths, this book will be of interest to scholars and students of Islam, the Qur’an and the history of Christian-Muslim relations.
Download or read book The City in the Muslim World written by Mohammad Gharipour and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-03-05 with total page 333 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Presenting a critical, yet innovative, perspective on the cultural interactions between the "East" and the "West", this book questions the role of travel in the production of knowledge and in the construction of the idea of the "Islamic city". This volume brings together authors from various disciplines, questioning the role of Western travel writing in the production of knowledge about the East, particularly focusing on the cities of the Muslim world. Instead of concentrating on a specific era, chapters span the Medieval and Modern eras in order to present the transformation of both the idea of the "Islamic city" and also the act of traveling and travel writing. Missions to the East, whether initiated by military, religious, economic, scientific, diplomatic or touristic purposes, resulted in a continuous construction, de-construction and re-construction of the "self" and the "other". Including travel accounts, which depicted cities, extending from Europe to Asia and from Africa to Arabia, chapters epitomize the construction of the "Orient" via textual or visual representations. By examining various tools of representation such as drawings, paintings, cartography, and photography in depicting the urban landscape in constant flux, the book emphasizes the role of the mobile individual in defining city space and producing urban culture. Scrutinising the role of travellers in producing the image of the world we know today, this book is recommended for researchers, scholars and students of Middle Eastern Studies, Cultural Studies, Architecture and Urbanism.
Download or read book The Muslim Conquest of Iberia written by Nicola Clarke and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2012-07-26 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Medieval Islamic society set great store by the transmission of history: to edify, argue legal points, explain present conditions, offer political and religious legitimacy, and entertain. Modern scholars, too, have had much to say about the usefulness of early Islamic history-writing, although this debate has traditionally focused overwhelmingly on the central Islamic lands. This book looks instead at local and regional history-writing in Medieval Iberia. Drawing on numerous Arabic texts – historical, geographical and biographical – composed and transmitted in al-Andalus, North Africa and the Islamic east between the ninth and fourteenth centuries, Nicola Clarke offers a nuanced and detailed analysis of narratives about the eighth-century Muslim conquest of Iberia. Comparing how individual episodes, characters, and themes are treated in different texts, and how this treatment relates to intellectual debates, literary trends, and socio-political conditions at the time of writing, she shows how competing priorities shaped myriad variations on a single story and how the scholars and patrons of a corner of the Islamic world distant from Baghdad viewed their own history. Offering a framework in which historians of Christian Iberia (and of Christian Europe more generally) can approach and make sense of culturally-significant texts from Muslim Iberia, this book will also be relevant to broader debates about the historiography of early Islam. As such, it will be of great interest to scholars of historiography, world history and Islamic studies.
Download or read book Climate and Political Climate written by Sarah Kate Raphael and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2013 with total page 231 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The twelfth and thirteenth centuries in the Levant saw a substantial rise in the number of droughts. This coincided with some of the most violent tectonic activity the region had witnessed. Nature, however, could conjure other powerful disasters: swarms of locusts, armies of mice, scorching winds and thick dust storms. The data for this research is drawn from contemporary Arabic and Latin sources. The main aim is to try and determine the long and short-term repercussions of environmental, disasters on the political, military and social affairs in the Levant during the Crusader, Ayyubid and Mamluk periods. Did environmental disasters spur o binder conflict? This research: examines the most destructive disasters and gradual climate chances within broader historical context. Book jacket.
Download or read book Routledge Revivals Medieval Islamic Civilization 2006 written by Josef Meri and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-01-12 with total page 1238 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Islamic civilization flourished in the Middle Ages across a vast geographical area that spans today's Middle and Near East. First published in 2006, Medieval Islamic Civilization examines the socio-cultural history of the regions where Islam took hold between the 7th and 16th centuries. This important two-volume work contains over 700 alphabetically arranged entries, contributed and signed by international scholars and experts in fields such as Arabic languages, Arabic literature, architecture, history of science, Islamic arts, Islamic studies, Middle Eastern studies, Near Eastern studies, politics, religion, Semitic studies, theology, and more. Entries also explore the importance of interfaith relations and the permeation of persons, ideas, and objects across geographical and intellectual boundaries between Europe and the Islamic world. This reference work provides an exhaustive and vivid portrait of Islamic civilization and brings together in one authoritative text all aspects of Islamic civilization during the Middle Ages. Accessible to scholars, students and non-specialists, this resource will be of great use in research and understanding of the roots of today's Islamic society as well as the rich and vivid culture of medieval Islamic civilization.
